Codex Gamicus
Explore
Main Page
Discuss
All Pages
Interactive Maps
navigation
Main page
Community portal
Recent changes
Random page
Admin noticeboard
Forums
Company Index
Character Index
Hardware Index
In-Game Index
Ratings Index
Video Game Index
Fandom
Gamepedia support
Report a bad ad
Help Wiki
Contact us
FANDOM
Fan Central
BETA
Games
Anime
Movies
TV
Video
Wikis
Explore Wikis
Community Central
Start a Wiki
Don't have an account?
Register
Sign In
Sign In
Register
Fandom's centric source of video game knowledge
42,423
pages
Explore
Main Page
Discuss
All Pages
Interactive Maps
navigation
Main page
Community portal
Recent changes
Random page
Admin noticeboard
Forums
Company Index
Character Index
Hardware Index
In-Game Index
Ratings Index
Video Game Index
Fandom
Gamepedia support
Report a bad ad
Help Wiki
Contact us
Editing
Mankind
(section)
Back to page
Edit
VisualEditor
View history
Talk (0)
Edit Page
Mankind
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
== Gameplay == Equipped with one construction unit, a ''Vibz''-type starship, and a small amount of credits, players start out in a guarded star system ("Imperial system") to eventually create their own empire. Typical first steps in ''Mankind'' consist of building a small base on one of the nearby planets and mining available resources which could either be sold or used to construct further units. Later, a player can leave the safety of the Imperial systems behind and colonize his own star system. === Environments === Planet surfaces as well as the space in star systems are realized as separate two-dimensional square game maps, called "environments" in game jargon. While space maps have borders, planetary maps are virtually borderless - units leaving the map at the eastern border reappear in the west, those leaving in the north reappear in the south. Each environment can contain player units and installations. Some restrictions exist, such as land vehicles only being able to operate on planetary maps, or specific starships not being able to enter planetary environments. Only one environment per player can be active at a time. Players can switch between maps by loading the unit content of a new environment, thereby leaving the old one. === Game universe === The game takes place in the so-called "Mankind galaxy". The galactical map available for navigation is divided into sectors of space ("cubes" in game jargon), each of which might contain between zero and about 25 stars. Each star system contains between 5 and 8 planets. Early game reviews talked about a total sum of 900 million available planets, each with their own climate, seasons and population,<ref name="strategyplanet">{{cite web|title = Strategy Planet - First Look - Mankind|url=http://www.strategyplanet.com/content/firstlooks/mankind/|accessdate=2007-08-16}}</ref> a figure that was repeated in advertising text on the game box and even topped by the official website, which claimed several million systems and billions of planets.<ref name="mknet-concept" /> In fact, a majority of these planets and star systems were unavailable ("closed") at the initial release of the game<ref name="mkit-interview_04_1999">{{cite web|title = mkit.de - Interview with Yannis Mercier|url=http://www.mkit.de/community/interviews/index.html?lang=en&articleid=4|accessdate=2007-08-16}}</ref> and have never been opened afterwards. During the two game resets since its release, the layout of the Mankind galaxy was changed and its size reduced. The last released galaxy consists of 73,251 star systems with 476,265 planets.<ref name="mknet-xml_export">{{cite web|title = Mankind - Official Website - XML Export|url=http://www.mankind.net/gameinfo/xml/|accessdate=2007-08-15}}</ref> The persistent universe feature means that, even when players are not involved in the game, their mines extract ores, factories create equipment, ships continue commerce, and combat units continue to do battle. The game also has option to allow the user be notified via [[mobile phone|cell phone]] [[Short message service|text message]] if their units came under attack. Unfortunately this and other alert features were not implemented at release. In fact through the first several months the ships and installations of players not actively connected to the universe did not defend themselves when under attack, making it possible for a player controlling handful of ships to wipe out heavily fortified bases in a few hours. This led to the development of more-or-less adhered to war ethics prohibiting attacks on offline players. Nevertheless, during the game rework process, several changes got implemented to reduce such and make offline attacks less interesting.
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to the Codex Gamicus are considered to be released under the CC BY-SA 3.0
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Follow on IG
TikTok
Join Fan Lab