At LadiesGamers, when we love a game, we like to make a guide. As I really enjoyed Amplitude’s new 4X game Humankind (the review is here) I felt it needed a guide too. It introduces a few new mechanics that help set it apart from its competition and provides a fresh spin on the genre for fans.
Like most games there is a tutorial in Humankind but sometimes they don’t explain all you need to know. These hints and tips will get you started in the game and lead you to become a great leader of your empire.

Era
An Era in Humankind is a representation of a period of history. Each era you progress to comes with its own era stars, new resources, new technologies and new units. You can be one active Culture (nation) in an Era. Each time the Era changes you pick a new Culture to proceed. More on Cultures later.
There are 7 Eras in Humankind, they are
• Neolithic
• Ancient
• Classical
• Medieval
• Early Modern
• Industrial
• Contemporary

When you’ve chosen an avatar and started your first game of Humankind we’re talking about winning conditions.
Winning conditions for Humankind
The goal of Humankind is to create the civilization that most marks the course of human history. The end of the game can trigger for a variety of reasons, depending on the options you’ve chosen.
End of game
The end of the game has been triggered due to one of these reasons (conditions).
- The maximum turn count has been reached: 300 turns, the year 2040.
- You or a competitor have unlocked every Era Star in the final era.
- You or a competitor have unlocked every Technology in the final era.
- You or a competitor have finished their final Space Project.
- Every player but 1 has been eliminated or made into a vassal.
- Every human player but 1 has been eliminated or has chosen to resign. The remaining player has opted to end the game early.
- The global pollution value on the map has risen too high

Fame
Those conditions for the end of the game do not mean you have actually won the game. When it does come to deciding the winner of Humankind it comes down to which player has the highest Fame score.
It’s still possible to go down various different winning routes like science and religion as I mentioned above. But launching a mission to Mars won’t immediately give you a science victory. Instead, that will give you heaps of Fame points, and the player with the most amount of Fame at the end of a game will win. So what is Fame and how do you get it?
How to collect Fame
There are various ways to collect Fame..
- Earning Era stars
- Completing Competitive deeds
- By building or discovering wonders
- Discovering Natural Wonders on the map
- Through certain story events
- Assimilating Independent People
- Becoming a Liege or breaking free from Vassalage
- Researching the game’s final, advanced Technologies
- Eliminating another Empire
- Winning a war
Competitive Deeds screen
Competitive Deeds
Most of those are self-explanatory, Fame is accumulated through accomplishing deeds, building epic wonders, and by earning Era Stars for completing challenges related to your Culture’s affinity. I’ll go into more detail about Competitive deeds. You can find the Competitive Deeds to complete by clicking on the coloured Emblem of your Culture in the top left corner of the screen, click Show Deeds on the right.
Competitive Deeds are shared amongst all empires. Competitive Deeds require empires to perform certain actions for a set amount of fame. Once you or another empire unlocks a deed, no other empire is able to achieve it. These deeds are usually related to discovering landmarks, technologies, or completing certain projects before anyone else.

Influence
One of the most important strategic resources, aside from those in the ground like iron and such, is influence. Influence is a resource-specific way of earning fame. You will need to earn a target amount of influence to receive a star.
You need Influence in Humankind to be able to claim additional territory, enact laws, turn outposts into cities, and attach claimed territories to established cities. As well as that, Influence spreads your empire’s ideology and its allies with the independent peoples. It’s also a resource that’s most difficult to come by, isn’t that always the way? Though there is a particular Aesthete cultural affinity that boosts your influence but more on that in the Culture section of the guide below.

Starting a Game
You’ve chosen an avatar and started your first game of Humankind. When the game starts you find yourself in the Neolithic age with a single tribe unit. Even at this stage, you will need to be careful as it is possible to lose the game right away.
What to do in the Neolithic Age.
Collect Curiosities. Curiosities are randomly spawned on tiles with little icons on the map. Once your tribe walks over one of these curiosities they grant you food and science. They grant various rewards depending on the Curiosity type and the current Era. They disappear after few turns if not collected.

