Your biggest fears regarding Humankind

[Cat-du-fromage]

"First come, first pick" and every Culture can be present only once,

i'm not really fan of that feature, it means that if you are unlucky or behind your're stuck with a culture you didn't want to play or a culture that don't fit your type of gameplay. worse if the snowball is real you may end up behind during all the game, and force to play the last culture available each era.

Edit: What was the motivation behind this decision? why can't we have multiple same culture?

 

[Siptah]

i'm not really fan of that feature, it means that if you are unlucky or behind your're stuck with a culture you didn't want to play or a culture that don't fit your type of gameplay. worse if the snowball is real you may end up behind during all the game, and force to play the last culture available each era.

Edit: What was the motivation behind this decision? why can't we have multiple same culture?

You can always stick with what you have. Rushing era stars might also not be too hard and not affected too much by the snowball. I actually like this element and hope that it makes for additional thrill. It also shakes up just playing meta.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

You can always stick with what you have. Rushing era stars might also not be too hard and not affected too much by the snowball. I actually like this element and hope that it makes for additional thrill. It also shakes up just playing meta.

IF there was no uncertainty to which Faction would be available to pick in each Era, which would happen if there was no limit to the number of times each Faction could appear in a game, then each player would wind up with a Preferred Faction progression and within a very short time, no one would be playing the game because it would all be without variation and dull.

As described, you have a constant set of choices: Rush the 'stars' for a fast Era progression and maximum choice for the next Era, or make the most of This Era by delaying your advance. Not being certain that your favorite Faction for the Classical/Medieval/Early Modern, etc., Era will still be there when you get to it will keep the game from ever being a 'sure thing'. It also means you will hav to be willing to adapt your Optimum Strategy to the situation instead of setting up situations to match your preferred strategy.

 

[Cat-du-fromage]

i'm a bit more concern about flavor, i agree with the fact that by not allowing more than one culture per era you encourage diversity in the gameplay.
but some would prefer to play without the stress to discover that the culture left are not the ones they wanted to play, i mean wouldn't it be better to let the player have the choice all along? not for the sake of playing meta but to let him play what he enjoy the most?

 

[mitsho]

I think the annoyance will rather be from gameplay: Say the Celts would be optimal for the terrain you have got, but it is taken by an AI that only settled in Desert. So you can‘t use the bonus, but neither can the AI player. But that‘s okay.

Besides, what you describe depends on the number of players in the game. If you play with 5, chances are you can still chose the one you want even if you are last one to reach the era. Please someone calculate the odds here. And these odds will rise with added cultures in the run of the game. And if I were the developers, it may be easy to create a box „allow doubling cultures“ in the game set up screen. But I understand why that is not the default option.

 

[Siptah]

And if I were the developers, it may be easy to create a box „allow doubling cultures“ in the game set up screen. But I understand why that is not the default option.

This is should be in anyway, as well as an always random option button ;-)

 

[Atlas627]

i'm a bit more concern about flavor, i agree with the fact that by not allowing more than one culture per era you encourage diversity in the gameplay.
but some would prefer to play without the stress to discover that the culture left are not the ones they wanted to play, i mean wouldn't it be better to let the player have the choice all along? not for the sake of playing meta but to let him play what he enjoy the most?

I mean, if the argument for giving the player more freedom is that freedom is inherently more fun, then I think you are looking for a sandbox game, not a strategy game (in which the guiding principle is that being stuck between a rock and a hard place is interesting, thus fun). They could certainly go this route with the game, but I would really prefer they didn't. Most sandbox games bore me once I've exhausted all the discovery and realized there's no actual mechanics behind the flavor.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

I will probably start on 6 player games this was the normal in Endless Legend and it gives you a good choice of cultures even if you are lagging behind.

It will be interesting to see how the AI picks its cultures I'm sure plenty of us here are familiar with how weirdly obsessed the AI was with certain pantheon and religion beliefs in civ 6. A year from now in strategy discussions will people be saying things like "Don't bother trying to get Harrapans on any difficulty past X because the AI will always pick them first" and "I can always get Carthage AI never seems to pick them." Hopefully they can keep the desicion weight for each civ fairly balanced so they don't all want to pick the same civ in 80% of situations.

I'll raise a hand for an always random button too as long as it can affect all players and AI in the game because that sounds fun!

