Maybe my biggest gripe about the game is...
- Thread starter gunnergoz
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BuchiTaton
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I think this problem have some different factors that could be resolved on their own way:
- Match's lenght, the more time/turns you have for each era the easier is to immerse on the world you are playing with.
- Interfase, the information about the current and previous culture of each player should be more obvious and easier to check any moment.
- Leader design, here is something funny for me. Many people (like me) disliked the more cartoon design of leaders on CIV6, but ironically I think Humankind need something like that. The reason for this is that CIV dont really need that exagerated characters when almost all their civs have just one (and few two) leaders and the civs as a whole is designed around it. On the other case, Humankind with so many options to personalize the leaders we end with a exponetial amount of "looks kind the same" characters.
Maybe Humankind could have work better with a set of archetypical characters with exagerated designs for example: a chobby good-natured, a wise old man, an annoying brat, disciplined warrior,etc. These characters with strong personalities could be recognized despite the clothes from the culture they could be using at the moment. Maybe even they could have a male and female version of each character and alternative racial features, but basically they would be pretty easy to recognize.
- The player itself, from what some people said (not just from here) seems like they feel Humankind's cultural change design is non-immersive because we can have very unrelated sequences like olmecs>mauryans>franks>koreans>british>turks. Despite that they think a historical sequence is acceptable, why? Because ironically they know history but dont understand history!
What I mean, is that on Humankind like on CIV you usually dont play on a real world map where Olmecs are on a different contient while Assyrians and Babylonians are next each other, if the world had Incas next to others civs using horses and iron for centuries they dont have reasons to be their historical real version, or that UK will not be if there are no celtic Britons, latin Romans and germanic Anglosaxons around temperate island on the margin of the know world. Geography have a masive weight on history, so why should I must be restricted to historical sequences when my people are not on the setting of their real counterpart?
- Match's lenght, the more time/turns you have for each era the easier is to immerse on the world you are playing with.
- Interfase, the information about the current and previous culture of each player should be more obvious and easier to check any moment.
- Leader design, here is something funny for me. Many people (like me) disliked the more cartoon design of leaders on CIV6, but ironically I think Humankind need something like that. The reason for this is that CIV dont really need that exagerated characters when almost all their civs have just one (and few two) leaders and the civs as a whole is designed around it. On the other case, Humankind with so many options to personalize the leaders we end with a exponetial amount of "looks kind the same" characters.
Maybe Humankind could have work better with a set of archetypical characters with exagerated designs for example: a chobby good-natured, a wise old man, an annoying brat, disciplined warrior,etc. These characters with strong personalities could be recognized despite the clothes from the culture they could be using at the moment. Maybe even they could have a male and female version of each character and alternative racial features, but basically they would be pretty easy to recognize.
- The player itself, from what some people said (not just from here) seems like they feel Humankind's cultural change design is non-immersive because we can have very unrelated sequences like olmecs>mauryans>franks>koreans>british>turks. Despite that they think a historical sequence is acceptable, why? Because ironically they know history but dont understand history!
What I mean, is that on Humankind like on CIV you usually dont play on a real world map where Olmecs are on a different contient while Assyrians and Babylonians are next each other, if the world had Incas next to others civs using horses and iron for centuries they dont have reasons to be their historical real version, or that UK will not be if there are no celtic Britons, latin Romans and germanic Anglosaxons around temperate island on the margin of the know world. Geography have a masive weight on history, so why should I must be restricted to historical sequences when my people are not on the setting of their real counterpart?
fortydayweekend
Warlord
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- Nov 20, 2009
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I've beaten Ferocious AI Immortals but it was definitely tough, waited for then on a long cliff top with Mayan javelins, with a one tile gap they had to come uphill to get to me, so I could cycle through swordsmen. I didn't counterattack until Ferocious had ended.
In my last game I had it myself and yeah.. Huns aren't so scary when you can kill them with swords.
It's a very powerful bonus that can win a war but the randomness of the game is part of the charm. Maybe 10 turns is a bit long though, could be shorter and happen more often.
In my last game I had it myself and yeah.. Huns aren't so scary when you can kill them with swords.
