This is a repost of my review on Steam:

Longtime gamer of 4x titles, like over 30 years of em so I'm not talking out my ass here. Everything about this game is great except the way war against other civs works. It's so atrocious that it literally makes the game unplayable for me. You can WIN all the battles, ransack all their cities and outposts while they haven't touched yours and somehow still be forced into a surrender? NANI!? Like what? And you don't even have the choice to say no to the terms. The fact that I can be WINNING the war doesn't seem to matter because of this weird arbitrary thing they call war support that's poorly implemented and then downright false in it's explanation. You're supposed to be getting +x amount of support when you win battles and ransack stuff but somehow it doesn't matter because even though the AI is LOSING EVERY BATTLE and LOSING ALL of it's territory it somehow can force surrender because of your war support somehow ticking down to nothing... AS YOU'RE WINNING... and this happens in the ANCIENT era! Like for realsies? GARBAGE game mechanic, my cities and outpost were fine in the loyalty (or whatever they call it in this) department and somehow war support still ticks down, AS I'M WINNING... seriously trash. Don't bother with this until they patch a ton of stuff and completely overhaul some of the mechanics, just go back to modded out CIV 6 which has superior overall "war weariness" mechanics. I've also conquered the entire map in another round and it fails to trigger the "killed all other civs" game ending and wants me to keep hitting end turn til turn 300 I guess? Pffft, okay game. Amplitudes other games are great, absolutely LOVED the Endless Space series, this game unfortunately is a pretty skinned version of a generic 4X right now. (Edited cuz my dumbass is to lazy to hit ' and then re, you, your and you're ya know? And toned down the harshness, TL;DR WAR SUPPORT NEEDS WORK).

Update: The war support system is still really bad but easily exploitable once you figure it out, the issue I'm running into now is that the game just feels meh, like there's a fantastic BASE for a 4x game but something is just, missing? All the civs play basically the same and there's no real difference between them in the eras, just pick whichever suits your needs at the time ie. pick an influence civ if you need that atm. The Huns and Mongols EU (emblematic unit) are BROKEN AF... but other than that all the EUs feel generic and samsies. The games pace is super weird if you change the length of the game in any way beyond standard, navies seem totally pointless since you can't take cities or outposts with them EVEN IF they're on the coast or an island. The easiest way to win at this point seems to be to just fill out the tech tree and hope you have the highest score, which is super iffy on any difficulty past empire, not due to good AI or anything but really just how RNGeezus your start in the neolithic is and you can tell by medieval era who's gonna win. The game just devolves into a turn end simulator by around mid medieval era and it's a forgone conclusion on who the winner is by this point.

I feel like the fame system just kinda punishes targeted gameplay strategies and none of the civs besides the Huns or Mongols like I said have any real difference in playstyle. Science barely matters because when you hit modern or whatever you just spam science districts and pick a science civ to speed up the end turn simulator. IDK, the game has potential but I don't think they can change anything drastically enough to make it more than a "meh" 4x game, which is sad because I mentioned earlier Endless Space 2 and to a lesser extent Endless Legends were fantastic games where the different civs played drastically different (think Cravers from ES2 or Necrophages from Legends just to name two off the top of my head).

Also there are weird UI issues in various things like the battle system where it just moves units cuz I accidently clicked on a popup but it assumed I wanted to move a unit. The whole city cap thing needs to be expalined a bit better? Or I dunno let us raze a city the minute we capture it? Like a little popup ala civilization? I played 3 whole games before I realized I could ransack cities I captured to avoid the stupid influence negatives.

I feel like the game is a great starting point but just falls short compared to your other games on lauch. Seriously, Endless Space 2 is AMAZING and was amazing from launch, the civs all played differently and some of them literally forced you to play a certain gameplay style that you might not be comfortable with but that was the magic of it. As of right now the civs in Humakind are totally generic and interchangeable to the extreme. Also instead of it retexturing EVERY little building with the new civs style maybe make it to where it only changes Some of the little buildings so there is a real flavor reminder of all the civs you picked throughout the eras. What are all you other gamers thoughts? Am I being to harsh?

