Maybe my biggest gripe about the game is...

[gunnergoz]

...ithe fact that I'm never settled upon just who I am, and who my people are. It is like attending a costume party where everyone changes disguises every 15 minutes: "I'm sorry - who are you again, and who are you supposed to be?"
I love many aspects of the game but this part just somehow does not click for me. I get that it is intrinsic to the game and an essential part of the design, but somehow, the way they pulled it off leaves me feeling uninvolved and detached from what is happening to my people. My game character never settles down to one personality, nor do the character of my people ever gel in my mind.
I appreciate the theory behind the game, but just find the episodic changes to be jarring. What's more, the character of the people I lead is never truly revealed to me. They have no actual personality other than the transitory nature of different combat units.
Maybe my gripe does not make sense to many out there, but one thing I like is getting into a character for the duration of a game, while leading a people with certain traits, and this game just blows that to pieces.
(On one level, I do get that historically, people and cultures came and went over the earth in waves of invasions, retreats, annihilations and rebirths. Today's global cultures are indeed a mishmash of old and new. The game captures that mechanic well, but somehow fails to invest me emotionally as the player in the process, and I think that is my disappointment with it.)
Mind you, I'm not abandoning the game, still play it and enjoy passing time with it, but never quite feel invested in my side. The only thing that I get invested in is my different cities and outposts and it is their development that keeps me motivated to press on. Maybe that is the point of the game but somehow, I retain a sensation that something is missing from Humankind that could pull it all together - for me at least.
Babbling Geezer Mode/ off

 

[Haig]

This 100%.

Even though the cultural changing was supposed to make the nations unique, they become this blob without identity. In Civ I feel I'm more "rooting for the team" and cultivating an empire that has it's strenghts and weaknesses, here it's just a buffet with bonuses (in a game that already has waaaay too much bonuses everywhere). The cultural change doesn't show enough on the map imho, sometimes the changing music is only thing that reminds of the culture.

Also makes the AI empires feel bland, I would like to have nemesises and best allies, the AI personans aren't that distinct in my opinion and it feels dumb how the cultures change so abrubtly. Not helped by the cheap-ish looking avatars. Of course they probably don't have the Firaxis budget when it comes to that.

I'm also still playing the game but who knows what replayability it has.

 

[PSG]

Replayability is key because I can't play Civ 6 anymore. I tried, but Tundra Khmer ruined things and I was already burned out. I hope I can get a year out of this game.

 

[Siptah]

I can really recommend to play against persons that you "know" to give more identity to the other empires, it's also quite fun and surprising if they decide to change around their traits... The traits and settings can also make all the difference gameplay-wise.

I feel a lot of the missing identification that some people have has to do with presentation (don't refer to the neighbors by culture) and wording. And I hope that will change rather soon. For me personally, it's a non issue as I see it as a civilization builder with an incredible amount of freedom how this civilization should look and what it excels at. And for me, playing for around 2 months now, replayability is quite high. But of course that's all very subjective.

 

[gunnergoz]

I can really recommend to play against persons that you "know" to give more identity to the other empires, it's also quite fun and surprising if they decide to change around their traits... The traits and settings can also make all the difference gameplay-wise.

I feel a lot of the missing identification that some people have has to do with presentation (don't refer to the neighbors by culture) and wording. And I hope that will change rather soon. For me personally, it's a non issue as I see it as a civilization builder with an incredible amount of freedom how this civilization should look and what it excels at. And for me, playing for around 2 months now, replayability is quite high. But of course that's all very subjective.

True, and I can see the value in what you say, but for those of us who only play solo against the AI and never go MP, it is a bit different.

 

[Siptah]

True, and I can see the value in what you say, but for those of us who only play solo against the AI and never go MP, it is a bit different.

I meant "persons" that you "know" played by the AI, as in against Victoria, Narcisse, Eagle Pursuit, AntSou or me, for example. You can make an account at Amplitude's forums (Games2Gether) and then upload your avatar while getting ours.