It's a very powerful bonus that can win a war but the randomness of the game is part of the charm. Maybe 10 turns is a bit long though, could be shorter and happen more often.
fortydayweekend
Warlord
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On Huns, it seems like the Mycenaeans often pick Huns (is that just me?) If so, you could make sure to keep them onside.
In general though if you're worried about a Hun invasion, be super nice to everyone in Ancient! Renounce every grievance you get and agree to all the treaties they ask for, dont claim on their borders (city borders - territory borders are ok) and don't attack or ransack. It's not hard to keep them happy and hopefully looking at other targets. Once everyone starts going into Classical you can reassess - who is a threat, who has good resources with safe trade routes, who looks like an easy target, who am I generating grievances against etc etc.
In general though if you're worried about a Hun invasion, be super nice to everyone in Ancient! Renounce every grievance you get and agree to all the treaties they ask for, dont claim on their borders (city borders - territory borders are ok) and don't attack or ransack. It's not hard to keep them happy and hopefully looking at other targets. Once everyone starts going into Classical you can reassess - who is a threat, who has good resources with safe trade routes, who looks like an easy target, who am I generating grievances against etc etc.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
In my current game I’m doing an Elephant line. Autoexplore feature in Neolithic allowed me to get Harappans on Civilization, and after that I was picking cultures with ranged Elephant units: Mauryans->Khmer->Mughals->Siamese. Very natural transition. And cannons on elephants are a blastIt will be interesting to replace them with Siamese machine guns.
The last transition will be a bit of a problem though, no more elephants. Probably Soviets will fit best here thematically, with their tank unit. Kinda elephant of steel. . .
In fact, one of the nicknames for the early-war Soviet heavy tank, the KV-1 during the winter of 1941 - 42 was "White Mammoth" because of its size compared to everything else around at the time and its white paint winter camouflage.
The first couple of times I ran into Instant Chariots - when no Major Faction had even started exploiting Copper yet and nobody had both the Copper and Horses required to build their own Chariots - I was not a happy camper either. Two things turned me around:
1. Once you realize that within about 15 - 20 turns of entering the Ancient Age Minor Factions will start appearing, and about half of them will be Violent and therefore Extremely Dangerous, make sure you have a small pile of either Influence or Money available when they do. As soon as they 'upgrade' from Redoubt/Camp into a City, start bribing them. It doesn't take much, and once you get started, their positive opinion of you keeps right on building, specially if you haven't wasted any Influence on early Civics which oppose their affinities. It only takes about 10 points of positive attitude to keep them from attacking you, which usually means staying away from them for no more than 2 - 3 turns.
2. Historically (and sure Boris is bound to bring That up sooner or later) the spoked wheel chariot was invented by the "Minor Factions/Barbarians". The first of them show up as grave goods in the Sintashta Culture on the steppes north of the Caspian Sea around 2100 - 2000 BCE. None of the states in the Middle East/Mesopotamia start using them until around 1500 BCE and then the first are the Mitanni - whose aristocracy seems to have spoken an Old Indic language which may have been related to that of the Sintashtans. Don't bet on that being a coincidence! The spoked wheel chariot doesn't show up in China until around 1200 BCE, in the Shang Dynasty, and it obviously was a technology 'borrowed' (real early Osmosis?) from the steppe nomads, because there is no evidence for wheels of any kind in China, spoked or solid, before the chariot shows up as a full-fledged mature technology.
So, the game gets it right, and even gives you a Remedy for the Chariot Problem: bribe the little varmints until, eventually, you reach 100% approval with them and can Assimilate them, and with any luck they will come bringing a few Chariots for your own army . . .
fortydayweekend
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The tribes don't seem very aggressive, they don't often ransack outposts and they don't seem to press home attacks against retreating troops. I seem to be able to just ignore them, ransack their lairs, and take their city as soon as I have good troops. Was kinda hoping they would make them more dangerous!
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
I have lost at least a half-dozen units (mostly scouts, archers and warriors by themselves) to Minor Factions in various games - they retreat from one little army, and run into another little army that wipes them out. Since they seem to deploy mostly as two-unit task forces (most often I'e seen 2 Chariots, 2 Archers, 2 Spearmen, or 1 of each in various combinations, at least in the Ancient Age) a single Minor faction can have 4 - 5 of these roaming the map, which means they can 'tag team' your scouts pretty easily.