P.S. F! and I mean F! the random spawning free/independent units that can just randomly take one of your cities and make it theirs. That so far is THE STUPIDEST mechanic in the game. They literally just spawn out of thin air in your borders and take a city in like 1 to 2 turns before you even really know they're there.

I beg to disagree. Depending on how you structure your path through the Eras, you can have a vastly different experience. This is mostly due to the legacy traits and Affinity ability you get from each Era. Let me give you three different paths up to the Early modern Era :

Zhou->Greek->Francs -> Joseon (I complete it with French->Swedish for a strong science game). This path has 2 Aesthete and 2 Science cultures, all four have a science Emblematic quarter. You can get some good influence, great science and mostly defensive unique units. You can still influence Independent Peoples and fight some small conflicts to get extra land if you want to. You play as an Influence and Science powerhouse and usually have a smaller army but more technologically advanced. And due to your good relations with the Independent people you can also easily hire mercenaries. This plays more defensively with heavy involvement in diplomacy.


Phoenicians->Carthaginians->Norse->Dutch (You can go with British/Siamese->Chinese to top it off ) This path has 3 Merchant and 1 Militarist Culture. If you get the Lighthouse of Alexandria once you reach the Norse you can quickly get to the New World and conquer or colonize it one Era before anyone else can get there. The War Elephant from Carthage and the Militarist Affinity from the Norse ensures that you have a great military option both on the defense and offense for the Classical and Medieval eras if you want to fight on land.

This path is more of a traditional colonization path with very strong money income that leads into a population boom during the last two eras. Once you get the additional luxuries from the New world you should start growing your population really fast as the legacy trait from the Dutch and the Floating market from the Siamese gives you + X gold per population. And then the Chinese simply allow you to have even more population and money. You can both go for a more peaceful game trading with others or act as a ruthless colonizer and pick the British to vasalize a few civilizations using your strong fleet and endless coffers.

Harrapans -> Celts -> Khmer -> Haudenosaunee /Mughals ( You can continue with Mexicans->Brazilians for huge food and population or Russians-> Soviet to use that population for military conquests). Here you have 3 Agrarian and 1 Builder or 2 Agrarian and 2 Builder cultures.

The key here are the first 3 cultures that give you very good Food and Production (from the Khmer). You should use Forced labour to quickly build districts in the first two Eras and then just continue building your population and Maker's quarters to boost your production. Afterwards it is up to you - do you want more population and bigger armies (downside is that you will need some money for upkeep) or better military bonuses and units. The Celts and Russians give you a boost to your Faith so if have managed to grab a few Holy sites and tennets, you can make use of your huge population and dominant religion in any direction you want to.

There are other combinations, you can also transcend your culture if you want to keep building on those bonuses. The main idea is that the system is so flexible that if you do not want to experiment and go a different route, you (the player) will always adapt the game to suit your style of play. This is not like Civ or Endless Space where the race/civilization forces you to play differently.

If you do not want to get out of your comfort zone and play with some of the other playstiles Humankind won't force you to do it. That is on you and it is great you have the choice. :)

I get what your saying but that doesn't change the main issue with the civs all feeling the same. A few extra bonuses to x doesn't make for varied gameplay. As I stated the only civs that feel slightly different so far are the Huns and Mongols and thats mainly because of their EU and the whole not being able to turn outposts to cities mechanic. Your advice is correct for someone who is having issues with abusing game mechanics but I have no issue winning games, the problem I'm having is I just don't want to FINISH games after about halfway through because everything feels the same (woooo slight bonuses to something that I'd be watching and taking care of anyways doesn't really feel impactful at all, ie. ED's). 

