We know many of you have been eagerly waiting for more news about Humankind, and today it's finally time to tell you about what's coming next.
The next update, named the Vauban update, will be released on April 26th and will include several quality-of-life improvements based on ideas suggested by our players, alongside further bugfixes and performance optimization. Let’s take a look at some of the key elements:
Demand/Renounce All Buttons: For your convenience we have added new “Renounce All” and “Demand All” buttons on the Crisis tab of the Diplomacy screen to deal with all grievances at once. It’s never been so easy to forgive and forget... or worse.
Auto-resolve Improvements: We’ve added a preview of the damage your units will take when you hover your cursor over the auto-resolve button. Additionally, we’ve made some small changes to the auto-resolve formula to better reflect army compositions and terrain.
Steam Workshop: While we originally opted for mod.io as a solution that works across multiple storefronts, we have seen many requests from Steam users to implement Steam Workshop support. With the Vauban update, you can get your mods from either Mod.io or the Steam Workshop as you prefer, and the modding tools will be updated to allow you to upload mods directly to either. However, please keep in mind that this will not be available during the beta.
AI Improvements: We’ve worked on how the AI manages Faith, Influence, and early expansion. They should compete better with you now.
Hôtel de Ville de Bruxelles: The new Cultural Wonder unlocked in the Amplified 2023 Community Challenge is available now.
Cultural Wonder Improvements: We know players would often place Cultural Wonders far outside their cities to take advantage of their exploitations. With the Vauban update, we’re adding adjacency bonuses to many wonders to encourage you to incorporate them into your city planning. Additionally, wonders are now cheaper to claim, and you can even renounce your claim if you change your mind about a wonder.
[table] [tr] [td][/td] [td]Hôtel de Ville de Bruxelles - Early Modern Era
+4 Money on Maker's Quarters in this city
+4 Industry on Market Quarters in this city
Bonus Fame (+50) when completing a Wonder
Upon construction of the wonder, earn 50 Fame per Cultural Wonders you've claimed so far
[/td] [/tr] [/table]
In addition to these major improvements, the Vauban update includes many other Quality of Life additions (some inspired by ideas and feedback from the community) and bugfixes. For example, we’ve added pre-game settings for territory size and how much information the Fame leaderboard shows, added a kill count on units, and placing Cultural Wonders now shows you a preview of the yields. We’ve also adjusted the trigger conditions of many rare events to make it more likely for you to see events you have not seen before. Finally, we’ve also worked on optimization, so the game should run better on lower spec hardware now.
And the best news: You can already try this update right now on Steam! Just right-click the game in your library to access the properties, go to the betas tab, and select the update_preview branch. However, you may encounter some bugs; please check the Known Issues before reporting them.
We look forward to hearing from you what you think about these changes and improvements!
A survey to rule them all
Hello/Hola!
While we are working on the next patch to release Soon™, we wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for the different ideas, thoughts, and concerns. We have been following the topics on the different social platforms (Amplifiers, Steam, Discord, etc.).
But we know that not all players express themselves on the forums, that’s why we have decided to have a survey that you can access directly here (only available in English):
To any players new to our surveys: We wanted to know what you like the most about HUMANKIND™ and other areas you think we should improve about the game. And hey, we hope you will decide to hang around with us and the rest of the community.
In any case, none of the previous feedback goes into the “emptiness” we are super grateful about them, and we have taken notes about them, even if we cannot address all of your concerns.
Have a nice day and see you Soon™
Scenario Challenge 08: Rags to Riches
Last month we challenged you to achieve complete military dominion against two strong opponents, but conquest is not the only way to control the world. The flow of resources and currency can be just as powerful. After all, they do say money makes the world go round...
You will find that this month, the starting situation of the scenario is a little less complex and precarious than last month, because we want to focus on an alternate scoring condition for the leaderboard: Your income.
The Rags to Riches Scenario Challenge
This world is full of riches, and they are yours to take and trade. With an abundance of luxuries on this map, it won’t be hard to make a bit of money, but do you have what it takes to become the greatest economic powerhouse in the world? Will you trade peacefully with your neighbors, or will success require a hostile takeover? Only time (and the turn limit) will tell!
