Should I get this game on release day?

[Elhoim]

I was referring to KayAU's question if a resource is on the other side of the border from a city that buts the border can that city claim it. In the open devs I played you couldn't reassign tiles to cities in neighbouring regions.

Ah, yes, that's right. I got confused since at some point you couldn't detach regions and it was added later.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Ah, yes, that's right. I got confused since at some point you couldn't detach regions and it was added later.

To clarify for everyone: Everything is done by Region, not individual tiles. So you cannot get access to a tile and its Resource without getting the entire Region, but you can attach, detach, re-attach, or merge Regions, Outposts, and Cities.

And, yeah, in my Perfect 4X Game I would definitely want a less 'granular' ability to move the borders of regions around by individual tiles - either because of Influence, Stability, Diplomacy, Money or some other means. There's plenty of historical precedents for moving a border to get access to a desired Resource, or river-defining border, or desirable geographic feature.

Maybe if everybod gets together and suggests it for a Humankind DLC . . .

 

[KayAU]

After reading the replies here and checking out a couple of streams, I went ahead and bought the game last night. My two biggest concerns, regions and the poor tactical battle system from EL, both seem to have been at least mitigated, and there are other aspects of the game which seem rather intriguing to me. I'm looking forward to figuring out exploration, city development and cultural development, as it all looks rather nice. I also like that there are some role-playing aspects.

 

[Taefin]

Awesome, glad we’ll have you in the conversation at release!

 

[KayAU]

So, I've had some time with Humankind now, and though I would share my first impressions.

First off, I think I'm going to get along well with this game. As I mentioned, Endless Legend didn't really work for me, and at the moment has just 65,1 hours of logged playtime in Steam. By comparison, I have hundreds of hours in Fallen Enchantress, and thousands in both Civ 5 and Civ 6. With Humankind, I can already tell I'm going to get a lot more out of it. I am currently approaching the midgame for the first time, and I am already thinking about the things I want to do in the next game.

The good

• The map seems very organic and is both interesting and beautiful to look at
• Neolithic era start is a great idea
• Picking your cultures as the game progresses is enjoyable
• City development is enjoyable. I can tell it is based on EL, but it appears to be significantly improved.
• The UI is quite slick, and I have not really had any issues finding the information I need
• Claiming wonders through culture and building them cooperatively between cities seems like a significant improvement over Civ
• Tactical battles and armies are pretty good. Better than in EL, but maybe not as good as in some other games with army systems.
• I really like the way diplomacy works.
• I enjoy the many narrative touches, such as the events, the diplomacy screen chatter, and yes, the narrator

The bad

• I still don't think pre-defined regions are great. It is a lot more tolerable than in EL, but I think there are better ways to manage city density.
• Unit move speeds are painfully slow, and there doesn't seem to be a "quick movement" UI option
• Scrolling the map using the keyboard is also way, way too slow
• The UI does have room for improvement, such as the way too large unit details window
• It is a bit weird when I enter a new era, and everybody is suddenly somebody else. Perhaps more could be done to give each empire a clear identity, such as emphasizing the leader avatar more.

Overall, I have enjoyed my time with the game so far. It is not perfect by any means, but it feels like a breath of fresh air.

 

[Victoria]

Unit move speeds are painfully slow

You are halfway through, the roads start getting better and you whizz along. Sea travel is also painful and getting to continents unfound is a risky business… but then we get coal and life is faster. Try a combat on highest difficulty when the opposition moves at least twice your speed.

I have found opening the combat screen in manual mode then swapping to auto resolve is great fun to watch.

 

[KayAU]

You are halfway through, the roads start getting better and you whizz along.

I'll update my post, as I think I was unclear...I am talking about the physical move speed on screen. I am fine with the rate of movement per turn.

 

[Siptah]

Hey @KayAU thanks for your post. It's good to hear that the recommendations did not turn out bad to you. It's interesting to see that you like the design but find some things in the presentation annoying (if I'm allowed to summarize it like that).