It's kinda obvious what some of the good combos are and it's kinda obvious which "civs" to pick per era depending on the oh so limited playstyles. And lets be real here, Harrapan/Egyptians - Huns/Carthaginians (If theres a ton of coast the cothon is borderline BROKEN if you pick Khmer next due to the cothon counting as all the districts and giving INSANE yields with the Khmer's ED with some smart placement by river mouths), Mongols/Khmer - Dutch (if you need money and especially if you went Carthage before so you can just BUY everything) or better still Mughals (cuz production is obviously king in this game too) Edo if your behind on influence cuz you conquered everything as the Huns or Mongols and just need some extra influence to stabilize - Siamese (I forgot about the Gattling Elephant, even though it comes super late it's almost as good as the hordes) any influence civ if your still having issues - TURKS (cuz their ED might be THE MOST BROKEN one in the game) or any science civ really, and then proceed to click end turn and spam science districts. I'm not saying your combos are wrong I'm saying that there are stupid obvious combos an even without those combos the fastest way to end the game (unless your playing a small map and just go a pilligin' for an easy delete all civs game) is to just reach modern and spam science districts. And I'm saying thats kinda lame becasue by that time in the game I just want it to END and that's the fastest way to complete the end turn simulator. 

Also what's the deal with religion? I'm almost always the leader and even when I'm not I don't really notice it except for the SUPER situational templar knights or whatever with their bonus against other religions. The war support mechanic definitely needs work, maybe something along the lines of ES2 where you could raze it but it takes a few turns and you can resettle the pops to your other cities idk, just spit balling here. The independent peoples need ALOT of work, they shouldn't just materialize right next to a city and be able to take it that same turn, it's absolutely ridiculous. Maybe they could tie the spawning of the "rebels" into approval rating? As of now I can have >80 plus rating and they still show up RANDOMLY and snipe a city or 2 while my armies are off fighting wars. The way Barbarians work in CIV 6 with the expansions is a bit better IMO.  I hate to compare this to CIV 6 but c'mon lets face it, it's basically an easier version of that game with ONE win mechanic, the fame is just SUPER LIMITING in how you approach the game, or should I say how you play it DOESN'T matter because all you need is fame? In Civ 6 I can transition to kinda any win condition depending on how I played throughout the game. I'm also not so bored by the mid to late game cuz I can just go start a war or pay other civs to start them and then play civs off each other for weirdo espionage scenarios in my head, or have to go knock another civ down a peg cuz they're on their way to a science victory or something, not to mention the civs all have pretty different mechanics and gameplay styles (Still relatively limited but you can actaully FEEL their impact).

I don't agree at all in the notion that all civs feel largely the same. That is more of a complaint I have with the civilization series where you get a mere unit, some passives, and a district for the entirety of the game. In humankind you quite literally are given the ability to adapt / change your focus from war or empire building with a coat of paint of your choice each and every era. There is no two colors of paint that are the same. Are you seriously going to tell me the Harappans feel exactly like the Egyptians which feel exactly like the Phoenicians? In the first era alone I can see how different the playstyle focus is. I feel like you are truly passionate where you are coming from OP but it makes me feel like you haven't played Civilization as you claim but you have certainly played endless space, possibly endless legend too where every single civilization was fundamentally different at every level of how they functioned. While it would be awesome AF if 60 civilizations in this game played like endless space I personally am fine with the understanding that humankind makes the gameplay extremely fresh while keeping some things familiar with the popular civilization series which this game was clearly designed to challenge. 

This isn't an endless legend or space sequel and for some this will be a bummer but for others this is right up their alley and I know I'm excited to see what they can do with time in post launch support. You know what amplitude is capable of you merely need to imagine now what they are thinking since this was their dream game so as such you should expect quite some beef is in store for where the game goes from here. You better believe more customization will likely be added in time / mechanics and they already have said (which should be obvious anyways) that balance is inbound so fear not some "OP combos" will be changing.

