Humankind is a new strategy game that wants to take on Civilization as the next king of 4X games, but it differs from Firaxis’s heavyweight in a range of key areas, one of which is how you win a game. While there are still the Civilization-style pathways – focusing on science, or industry, generating money, the usual suspect of military conquest – Humankind differentiates how a game ends and how you win.
Depending what option you pick in the ‘Pace’ settings menu of game setup, there will be between two and seven different ways a game of Humankind can finish. Who wins that game will then depend on which civilisation has the highest fame score. As an example, one of the end conditions involves completing the entire tech tree; if you happen to be playing a scientific powerhouse and end up bringing the game to an end because you’ve researched all the techs, you may still end up losing because another civilisation has a higher fame score than you.
This differentiates Humankind from Civilization, in which a game doesn’t end until one player meets the specific conditions to win (unless you’re using the time limit ending), meaning that they win by definition.
A game can end in one of seven different ways:
These different ending conditions are mixed across four different options in the settings menu. The default option enables all seven, while others may limit you to just two. Reaching the last turn and rendering the world ‘unfit for human life’ are present in all four options, so whatever setting you pick, either of these will always end the game.
You can earn fame in a few different ways, but the two primary generators will be era stars and world deeds. World deeds are exclusive achievements for doing something in-game (see below), but era stars are what you’ll be working towards more consistently.
There are a number of ways to boost the amount of fame score you can earn. Each Humankind culture has its own cultural affinity to match one of the era star sets, and you’ll earn double fame from stars within that affinity. As an example, the Babylonians are a ‘scientist’ culture, and so will earn double the fame from scientist stars, which you get by researching technologies.
Other things that generate fame include:
Each era has 21 era stars, divided into seven sets of three. You’re awarded these three stars at different levels of achievement within the relevant affinity – make a certain amount of money for one merchant star, make some more for your second, and more still for your third.
There are twenty world deeds in Humankind at the time of writing, each awarding between 50 and 150 fame points. Each world deed can only be completed once globally – when a civilisation achieves one, no one else can do so.
We hope this arms you with everything you’ll need to secure victory in Humankind. Want to make the game easier? Check out our difficulty settings guide to give yourself a better chance.