Game Conditions: Nation difficulty, Blitz game speed, no DLC or mods
Leaderboard Submission Deadline: April 25th
Leaderboard Ranking: Most Money per turn income on the final turn, tiebreaker by Fame
Good luck leading your people (or at least yourself) to a life of wealth and luxuries!
Scenario Challenge 07: Flint and Steel
We hope you had fun exploring antarctica (and the world, as the map was perhaps not quite what you expected) in the Terra Incognita scenario last month. After that peaceful pursuit of knowledge, this month we’re turning our attention back to more aggressive matters.
The Flint and Steel Scenario Challenge
The wide-spread adoption of gunpowder weapons has changed the face of war. As your neighbors see an opportunity to divide your lands between them, tensions are high. Armies stand ready to attack or defend. Can you weather the storm and overcome your enemies? How quickly can you defeat them and raise your banner over every city of this world?
Game Conditions: Nation difficulty, Endless game speed, no mods
Leaderboard Submission Deadline: March 20th
Leaderboard Ranking: Fastest Victory, tiebreaker by Fame
Please note: While leaderboard entries will be ranked by how quickly they achieve victory (faster is better), they still need to be leading in Fame to be eligible for the leaderboard. For details on how to submit your scores, see the related thread.
We hope you’ll have fun facing the Janissaries and Conquistadores!
[1.0.21.3740] "Shackleton update" Hotfix 1
CHANGES AND ADDITIONS
Nerfed the AI so that envoys are attacked less often.
FIXES
Fixed pink images in the "additional content" section.
Fixed an issue where text was misplaced in the empire screen and the culture selection screen.
Fixed an issue where players were asked to reconnect to Amplifiers at each launch.
Fixed an issue where entering a number in the textfield of the "give money/influence" option could result in confusing behavior.
Fixed an issue where the Ancient Era popup would not always not appear when switching cultures.
Fixed a rare occurence of a turn pending appearing randomly.
Fixed an issue where incorrect tooltips were displayed in the options menu.
Fixed an issue where Fame values were incorrectly formatted in some notifications.
Fixed an issue where debug text was present inside the Pollution display.
Fixed potential instabilities around the diplomatic screen and osmosis events.
Humankind Day - Terra Incognita Scenario
It’s the last day of Amplified, so it’s about time we turn our attention to Humankind. We’ve got a new update and scenario for our anniversary, and a little present for those who joined our community after Humankind launched.
The Shackleton Update
Earlier this week, we released the Shakleton update, which includes quality of life improvements, AI improvements, and even some new diplomatic features. You’ll now be able to gift money, influence, and even cities to other players through the diplomacy screen (though it will not directly improve your relations with AI unless it resolves some other grievance), and if you have Together We Rule, you can sign the new Cultural Entente agreement that will stop all “Oppressing my people” grievances while giving extra food and industry. We’ve also taught them not to have so many Prowlers running around, and you’re no longer forced to immediately create a city when you reach the ancient era, either.
Of course, there are many other small improvements and fixes as well, and if you want to know more, you can find them in the patchnotes.
New Scenario: Terra Incognita
For our anniversary scenario, we wanted to create an experience focused on exploration and (scientific) discovery. Antartica was a great candidate for this, as the existence of a “Terra Australis Incognita” had already been suggested thousands of years ago, yet it was only discovered a few hundred years ago, and is an important location for scientific research to this day. It also allowed us to add themes of pollution and preservation, which are quite important to us (as you may be able to tell from our choice of charity for Amplified).
In this scenario, you will start in the Early Modern era and compete with five other empires to discover Antarctica and gain access to its valuable resources. In fact, all late game resources are located in Antarctica, so you should expect some fierce competition. The game will end if any empire researches the end game technologies or gains all contemporary era stars... or perhaps pollution will end your expedition early if you are not careful. We’ve also added some special rules to this scenario to make exploring and exploiting Antarctica more challenging while encouraging research and cooperation.
We can’t wait to hear the stories of your expeditions, and how much Fame you will achieve!