KrikkitTwo
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I think
1. emphasizing the “player” you are interacting with (stays constant)
2. emphasizing previous cultures (ie the Chinese-German empire). list the current and just previous culture in the name
Would help. also including more feel from the civics…take monarchy and you are a kingdom not an empire, one-party state and you are a “people’s republic”, etc.
1. emphasizing the “player” you are interacting with (stays constant)
2. emphasizing previous cultures (ie the Chinese-German empire). list the current and just previous culture in the name
Would help. also including more feel from the civics…take monarchy and you are a kingdom not an empire, one-party state and you are a “people’s republic”, etc.
That's a cool idea. A problem is that AIs often stagnate at "small council."
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
This would make sense, because it's been my experience, at least in the last pre-release tst games, that having a small army seemed to encourage the Major Factions to get aggressive, and when I had technologically advanced or large size military forces they would gripe a lot but not declare war.
"Type of government" in the game so far is almost invisible - at least, I'e never had it affect how I play a Faction or an Age. It would be really nice to have that change and give Government Type its importance in Diplomacy, Influence, and even Economics and Production.
Right now, "Government Types" only show up as Civics Choices and implied as some of the Civics Axis: Liberty - Authority being pretty obvious, but Collectivism - Individualism and Tradition - Progress both have obvious 'political' implications.
By my count (and I'm not sure this is complete with the latest Post-Release Download) the following Civics are directly related to Government Types:
Those in italics are, I consider, actual Government Types.
Leadership
Choices: Small Council - Autarch
Legitimacy
Choices: Customary Laws - Codified Laws (this should definitely modify any future Government Choice)'
Citizenship
Choices: Universal Citizenship - Select Citizenship (this in a nutshell is the difference between Rome and most other Ancient/Classical/Medieval/Early Modern 'Empires')
Political Influence:
Choices: Aristocracy - Monarchy
Aristocracy Evolution:
Choices: Oligarchy - Democratic Republic
Monarchy Power:
Choices: Absolute Monarchy - Constitutional Monarchy
Political Entitlement:
Choices: Aristocracy - Republic ('Aristocracy' shows up twice in Choices which is why I'm not certain it still applies)
Republic Evolution:
Choices: One-Party State - Democratic Republic
That gives, at the moment, 11 Government Types in the game plus at least 4 specifically government modifiers. There are other choices related to application of Laws (Judicial Control, Political Control) or the relationship between government and the economy (Industrial Production, Working Conditions) that should also modify Government choices and how they are applied.
In other words, the framework is there already for a much more robust and Influential system of Government modeling in the game, in which the type of Government and the way it is implemented make a major difference in your diplomatic relationships with other Factions (Minor AND Major) and the Influence you project on them and receive in return, and the types of Cultural control, Colony control, and Economy you can build. Some choices that are now relatively 'free' should be much more difficult under certain governments, and others should be almost automatic under other government types.
fortydayweekend
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Some dependencies between civics would be good too, paths opening up or closing based on previous choices
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I do not think that is their intent. You can go back and change your civics which changes your personality and the benefits you get.
You really want to befriend Russia? Change your civics to match theirs. Same as changing your government, or are you saying once a conservative always? Some sort of immortal leader?
fortydayweekend
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Looking at the wiki now I see there are dependencies already! Autarch lets you choose Monarchy or Aristocracy... small council lets you choose Aristocracy or Republic.. and those then have further choices.
I don't have the game open, does a anyone know what happens if you change your small council/autarch choice? Do you get to keep the subsequent civics and do the new civics open up?
I definitely think there should be more reason to change civics during the course of the game, befriending others is good, and also to complement whatever your focus is at that stage. If there are new paths that open up by changing old civics but that let you keep legacy bonuses from old paths then that's pretty cool.
KrikkitTwo
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You can’t change an old choice unless you deselect the new one
Lightjolly
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Leucarum
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Well. I decided to give Humankind a fair shot after trying the opendev and not being enamoured.