Regarding your last point: there is, imho, a problem with how the game makes you feel it is important to always know what culture everyone picks when it actually isn't for most of the game. Exceptions are when planning a war/fighting and someone picks a culture you wanted to pick, of course, then it is very important information. But otherwise, why is it important to know what culture your neighbors pick? Because they might trigger a migration? You can't prevent that anyway. Because you care which districts they build and which legacy they have? Eh... (a bit of hyperbole on my part, admittedly). I think the information that the game throws at you overemphasizes the culture choices compared to the more constant information, such as leader, symbols and color - which would allow more identification. Although color is present in notifications like "The celts now feel different about you" it still triggers me to think "who are the celts again?" before realizing it based on the color. It could just give you symbol, color, and leader name and it would be better imho. (and the notification should say something like "Midas (color, symbol) now feels angry about you" anyway and not "different").

 

[Elhoim]

I'll update my post, as I think I was unclear...I am talking about the physical move speed on screen. I am fine with the rate of movement per turn.

Yeah, it's quite slow. Something I tend to do is to set a unit to move and switch to another, since turn are simultaneous you don't have to wait for the animation to finish to move another unit.

 

[Victoria]

You can't prevent that anyway.

Sure, threaten them… did you know they steal your population even when at war!
I am starting to get a grip on aesthetics now and going Gaul to suck up everyone’s population before going Khmer then Ming seems a great fun thing to try, I just about took them this game and they are the pop boost the other 2 need. So thanks for accidentally tipping me on that.

 

[Siptah]

Sure, threaten them… did you know they steal your population even when at war!
I am starting to get a grip on aesthetics now and going Gaul to suck up everyone’s population before going Khmer then Ming seems a great fun thing to try, I just about took them this game and they are the pop boost the other 2 need. So thanks for accidentally tipping me on that.

So, since you are going so much into understanding influence: how do you feel that the aesthete stars are balanced? For me, they seem among the harder ones to get, especially later in the game.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Sure, threaten them… did you know they steal your population even when at war!
I am starting to get a grip on aesthetics now and going Gaul to suck up everyone’s population before going Khmer then Ming seems a great fun thing to try, I just about took them this game and they are the pop boost the other 2 need. So thanks for accidentally tipping me on that.

Just had a game where the neighboring Celts/Gauls were hoovering up my population in peace and war: very annoying!
On the other hand, I had a Science Lead and got to Medieval Franks while they were still Classical Celts so they were charging their Gaesetii into my Pikemen and Crossbowmen and getting run down by Frankish Miles, so in the end, all the population was mine.

I am definitely going to try some more Agrarian Faction Play, though: I haven't chosen them very much after the Ancient Age (where Harappans are a pretty popular pick amongst the AU factions) because Science, Money, or Production is generaly more important to my play style, but I can see I should give them a try . . .

 

[Siptah]

I am definitely going to try some more Agrarian Faction Play, though: I haven't chosen them very much after the Ancient Age (where Harappans are a pretty popular pick amongst the AU factions) because Science, Money, or Production is generaly more important to my play style, but I can see I should give them a try . . .

I tend to think that the era you go agrarian for the first time in each game is super fun and strong, no matter in when you decide to do so. Even if you do this late, with for example the Mexicans, the impact is immediately felt. And of course the earlier ones give a really good base. I tend to end up with too many pops though and lose them again ;-)

 

[Victoria]

how do you feel that the aesthete stars are balanced?

