Humankind's cities will evolve and sprawl based on your choices like real metropolises

Civ-like strategy game Humankind has been big on its tagline of wanting players to create "a civilization that is as unique as you are." That will extend to your cities too, Amplitude say during a new developer video. As do real modern metropolises, Humankind's cities will evolve but carry with them the evidence of what they once were in the form of old architecture and oddly-shaped territories.

"When you look at your city, all its past and history is going to reflect your strategic decisions," they say in the video below. Building on the Territories system from Amplitude's previous game Endless Legend, Humankind will start with some Territories pre-defined on the map. Based on how you play, you can claim new territories or even aggregate them together into larger ones. You might claim ownership of a territory with a big city or just a small outpost. Outposts might grow into cities of their own, or be assimilated into larger nearby cities.

Cities themselves will grow too when players choose to add new districts to them to accommodate a growing population. A city might become particularly good at harvesting a certain resource, encouraging you to build new districts on terrain tiles rich in those resources.

The goal, it seems, is for Humankind cities to grow into gnarly, tentacled beasts grasping at valuable land the way real cities do, rather then just growing as a large circle with an ever-expanding diameter. That's how cities are though, aren't they? As amplitude say, it sounds like they'll at least become unique to each campaign.

Another neat bit is what Amplitude describe as the split between "city centers" and "emblematic quarters." City centers will continue to modernise but Emblematic Quarters will retain their original look, evidence of an age that's passed but still part of the original culture of your civilization.

If you're keen for more info, RPS has a running page with everything we know about Humankind's gameplay and its other trailers. Amplitude's first developer video in this series also gave us a look at Humankind's origins.

Humankind is coming sometime in 2020, Amplitude say, though not specifically when. You can find it on Steam.