 

[gunnergoz]

Oh, right, thanks, I've already done that and picked up five of them from the site. Some are in my present game, in fact!

 

[Krajzen]

It's hilarious how for all this time, right until the release, I have been utterly convinced that leaderless switching cultures system will be clearly better than civ's system, and it took me like an hour into the game to realize I am not sure of this in practice. What annoys me the most is how I have immediately switched in my brain from finding great historical argumentation for rotation to finding equally great argumentation against it. I'm wondering if some of the devs didn't have a feeling 'goddamn this looked better on paper than in practice".

I don't think you can change much with it, at this point, only make it much clearer in the UI in some way. Maybe we can get a mod that would limit switching to k i n d a historical choices, but I'm not sure how moddable the game will be.

 

[gunnergoz]

Since we bought into this concept with our purchase of Humankind, I guess we now have to find a way to like what we have to work with in the game's existing toolbox. So far, what redeems the game in my mind is the part where we grow cities and outposts. I think if we can enhance how we identify with our creations on the map, it will lessen the disconnect we feel with the cultures we pick up and shed routinely like last year's fashions. I'm not sure how to go about this, though giving the cities and outposts familiar names might help. For instance, my heritage is Italian, so perhaps I could start by naming cities after Italian ones. Oops, turns out there's an Italian culture in the game that already does that. Inconvenient, but not an insuperable obstacle. I can just re-name their cities if they duplicate ones I've already created.
The point is to make my play and my identity in the game, my own. I may still be at a weird costume party where everyone changes costumes every few minutes, but perhaps I can establish the setting where the party occurs, so that it suits my own character and preferences. That kind of thing.
I hope the developers see the intrinsic weakness in the game's basic mechanism and figure out some way to repair it, lest the game's replayability suffer and we all lose as sales decline. I still want to see DLC's and expansions for this otherwise cool game.

 

[Don Andre]

Maybe HK should have just dropped the nation choices altogether and allow you to name your nation providing only the possibility for different routes (e.g. aesthetic focus, science focus, agricultural focus, etc.) with eras omitting all the special units and buildings. The national descriptions may just overshadow that you're essentially building a very aesthetic-oriented nation through many eras. I would also allow multiple players choosing same route per era.
At the end of such a route you may match your path to those of various nations to identify which ones resembled it most closely, e.g. you go aesthetic to industrial to scientific (maybe even include ideology) and it would closely link to e.g. japanese. If you're all industrial with a late change towards economic, maybe that's the UK. All industrial maybe Germany, etc.
I think that would make it quite interesting to follow your own path and then at the end (maybe also during) see what nation would be considered most related to your path instead of choosing the nation first and thus clouding the path that you're taking.

 

[fortydayweekend]

From an immersion point of view I like that the other cultures change during the game. It makes a lot more sense to have Huns and Franks and Australians in their proper Era, than somehow being an unbroken empire over millenia.

From the player's point of view the immersion is a bit weird, but the game play makes up for that. Previous culture choices affect your future choices, there are synergies etc that make it an interesting choice. Some balance is needed - some of the later cultures especially - but the system is good.

The only problem I have is that they use the culture name in notifications/tool tips etc when they should really use the AI persona name. They have these fleshed out characters who are somehow leading their people over the entire game, they hold grudges etc, it's Gilgamesh who is attacking me, not the Ghanaians.

The map should still be the culture names - the colors make it easy. But anything with words should be the AI name, or even better both - "Gilgamesh of the Ghanaians".

City names should absolutely change with culture, there's not enough cities for that to get confusing and it would massively add to the immersion.

 

[Cuneiform]

I kind of like the concept of the game, but I totally understand the point you're making. However given enough development time there's a few things that could help mitigate the "identity crisis".

