A comparison of Humankind to Civilization 6

[john_darkhorse]

I wanted to start a discussion of what both of these games bring to the table and what each lacks. I'm going to avoid discussing the glitches, laucher issues and other broken things that each game has. I just want to compare what each game has, it's stong and weak points, and replayability.

To start this off, I believe that one advantage Humankind has over Civ is the number of possible unique Civs has available. Here's my math:

When I played Civ VI, I ran a mass of Mods, which allowed me to have access to over 300 different Civs, many with multiple leaders. This brought the total number of choices to around 500. (I won't go into how long it took to load all those Mods, but it was worth it for that number.)

In Humankind, I'm running around 50 Mods. In the First Era where you get a choice, there's about 15 Civs to choose from. (limited to start with. but stay with me.) When we come to the 2nd Era, there's about 15 more, bringing the total possible combinations to 225. 15 more for the 3rd era jumps it to 3,375. Same for the 4th through 6th Eras. The final number of possible combinations comes out to 11,390,625 combinations.

I do know that there will be times where another player beats you to the Civ you want, and many games where you never make it to the endgame. But, even figuring in those things, The numbers still seem much higher for choices.

Finally, there's the advantage of evolving your Civ as needed to adjust for an ever changing world.

I welcome and discussion on either side, as i used to be a huge fan of Civ 6 until the most recent technical issues caused me to quit. Were it not for those issues, I likely would still actively play Civ alongside Humankind.

[Not Ela]

Humankind:
Combat +++
Graphic ++
Diplomacy +
City building ~
Spy -
Religion -
Game pace ---
Mods -
Overall ~ eh about the same

[milehigh026]

So you started this topic saying how you were going to compare Civ to Humankind (which has been done ad nauseam since the game released) and then only list how how many potential different culture combinations you could have if you use a very precise amount of mods.

Well done sir!!! You get my vote for worst topic created in a very long time.

[The Doctor]

We all know how Civ rolls - you pick a Civ with its own unique units, traits and a historical leader, many being highly recognisable while a few are borderline fictional.

Humankind has chosen a rather unique way to manage your civ throughout the ages and it's fine by me but it's not going to appeal to folks who like the way Civ does it. Especially when there is no logical reason to explain why your culture shifted. Classical era Chinese to Medieval Chinese to Industrial Chinese etc would be extremely cool and definitely better than Civ but we often see such wild changes between eras as to break all sense of immersion - they're just too fantastical. Why did my culture change? I was successful, I have a powerful economy, great stability and my military is more than capable of dealing with threats external so what happened? Why did my thriving Chinese culture suddenly become Italian and later become Japanese or Swedish?

Plus there are a noticable lack of real historical characters or avatars to play against. Gone are Alexander the Great and Pericles and hello to Victor Hugo and Edgar Allen Poe. There are definitely more variations possible with 10+ choices each era as well as the option not to change but if you like Civ and identify with your civ/leader, it's not really a killer feature. In Civ, the leaders are the stars but in Humankind, what are they? They have no character at all compared to Civ's leaders.

Replayability - I think Civ has more replayability overall simply because you'll try each civ at least once and perhaps a few more than once whereas some folks will just run through Humankind and not feel any connection to their Civ at all and only play it a handful of times because each playthrough feels more or less the same. In Civ, I've set up a few runs just to play against a set of leaders who are all women or all warmongers or whatever combo I find appealing.

You could argue that that's the same with Civ, that apart from the unique units, most of the time, you end up playing the same game. But the leaders in Civ have far more charisma and appeal than bland generic 'insert avatar name here' who is the leader of whatever the game decides it will be next era. Each civ has its own music which evolves over time and each time you meet a new Civ, its music is added to the playlist.

Which is better? Neither. They're just different and there's nothing wrong with that.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Morning Owl:

Humankind:
Combat +++
Graphic ++
Diplomacy +
City building ~
Spy -
Religion -
Game pace ---
Mods -
Overall ~ eh about the same

I didn't played much civ6 so few that it's like I didn't payed it.

