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Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey guide: How to recruit new clan members by curing conditions

It’s all about body language

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey behaviors and body language, conditions, and cures Panache Digital Games/Private Division via Polygon
Jeffrey Parkin (he/him) has been writing video game guides for Polygon for almost seven years. He has learned to love just about every genre of game that exists.

In Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, you have to care for the other (adult) members of your clan, and figure out how to help any strangers you want to recruit into it.

Recruiting new clan members and keeping your current ones alive are crucial to the game. You need members to make babies, and you need babies to continue your lineage.

But life is hard for an early hominid, and there’s always something they need. Sometimes it’s obvious, like if they’re actively bleeding out. Other times, it harder to spot, like if they’re thirsty or hungry.

Below, we’ll talk about some of the conditions you’ll encounter and how to help out those hominids.

How to read body language

If a hominid is a member of your clan, you can analyze them and see icons for any conditions. But you won’t get icons for everything, and you won’t be able to see conditions for strangers. For that, you’ll need to learn to read clues from their body language, like in the video above.

Below, you’ll find a list of behaviors, their associated conditions, and their cures.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey behaviors, conditions, and cures

Behavior Condition Cure
Behavior Condition Cure
Bleeding Bleeding Kapok fiber or horsetail paste
Holding arm Broken bone Horsetail
Hand to head Thirsty Cracked coco
Stomach growling, hand to throat Hungry Any food
Looking over shoulders Scared Approach and reassure

Pause periodically around your clan members to see if they do any of the things listed above. Watch any strangers you meet and see what they need. The hominid you’re currently controlling will also display these behaviors while you’re standing still.

Curing conditions

To cure a stranger’s condition, all you have to do is find the cure and hand it to them. If they’re thirsty, hand them a cracked coco (they won’t crack it themselves, so grab a rock and crack it open for them), or if they have a broken bone, hand them some horsetail.

To cure your own conditions, you just have to eat or apply the correct item. If you’re bleeding, rub on some kapok fiber or some ground (with a granite grinder) horsetail paste. If you’re hungry, eat something.

Curing other members of your clan is a little trickier. Unless you have the appropriate neurons unlocked along the communication (clan) branch, they won’t cure their own conditions even if you hand them what they need. And if their hands are full, they might not eat or drink on their own even if they see you do it. (If you’re not on an expedition and everyone is just wandering around your clan’s settlement, they tend to take care of themselves.)

To attend to your clan’s conditions, you’ll have to take control of them and do it yourself.

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