Free Preorder Bonus: Get the Boudicca Persona
We know that many players joined our community after Humankind was released, and some of these players have asked for a way to get the Boudicca avatar and associated player emblems, so for a limited time during Amplified (and only while supplies last), you can grab this bonus content for free in the Amplifiers rewards section.
We hope you’ll have fun with the new scenario, and join us for our celebration stream today,
- The AmpliTeam
[1.0.21.3727] "Shackleton update" Version Notes
NEW SCENARIO
Terra Incognita. Be the first to reach and explore Antartica without destroying it! Playable with 6 different cultures.
MAJOR CHANGES AND ADDITIONS
Added the ability to give cities, money and influence to another Empire through the diplomacy screen.
Changed the city creation flow between Neolithic and Ancient Era: the first city creation and the 1st outpost creation are not mandatory anymore.
Official support for M1 & M2 Processors on Mac. Thank you all for your feedbacks!
[TWR] Added a new Agreement, Cultural Entente: Territories under the other signing Empire's cultural influence will yield a bonus of Food and Industry for their City, and Signing Empires will not generate any new "Oppressing my People" grievances between each other.
OTHER CHANGES AND ADDITIONS
Nerfing the "Cultural Blitz" affinity ability for it to give a lower amount of influence.
Added the possibility to disband units outside of your borders. Population is lost then.
Added the name of previous cultures in the Empire screen.
Added feedbacks to see the previous cultures of opponents in the tooltip of their current culture on the Diplomacy screen.
Re-organized the main menu and the pause menu items.
Re-organized the top-left HUD to show Pollution and (TWR) International Sway.
Improved feedbacks on Uncovered assets: when concealed units are uncovered, they now appear with a border.
Added feedback on unlock conditions for persona items.
Moved the Calendar type to the new game settings, so that all players have the same one.
End conditions settings are now saved from game to game.
The "/kick playerName" command has been added to kick players that have conceding defeat but stay in the End Screen during a Multiplayer game (for the host only).
(Cultures of Latin America) Improved the description of the Caralan Emblematic Unit's Plant Lore ability.
An infinite symbol has been added on Independent People's lifespan when they are under Client State
Modding tool: clean override elements and associated feedbacks.
CRITICAL FIXES
Fixed an issue wher AI was often creating too many Prowlers, resulting in a high number of Ambushes during the game.
Added a coping mechanism when a turn is stuck, allowing the game to forcibly stop blocking systems and go to the next turn.
TURN STUCK FIXES
Fixed an issue where the game got stuck in a pending turn after an Empire used the Air Strike in specific conditions.
Fixed an issue where the game got stuck in a pending turn after an Empire did a Agreement proposal in specific conditions.
Fixed an issue where the game got stuck on a pending turn after an Agent got eliminated in specific conditions.
Fixed an issue where the game got stuck on a pending turn after an ally got attacked by bears while the player has an army close by.
Fixed an issue where the game got stuck on a pending turn after an ally got attacked while the player has an army close by.
Fixed an issue in Multiplayer game where the game could softlocks when an enemy army prevents Outpost to transform into a city.
Fixed an issue where the game rarely got stuck on a pending turn in early game.
FIXES OF ISSUES SPOTTED BY THE COMMUNITY (THANKS!)
Fixed an issue where battle spoils were only obtained when instant-resolving.
Fixed an issue where the notification "lost treaty with independent people" was using the incorrect icon.
Fixed an issue where the trespassing grievance was generated when killing an Envoy in an other Empire's Territory.
Fixed an issue where capturing an Independent People's city with rented armies made that unit's panel show incorrect information.
Fixed an issue where the war score cost of taking back a vassal when it tried to get freedom was not "zero".
Fixed an issue where the camera would incorrectly focus on the closest outpost when trying to use "Give Outpost" to an Independent people's army.
Fixed an issue where it was impossible to settle in some small territories because all tiles contained a resource deposit.
Fixed an issue where the competitive deed "Smorgasbord" couldn't be unlocked.
Fixed an issue where the competitive deeds "A cultured land" couldn't be unlocked.
