The bonuses are usually big, game-changing numbers, and there's a significant difference if you pick, say, the industrious Egyptians over the expansionist Assyrians. You also get a unique building, unit and bonus, like Egypt's ability to generate more industrial power. Each has a penchant for science, expansion, warfare and other specialities, giving you an active and passive ability shared by all the cultures with that affinity. When it's time to hit the ancient era, it's only then that you get to pick your first culture. It's simply the best 4X starting experience. More Fame can be earned by erecting wonders, too, or by completing competitive deeds, like discovering natural wonders or landing on a new continent. Watch out, though, because that Fame isn't going to save you if a more advanced empire decides to pick a fight. So you might linger in an era you're free to leave, just so you can mop up a few more stars that you're close to getting.

While those stars are crucial, what you're really trying to get is the accompanying Fame payout-if you have the most when the game ends, victory is yours.

Found a place with bronze and horses? Get an outpost on that as quickly as you can, and then get back to brawling with the wildlife. It's really a sprint, a particularly brutal one on the highest difficulty, where you're competing to get first dibs on the list of playable cultures and stake your claim on the most bountiful regions. I'm sure this all sounds quite relaxing-that's a trap. Picking berries and beating up mammoths-a perfect Neolithic family day out. During this phase you saunter around gathering food and other resources from nodes scattered all over the world, with breaks where you get to fight animals. Before picking a site for your first settlement, or even picking a culture, you must first explore the world as a nomadic, Neolithic tribe.

Normally you'd need to pick a civ, faction or race of nerdy dragons first, and then plonk down a city, but not here. It's clear that isn't the case as soon as you hop into a campaign. This is not to say that Humankind doesn't have any bold ideas.

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