Hunt animals as a tribe though be careful as you can’t hunt the Mammoths right away, you’ll lose! You can hunt the deer and smaller creatures on the map. 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 take on and kill Mammoths.
Settle an Outpost
Find a good place to settle your first Outpost. Your first outpost is the basis for your civilization and eventually, you can turn it into your first city.
- Mountains, Rocks, and Stone Fields will all provide Production, you’ll have the opportunity to increase this later on.
- Rivers and Plains are good for Farms later on for producing food.
- On the map, it pays to look out for resource tiles. These tiles have Grey icons which represent luxury resources, and the Question Marks icons 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 on in the game when you have advanced through the eras, you can attach multiple Outposts together, so don’t worry about settling close to the coast or anything. Just go for tiles with good yields.

Cultures
As one of the game’s primary mechanics the Cultures you pick will dictate the characteristics of your society. Unlike other popular 4X games, in Humankind you have quite a lot of flexibility in the way your Culture progresses and changes over time.
Once you earn enough era stars to advance from the Neolithic Era into the Ancient Era you get to turn your nomadic tribe into one of 10 Cultures on offer. But there could be fewer cultures on offer to you if a competitor has picked their culture before you.

Legacy Trait, Emblematic Unit and District
Each of the Cultures in the game, of which there are 60, has a unique Legacy Trait, an Emblematic unit, which is basically a unique unit to a specific culture, and an Emblematic District.
You also get the chance to stay with the Culture you are already with, in order to earn more Era Stars and therefore more Fame. Though take note: When you evolve your Culture to the next one you’ll lose the ability to create additional Emblematic Quarters of the prior Culture you were in. But you do keep the ones that already exist, helping to mark your Empire’s past in the present. The Legacy Trait from the previous culture you have just left continues to apply and you can keep building your previous Emblematic Units until new technologies render them obsolete.

Cultures also fall into one of seven Affinities. Each comes with a passive bonus and a special ability you can only use while being that particular Culture with that Affinity. They also grant you more fame towards their associated Era Star.
Culture Affinities
Aesthete
Cultures with the Aesthete affinity favour gameplay focused on Influence and Diplomacy.
Cultural Blitz: gain the ability to pay money to overwhelm a territory with their cultural Influence and gain some Influence.
Grace: Regardless of their actual Ideology, a Culture with the Aestheteis affinity is always considered to be at maximum ideological closeness with everyone, easing diplomacy.
Agrarian: Cultures with the Agrarian affinity do well with farming and agriculture.
Land of Plenty: Cultures with the Agrarian affinity can use their Influence to trigger migrations with a promise of a better life, stealing population from adjacent Territories.
Community: A culture with the Agrarian affinity cities will gain population and its Stability increases.
Expansionist: Cultures with the Expansionist affinity will claim more territory faster. They will focus on territory expansions more than other cultures.
Under One Banner: Cultures with the Expansionist affinity can, at a cost, use their armies to forcibly annex Territories occupied by another Empire’s Outpost or Administrative Centre.
Ambition: Cultures with Expansionist affinities armies can cross borders no matter the diplomatic situation without getting damaged or blocked. Grievances for trespassing are still generated as normal.
Merchant Cultures with the Merchant affinity are all for the money, economy, and productive trading.
Power Investor: Cultures with the Merchant affinity can use their Influence to build resource extractors for themselves or others, potentially improving relations.
Mediation: Cultures with the Merchant affinity can sell on Resources bought from third parties.
Militarist: Cultures with the Militarist affinity, allows you to raise militia in your cities, perfect for those who like fighting and going to war.
Iron Reserves: Cultures with the Militarist affinity can raise Militia Armies in any of their Cities, provided they have enough population.
Vigilance: Cultures with the Militarist affinity have an increased base War Support value, making it easier for them to wage war.
Builder: Cultures with the Builder Affinity will build cities faster and more efficient.
Land Raiser: Cultures with the Builders affinity can for every City in their Empire, activate a special mode that causes the City to convert all Science, Money, and surplus Food into Industry for a minimum number of turns.
Pride: Whenever a new District is built in a Builder Culture’s City, its Stability increases.
Scientist: Cultures with the Scientist affinity know that knowledge is power and focus on science and technology.
Collective Minds: Cultures with the Scientist affinity can, for every City in their Empire, activate a special mode that causes the City to convert all Industry, Money, and surplus Food into Science for a minimum number of turns.
Foresight: Scientist Cultures are able to unlock technologies from the next technological era.

There isn’t a particularly best-starting culture in Humankind as such. It all depends on your playstyle. If you want to build cities faster and more efficient, choose Builder affinity. Those who want to go into farming and agriculture, go for a culture that has the Agrarian affinity and so on.
And most of all…have fun playing!