Recently, the developers from Amplitude Studios and SEGA have announced that the historical strategy game Humankind has been delayed until August 17, 2021. The change allows the team to have more time for the development of certain game features, such as Diplomacy that just received a new dev diary.
The developers mention that players should be able to develop a (changing) relationship with the other empires, should find reasons to love or hate them. Even the fighting feels more meaningful if you have some history with your opponents.
“The Diplomacy system in Humankind provides a system for these relationships to interact with the game instead of just existing in the mind of the player. Angry at that neighbor who forward settled you? Send them a strongly worded letter to demand they hand it over immediately. Backstabbed by your long-term ally? They’ll have a hard time maintaining that war. Through the diplomacy system, the AI can take your relationship to it into account when making decisions, but it can also contribute to the emerging story by telling you what it thinks of you.”
There are three parts to the diplomatic approach:
- Treaties, your primary means of cooperating with other civilizations and forming closer relationships with them. While you’re at peace, you can propose treaties improving your cooperation in four different categories: Trade, Information Sharing, Border Policy, and Military Accords.
- Trade: As long as you’ve already signed the appropriate trade treaties, buying a resource from another civilization is as easy as clicking on their exploited resource deposit on the map, selecting the mode of transport (e.g land route versus sea route), and paying the cost for purchase and shipping.
- Grievances and Demands will increase your war support, a measure of how willing your people are to endure protracted conflict with the other civilization. If your war support is high enough, you can formally declare war, but even if it isn’t, you can still just declare a Surprise War. Of course, such back-stabbing is generally frowned upon, and you will be branded as a traitor, souring your diplomatic relations with other civilizations.
