So first, it is very unfortunate that access to the beta started immediately after some midnight announcement and is then limited to just a few days. Couldn't see the announcement and then checked two days later only to discover that I already missed out on a significant portion of the available play time.

In the game, I miss a sense of direction, what I can do and why I should do it. I'm going to compare this to Civilization IV, the last Civ that had good AI (thanks to mods), since Civ V and especially Civ VI are vastly inferior games for me because of their poor AI and intentionally restricted moddability.

So in Civ4, you found cities close to resources so your city can work them. There appear to be few resources on the map in Humankind, and they're always far away from any place a city should be - which is, on a river or other water source. I cannot see a great reason to settle in one place over another, also even the sectors are all kinda the same, so founding my city feels like a pretty random act. Nothing like "wow this start location is awesome, two gold resources and three food resources right next to it!".

And the natural city spots always seem to be right at the edge of those arbitrarily shaped sectors, presumably limiting future growth of the city in one or even two directions. What's up with that? I'd expect that the best spot for a city should be in the center of a sector.

Then right after my first city is founded, I find myself with rather weird build options. Where in other games you usually get some primitive buildings first like a barracks or monument, the only thing I can build here is more city districts, which seems like doing the third step before the first. Shouldn't cities first get some basic infrastructure before you start expanding them? My only other available option is to call some kind of feast right away, which does not sound like it could ever be a viable choice in the early game - so why is it there?

Exploration is rather cumbersome with the map that looks like a maze. In principle I like that there are more chokepoints and terrain is important, but it has gone a bit too far. Even after the map is explored, it is difficult to even see how you can get from point A to B without being blocked by some ridge or having to spend 25 turns stepping into and out of riverbeds along the way. Also it seems basically guaranteed that this will totally cripple the AI when it tries to invade or outmaneuver the player. Since no AI I've ever seen is even able to handle a naval invasion properly, navigating the maze maps efficiently seems like an impossible task.

Doing manual combat seems completely pointless in the early game because you only have melee units anyway so you just move and whack the enemy, no tactical options available. But I assume this will get much better as you get more diverse and ranged units later in the game.

I hope the game picks up pace and gets more interesting as you progress further, but for the reasons mentioned above I really have trouble even getting that far. With only two days remaining in the beta, the next try will probably be with the release version...