I noticed in the first scenario, its more like Civilization in that you cannot custom make units. You just have a particular archer and thats all there is to it. I realize that OpenDev is just to sort of showcase particular features, but my fear is that they will leave that part out. Its something I always loved doing in all of the other Amplitude games. (Im bad at it though) and I think adds another layer to replayability, changing up your unit archetypes. 

Will we see this in Humankind or are they going for a more Civilization, static unit, approach? 

I have to agree here.

The unit customisation featured in Endless Legend is absolutely fantastic.

I would love to see this level of unit customisation such as armours and weapons be included in Humankind, it really adds tactical depth to unit creation and affects statistics and how the units are used.

It would be a great shame to have this level of depth missing from Humankind. Please can we see some level of unit customisation return to this new game. Without it it feels like we have taken one step forwards but two steps back.

I hope they do not include that, tbh. it just seems like a layer of annoying fiddliness that doesn't add much to the games' experience. 

or at the very least I hope you can automate that sort of thing like ship components in stellaris, if it goes in.

I do not think that unit customization is a good fit for Humankind. It adds this additional layer of complexity that is difficult to balance and distracting from the main game. Also, this works in EL since there are only a couple of units in total, but Humankind has many more units, split through historical eras.  

I appreciate your enthusiasm on Humankind but introducing unit customization at the current development stage is simply not possible. Adding such huge & complex mechanics is going to demand lots of development resources by implementation alone. Adjusting related mechanics will consume even more time.

Personally I don't think unit customization would fit in where the timeline of the game spans through millennials. It would be more fitting to create a custom unit from a certain time period. Like WW2 or Victorian times. Fantasy setting could open up some possibilities too. Like EL or Thea.

If the promotion feature is dense enough, the players would still get to customize a unit anyways. For what is worth, we kinda get to customize our army doctrine, by selecting a different type of culture each time.

I would really like a feature allowing my civilization to become an hybrid with others, via commerce, conquest, culture more or less like in real life.

I see unit customization as desireable. Imagine beginning with a generic unit - say, horseman - and depending upon how you use it and what experiences (good and bad) it has in battle, it shapes the character of the unit over time. The generic can evolve character to suit the period and the people who created it. Eventually it could evolve in different directions, like the Uhlans did or the Cossack Cavalry. They'd have different battle characteristics and optimizations. Civ had hard-coded different units. With Humankind I'm thinking more of unit evolution and each unit would be a kind of character in and of itself, able to evolve over time and adapt, expand or simply die off if it proved inefficient or lackluster. Thik of it as growning your own "unique units" except the units would be able to shed their characteristics depending  upon how they were used over time: a group of club-armed hunters could evolve into horse-back raiders, then into coastal boat raiders and eventually into a submarine pack - all depending upon the choices made by their possessor and upon the battles they win and lose over the centuries. This way your culture develops a "warrior culture" that is unique to itself as well.

dooycc wrote:

Maybe the unit customization system can replace genric unit system? Instead of new units, military tech unlocks equipments you can assign to your "soldier"units. And their roles, performance and price depend on the things they have, so you can adjust according to situation.

+1 I would like something different from other "civ games" out there.

Maybe the unit customization system can replace genric unit system? Instead of new units, military tech unlocks equipments you can assign to your "soldier"units. And their roles, performance and price depend on the things they have, so you can adjust according to situation.

I actually think that customisation will allow for players to have meaningful and timeabsorbing things to do especially in multiplayer whilst waiting for two other people to finish combat. besides it is a way of allowing variatioons on the standard unit each which is perfectly good for its own initial role. customisation should allow for 2-3 variants on the base. Those who don't want to customise can use the base, others who want a different approach can take the time to so. Turn timers can help people make quick turns when in games against unknown players and agreements between friends can help things move along at pace when playing against/with friends

I am vehemently against unit customization. This is my most hated feature of the Endless games (and frankly literally every space 4x game that forces you to build stupid starships fiddling with this and that all of which barely makes a difference). Endless micromanagement, endless clicking, endless updating every 2 turns when you disover a new technology, endless creation of alternative units using different unique resources, and all of which barely make a difference -- and all of which grows expontentially as you get an endless number of units and heroes. (Yes, "endless" pun intended.) I for one am extremely glad it is not in Humankind. And I think developers have confirmed that it won't be. 

I already greatly fear how much tactical combat slows the game down. Don't get me wrong, the battles in OpenDev were quite good, but the thought of going through all that in every engagement terrifies me slightly. I take some comfort in that I will likely automate 90% of combat (like in total war 3K) b/c player intervention will make no difference -- except i want autocombat to be even faster. To think about swapping out equipment endlessly on top of an already micro-heavy tactical combat would make the game unplayable for me. (Or maybe I'm just not cut out for amplitude games)

I can see positive and negative on both sides here. I think the promitions is the easy solution or compensatiuon they went for. Maybe make the promition more interesting like promitions trees. I like the promotions in Civ 5, but Civ 6 promotions felt way too generic and bland. The same could be said about Humankinds promotions simply being +1 in strength/damage or that stat whatever it is called. Full blown out customization with gear, armour and whatnot on the other hand is probably way too much fiddling and would be hard over time as units gets upgraded with the next era, but at least a more interesting promotion tree maybe.

On the other hand the promoition in Civ 5 hav it's issues, as some units was counted as mounted, or ranged in one era, then later on was changed to another class after an era upgrade, as machine guns and such was introduced, basically making previous promotion having no effect at all. So it is imporant to make sure the promotions do apply to the units class when units are upgraded, or maybe have the points not exactly reset but be given back in a pool for the unit and could be re-assigned to fit the promotion after and era upgrade.

minger223 wrote:

I am vehemently against unit customization. This is my most hated feature of the Endless games (and frankly literally every space 4x game that forces you to build stupid starships fiddling with this and that all of which barely makes a difference). Endless micromanagement, endless clicking, endless updating every 2 turns when you disover a new technology, endless creation of alternative units using different unique resources, and all of which barely make a difference -- and all of which grows expontentially as you get an endless number of units and heroes. (Yes, "endless" pun intended.) I for one am extremely glad it is not in Humankind. And I think developers have confirmed that it won't be. 

I already greatly fear how much tactical combat slows the game down. Don't get me wrong, the battles in OpenDev were quite good, but the thought of going through all that in every engagement terrifies me slightly. I take some comfort in that I will likely automate 90% of combat (like in total war 3K) b/c player intervention will make no difference -- except i want autocombat to be even faster. To think about swapping out equipment endlessly on top of an already micro-heavy tactical combat would make the game unplayable for me. (Or maybe I'm just not cut out for amplitude games)

I broadly agree with this. Not much to add really. On balance, unit customisation adds a lot of micro (design, update, juggle unit templates, check every enemy unit upon and before every combat) for often relatively limited pay-off (some special attack mode? a glass canon to exploit AI behaviour? Having "just the right" counter?). On top it's very hard to balance right.

I think the more detailed tactical combat system allows more than enough options between terrain, flanking and unit type bonuses, considering that combat is only one aspect of this game to begin with.