 

[Krajzen]

I can imagine some fun potential alternate modes of the game introduced by fan made mods such as

*Cultures Can Double (downside: more boring, less climactic, upside: everybody may take whatever culture whenever)
*Classic Mode" - all cultures avilable in ancient era but players choose only once (no way Amplitude implements this but if this game has aby modding I can guarantee you all somebody will do this obvious alternate game mode; by the way, it enables TSL maps, if the game is ever going to contain map editor)
*Random Decks - every era gets its 10 available civs chosen at random from all civs. Civs don't repeat between eras, balance between civs focuses is roughly maintained. The main problem is anachronistic emblematic units. It can be solved by "if units is from far future it will be unlocked in appropriste era, if it is from far past you will get recompensation for not being able to use it". Honestly I'd love to give this mode a go. You never know what "cards" will you get next era and what can AIs even evolve into.
*Total Madness Mode - every era every player can choose from all 60 civs. Total chaos and major UI pain to choose from 60 cards but don't tell me you wouldn't try this once

*AI Follows Historical Paths - this is only a modification of AI. It makes AI very likely to follow some cultures with others. For example, AI which gets Mycenae in ancient era tries to follow it with Greece and then Byzantium. AI which gets "India" or "China" in Ancient then follows the appropriate "path" of cultural evolution until the end game. And so on.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

I love those ideas, @Krajzen, and don't see why they would have to be mods instead of Advanced Options in the game set-up screen.

I'd even want more granular set-up options, like the option to pre-set paths for the AI players to take. If for some reason I want to fight a Culture that specifically progresses from Assyrians -> Mayans -> English, I hope that's an option.

 

[conorbebe]

I'd definitely appreciate some advanced options in the game set-up screen, especially related to the AI. I can envision a couple of set modes being available for the AI:

"Competitive" - the AI selects the most optimal or appropriate Culture every time it transitions, based on the culture's Affinity and bonuses.

"Authentic" - the AI selects Cultures based on the real-life evolution of civilisations and regions in history, and where there is no natural progression available, instead chooses to Transcend.

 

[pzelda]

Not many as I have too many games to play instead...but since I decided to post here.
1)It being a Civ killer actually
2)Modding - even if Humankind is modable, it will have a different feel and many Civ modders won't be there.

 

[Killer Rabbit]

That like other Amplitude games (Endless Legend), the game has a bad tutorial and I land in a game with no clue as to what to do.

Part of this is the age old problem of me jumping in with the EL Complete Edition, with an outdated tutorial and a load of systems added in the expansions that go unexplained, and part of it is a genre problem—most 4X games do a terrible job of teaching players how to play.

I just don’t have hours to spend watching YouTube videos anymore. I want to be able to jump in, be taught the basics, and have some fun (even if I’m still figuring out what to do to an extent).

This is one area where I do feel that Amplitude could take a leaf out of Firaxis’s book, as the Civ series has always done a great job teaching people how to play, head and shoulders above other 4X games.

My other fear is that the game has a lot of typos that are distracting as I noticed this in EL too.

But I am really hopeful! I’m enjoying Old World and it’s nice to see competition in the historical strategy space!

 

[FinalDoomsday]

If I started Endless Legend with all the expansions I'd definitly be overwhelmed heck even now I play without most of the expansions off because of all the tech tree bloat and just way too many mechanics going on that feels burdensome to keep track of.

Its weird because I can play Gathering Storm just fine but Endless Legend or Space 2 with all expansions on just feels so bloated maybe its because the mechanics are too demanding or they affect the base game too much I'm not sure but I feel like its something to do with Amplitudes smaller expansions being fun individually but not coming togeather when they are all active at once.

 

[Krajzen]

If I started Endless Legend with all the expansions I'd definitly be overwhelmed heck even now I play without most of the expansions off because of all the tech tree bloat and just way too many mechanics going on that feels burdensome to keep track of.

Its weird because I can play Gathering Storm just fine but Endless Legend or Space 2 with all expansions on just feels so bloated maybe its because the mechanics are too demanding or they affect the base game too much I'm not sure but I feel like its something to do with Amplitudes smaller expansions being fun individually but not coming togeather when they are all active at once.

This is really strange but I agree, when I was trying to get into EL the amount of mechanics introduced by expansions was mind boggling. That's a paradoxical side effect of a game recieving a lot of support after release, regular additions of new individually cool expansions but eventually just overloading player's brains. Same reason I criticize league of legend's "very fun" "very cool" new characters which have individually very cool abilities, just too damn complicated when taken all together (hi Aphelios). Coming back to less weird examples,
this is also the problem of late Crusader Kings II and EU4, which have mind breaking amount of interconnecting mechanics after a dozen of little expansions.
Just a general paradoxical problem of a succesfull game recieving top long life and support lol.

Maybe it would be much less brutal if strategy games wich very long dev cycle, such as paradox or amplitude's, got some actual TUTORIALS for EACH NEW EXPANSION (or one countinuously updated tutorial) instead of having to do homework and notes from wiki articles and forum advices.

