I've left a final post on the Games2Gether Humankind opendev forum. I'm copying it here for everyone, I titled it: OK SO MAYBE NOT A FIRST IMPRESSION AS MORE OF A SECOND IMPRESSION !!! because the forum name is FIRST IMPRESSIONS ;-)
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Hi all. I've already posted a message giving my first impressions. Let's have another go at this after some 7-8 runs:
+ First of all, the following comments might make it seem like I'm very critical of the game. Really, I'm not. I'm loving how this seems to be shaping up, and where it looks like likes it's headed.
Plz take all of this as 'constructive comments' from an old hand 4X player ( civ since CIV2, but also Endless legend, Endless space 2, Old world, Alpha Centauri, Galciv 2 and 3, beyond Earth and more...)
+
city and outpost banners don't give enough information... what is it doin ? how long till it's done ? i don't want to HAVE to click each one or scroll through all of them in order to know. I suppose that a 'one glance' view of all your cities and outpost will be available via the 'city view' icon top right, and if that's the plan, I suppose one click is acceptable to get all infos, but I still feel the banner should provide way more when map is fully zoomed in, even if it takes a mouse hover to get it. EDIT: Sorry, just replayed another game, and turns out that I checked on a save in which all my outposts weren't constructing anything. So at least, the banner IS telling you what the city/outpost is building and number of turns left. My bad ;-(
+ I feel it's hard to differenciate between regiment, single units and even cities/outpost on the map. icon represents the civ ? just colour shading atm to differenciate. I'm pretty convinced I'll get a better feel of this when there will be other cultures on the map, and I'm content to wait on this before making a more final opinion, but it's not bad to mention it. I also can see there's a button top right to list all the armies/regiments that is not implemented yet. But even when it will be, I feel I should be better able to sort them out visually on the map.
+ I'm having a lot of trouble visually seeing what I've constructed in my cities. There's a 'completed' tab in the city panel, but that only show infrastructure somehow, not anything else like districts etc... And unless I mouseover the tiles where I know I constructed stuff, nothing visually seems to help see it. So, my first wish would be that by clicking on the city banner, whatever I built around that city should be somehow highlighted. If not, then the 'contructed' tab should show me everything, not only infra. And clicking on an icon on that tab should at least highlight it on the map
+ This has been said before, and I'm totally convinced it will be taken care of way before launch, but I will reiterate: The game has to remember our preferences about how infos should be offered in city view and others; if there are menu options that changes what we will see (ex:view only buildable button), having to reset that same button each and every time I open city view is insufferable. Either remember my last choice, or make a way to permanently configure that. I feel last chosen option will almost always be the right way to go
+ Even if this is not a combat scenario, I've had a lot of fun with it. I absolutely love that terrain type/elevation will give bonuses or maluses. At the moment, unfortunately, you have to wait until you've moved on a tile in order to have the info about those bonuses and maluses. I would like it if you could get the info BEFORE you moved... there should be a tooltip when hovering over a tile before choosing to move there
+ I feel the 'attach' option for a territory is really obscure. First, you have to click on a city, then hover over an outpost, THEN realize there's a tiny little box appearing on the outpost banner ( I hadn't even noticed that after 3 full games, and had to read about it in the forum messages to start looking for it)... Also, the tiny little box will NOT appear if that territory is not adjacent to an already attached territory linked to THAT city. Finally, it's really not clear what you gain or loose by attaching; is it going to make it better than a simple outpost ? what are the gains/loss compared to turning that outpost into a different city ? We nee more info !
In the end, to me, this feels like a decision that will be very important gamewise. I'm sure that further scenarios will put emphasis on this, but I wanted to get it out there right away that this is really not done right ATM
+ People have been saying the curiosities get old fast and that there are too many of them. I tend to disagree ; In general, scouts in most 4x games become useless pretty fast. I think this system has a shot in making them usefull all game long, with curio stalking and animal hunting ! I hope this turns out to be real !
+ I dislike all the comments about science and gold accumulating too easy and fast. First, this is a pre-alpha unbalanced version: Second, we have no possible idea if it's linked to the fact that's it's the first era and that it's Babylon, a scientific culture. Let's wait a bit on the 'OMG IT'S SO OP', people, plz
thanks for taking the time to read my comments