Fixed an issue where a notification displaying a collected curiosity was not showing the gained resources.
Fixed an issue where rarely AI kept making demands on changing the player's state religion.
Fixed an issue where eliminated Empire's patronage was staying in the calculations of Independent People's UI.
Fixed an issue where Independent People treaties showed inconsistent benefits.
Fixed an issue where the player profile was lost every time the game was started on Steam Deck in specific conditions.
OTHER FIXES
Fixed an issue where sometime the multiplayer lobby interface was incorrectly displayed after changing Avatars.
Fixed an issue where Armies were unable to move after trying to add them to a battle that had just been resolved.
Fixed an issue where War Support was displayed with decimals on the "Close to a War Victory" notification.
Fixed an issue where patronage gain was displayed when an Envoy was in an Independent People's territory while Established Contact hasn't been signed yet.
Fixed an issue where while at war, grievances were generated on the liege's side when assimilating an Independent People in which a Vassal has invested.
Fixed an issue where while at war, grievances were generated on the liege's side when ransacking an Embassy that has signed treaty with the Vassal.
Fixed an issue where placeholder text was displayed in the Independent People's outpost Ideology tooltips.
Fixed an issue where construction progress for Shared Projects from the "Monumental Contractors" agreement were not updating correctly.
Fixed an issue where while at war, grievances were generated on the liege's side when claiming a territory near the border of its vassal
Fixed an issue where patronage production was sometime displayed with decimals.
Fixed an issue where the "Monarchy Power" civic could be unlocked before the Industrial Era.
Fixed an issue where the value received from "Science Collaboration" Treaty with Independent Peoples was displayed incorrectly in the science breakdown.
Fixed an issue where destination was incorrect for Army and District Detection trace on the Intelligence View.
Fixed an issue where "The Empty Hills" Narrative event has the same result for both provided choices.
Fixed an issue where resources were not displayed properly in the "All Cities and Outposts" Menu on the Cities tab.
Fixed an issue where Emblematic Units did not appear in the technology tree if their technology was researched in the previous era.
Fixed an issue where treaties' cooldown was showing "0 turns left" instead of simply disapperearing.
TOGETHER WE RULE FIXES (COMMUNITY AND DEVS)
Fixed an issue where wrong text was displayed in the other Empire's reaction after a leverage action.
Fixed an issue where the watch city action was not cancelled if another Agent action is started.
Fixed an issue where cropped text was displayed on Doctrine's unlock button.
Fixed an issue where track army would not work on decoys.
Fixed an issue where "Placate" had a wrong description of cost and effect.
Fixed an issue where Agents being built were displayed in the Intelligence view.
Fixed an issue where both signed Treaties and Agreements waere feedbacked as Agreements on War Support malus.
Fixed an issue where an incorrect cost was displayed for Leverage Actions when the Embassy has been destroyed
Fixed an issue where Demilitarized Zone's notification focus on the icorrect territory.
Fixed an issue where while at war, grievances were generated on the liege's side when attacking its' vassal's envoys.
Fixed an issue where Independant People names were showing as a debug text.
CULTURES OF LATIN AMERICA FIX
Fixed an issue where the Nazca Lines preview tooltip was not showing the total gain.
[1.0.21.3727] "Amplified 2023" Version Notes
NEW SCENARIO
Terra Incognita. Be the first to reach and explore Antartica without destroying it! Playable with 6 different cultures.
MAJOR CHANGES AND ADDITIONS
Added the ability to give cities, money and influence to another Empire through the diplomacy screen.
Changed the city creation flow between Neolithic and Ancient Era: the first city creation and the 1st outpost creation are not mandatory anymore.
Official support for M1 & M2 Processors on Mac. Thank you all for your feedbacks!
[TWR] Added a new Agreement, Cultural Entente: Territories under the other signing Empire's cultural influence will yield a bonus of Food and Industry for their City, and Signing Empires will not generate any new "Oppressing my People" grievances between each other.
OTHER CHANGES AND ADDITIONS
Added quality of life improvements to the modding tool: clean useless elements, preview the size of the mod, clean override elements and associated feedbacks.
