My first experience, just a couple of hours after release

[stealth_nsk]

So, I had a chance to play some early game of Ara and some thoughts:

1. The core of the game, resource production, looks like micromanagement hell so far. I shiver at the thought how it should look like closer to end-game
2. Leaders seem to not having significant difference. I understand the idea of making them relevant at all ages, but with that I don't think they'll provide any unique experience
3. UI doesn't look great. For a game with that amount of micromanagement it needs some powerful management and reporting tools
4. I really like the concept of simultaneous turns with regions. It's a perfect base setup for a scifi game with star systems connected through some kind of hyperlines. For history game it's a bit of waste of map
5. I've heard a lot of praises for the alive world and how everybody moves on the map, but it doesn't come out than you actually play, you just interact with icons. I prefer Civ approach, where you see the graphic as you play, you don't need to stop and zoom to look at it

Maybe it's not the game for me, or maybe it needs some additional work to be done, but at the moment Humankind, in its current state, looks like a much better game than ARA. I'll give it more time to evolve.

EDIT: Or, maybe, I don't need to look at the game as I look at civ game and consider it more a tycoon-type game. Probably there's some fun I just didn't find yet.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

I'm over 50 turns into my first play through. I'm not about to form an opinion about this yet. I'm still getting the hang of it. This is not for people who don't like city builders or crafting. It's as if SimCity had a baby with Civ. There is quite a bit of resource management. Buildings and Goods require raw materials. I don't think this will be for everyone. It's a slow game.

 

[Thormodr]

Yes, the UI needs work and the different Civs need to be more unique, I agree.

Yes, I think the content creators and big gaming media were hyping this up as a Civ killer to generate hype and get clicks. Ara really is more of a 4X chimera. CivAnnoVictoriAra. It's not really Civ but for what it is, I see real potential.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'm over 50 turns into my first play through. I'm not about to form an opinion about this yet. I'm still getting the hang of it. This is not for people who don't like city builders or crafting. It's as if SimCity had a baby with Civ. There is quite a bit of resource management. Buildings and Goods require raw materials. I don't think this will be for everyone. It's a slow game.

Yes, the UI needs work and the different Civs need to be more unique, I agree.

Yes, I think the content creators and big gaming media were hyping this up as a Civ killer to generate hype and get clicks. Ara really is more of a 4X chimera. CivAnnoVictoriAra. It's not really Civ but for what it is, I see real potential.

Yes, that's why I've added the last part after "EDIT". It looks like my mistake was approaching the game as Civ competitor was a totally wrong take and I'm going to give it another chance. But truth to be told, even the game developers focus on this comparison. Steam videos promote the studio as having people who worked on Civilization.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I really enjoy it so far. Ahead on prestige coming out of the first era, with quite a few MMing mistakes. Always start on equal terms with the AI first few games.
It has a lot of chinks to work out, but remembering back to Civ6 launch, not to mention 5, this seems smoother imo.

 

[Pistol90]

I see potential, and would like for this game to have succes, its not really Civ-type game and I could see myself playing it sometimes even after Civ7 releases.

But it would require aditional expansions to make it more than city-builder ... it looks nice, but combat, war, diplomacy, culture, religion everything is one level down than in Civ6 for example (maybe even more).

Map looks awesome, expanding you city is cool, even resource management is somehow interesting idea-but even though I am at early-middle-ages I found myself just clicking first thing that comes to screen ... its already becoming micromanagement-too-heavy.


But still, would love to see it with 2 expansions and a lot of mods ... I would probably play it for years to come ... not nearly as civ, but just because its somehow different game, it offers something new.

 

[Sephi]

I started my first game on the hardest difficulty. Currently I have around 400 prestige and I need 1200 to survive. Looks like it will be a short game for me . So there is some challenge, that is cool. The game feels quite slow but it might just be me learning the game. The economy and the math behind the game is too complicated, you need to read like three mouseovers to see how adding a tool to an improvement changes the output and even then there are so many numbers with no description that feel unneeded. It might be too late to clean that up.

Also I got a quest to build some lame triumph I have zero interest in. They really need to add player agency to the quests. Give me a choice which triumph I want to build!

