Humankind is Amplitude's brand new 4X game where you take control of human civilization through the ages, from the Neolithic to the Contemporary. The game shares some mechanics with Civilization 6 but pushes out in lots of new directions that are unique to the genre.
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This list covers everything you need to know to get started in Humankind, including the best Neolithic starting strategy, understanding how to choose your civilization progression, and generally how to get to grips with all the mechanics.
How To Succeed In The Neolithic Era
So, you've chosen an avatar and started your first game of Humankind. You enter the Neolithic Era with a single tribe unit. Be careful, as it is possible to just lose the game right away if your unit dies.
Here's a summary of what you should be doing:
- Collecting Curiosities. These grant you food and science and appear as little glowing green icons on the map.
- Looking for a good place to settle your first Outpost. This will become the basis for your civilization, so pick the best spot you can.
- Rivers are overpowered in Humankind, so try and find a spot with a river. An area with at least +6 Production and +6 Food is fine.
- Hunt animals. Not the Mammoths right away, they'll destroy you, but go after the deer.
- When you collect 20 Food, you will get an extra tribe member. You can split these two groups to better scout your surrounding area, or keep them together to kill Mammoths.
Best Place To Found Your First City
Rivers. Rivers are the very best place to settle your city. There are a bunch of improvements later on, like the Water Mill, that will provide extra Production and Food for River tiles.
There are some important things to keep in mind about tile yields.
- Mountains, Rocks, and Stone Fields will all provide Production, with the opportunity to increase this later on.
- Rivers and Plains are good for Farms later on.
- Look out for resource tiles. These Grey icons represent luxury resources, and the Question Marks are unlocked with the right tech later in the game.
- The Outpost builds itself depending on how much production is on its original tile, which is why it's important you keep it in mind. It's no use waiting for 10 turns for an Outpost to build in the early game.
- Later, you can stitch multiple Outposts together, so don't worry about settling close to the coast or anything. Just grab a tile with good yields.
How To Progress To The Next Era
Progressing from era to era works by collecting Stars, which are awarded for completing various tasks: killing military units, getting population, or building districts.
You can focus your civilization around achieving a certain thing to progress to the next era quicker, but this is where the Fame mechanic comes in.
- Fame dictates who wins the game. You can be ahead on everything else, but if you don't have enough fame, you'll lose.
- Fame is earned by completing Star tasks, like getting all three stars for building 50 districts, for example.
- These reset when you progress to the next era, so you might want to wait between era advancements to get extra fame.
However, you also don't want to wait too long between progressing. There are a limited number of civilizations (10) you can choose from, and if something else grabs it, they're gone.
What Are The Best Civilizations In The Game?
Humankind is still pretty much fresh, which means there have been little to no balance changes made to the release version. That means there are some cultures that stick out from the rest — the "meta" civs.
- The Zhou – This civ has a strong passive of +2 Stability on a District. Stability is what determines how happy your city is. Each district you build lowers stability. So, with the Zhou, you can build lots of districts and not get a penalty. Neat. Oh, and they get a load of science boosts, as well.
- The Egyptians – It's no surprise that the Egyptians are considered very meta, they almost always are in these types of historical strategy games. You get a massive Production boost, which allows you to skyrocket your cities early. Very strong. Pyramids, too!
- The Babylonians – Science, Science, Science. +2 Science per every researched technology scales very quickly in the early game, although does drop off by the time you're going to make the transition into the next era.
For your first few runs into Humankind, you probably just want to pick the culture that looks fun. The Assyrians are good at fighting, the Phoenicians can make extra gold…there are hundreds of thousands of different combinations to eventually choose from as you mix and match your cultures.
How To Get Better At Combat In Humankind
Combat is one of the most unique mechanics in Humankind. It fuses 4X with RTS, essentially, where you can move individual units around a battlefield. Playing big battles manually can make a serious difference, as the auto-resolve is…well, a little weird.
Here are some things to keep in mind about combat.
- Height and Flanking bonuses are massive. A much weaker unit can hold off against a stronger opponent if you utilize the terrain.
- Zone of Control is a thing, but you can move through your own stacked units to navigate behind an enemy. Very useful.
- A strong balance of Ranged and Melee troops is recommended throughout the game, at least until you get to the later eras of planes and rockets.
- Make use of your culture's unique unit! These are often huge power spikes and can tip even rough wars in your favor. The AI in Humankind is pretty good, so it's not all just steamrolling.
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