Nerfing the "Cultural Blitz" affinity ability for it to give a lower amount of influence.
Added the possibility to disband units outside of your borders. Population is lost then.
Added the name of previous cultures in the Empire screen.
Added feedbacks to see the previous cultures of opponents in the tooltip of their current culture on the Diplomacy screen.
Re-organized the main menu and the pause menu items.
Re-organized the top-left HUD to show Pollution and (TWR) International Sway.
Improved feedbacks on Uncovered assets: when concealed units are uncovered, they now appear with a border.
Added feedback on unlock conditions for persona items.
Moved the Calendar type to the new game settings, so that all players have the same one.
End conditions settings are now saved from game to game.
The "/kick playerName" command has been added to kick players that have conceding defeat but stay in the End Screen during a Multiplayer game (for the host only).
(Cultures of Latin America) Improved the description of the Caralan Emblematic Unit's Plant Lore ability.
An infinite symbol has been added on Independent People's lifespan when they are under Client State
CRITICAL FIXES
Fixed an issue wher AI was often creating too many Prowlers, resulting in a high number of Ambushes during the game.
Added a coping mechanism when a turn is stuck, allowing the game to forcibly stop blocking systems and go to the next turn.
TURN STUCK FIXES
Fixed an issue where the game got stuck in a pending turn after an Empire used the Air Strike in specific conditions.
Fixed an issue where the game got stuck in a pending turn after an Empire did a Agreement proposal in specific conditions.
Fixed an issue where the game got stuck on a pending turn after an Agent got eliminated in specific conditions.
Fixed an issue where the game got stuck on a pending turn after an ally got attacked by bears while the player has an army close by.
Fixed an issue where the game got stuck on a pending turn after an ally got attacked while the player has an army close by.
Fixed an issue in Multiplayer game where the game could softlocks when an enemy army prevents Outpost to transform into a city.
Fixed an issue where the game rarely got stuck on a pending turn in early game.
FIXES OF ISSUES SPOTTED BY THE COMMUNITY (THANKS!)
Fixed an issue where battle spoils were only obtained when instant-resolving.
Fixed an issue where the notification "lost treaty with independent people" was using the incorrect icon.
Fixed an issue where the trespassing grievance was generated when killing an Envoy in an other Empire's Territory.
Fixed an issue where capturing an Independent People's city with rented armies made that unit's panel show incorrect information.
Fixed an issue where the war score cost of taking back a vassal when it tried to get freedom was not "zero".
Fixed an issue where the camera would incorrectly focus on the closest outpost when trying to use "Give Outpost" to an Independent people's army.
Fixed an issue where it was impossible to settle in some small territories because all tiles contained a resource deposit.
Fixed an issue where the competitive deed "Smorgasbord" couldn't be unlocked.
Fixed an issue where the competitive deeds "A cultured land" couldn't be unlocked.
Fixed an issue where a notification displaying a collected curiosity was not showing the gained resources.
Fixed an issue where rarely AI kept making demands on changing the player's state religion.
Fixed an issue where eliminated Empire's patronage was staying in the calculations of Independent People's UI.
Fixed an issue where Independent People treaties showed inconsistent benefits.
Fixed an issue where the player profile was lost every time the game was started on Steam Deck in specific conditions.
OTHER FIXES
Fixed an issue where sometime the multiplayer lobby interface was incorrectly displayed after changing Avatars.
Fixed an issue where Armies were unable to move after trying to add them to a battle that had just been resolved.
Fixed an issue where War Support was displayed with decimals on the "Close to a War Victory" notification.
Fixed an issue where patronage gain was displayed when an Envoy was in an Independent People's territory while Established Contact hasn't been signed yet.
Fixed an issue where while at war, grievances were generated on the liege's side when assimilating an Independent People in which a Vassal has invested.
Fixed an issue where while at war, grievances were generated on the liege's side when ransacking an Embassy that has signed treaty with the Vassal.
Fixed an issue where placeholder text was displayed in the Independent People's outpost Ideology tooltips.
Fixed an issue where construction progress for Shared Projects from the "Monumental Contractors" agreement were not updating correctly.