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

So I played for about 10 hours straight yesterday and I'm only in the Iron Age. I'm playing on one of the easiest difficulties, default speed, huge map, default # of leaders and I've been taking my time reading the tutorials. I thought I was doing horribly until I checked the leader scores. My score is almost double what second place is, lol. I'm picking up the pace as my understanding grows. The important thing is that I'm enjoying this. Something about this has been making me giddy.

 

[fjaoaoaoao]

I see potential, and would like for this game to have succes, its not really Civ-type game and I could see myself playing it sometimes even after Civ7 releases.

But it would require aditional expansions to make it more than city-builder ... it looks nice, but combat, war, diplomacy, culture, religion everything is one level down than in Civ6 for example (maybe even more).

Map looks awesome, expanding you city is cool, even resource management is somehow interesting idea-but even though I am at early-middle-ages I found myself just clicking first thing that comes to screen ... its already becoming micromanagement-too-heavy.


But still, would love to see it with 2 expansions and a lot of mods ... I would probably play it for years to come ... not nearly as civ, but just because its somehow different game, it offers something new.

yes, they just need to make sure it's not too much in the vein of Civ or else it's just replicating the same.

it's apparent a lot of people who worked on civ worked on this game, for better and for worse. a lot of the same elements get rehashed or over-heralded when maybe they shouldn't be.

for the game to really succeed, it needs to capture enough of the Civ audience interest, build its own lane in a daring way, and really make something polished that would be easier to recommend for multiplayer with people who aren't as hardcore.

 

[Pistol90]

yes, they just need to make sure it's not too much in the vein of Civ or else it's just replicating the same.

it's apparent a lot of people who worked on civ worked on this game, for better and for worse. a lot of the same elements get rehashed or over-heralded when maybe they shouldn't be.

for the game to really succeed, it needs to capture enough of the Civ audience interest, build its own lane in a daring way, and really make something polished that would be easier to recommend for multiplayer with people who aren't as hardcore.

For me at least, this game feels more like Hearts of Iron, than Civ

It could become somethnig interesting, if it is not abandoned too early

 

[ggmoyang]

I couldn't play until lategame, dropped while I'm in renaissance age. The micromanagement is too much, needs UI improvement fast.

 

[bitula]

I see potential, and would like for this game to have succes, its not really Civ-type game and I could see myself playing it sometimes even after Civ7 releases.

I wonder how is it not really Civ-type game when compared to civ7. When compared to civ 6, sure. But Civ7 seems to be deliberately ahistorical and full of "innovations" which are not civ-like.

 

[DWilson]

I'm specifically hoping this will be a replacement for Civ VII, which I do not want to play.

I'm a big fan of Civ V and EUIV, less a fan but still quite fond of VI, and have struggled to get into Victoria 3. Fingers crossed

 

[Pistol90]

I wonder how is it not really Civ-type game when compared to civ7. When compared to civ 6, sure. But Civ7 seems to be deliberately ahistorical and full of "innovations" which are not civ-like.

Combat, map design, production, tech, resource management feels (like I said earlier) more like Hearts of Iron, than Civ --- at least for me.

Production and resources are probably main focus of the game, most complicated mechanic ... those two in Civ are really simplify compared to this ... and here, I dont see people playing for domination victory or something like that.

Its seems victory and goal is to have best production-resource management in this game.

 

[bitula]

Combat, map design, production, tech, resource management feels (like I said earlier) more like Hearts of Iron, than Civ --- at least for me.

Production and resources are probably main focus of the game, most complicated mechanic ... those two in Civ are really simplify compared to this ... and here, I dont see people playing for domination victory or something like that.

Its seems victory and goal is to have best production-resource management in this game.

Yes, but I mean Civ 7. I mean Civ 7 is more different from Civ1-6 than Ara. AFAIR Combat is more similar to ARA in civ 7 than eg.: to civ 6. And so on. Ara has all sorts of features which never existed in a civ game, but "civ" part is very similar to to civ IMO. I mean you have like: cities skylines, anno, and civ in one game. But the civ part is very similar to civ.