I am finding humankind frustrating as there are a lot of really, really good ideas in there. The neolithic era in particular stands out as a fun "push your luck" challenge of how far will you go before you risk losing the civ you want. The era stars system is a nice way to give different strategies breathing room. And customizing your civ over time in their style is a great idea. I also like how the civics tie in to civ customizations. Almost reminds me of a more RP-style alpha centauri system. I hope firaxis are paying attention!
But there are a few contenders for biggest gripe.
The cities should be a good tile placement puzzle, but there don't seem to be enough factors to consider when placing quarters. It seems like the buildings are what changes how things interact with terrain which is an odd choice when you have already implemented a big quarter system and tried to make it a pronounced part of the game. It also makes everything less intuitive. I might have been expecting more here than was delivered as the way the game is presented this could have easily been the civ-city game.
I am underwhelmed by the graphics - not so much the quality, but the UX aspects. It is not easy to read several important things at a glance, making the game harder to play than it needs to be. The bulk of your districts changing style makes it a regular readjustment to see what has been placed where, while your emblematic quarters don't stand out anything like enough on the map to know where they went at a glance. It doesn't stand up to the devs promise of being able to see the evolution of your civ on the map. Terrain elevation is not especially easy to read sometimes, particularly spotting available paths when units are obscuring some elements, and this makes combat in particular less intuitive. People complained about civ6's cartoony graphics but damn did they help with these problems (except hills being harder to spot).
By restricting combat to a small portion of the map, they constrain your available maneuvering options and I don't really see what benefits are gained from squeezing it into a single turn.
The constant culture shifts from neighbours are very jarring. I see that a few people have suggested that they should have just let you customize a single civ and while that would have lost the game its gimmick, it would have made the game simpler to follow.
The pacing of the game also feels all over the place to me with some parts way too slow and others way too fast. But that is a much more subjective criticism.
That sounded overly negative, but the game genuinely does have a lot of great ideas, many of which are implemented well. But to me the problems with humankind seem to affect pretty fundamental game systems/choices, which leaves less scope to expect refinements. I think this is a game I will play through a few more times, because it does merit that... But I suspect its innovations will be better implemented by other games down the line.
I am finding humankind frustrating as there are a lot of really, really good ideas in there. The neolithic era in particular stands out as a fun "push your luck" challenge of how far will you go before you risk losing the civ you want. The era stars system is a nice way to give different strategies breathing room. And customizing your civ over time in their style is a great idea. I also like how the civics tie in to civ customizations. Almost reminds me of a more RP-style alpha centauri system. I hope firaxis are paying attention!
But there are a few contenders for biggest gripe.
The cities should be a good tile placement puzzle, but there don't seem to be enough factors to consider when placing quarters. It seems like the buildings are what changes how things interact with terrain which is an odd choice when you have already implemented a big quarter system and tried to make it a pronounced part of the game. It also makes everything less intuitive. I might have been expecting more here than was delivered as the way the game is presented this could have easily been the civ-city game.
I am underwhelmed by the graphics - not so much the quality, but the UX aspects. It is not easy to read several important things at a glance, making the game harder to play than it needs to be. The bulk of your districts changing style makes it a regular readjustment to see what has been placed where, while your emblematic quarters don't stand out anything like enough on the map to know where they went at a glance. It doesn't stand up to the devs promise of being able to see the evolution of your civ on the map. Terrain elevation is not especially easy to read sometimes, particularly spotting available paths when units are obscuring some elements, and this makes combat in particular less intuitive. People complained about civ6's cartoony graphics but damn did they help with these problems (except hills being harder to spot).
By restricting combat to a small portion of the map, they constrain your available maneuvering options and I don't really see what benefits are gained from squeezing it into a single turn.
The constant culture shifts from neighbours are very jarring. I see that a few people have suggested that they should have just let you customize a single civ and while that would have lost the game its gimmick, it would have made the game simpler to follow.
The pacing of the game also feels all over the place to me with some parts way too slow and others way too fast. But that is a much more subjective criticism.
That sounded overly negative, but the game genuinely does have a lot of great ideas, many of which are implemented well. But to me the problems with humankind seem to affect pretty fundamental game systems/choices, which leaves less scope to expect refinements. I think this is a game I will play through a few more times, because it does merit that... But I suspect its innovations will be better implemented by other games down the line.
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