Let me stress at once that a lot of issues with the betas have clearly been fixed, so it's premature to jump to conclusions at this stage, but there still seem to be serious problems with the game as launched.

Before I start I should mention that as a matter of general playing style, I tend not to micro pops unless I'm at a critical point. I prefer a reasonably extensive empire (at or around city limit, with a few unattached territories) without excessive early conquest - the game is, after all, called Humankind, not Vassalisation. I like to advance through tech trees, build a Wonder or two, make some special units, and develop large, productive cities with a view to a powerful endgame. I suspect I am pretty typical in most of these aims.

That said, these are the issues, and why they matter:

1. Early blobbing. Also an issue in other 4X games, but Humankind is an extreme case, as this example demonstrates:

Turn 096, Orange becomes Mongols, I become Khmer in the same turn. Stars, 0:0

Turn 128, Orange is Haundenosaunee with 4 stars, I become Dutch. Stars 7:11

Turn 135, Orange becomes Mexican, I am Dutch with 1 star. Stars 8:14

So Orange was averaging an era every 20 turns during that period. None of the other AI's were out of the Middle Ages, and at least one was still in Classical.

The reason why this is game breaking is that it presents a player like me with an insoluble dilemma:

(a) If an AI does blob, the game is effectively over, and becomes a two-horse race with no effective challenge to the winner by, say, turn 200.

(b) The alternative is to play aggressively from the outset so as to preclude AI blobbing, with a heavy military build early on. But to my mind that rather defeats the purpose of what is supposed to be 'Humankind', not 'Vassalisation'.

2. Missing strategic resources.

Many have commented about the lack of oil on maps. Having less than 3 oil on the whole map breaks many late-game units and hence the game. Investing several hours into reaching the endgame, only to find that the long-awaited units can't even be built, makes the whole exercise seem a waste of time. 

Such resource shortages also break the game in a more subtle way, because for a meaningful endgame, at least 2 players need to have at least access to 3 oil, if they are to be reasonably matched. Again, Endless Legend had a trading system that addressed this.

3. Peace deal shenanigans.

During the peace settlement, the AI seems to be allowed to rearrange its empire, either by merging or splitting off territories. In the first case, this can result in the human player going over the city limit with a number of one-province cities that have no possibility of growth. The gold cost of annexing these cities is vastly more than it is worth. In the second, the human player need to detach the merged city which is also problematic. As a defeated enemy, the AI should not have the ability to meddle in this way.

4. Combat issues. The AI is good at combat, and this is a virtue of the game as opposed to, say, Civ. But the reinforcement system, and who is or is not called into battle, is not properly worked out. This is strange because the system in Endless Legend was already working well, and Humankind seems for the most part to be building on that game. In one series of battles, the AI literally nerfed my superior force because I had two cities close together and although the spawn point for the second city was on the battle map, the reinforcing troops could only be unpacked into tiles that were outside it. This meant they were helpless onlookers for the whole fight. To be sure, maybe this is a learnable mechanic, but it was very counter-intuitive, and reminded me of the sort of uncle who plays a game with his nephews and keeps remembering rules (that always happen to favour him) as the game goes on.

All of this. I've mentioned some of these issues in my own posts and comments (see my achievement run Harappan post), another thing to add is that even though the game incentivises blobbing/war so much with the aggressive AI, you don't really get any interactions with the empire you just vassalized for your own survival. The other thing is they seem to get organised warfare uncannily quickly, or there's some weird rule discrepancy in whether they can or cannot reinforce sieges.

Amplitude kept polishing EL and ES2 for ages until NimbleGiant ruined both so I'm confident a lot of this will be resolved, but I'll agree it's quite jarring when they've put so much effort into a narrator that questions whether you're showing enough tolerance and compassion each time you pick a civic or ransack a tile improvement.

Melliores wrote:

The game has certain balance issues and oversights, I would not call it broken.

Regarding the first issue that you refer to as "blobbing" - it matters little in which Era is the AI or how many stars it has. The Fame score is the only thing that sets you apart. So even if it ahead of you in stars in theory you can be close or even have more fame than him. Some AIs with better traits have a tendency to break away. Remember, not all opponents are created equality and this system reminds me of the Anno series where you have three tiers of adversaries.

You can still do some things on the side to improve your overall chances, for example allying with other civilization and trading with them for Luxuries and the bonuses they provide. You can very much catch up with an AI that is 1000 or even 2000 fame ahead of you in the Medieval Era.

The other issues need to be ironed out, especially the insufficient number of strategics on each map. Broken might be a bit... harsh ? You can still complete a game a win it, even with the missing resources and locked units and projects.

I said clearly in the title: WHY THE GAME IS BROKEN (FOR ME) AS IT STANDS. Others may not regard these issues as game breaking or even important. 

What I can say is that I participated in the betas and have been looking forward to the launch eagerly since I got the game last year. Now I'm not even sure if I want to play it again. 

To reiterate:

Early blobbing was not an issue with the betas, nor is it with Endless Legend. 

Resource shortages were not an issue with the betas, nor are they with Endless Legend. 

Peace deal shenanigans were not an issue with the betas, nor are they with Endless Legend. 

Combat issues of the sort I've outlined were not an issue with the betas, nor are they with Endless Legend.

So, broken (for me) and these things need to be fixed.

Regarding #3 - I think there need to be more options when suing for peace:  Free trade licenses from the losing side, forcing certain treaties on the losing side, maybe forcing the losing side to dismantle some of their military, maybe taking tech from the losing side.

Regarding #4 - The combat system is both great in concept and extremely wonky in execution.  Hopefully they are continuing to evolve this system.

And what is blobbing?

Have the devs addressed any of these issues through postings or a roadmap?