 

[Pistol90]

Yes, but I mean Civ 7. I mean Civ 7 is more different from Civ1-6 than Ara. AFAIR Combat is more similar to ARA in civ 7 than eg.: to civ 6. And so on. Ara has all sorts of features which never existed in a civ game, but "civ" part is very similar to to civ IMO. I mean you have like: cities skylines, anno, and civ in one game. But the civ part is very similar to civ.

Yeah, i agree, civ part is very similar to civ.

Its just civ part is maybe 25-30% of game.

 

[Civinator]

But the civ part is very similar to civ.

 

[MrRadar]

I've completed my first game, and I'm very torn what to think or say about this game. I deliberately avoided watching any pre-release materials on YT or reading too much about it, because I wanted to have this "new game" feel, like many years before, when you went to some game shop, scanned the shelves and picked a CD-ROM that drew your attention.

So I started light, on Viscount difficulty, with Leopold I. First Act was awesome, learning all those new tings, getting to know the systems, but just generally placing stuff everywhere at will, and also following the tutorial. Which said nothing about expansion, so I may have sent out my first settlers a bit late, but this being low difficulty, it did not matter so much.

By the Second Act, I realized there were some adjacencies in play, so I tore down half of the stuff I had placed and rebuilt everything in a bit more organized manner. At which junction the annoying thought appeared and started to gnaw me: so, what's the point of all of that? The empire must grow, and it grew within the limits the game set to me. I reached Feudalist Government, 8 cities out of 8 and stayed like this until the end, while a third of the world was unoccupied or no longer occupied. Growing cities had growing needs that were filled with ever more amenities and buildings and an OUT OF THIS WORLD AMOUNT of micro.

Seriously, the UI needs a LOT of work in adding better presentation and management, where you could effectively filter out required improvements or buildings or whatever on one screen and mass assign an item to all of them with one click. If it is a crafter with supply and accelerator slots, I want to be able to filter them out on one screen, and to fill the supplies and accelerators from the same screen. In case of supplies, I want to be able to put all buildings or a selection of them in the "waiting" mode, where the supply is automatically filled in when it becomes available, by the order of priority, or replaced by a more advanced version, without me going in personally into every damned building to do it manually. The amount of unnecessary clicks, browsing and disrespecting player's time in general is in epic proportions here.

On the international relations front all was sweet to the point of much too sweet. I understand that low difficulty and my leader being Leopold I may have contributed that my relations were constantly gravitating to the closest possible level with everyone and I did not need an army at all.

Which finally lead to the point, where I just put every city on infinite science production and speed-clicked through last ~80 turns, basically the whole Third Act, almost screaming "Just lemme end this!!!". The malaise of Civ VI, where you know you've won already but the victory screen is a hundred turns of futile clicking away, was back in full force.

So now I'm at a loss a bit. I kinda want to have another go at a much higher difficulty, where you should need some warfare, but I also want to wait for some patches to come in, because now some stuff, like looms, does not work at all and some building and production chain limitations are rather baffling. There was one patch already, where they nuked maintenance to the ground though, so it raised even more questions for me.

On the whole, it looks like a mildly interesting mix of Victoria (or Imperialism, remember?), Civ, Anno and whatnot, but at the moment I feel that the main effort of play goes into the organizing your economy which takes far too much micro than it needs, diplomacy is very minimal, AI factor neglectable, at least on lower difficulties. And on higher ones, I just fear that it will be just like Civ VI Deity - the main action happens in Act I, if you survive it, AI is left powerless to make any further dent into your operation, but the victory screen is still long way away, Act II goes by with waning interest, and Act III - who's she?

 

[fjaoaoaoao]

I've completed my first game, and I'm very torn what to think or say about this game. I deliberately avoided watching any pre-release materials on YT or reading too much about it, because I wanted to have this "new game" feel, like many years before, when you went to some game shop, scanned the shelves and picked a CD-ROM that drew your attention.

So I started light, on Viscount difficulty, with Leopold I. First Act was awesome, learning all those new tings, getting to know the systems, but just generally placing stuff everywhere at will, and also following the tutorial. Which said nothing about expansion, so I may have sent out my first settlers a bit late, but this being low difficulty, it did not matter so much.

