CW: Did you find any surprises from the feedback of the first OpenDev session?
RW: Surprises… not really. They did push where it hurts [laughs]. You know some weaknesses and you’re thinking “I hope they don’t say it” and they all press on it and you’re like “aww, okay, they did say it!” [laughs]
CW: [laughs] I suppose that is what it’s for though!
RW: In a way, that’s it. It was just perfect. We did ask a lot of questions, but we are very happy to say that more than a quarter of all of the players answered the questionnaire. It’s a pretty high rate. On the economy and the city, the feedback was incredibly positive and we’ve improved on it since then. It was only 0.3% that didn’t like it, with 5% that were neutral. All the others liked it or loved it.
For war, we had something around 5 or 10% that didn’t like it. The top reason was that they felt it was too slow. Even those who liked it mentioned that as well. We knew we had a lot of work to put in to increase the pace of the battle. That’s something you’ll find in the OpenDev and it feels a lot smoother. Some of the stuff on the economy, we still felt that things could keep improving. You’ll find some of these improvements. Other things, the interface of the city wasn’t well received. This hasn’t been improved yet, but it will be improved later.
CW: With this new OpenDev, you’ve mentioned religion and diplomacy coming in, coming into focus, can you tell me something about them?
RW: They won’t be a focus, they’ll just be new elements because we’re still heavily working on them. But, people will be able to let us know what they like and don’t like about them. For me, it’s just about how the elements will work together. Economy, battles, change of cultures, that’s the key element I want to get right.
CW: So how will religion act and work in Humankind? Will it act in a similar way to the cultures where you can develop and change over time? Will you see multiple religions in your empire?
RW: As an empire, you’ll have your main religion. You can also have several religions, specifically regions that lean towards a religion. As time goes on you can also evolve your religion, you can maybe split from the main religion and then you’ll have to go into a religious war because you’re splitting.
It’s very interesting to see everything that can be done in this very important topic in history. When you think about history, you can look at many countries that were impacted by religion. From religious wars, invasions as a result of religions, and civil wars based around religion. In France, we had quite a lot of that.
Other aspects that I think are very interesting is that you can become friends with other empires because they have the same religion. Sometimes you can have a common enemy because of it. Sometimes you were friends with somebody, but they have a schism and decide to go against your religion – what do you do with that? It adds a bit of craziness in what could be a regular path. Sometimes, you have to follow your people. In the case of some countries you’ll find that the government of a country is in a minority compared to the people, so how can you rule, how do you listen to your people to make sure they’re happy, even though you’re not of the same religion as them?
We’ve tried to make a simple system, but we wanted to add elements that you can’t control perfectly.
CW: So you can potentially have civil wars in your faction?
RW: If your people aren’t happy with you, you’ll have riots and armies that come out of the cities that rebel against your rule, so it is possible. I’m not sure if I was allowed to say it yet [laughs], but you will have that in the game.
CW: Since Diplomacy is going to make an appearance in this OpenDev, could you tell me a little about it?
RW: So it’s the first iteration, it is evolving. At the base of our system is what we call “the crisis”. When we looked at history, you often have a case or situation – Let’s look at Troy, Helen being abducted by Paris. It’s the crisis. How do you react to that? Do you ask for Helen to be sent back? Do you use it as an excuse to go to war? – that’s the situations we have in the game.
You have this sort of crisis that can be created by you trespassing, changing religion, all of these elements that can create cases for others to decide to face you with them. They could give you the chance to make amends, do nothing, or basically they could go to war with you. If they go to war, they’ll be justified and they’ll start with more of the people following them in the war.
The way we’re going to do war, you can win through weapons, but also through the morale of your people. Will they follow you, or not? If you go to war and nobody is following you, you’ll have a very painful and sorry death. You also need your citizens to feel like they’re fighting in a justified war. That’s why, in a way, for thousands of years leaders have always tried to find a way to justify their wars, not just to conquer more territory. They need to find an excuse so people have a good reason to die.
CW: So it’s more than just a national identity aspect, more than just you as a leader saying “we need to do this”?
RW: Yeah. Some times it could be. You have civics which could be very different. You can have cultural differences that can make it easier to go to war than if you are closer. There are a lot of things that can come into the mix. Maybe you’ll decide to pick some civics that make you evolve closer to where somewhere else is. It’s interesting in that sense.
So you’ll have a lot of excuses, it all depends on how you’ll react to them and it’ll allow you to go into easy wars and some difficult, painful wars. What we’re trying to do is avoid people going into wars just for the fun of it. The crisis system is at the base of that, it’s still being worked on to balance out the number of crises, the way you can create them.
You’ll also have a simple system that will show how you stand in terms of agreements. So, for example, non-agression, if you can attack anywhere, or do resource exchanges. It’s visual, so you can easily see where you stand on kind-of, nearly a chessboard effect if I may say so. Some aspects will appear in OpenDev, such as resource exchange, which is very simple. When there is a resource on the map and if you’re on good terms with the owner, you can just click on the resource and directly buy it. You don’t need them to agree, it’s just commerce, there’s no reason to say no if you have an agreement.
CW: This sounds like a much more realistic trade system than most games which would force you to trade by talking to another empire, doing a like-for-like trade.
RW: In a way, it’s simpler. Sometimes, it’s a bit more realistic. That’s why we like the system in Humankind. You don’t need to try to go through a bargain where you’re like “I’ll give you two of that for three of that, plus one tech and whatever” and things like that. It’s very simple, I want it, I’ll pay for it – if you have the relationship.
Some other things you’ll see is how technology and civics can spread through the map in the world. With commerce, roads will appear and people start moving. With these people, ideas start moving. With these ideas are techs. Basically, when they start being very present somewhere, you can try to buy the tech or basically adopt it. The same for civics. It could also be that your people want you to adopt it, it’s what they want, though you may not want it and say no, even though they want it.
CW: That sounds very interesting. So this could really make the game evolve in different ways, popping up what are essentially mini-scenarios. For example, you could be a dictatorship and a democracy is nearby and your people are suddenly like “you know, we want a voice”.
RW: Exactly. That’s how they could get unhappy if you ignore them, but it’s up to you to decide. It’s a very interesting way to see if you want to be friends with an empire, with their people. Do their civics fit in with what I pick? It’s kind of putting you back in the shoes of a leader throughout history.
I was told now that time was sadly running short and asked if I had any last questions.
CW: Well, I thinl the main thing is if you’ve got a planned release date for Humankind?
RW: It’s going to be April. We don’t have a specific day, but it’ll be April and this is good for us, we have plenty of time to work through the feedback of OpenDev and keep working away on Games2Gether. It’s exciting and it’s good to have that time.
CW: Are you planning on any more OpenDev sessions before the release date?
RW: We’ll find ways, as you can see there’s a big gap so we need to find ways to get all the feedback we need in the meantime.
CW: Excellent, thank you very much.
RW: Take care, thanks a lot.
CW: And you! Thanks.
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