Either I am misunderstanding you or your perspective is totally inverted compared to what the game mechanics represent.

Having more win conditions makes the game easier. You can be doing badly at a few of them but as long as you focus on your preferred condition, you will be fine in the end. Giving you more ways to win can be fun the first few times you achieve each specific victory but afterwards it only cheapens the experience. With some of the new modes in Civ 6 there have ben Unwanted Diplomatic and Cultural victories for example. Players were winning even though they were not chasing that specific victory condition. :)

Another impact is that because of the sheer number of options, there are counter-measures against each victory type in that game. Especially when you were going for Diplomatic victory you often had to game the Congress system and vote against yourself to deduct -2 Diplomatic Score so you would only lose 1. Compare that to Humankind where your main counter-measure is simply to do better than the rest of civilization and earn more Fame. This leads to a more focused gameplay experience where you try to explore the whole game and its systems to earn more score instead of play with one or two of the main systems.

Do not get me wrong, previous Amplitude games also had multiple win conditions - that was just the norm presented by the Civ series in the last 30 years or so. And some of those conditions were easier than others, thus making some civilization/races stronger purely due to their preferred win condition. In Humankind you are not hindered by your win condition as it is the same for all. :)

Melliores wrote:

Either I am misunderstanding you or your perspective is totally inverted compared to what the game mechanics represent.

Having more win conditions makes the game easier. You can be doing badly at a few of them but as long as you focus on your preferred condition, you will be fine in the end. Giving you more ways to win can be fun the first few times you achieve each specific victory but afterwards it only cheapens the experience. With some of the new modes in Civ 6 there have ben Unwanted Diplomatic and Cultural victories for example. Players were winning even though they were not chasing that specific victory condition. :)

Another impact is that because of the sheer number of options, there are counter-measures against each victory type in that game. Especially when you were going for Diplomatic victory you often had to game the Congress system and vote against yourself to deduct -2 Diplomatic Score so you would only lose 1. Compare that to Humankind where your main counter-measure is simply to do better than the rest of civilization and earn more Fame. This leads to a more focused gameplay experience where you try to explore the whole game and its systems to earn more score instead of play with one or two of the main systems.

Do not get me wrong, previous Amplitude games also had multiple win conditions - that was just the norm presented by the Civ series in the last 30 years or so. And some of those conditions were easier than others, thus making some civilization/races stronger purely due to their preferred win condition. In Humankind you are not hindered by your win condition as it is the same for all. :)

The thing is, Fame is in essence, a glorified score victory, after a number of turns or if end conditions are met, the faction with the highest fame wins. Much in the same way a player with the highest score wins. But unlike humankind and the fame victory, you can turn off win conditions in other games, meaning you can still obtain the focused gameplay of humankind by simply turning off all other victories and leave only the score victory on. You may approve of fame being the only win condition, but alot of other players dont, by being able to disable and enable win conditions, games are able to satisfy both sides, Humankind only satisfies one side.

Holy balls Dragon Gaming gets it. It feels so samsies no matter what civ you pick its kind of a joke, look the game is OK for what it is, but it's too similar to Civ 5 and 6 to not have some of the main fundamentals that make those games feel great. If you really think as per some of your all's posts that adding x resource or whatever is somehow "game changing, and feels totally different", then I challenge you to literally just blindly pick a civ in each era and then tell me the game doesn't play eaxactly the same as it would have if you picked "your" choice civ each time. It's not a bad game by any means, I just personally feel, that after the 2 previous titles they had they could have done a better job at differentiating the feel of each civ. Don't give me this nonsense of "oh it would be so hard to do it for 60 civs", It's not, we're LITERALLY talking about x resource bonus being THE ONLY difference between them so aside from the Mongols and Huns which I pointed out earlier they all feel basically the same, Like lets say for example they could have given the Romans EU a thing where as long as you were winning battles they gave your empire x amount of approval each battle but the minute you started losing or the farther away from your capital you got in the war or NOT being at war, the less the bonus was, even changing into an aprroval COST per EU, ya know, to simulate how the Romans built their empire off booty and conquest until they reached the geographical limits of communication and logistical/governmental reach. I guess if they had written some rudimentary storylines that idk, let's say they pulled from like 20 minutes of browsing each civs cultural history and then incorporated a VERY brief storyline ala their other games to each one to obtain a solid bonus per civ if you chose to complete it before just advancing to the next era (to build off using the Romans as an example, like if you built a praetorian, they could have a little questline about the third legion or something that provided the civ bonus after completing it and do something similar for each civ), then yeah I'd say that would be a different "flavor" for each. As of how it stands your just picking random insert more of x here and saying that somehow drastically changes overall strategy.