By the Second Act, I realized there were some adjacencies in play, so I tore down half of the stuff I had placed and rebuilt everything in a bit more organized manner. At which junction the annoying thought appeared and started to gnaw me: so, what's the point of all of that? The empire must grow, and it grew within the limits the game set to me. I reached Feudalist Government, 8 cities out of 8 and stayed like this until the end, while a third of the world was unoccupied or no longer occupied. Growing cities had growing needs that were filled with ever more amenities and buildings and an OUT OF THIS WORLD AMOUNT of micro.

Seriously, the UI needs a LOT of work in adding better presentation and management, where you could effectively filter out required improvements or buildings or whatever on one screen and mass assign an item to all of them with one click. If it is a crafter with supply and accelerator slots, I want to be able to filter them out on one screen, and to fill the supplies and accelerators from the same screen. In case of supplies, I want to be able to put all buildings or a selection of them in the "waiting" mode, where the supply is automatically filled in when it becomes available, by the order of priority, or replaced by a more advanced version, without me going in personally into every damned building to do it manually. The amount of unnecessary clicks, browsing and disrespecting player's time in general is in epic proportions here.

On the international relations front all was sweet to the point of much too sweet. I understand that low difficulty and my leader being Leopold I may have contributed that my relations were constantly gravitating to the closest possible level with everyone and I did not need an army at all.

Which finally lead to the point, where I just put every city on infinite science production and speed-clicked through last ~80 turns, basically the whole Third Act, almost screaming "Just lemme end this!!!". The malaise of Civ VI, where you know you've won already but the victory screen is a hundred turns of futile clicking away, was back in full force.

So now I'm at a loss a bit. I kinda want to have another go at a much higher difficulty, where you should need some warfare, but I also want to wait for some patches to come in, because now some stuff, like looms, does not work at all and some building and production chain limitations are rather baffling. There was one patch already, where they nuked maintenance to the ground though, so it raised even more questions for me.

On the whole, it looks like a mildly interesting mix of Victoria (or Imperialism, remember?), Civ, Anno and whatnot, but at the moment I feel that the main effort of play goes into the organizing your economy which takes far too much micro than it needs, diplomacy is very minimal, AI factor neglectable, at least on lower difficulties. And on higher ones, I just fear that it will be just like Civ VI Deity - the main action happens in Act I, if you survive it, AI is left powerless to make any further dent into your operation, but the victory screen is still long way away, Act II goes by with waning interest, and Act III - who's she?

for the most part, yours is probably a harsh version of how a lot of people including fans feel about the game.

the main difference is probably the economic micro, where you lean more towards the not fans. imo the economic micro is probably the best part of the game, making it simper would actually ruin the core of the experience. if anything they just need UI updates which are coming but I personally don't find it as bad as most are saying, especially if you don't want to play at higher difficulties. if you do look at the whole picture though, the economy micro gets much more attention than everything else, so to that end you have a point. It's just without it, the game becomes too barebones. So I'd rather see existing and additional systems become more robust without the game becoming much more micro.

i have turned around a little bit and I do think last act needs to be extended a little bit with regards to how much time we spend in it. A lot of cool things at the end you barely get to see. They've said a tech slider is coming which might change some people's opinions but I personally just would like a longer act 3 relative to act 1 and 2, and faster games in general.

the patches will help, we will see where it goes. i think that first patch was a good one.

 

[KayAU]

I agree there is too much to manage in the late game. I've not had as much time to play as I would have wanted since release, but I did complete a full playthrough with Mexico yesterday. This was my first time playing acts 2 and 3, as these were not in the alpha. Even though I limited myself to 5 cities, there were a *lot* of crafting queues, as well as slots for supplies, amenities, and experts. It does get more manageable as you learn more, but there's no doubt the game will benefit greatly from improved UI an automation options.

That said, I am enjoying my time with it, and think Ara's still a really promising game, which very much does its own thing. Oxide are pre-funded for a full year of continued improvement, and these are the early days. I expect there will be many refinements and improvements, as well as new content over the coming months.

I've increased the difficulty and map size, and started a new game as Thailand.