Let me first say that I love historical games. My first proper pc game was Anno 1602. The first game I properly anticipated was Rome total War. And I played probably a few thousands hours of civ IV, V and VI. I dont have anything with fantasy or space. I dont play the warhammer TW games, or things like Stellaris.

However, Endless Legend back in the day was different, and unique. The setting, the gameplay, the ideas.. Played a ton of it and loved it (same with Endless Space 2). Im really excited for EL2. I did however made the mistake of revisiting Humankind, and it was a miserable experience. When it first came out, I was mixed about it and basicly didnt touch it after two campaigns. Like most 4X games, it needed an expansion or two to be good (happens every iteration with civ).

Now while waiting for a better Civ 7 and with confirmation of EL2, I went back to Humankind to give it another shot, with TWR expansion. But they are so many design decisions that are baffling. Especially the war part is... infuriatingly bad, there is no other way to say it. It is baffling as EL, which is ten years old had a better system.

-Line of sight makes no sense whatsoever. Archers can fire over mountains yet most Javelineers cant hit an elephant from two squares away.

-Unit movement speed is completly disregarded. A unit that has only 4 movement on the overworld map can basicly croos an entiry battlefield in a turn. This makes taking a defensive approach almost impossible. Not to mention how often zone of control doesnt make sense.

-Paired with the above, being the defender is terribly as all initiative is for the attacker. Extremely ahistorical. Please bring back the initiative stat.

-However, not as ahistorical as probably my biggest complaint: Battles last untill one side is completly dead. why? This was never a good idea. It makes battles last way too long. And it completly ruins the autoresolve as well. "your side is stronger overall" just results in being completly destroyed.

-Its impossible to disable reinforcements, again why? This was an option in EL, please bring it back. An army gets attacked, and you know you're gonna lose it. Now all the armies around get dragged with it....

And if you add the retreat option, please let them retreat from where they came instead of having them run further into enemy territory.

There are other, non combat related issuues with the game, but these are the most prevalent

ok rant over. please dont f*** this up, im dying for a good 4X game :)

Honestly the battle system is tedious in both games after your progress and get into many conflicts. I usually auto resolve everything where I have a meaningful advantage. In any case the HK battle system didn’t strike me as being much worse than EL. My main gripe with HK is lacking AI and I never really enjoyed the switching of factions when progressing to new eras, it kills the immersion.