For example if we had a significant amount of new cultures via DLC, you could have a special game mode where each player is basically locked into an upgrade path that involved a certain part of the world or continent. So if you picked the Nubians as your first culture, for all the other Eras you would only have cultures from Africa to choose from. And yes I realise that even Africa whithin itself is quite a diverse continent, but this would at least give you a more over arching consistent theme to the Era progression.

I suppose the other option would be to have some sort of "Iron man" mode whereby you and the AI have all 60 Cultures available to choose from at the beginning, but whichever one you pick you have to stick with that choice for the entire game. Each culture would then have its own "Golden Age" when you eventually reach the Era that switches on their unique abilities.

 

[TreVor_ish]

Because this game tries to tell the story of civilizations that live through thousands of years, and does that within a mere hours (cultural changes happen within minutes), with addition to lack of naming wrapper - that's the reason some might feel a little disjointed with them. Cultures rise and fall pretty quickly with only some avatar as a leader. Some more voice lines could also help (there is a German and French persona which is nice). Being able to mod in Your own voice lines and add to a persona for everyone's collection - that would be something. (with addition to modding avatars look)

My biggest gripe is the amount of bugs I encountered. Memory leaks (audio can stutter) and memory overflows (32bit signed int) are the biggest annoyances (with some math errors).
I was bashing NFP for amount of bugs, but Humankind is unfortunately much worse in this regard. The fact that patch beta is already up and Amplitude is in active conversation with everyone does keep my hopes up.

Some balancing is also necessary - those yields late game. (cut some FIMS shall we)

Overall gameplay is great and I do look forward for more. (music is absolutely amazing)

 

[Aristos]

So RFC is one of the greatest civ mods of all times, but now that the new game basically incorporates that same philosophy into its design it suddenly is not good?

Naahhh...

 

[Riker13]

I think maybe the bonuses for choosing your current Civilization again at the end of each era should be stronger if you want to go that way.

 

[gunnergoz]

So RFC is one of the greatest civ mods of all times, but now that the new game basically incorporates that same philosophy into its design it suddenly is not good?

Naahhh...

Where did I mention either Civ or RFC? Specious argument if ever there was one.
I'm just speaking of one aspect of Humankind that sticks in my craw. And, as I said, there probably are ways to mitigate its effects.

 

[Lightjolly]

I feel a few people miss the point of the mechanic.

To me the point of the changing cultures, thats the keyword here, is that you're building up your civilization and its bonuses from scratch. You're not starting with a premade civilization with all their bonuses set out for you, you're creating one through the ages and when you reach contemporary age you can look back at how far you've come and how you ended up creating your own civilization. You can call it your own, because YOU determined how it would be shaped, not the devs.

Also im a fan of the uncertainty , theres something about my peaceful aesthete neigbours suddenly changing to a warmongering culture, forcing you to adapt, that I find entertaining. Unlike the usual style where you know right from the start hes going to play for conquest

I understand where you're coming from, the sudden swap can make it feel like you cant settle in a certain culture, but you have to look at the overall bigger picture. Playing on slower speeds should allow you more time to savour each era

They do need to work on the naming of each civilization though so we can remember whos whos

 

[Ornen]

So RFC is one of the greatest civ mods of all times, but now that the new game basically incorporates that same philosophy into its design it suddenly is not good?

Naahhh...

Rhye's and Fall is not about arbitrarily changing cultures, it's about different empires having their time in the sun until breakaway nations rise up and overtake them.

If anything, Humankind would be much stronger if it incorporated more of RFC's ideas. Keeping the same culture in HK is almost universally a bad move – what if instead it gave you serious bonuses, but guaranteed a growing level of instability that would fracture your civ at the end of the era? What if independents could progress into new civs as the game progressed? What if instability caused breakaway civs to spawn off your own empire? I'd love to see HK work in these kinds of ideas in the future.

 

[PSG]

My biggest gripe is the barbarians producing chariots before you can and then essentially killing your game early.

 

[Victoria]

My biggest gripe is the barbarians producing chariots before you can and then essentially killing your game early.

… so you haven’t met the huns then?