I finally played a bit of Humankind and could compare ages / culture switch mechanics

[Siptah]

If they behaved differently, I didn't notice, but just as big a problem is they didn't look different. Sure, there were minor cosmetic differences, but they all looked very bland. (Worth adding that I'm not face blind, but I do have difficulty recognizing faces sometimes--I'm much quicker at identifying people by their mannerisms.)

Honestly, I’d say they behave much more diverse than in civ VI (and what I would expect from VII). The difference between someone with the rusher trait and someone with the pacifist trait, for example, is of a scale unknown in civ games. But, unless you make a pool of good leaders against which you play several games, this might indeed be harder to notice. In the end, having 18 leaders at start might beat having 50k in that regard.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Lack of distictive Civ design. The sheer number of civs required for the number of ages they had resulted in designs that weren't particularly memorable to me, and primarily just seemed as generic bonuses (do I want the culture bonus or the prod bonus). I worry about this for Civ 7 as well, but tbd.

One thing I am pretty confident about with FXS is that they have a very good track record regarding bonus designs and numerical balances. Amplitude has already suffered from too heavy snowballing in the late game since the EL years, and HMK amplified this issue by stacking more bonuses every time you change a culture - and you change that five times in one game. This means the cultures need to have very generic bonuses, and even with generic bonuses, the numbers get out of hand very easily.

A small example. In Civ 6, the earliest offensive unit is the Warrior, which costs 40 production. The late-game offensive unit is the Tank (excluding GDR), which costs 480 production. This is a 12-time increase. Civ 5 has similar numbers.
In HMK, the earliest offensive unit is the Archer, which cost 90 industry. The late-game offensive unit is the Main Battle Tank, which costs......14805 industry. That is a 165-times increase. The game basically expects a 165-fold increase in your production capacity.

Indeed, in late-game HMK, it is very common to have a city with 10k production to build districts that cost 25-30k while only providing about 200 yields. Stacking generic bonuses constantly = numbers get out of hand in the late game = not many meaningful choices in the late game.

Meanwhile, with FXS's track record, the age transition "soft-restart" mechanics, and the number we saw, the balance of Civ 7 won't be this off, and the numerical choices should be more interesting.

 

[Siptah]

But the dopamine rush when you place down a research quarter with +500 science per turn is real until you realize how much it actually makes a difference

 

[Fummy]

Humankind wasn't going for the same goals as Civ 7 though. Who says they wanted crises to reduce snowballing?

 

[sTAPler27]

1. Simultaneous age switch allows changing game rules to better reflect different periods of history

Maybe on a continental scale but why should the Mayan empire collapse just because the Romans, whom they've never even met, are collapsing.

 

[sTAPler27]

I believe in Civ the symbols (flags) will change

Nope, you picked it at the begining of the game along with the color. Which could cause some confusion because each culture came with its own icon but it wasn't tied to the culture itself and could be used independent of one another.

 

[sTAPler27]

Also, Humankind lacked the "layering" they've achieved in Civ7. So often your culture choices in HK never felt meaningful because you rarely founded cities after the early ages as the price of new cities skyrocketed.

I mean you kept the abilities and unique buildings and units (until you upgraded them). That being said the artstyle made the visualization difficult because you couldn't zoom out in full detail and the buildings themselves were quite small.

 

[sTAPler27]

Also, the fact that your opponents aren't known historical personas, make it difficult to keep track who are your opponents and that kills the immersion.

I mean most of them are they just all lack any personality which is civs strong suit. When you meet an AI in a civ playthrough they feel like a character with a personality, when you meet a new opponent in Humankind regardless of what their name or personality is like they feel like an extension of the UI because the fact they utilize the same handful of voicelines and voice actors you can't really gauge the way they're going to play without constantly checking their AI presets which I never care to do because it feels like they all act the same.

 

[sTAPler27]

Also, those leaders don't address you directly, they stand off to the side in the diplomacy screen. I'm concerned about Civ 7 taking this same approach. It doesn't create the same feel as the full screen, enemy leader-in-your-face visuals of earlier Civ games.

At the very least Civs will have custom animations, lines and voice actors. Can't say the same for Humankind's leaders.