And yeah, Endless Legend's tutorial was ridiculous, you give me a game with like 20 mechanical systems (half of whom were already complicated by the 1.0 release, second half added by DLCs) and then provide me with a tutorial which mainly teaches me how to move units and build buildings.
I really wouldn't complain on having some actual tutorial scenairo from beginning to end or (cheaper and more effortless solution) several micro snapshot tutorial scenarios like in classical games, teaching me what the hell are pearls of auriga and dust eclipses. I mean, I have read their Wiki articles but I still have ruined by first session anyway due to constant struggle with understanding what is happening around me. Learning how to play EL with all expansions and no prior experience was my second worst Learning Curve Experience in video games after the nightmare of learning CK2's late patch feudal mechanisms from scratch. Many Total War games have even worse curve because they don't even have decent wikis lol, I am currently playing Rome 2 (2013) and after 100 hours I still have no idea what benefits do you get from satrapies, but those games at least have much simpler (combat) focus in general.

Even if I got only video tutorials showing me step after step how stuff works in practice would be superior solution, though I consider this to be much worse than interactive tutorials. Those videos could even be on Youtube or idk, filmed drunk at 5am with a mobile phone in a dark basement and they'd still greatly reduce my total confusion of my first campaign of EL with all expansions.

@Catoninetales_Amplitude you don't have to respond me, just something to be worth considering when trying to recruit new players who are less stubborn than civ fanatics

EDIT
I also want add an honorable mention of Crusader Kings II's ridiculous Tactics combat system. I wanted to describe this abomination but then realized it is impossible without doubling the length of this post. Bastically, combat system of CK2 is influenced by the hidden system, documented only on fan wiki, which is goddamn impossible for a human being to store in his brain memory space. So basically everybody ignores it and hopes for the best. If you want to ruin your evening, dear reader, have fun:
https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Combat_tactics

PS2
Another example is EU4's trade. system. I spend 500 hours on this game and won very hard starts ending with ultra rich merchant empires, guided purely on experience, heuristics and intuition as I could never rationally explain to anybody how the hell does it work. There are actual "how does eu4 trade work" fan YouTube tutorials which take like half an hour.

 

[Killer Rabbit]

This is really strange but I agree, when I was trying to get into EL the amount of mechanics introduced by expansions was mind boggling. That's a paradoxical side effect of a game recieving a lot of support after release, regular additions of new individually cool expansions but eventually just overloading player's brains. Same reason I criticize league of legend's "very fun" "very cool" new characters which have individually very cool abilities, just too damn complicated when taken all together (hi Aphelios). Coming back to less weird examples,
this is also the problem of late Crusader Kings II and EU4, which have mind breaking amount of interconnecting mechanics after a dozen of little expansions. Just a general paradoxical problem of a succesfull game recieving top long life and support lol.

Maybe it would be less brutal if strategy games wich very long dev cycle, such as paradox or amplitude's, got some actual TUTORIALS for EACH NEW EXPANSION (or one countinuously updated tutorial) instead of having to do homework and notes from wiki articles and forum advices.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who had difficulties getting into EL. These games really need to do what you say either include a tutorial for each expansion or update the base tutorial continuously. It's really great that these games are supported for so long, but at a certain point it makes it really difficult to jump in if you're a newcomer.

And I have to say that this problem is usually the worst with games that use the Paradox mini-expansion model, like EL or CK2. They need to find a way to give new players the info they need. Otherwise you're scrambling to find wikis, Reddit posts, or Youtube videos--but even then you need to make sure that they are using the same expansions you are. Such a nightmare, especially if you don't have that much time for games.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Having been playing games since The Printolithic Era when there were fat Guide Books published for every new game, I really miss having a Reference to factors, interactions, and game play handy at all times. On-Line references are a distant second-best, but with the current model of continuing Expansions, DLCs, Upgrades, et al, those references are obsolete within a year or two of a game coming out. Civ VI and EL are both good examples: neither game has any single reference anywhere that I know of that guides you to all the features, factions, and additions that have been made to them since Launch.

It results, as stated above, in a "Learning Curve" for new players that is practically vertical and about as friendly as El Capitan in a blizzard. That means a certain percentage of new players (i.e., New Customers) will be immediately turned off by the game and a certain percentage of them will Never Come Back.

Putting resources into Guides for the expanded game is not just another resource sink for a game company, it is a Requirement if they expect to expand on their customer base.

(Not counting the Grognards of CivFanatics, who are already sharpening pitons and gathering ropes to ascend whatever heights required by Humankind - or the new Civ VI Expansions just announced. We are, by definition, gluttons for punishment.)

 

[Siptah]

PS2
Another example is EU4's trade. system. I spend 500 hours on this game and won very hard starts ending with ultra rich merchant empires, guided purely on experience, heuristics and intuition as I could never rationally explain to anybody how the hell does it work. There are actual "how does eu4 trade work" fan YouTube tutorials which take like half an hour.