Still even if you list is pretty solid, I remind enough of previous civ to see some errors.

HK spy system, none just some stealth units with very limited abilities.

HK religion system is a complete system, you clearly understood nothing of it, and I can admit it is obscure. But still from from the void Spy is in HK.

Micromanagement +++++ (the less the better)
Wars+++
City Nation/Independents ++
Combat +
Diplomacy +
Trade +
Religion = (comparison with civ4&5)
Graphic - (The more clear the better)
City building ~
Game pace --
Spy ---
Mods --- (HK mods is still beta stuff, with amount of players so different HK will never match civ6)

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by FilipinoFOX:

Civ 6 has a better spy system/mechanics simply because Humankind has virtually none it seems.

I disagree. None is better than the garbage Civ 6 has. Even when using half your spies to counterspy, the stupid location fixed systems means you need to guess and building neighborhoods is a waste of resources because even the happiest citizen can be turned into an armed mob just because their spy spends a few turns doing it.

[Kepos]

Bringing in a technical aspect for Linux compatibility.

Civ 6 (linux native version) is barely playable on Linux due to launcher issues and frequently CTD. The mods from workshop in most cases are only supported by Windows.

Humankind works very well with Steam's Proton support, although there is no linux native version. No crashes and even the mods from mod.io do work without any issue.

In that case, point for Humankind if you play on Linux.

[john_darkhorse]

First, for those who dislike my starting post because it only covered one part, it was only the beginning and I wanted to cover that particular point as completely as I could. I'll be discussing other points, such as the many that have been mentioned so far.

Spies and Counterspies: I have to agree that humankind doesn't have that covered yet. Civ does it better, but I have noticed that it seems a bit haphazard at times. Some times it seems overpowered, while others it seems almost useless.Sowing discord and sabotage are both pretty game changing when the time is right, but other things like info gathering and tech theft can seem pretty weak. It could be fleshed out a bit more in Civ, and who knows how it would go in Humankind. (almost afraid to think about it.)

Religion: Again, point to Civ. There are more options (especially when you add certain mods.) I would have liked to seen a bit more of the units carrying the religion over the kind of clunky Religious War aspect, but at least there is interaction. Humankind needs to incorporate specialized units in a similar way and including religious events would put both games a step up for playability.

City Building: Both have their advantages. You will almost always have more cities in Civ, but the cities in Humankind just seem a bit better laid out. Civ has more districts, but Humankind just seems to have more useful ones. It is true that it does feel like a City builder at times. I think that aspect gives Humankind the edge.

[john_darkhorse]

What about Leaders? Is it preferable to have a specific leader tied to your Civ or seperate and personalized like in Humankind?

I find myself asking "What if I want X Leader as an opponent?". Civ has them, provided you play them in the Civ they historically led, Humankind does and doesn't. Some have been made in the game, while others have been created by the fanbase. you have to hunt for new ones and they can be hard to find at times, (especially since there are no mods yet for new leaders. I do sort of enjoy seeing oddities, like the horror of seeing Boudica leading the Mayans in war against you.

[mk11]

Humankind is into telling a story while civ is a race game to the finish. So it makes as much sense as comparing apples and oranges.

[Dorok]

Cultures clearly replace leaders of civ which has no other specific civ semantics than leaders.

But for sure HK could use leaders too.

There's a mod to create Personas yourself, it's not a mod.io mod but BepInEx based, I use it and it works fine but you can't export a Persona to edit it with the mod. Anyway as far I know none bother make a collection of historical inspired persona, and it's not players that can do that as a player can create only one official persona.

But they aren't really leaders and you can't use them for yourself which is logic for Archetypes and Bias but there's also Strength.

I'm not missing leaders, and for AIs I use the mod to create my own set.