Fixed an issue where while at war, grievances were generated on the liege's side when claiming a territory near the border of its vassal
Fixed an issue where patronage production was sometime displayed with decimals.
Fixed an issue where the "Monarchy Power" civic could be unlocked before the Industrial Era.
Fixed an issue where the value received from "Science Collaboration" Treaty with Independent Peoples was displayed incorrectly in the science breakdown.
Fixed an issue where destination was incorrect for Army and District Detection trace on the Intelligence View.
Fixed an issue where "The Empty Hills" Narrative event has the same result for both provided choices.
Fixed an issue where resources were not displayed properly in the "All Cities and Outposts" Menu on the Cities tab.
Fixed an issue where Emblematic Units did not appear in the technology tree if their technology was researched in the previous era.
Fixed an issue where treaties' cooldown was showing "0 turns left" instead of simply disapperearing.
TOGETHER WE RULE FIXES (COMMUNITY AND DEVS)
Fixed an issue where wrong text was displayed in the other Empire's reaction after a leverage action.
Fixed an issue where the watch city action was not cancelled if another Agent action is started.
Fixed an issue where cropped text was displayed on Doctrine's unlock button.
Fixed an issue where track army would not work on decoys.
Fixed an issue where "Placate" had a wrong description of cost and effect.
Fixed an issue where Agents being built were displayed in the Intelligence view.
Fixed an issue where both signed Treaties and Agreements waere feedbacked as Agreements on War Support malus.
Fixed an issue where an incorrect cost was displayed for Leverage Actions when the Embassy has been destroyed
Fixed an issue where Demilitarized Zone's notification focus on the icorrect territory.
Fixed an issue where while at war, grievances were generated on the liege's side when attacking its' vassal's envoys.
Fixed an issue where Independant People names were showing as a debug text.
CULTURES OF LATIN AMERICA FIX
Fixed an issue where the Nazca Lines preview tooltip was not showing the total gain.
Studio Anniversary Streaming Dates
Hola!
Today we have short news for you, next week we will have Amplified, which is our Studio Anniversary. During these 3 days (from the 18th - 20th of January), we will be streaming content about all of our games.
See you next week, The AmpliTeam
Scenario Challenge 05: Roma Vincit Omnia
We’re back with another Scenario Challenge!
We know that many of you were hoping for a new scenario last month, as we do usually try to share one every month, but because the scenario would have arrived at the same time as the Together We Rule expansion and the Metternich update, we wanted to take a brief break to let everybody play with the new features.
After the economic and scientific Space Race scenario looking to a (hopefully bright) future on the red planet, this month we are turning our gaze to the Classical Era and more bloody matters: The expansion of Rome. The map might not be based on the real world, but your foes will be familiar, and in the end love Rome conquers all.
Roma Vincit Omnia Scenario Challenge
Rome wasn’t built in a turn... Well, this one was, actually, thanks to some handy cheats dev tools. Yet our enemies are still ahead of us: Celts and Goths to the west, Greek city states on the islands to the north-east, and entire empires across the sea. But with the power of our industry and our legions, we shall conquer the world. All shall fall before the might of Rome, until we stand victorious! (Furthermore, Carthage is to be destroyed.)
Place the save in “/Documents/Humankind/Save Files”
Load the save labeled “Roman-Scenario” in game
(optional) If you want to submit a score to the leaderboard, check this post
Scenario Conditions
Victory Condition: Most Fame at game end
End Condition: Last Human Standing (Eliminate or Vassalize all other Empires)
Game Conditions: Nation difficulty, Endless game speed, no mods
Leaderboard Submission Deadline: January 16th
Leaderboard Ranking: Fastest Victory, tiebreaker by Fame
Please note: While leaderboard entries will be ranked by how quickly they achieve victory (faster is better), they need to be independent at the end of the game and leading in Fame to be eligible for the leaderboard. For details on how to submit your scores, see the related thread.
Have fun expanding the Roman republic and/or empire!
[/td] [td]Hôtel de Ville de Bruxelles - Early Modern Era 