One of the main problems here is that the interface lies to you all the time when it comes to the trade system (for example what you gain from protecting trade). This is also a fear that I have for HK: civ VI and EU4 often lie to the player when numbers are concerned for reasons that are beyond me. I do not know if EL suffers the same problem, I did not recognize it if it does. Hopefully, HK can stay interesting without this "feature."

I agree that complex games would benefit from a nice and up-to-date tutorial, but on the other hand, it's quite fun to go into new mechanics that you don't quite understand. After all, you cannot play a perfect game when you first try civ or a paradox game anyway. The problem is, of course, when there's too much of those mechanics. I don't remember larger trouble with CK2 or EU4, but I've been playing them for years and previous iterations and each new expansion by itself is quite manageable without having to read wikis.

As a tip for starting EL when you own all expansions: disable Symbiosis and Inferno for the first few games, maybe even Tempest (or always choose a waterless map). It's all distraction and mechanics that can really put you behind if you don't use them well. The other expansions confront you with mechanics that you can easily pass on (espionage) or have to engage with anyway (winter). Also, there are "vanilla" civs, like the wind-walkers, that make the game much more accessible. Still needs quite some hours until you can develop good strategies and see what's really important. Took me a while to see that the empire plan is probably the single most important mechanic in the game for example - but a tutorial should not spoil that!

 

[Krajzen]

One of the main problems here is that the interface lies to you all the time when it comes to the trade system (for example what you gain from protecting trade). This is also a fear that I have for HK: civ VI and EU4 often lie to the player when numbers are concerned for reasons that are beyond me. I do not know if EL suffers the same problem, I did not recognize it if it does. Hopefully, HK can stay interesting without this "feature."

I agree that complex games would benefit from a nice and up-to-date tutorial, but on the other hand, it's quite fun to go into new mechanics that you don't quite understand. After all, you cannot play a perfect game when you first try civ or a paradox game anyway. The problem is, of course, when there's too much of those mechanics. I don't remember larger trouble with CK2 or EU4, but I've been playing them for years and previous iterations and each new expansion by itself is quite manageable without having to read wikis.

As a tip for starting EL when you own all expansions: disable Symbiosis and Inferno for the first few games, maybe even Tempest (or always choose a waterless map). It's all distraction and mechanics that can really put you behind if you don't use them well. The other expansions confront you with mechanics that you can easily pass on (espionage) or have to engage with anyway (winter). Also, there are "vanilla" civs, like the wind-walkers, that make the game much more accessible. Still needs quite some hours until you can develop good strategies and see what's really important. Took me a while to see that the empire plan is probably the single most important mechanic in the game for example - but a tutorial should not spoil that!

Well that is one of factors I have failed my first campaign then, the fact that I forgot there is such thing as empire plan because I was playing attention to 20 different mechanics and haven't used it a single time

I have to say though, I think late EL and late CK2 are uniquely hard to get into in huge part to the fact their certain aspects are completely divorced from our intuition and basic knowledge. Let me explain. Civilization series have that great advantage that the vast majority of mechanics here are simple general concepts inspired by the universal real history, sort of what we learn anyway. Think about it: you look at the map and can instinctively tell what areas are good for human settlement (certainly not the middle of a desert etc).
Meanwhile EL is very high (as in REALLY fantasy) fantasy world, VASTLY different from ours, very imaginative, but as the result, intuition breaks down and everything requires learning. EL has a ***** ton of colourful magical types of terrain and resources and you have no idea what is good and how much until you read about them. There is no intuitive content in pearls of auriga spawned by dust eclipses (or winter, I don't even remember, but that strengthens my point, it is so alien world).
CK2 meanwhile is historical game, but with main mechanics being heavily inspired and enough detailed by social organization so utterly alien to our modern way of looking at society, state, land, family, population etc that I had to learn to move here as in the alien world.


So, I think Humankind will be much closer to Civilization and more intuitively understandable. Unless it it decides to include extremely arcade "its videogame and you know it" weird abstract entities, such as that eldritch abomination of civ6 world congress which is everything but not what I think about when I think of "UN" or "congress of Vienna" or "human international relations" or "well designed game mechanic"

 

[Guandao]

Having been playing games since The Printolithic Era when there were fat Guide Books published for every new game, I really miss having a Reference to factors, interactions, and game play handy at all times. On-Line references are a distant second-best, but with the current model of continuing Expansions, DLCs, Upgrades, et al, those references are obsolete within a year or two of a game coming out. Civ VI and EL are both good examples: neither game has any single reference anywhere that I know of that guides you to all the features, factions, and additions that have been made to them since Launch.

I still held onto old guide books/pamphlets from Age of Empires/ Age of Mythology/Warcraft/Starcraft etc. So I can relate to that.