I think that build and war and agrarian are supposed to be easy to get
Aesthete much harder, harder than expansionist? .... so I am trying to learn how possible it is to get 3 stars... currently with the Ming I am on 2K per turn

hoovering up my population in peace and war

I played them once, great UD for pop also but never though to match them with the Baray of the Khmer!
Now an Aesthete gets cuture from population and the Tea house is an awesome thing also.... so just working on synergies

 

[Siptah]

I think that build and war and agrarian are supposed to be easy to get
Aesthete much harder, harder than expansionist? .... so I am trying to learn how possible it is to get 3 stars... currently with the Ming I am on 2K per turn

Expansionist requirements scale with map size, and so does how hard it is: ridiculously easy on tiny - almost impossible on huge

I played them once, great UD for pop also but never though to match them with the Baray of the Khmer!

I'm not sure the Baray is a good comparison, it's certainly OP.

 

[Victoria]

I'm not sure the Baray is a good comparison, it's certainly OP.

? what do you mean... it is +1 production per population

I am on large and about to get 3 stars, maybe earlier it hard

edit: certainly aesthete late game is easy, it is a different game, based around high pop and being over 90% happy, just went Ming into Austrohungarian… Ming UD bangs on loads of influence and AH bangs on stability. Over 3k influence a turn.
Basically if a city is not super stable your influence halves and pop happiness is about 90% of influence.
Now I have a better feel for it the early game should be better but I’ll have to try it.

 

[Taefin]

Try a combat on highest difficulty when the opposition moves at least twice your speed.

Ah is THAT what is happening? I haven’t had to chase anyone down yet in a battle but I do now generally assume ZOC is the only limit to AI movement. I have to say I am glad they gave the AI a nice combat strength buff (I am assuming) whereas before I’d look at an even numbers battlefield and begin thinking about how I’ll win with zero casualties or cut off the AI armies by blocking spawn points, now I am relying much more of defensive positions and waiting for the right moment to push an advantage. I think spawn camping damages your units now, though haven’t confirmed.

The most memorable battlefield was a nasty river valley in my current game on a narrow border (a third AI next door had closed borders to both of us). I thought, “Yes! The AI’s swordsmen will break like water in my hoplites across this river and up this hill. Nope! They just sat back and we stared each other down across the valley for the 6 game turn length of the battle. I tried attacking once and every hoplites ended with 10-40% health. And War Support was not on my side having declared an unjust war and losing 3 per turn. Took bringing in some elephants ballista to even the odds but then had a painful final assault against a city with longbows.

 

[KayAU]

It seems I'm headed for a very decisive victory in my first game. I don't know what difficulty the game is on, as I was kind of launched right into it without choosing (I think), but I'm guessing it must be a low one. Perhaps I was somewhat lucky with my culture choices too. Harappans gave me a solid base to build on, I then went Carthaginians, Khmer, Joseon, and that Early Modern era went by extremely quickly. I have about twice the amount of fame of the second civ, and I am allied to two others. I have never been to war, as everyone seems too scared to pick on me.

It's been a nice, gentle introduction to the game, but I'm going to have to increase the difficulty a bit next time.

 

[Elhoim]

Try a combat on highest difficulty when the opposition moves at least twice your speed.

Difficulty shouldn't change unit movement speed, AFAIK...

 

[AntSou]

It seems I'm headed for a very decisive victory in my first game. I don't know what difficulty the game is on, as I was kind of launched right into it without choosing (I think), but I'm guessing it must be a low one. Perhaps I was somewhat lucky with my culture choices too. Harappans gave me a solid base to build on, I then went Carthaginians, Khmer, Joseon, and that Early Modern era went by extremely quickly. I have about twice the amount of fame of the second civ, and I am allied to two others. I have never been to war, as everyone seems too scared to pick on me.

It's been a nice, gentle introduction to the game, but I'm going to have to increase the difficulty a bit next time.

It's probably Town difficulty if you chose the middle tutorial option, which is the one for people who have played 4x games but not Humankind (there were three options if you recall). The first playthrough is a "quick start" game with preset options it seems.

Metropolis will probably not feel like a sufficient increase in difficulty, as I've already done so.

I'm currently struggling at Empire difficulty. Pretty enjoyable so far.