Also to quote Melliores "Having more win conditions makes the game easier. You can be doing badly at a few of them but as long as you focus on your preferred condition, you will be fine in the end. Giving you more ways to win can be fun the first few times you achieve each specific victory but afterwards it only cheapens the experience. With some of the new modes in Civ 6 there have ben Unwanted Diplomatic and Cultural victories for example. Players were winning even though they were not chasing that specific victory condition. :)".  You do realize that your reinforcing my point with this statement, right? Like in Civ 6 I can be CRUSHING it and then all of a sudden, because I wasn't paying attention to the diplomacy screen I can lose to IDK, SWEDEN, cuz they decided to pull off a diplo victory? It adds flavor is all I'm saying, and NONE of that exists in this title so far. I'm sure they'll add stuff and flesh things out in DLC but I mean C'mon, They had, in their own words, LITERAL years to look at *cough* the Civ series *cough* and then just add Amplitudes SWEET SWEET storytelling flair to it and they just... didn't?

Also  to answer your question Kryton, I've played every Civ since Civ 1, and yeah you're not wrong about it being a UU and building but those buildings and UU's make a pretty big difference depending on where they enter the game on the timeline. Like Dido has a CRAZY different playstyle for you as the player that rewards hard rush forward settling because you can change your capital on the fly to abuse specific policy cards. Or Teddy being a total dick when he's an AI cuz of the silly bonuses to appeal he gets and knowing that you'll have to deal with him or just lose to a cultural victory. So far, from now, 5 completed games on difficulties ranging from the Humankind to whatever the "normal" one is, with multiple saves to feel out each civ and a few not even completed games it just feels like, aside from gamebreaking obviously broken things that I already mentioned there just really is no difference between them.

P.S. without mods the World Congress in Civ 6 totally blows and is just annoying AF. Mods fix it though.

I've noticed that years are WAY off on the slower difficulty, I won a game with science end turn simulator at like 6400BCE lol, not really an issue though honestly. The era's do seem short you kinda HAVE to pick as soon as you can on the higher difficulties so you can stay relevant unit wise aginst the AI in tech, if you're a bit ahead you can hold off though. I really just want to see a bit more "story" to the civs, what do you all think of using the EU's or ED's as a tablet for a short sequence of "missions" kinda like an extended version of the popups in game? And this could be the way you unlocked that specific era "bonus" that carries over and maybe buff them a wee bit accordingly cuz you'd have to complete said "quest" to get them (or not becuase you could completely ignore them if you wanted to). Example, building Edo's ED could trigger a pop up with some flavor text that threw a bit of historical drama at you and then tasked you with building 3 Naginta Samurai units which then triggered another pop up that inserted some more historical flavor text (I'm talking like a couple of short paragraphs here, similar to the ones in ES2) which prompted you to use the unit to IDK, clear a Sanctuary, Kill a cavalry unit, set foot on a new continent or something along those lines and then that would grant the era bonus that carries over through the game. It would go a long way to making each civ in each era feel unique. Off the top of my head I can think of quite a few "quests" for each civ that wouldn't really change anything about the core mechanics but would just add a little bit more personality to the civs.