[hannibal_pjv]

Not directly related to this but some observations about the spy system.
In HOI4 the spy can try to protect the who country, or spy one country.
That is quite good system. Less micro and gives spy more generic area where to affect...
But in historical era, it was wery hard to travel, so If there were spies, they acted very locally so I can see why Civ6 use that local spy system. But i would definitely like more HOI4 type spy system because of simplicity!
Religion... Religion in games are hard to do, but I would take same kind of system as Spys have in HOI4. They affect either in home country and religion spread like civilization sphere of influence. Or you would send missionary to some spesific country... As you can see I somewhat hate micro management, so less micro intensive way of making religion is better. But oweral if I don´t count micro, the religion system with its cons is really nice in Civ6 so it has edge in this department.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by hannibal_pjv:

Not directly related to this but some observations about the spy system.
In HOI4 the spy can try to protect the who country, or spy one country.
That is quite good system. Less micro and gives spy more generic area where to affect...
But in historical era, it was wery hard to travel, so If there were spies, they acted very locally so I can see why Civ6 use that local spy system. But i would definitely like more HOI4 type spy system because of simplicity!
Religion... Religion in games are hard to do, but I would take same kind of system as Spys have in HOI4. They affect either in home country and religion spread like civilization sphere of influence. Or you would send missionary to some spesific country... As you can see I somewhat hate micro management, so less micro intensive way of making religion is better. But oweral if I don´t count micro, the religion system with its cons is really nice in Civ6 so it has edge in this department.

So it's just affect spy to territories? Why not, it's not looking bad. The problem is protecting? Then how it works? In some civ with spies randomly detected and killed I always found this system totally annoying because of the RNG, but I suppose the series improved it now.

I would suggest try a cost system, spying has a cost per turn, and it's a matter of increasing it with distance and enemy defense, and perhaps lower it according to number of spies. The payment could be gold/influence but eventually spying points for a more complex system. this would add a new income type, spying points income.


The HK religion system isn't bad but too abstruse. Even if you argue that the rules set isn't complex, it's a bit like HK districts proximity system, the rules are basic but the complexity still make it hard to predict properly/precisely. At end you gave up on the more complex rules and just stick to the simpler tricks.

[Marshall of the Templars]

I recall Youtuber PotatoMcWhiskey's video after he played Civ 6 for 3000 hours, where he highlighted an issue regarding the longevity of Civ 6's modding scene, which is a valid concern as it seems that Civ 5 is very likely to still have a sizable audience by the time Civ 7 is released.

That being said, Humankind really needs to step up with regards to its moddability, hopefully starting with a Steam Workshop integration.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Marshall of the Templars:

I recall Youtuber PotatoMcWhiskey's video after he played Civ 6 for 3000 hours, where he highlighted an issue regarding the longevity of Civ 6's modding scene, which is a valid concern as it seems that Civ 5 is very likely to still have a sizable audience by the time Civ 7 is released.

That being said, Humankind really needs to step up with regards to its moddability, hopefully starting with a Steam Workshop integration.

I watched a stream of dev of Solasta, one part was on modding, and he explained a point: The lower is the player base the less there will be modders and the more the modder tools will need be simple to use because most won't be expert, and the less a higher investment in mods is making sense for the dev, games aren't charity business for poor players with nothing to do.

Players can't understand mods for a game that have 10 time more players is a totally different context.

[john_darkhorse]

I think the best way for Steam Workshop intigration is to have Steam allow mods from other sources to work on Steam games. I noticed this issue with Civ 6. Steam has a ton of mods for it, but there are a couple other places (like CivFanatics) that have nearly as much and often tend to be the modders are most active when chatting. None of those mods will work in the Steam version. For this reason, it is unlikely that any game using a Steam workshop will run well cross platform. You'll have versions of mods I cannot use and visa versa. At least keeping the mods in game, players have access to the same mods, regardless of the platform they play from. (except aparantly Macs. That OS just doesn't seem to play well with others in many instances.)