The pacing of the game in the since with culture picks is really annoying! I want to pick the Greek culture but, AI robs me of it as well as others, so now i have to pick a culture i do not want to play as, as if the game is forcing me to play the way it wants me to play instead the way i would like to play. This is the number one kill switch for me, in which i stop playing the game am trying to enjoy.

Lower the difficulty if you can't keep up or lead ahead.

Transcend if there are no cultures you'd like to pick.

Go play Civ, if you expect to play whole game with what you want.

Having a “Human Player can reserve a Culture” setting for single player would definitely be an improvement in QoL and letting players tell the story they want to.   Not sure how hard it would be to add though.

The "Reserve culture" button would literally break one of the design decisions - namely deciding when to switch Eras. Do you stay a bit longer in your current Era and earn more stars and fame or do you move on and get the culture you want to.

Basically if you can reserve a culture there is no point of rushing ahead and you will stay to get almost all Era stars in your current Era.

I agree that a "Reserve culture" setting would break one of the more interesting ideas in the game. The tradeoff between staying in an era to build momentum or moving out ASAP to get the culture you'd like, is one of those classic Sid Meier "series of interesting decisions" for a strategy game. 

On the other hand, how bad would that be for people who would want it as an optional setting? I think it wouldn't be terrible if the game allowed the player to reserve their first culture for roleplay reasons. Achievements could be disabled with that option, to balance the fact that it's something of an exploit to allow building stars and fame without any trade-off in culture selection.

I think your problem will be mitigated when they add more cultures. They are certainly going to add more cultures in DLCs... now if every game has a fixed 10 cultures then it won't change anything. But if they allow any number of cultures, then the more cultures there are, the more likely the culture you want will still be available.

(Having said that, this assumes they tweak the AIs so they don't always pick in the same order).

PussCeEater101 wrote:

The pacing of the game in the since with culture picks is really annoying! I want to pick the Greek culture but, AI robs me of it as well as others, so now i have to pick a culture i do not want to play as, as if the game is forcing me to play the way it wants me to play instead the way i would like to play. This is the number one kill switch for me, in which i stop playing the game am trying to enjoy.

I find the fact that you cannot pick a culture if someone else took it very contradictory to how the game was designed. It essentially turns the game into a race again, makes choosing cultures an illusion and makes the fame aspect quite redundant since there is no real reason not to rush and amass more of it.

The way I get around it is to choose the right opponents who are less likely to take your desired cultures. If you pick scientist opponents then its is far more likely that you will not be able to get it since the AI is programmed to rush ahead (I think) instead of amassing fame. 

With the new patch, AIs are now farming fame and not rushing anymore, so there is a better chance of getting exactly what you want.

On the other hand, the game is working exactly as designed. There is tension between farming more fame that seems easily available, and moving to the next era to get that culture you were preparing for. That tension is strategy. This is not Civ 6 with its multiple WIN buttons, sorry to say (no I am not). The player has to adapt to dynamic and changing conditions, including that an AI gets a culture first. That makes the game better; for easy wins, as another member said, whether you like his answer or not, there is Civ 6.

Aristos wrote:

With the new patch, AIs are now farming fame and not rushing anymore, so there is a better chance of getting exactly what you want.

On the other hand, the game is working exactly as designed. There is tension between farming more fame that seems easily available, and moving to the next era to get that culture you were preparing for. That tension is strategy. This is not Civ 6 with its multiple WIN buttons, sorry to say (no I am not). The player has to adapt to dynamic and changing conditions, including that an AI gets a culture first. That makes the game better; for easy wins, as another member said, whether you like his answer or not, there is Civ 6.

"On the other hand, the game is working exactly as designed. There is tension between farming more fame that seems easily available, and moving to the next era to get that culture you were preparing for. That tension is strategy."

Having to choose between fame and getting the culture you want may entail some strategy yes, but the point in dispute isn't that. The point is whether it is fun to do so, and whether it is true to how the game was envisioned.

Even when the game was first publicized it was very clear that "choosing cultures" and not just "racing through the ages" were key things that set it apart from Civilization. The current gameplay denies both of these and makes it such that racing to the next era is essential if you want to have fun picking the cultures you like. The tension you mentioned already exists because there are downsides to not advancing through eras quickly, that is the fact that your technology and civics will fall behind.

Another option besides reserving a culture would be allowing culture duplication. An AI already picked Greece? Well, you can pick it too if you want. 

Your Greek culture might encounter its first neighbor as another Greek culture, but you're not going to be picking exactly the same development path, and it's not unheard of for neighboring civilizations in history to have a shared culture until they diverge, or are absorbed. This would probably only work for the first era out of the Neolithic, since it would feel weird in later eras to find your same culture way on the other side of the map. 

Zenicetus wrote:

Another option besides reserving a culture would be allowing culture duplication. An AI already picked Greece? Well, you can pick it too if you want. 

This seems like the best and most likely option. I'm not sure how you would handle it if multiple players wanted to play the same culture with a "reserve culture" option, but this seems very feasible.

Krikkitone wrote:

[Duplicate Cultures would also work as an option, and would be easily available to Multplayer as well... there would have to be some Naming issues resolved.]

Yes, the competitor naming would need a change, like using the Avatar name as consistent identifier. I think that would be a good move regardless, to avoid confusion and having to think of competitors as colors while they move through different cultures.

Elteras wrote:

Sublustris wrote:

Lower the difficulty if you can't keep up or lead ahead.

Transcend if there are no cultures you'd like to pick.

Go play Civ, if you expect to play whole game with what you want.

I think your reply was not very helpful. OP is criticizing an aspect of game design that contradicts what the game is supposed to be about. Your solutions, instead of dealing with the design flaws stated, instead assumes that it is a skill/difficulty issue and completely ignores the purpose of why OP posted in the first place.

The whole premise and strength of humankind's take on the genre is that;
1:  Unlike civilization, players get to choose and explore the benefits of different cultures in a game to craft one that best suits their preferences.
2: Unlike civilization, humankind's fame mechanic means that games are not just about a race to the finish like a science victory but about amassing prestige for as long and as much as is possible.

The current way the gameplay is designed contradicts the unique selling points of humankind. Namely, unlike how the game was touted to be, players do not really get to choose if they did not play the game like a race. Meaning in theory although the game was not designed to be a rush, if you want to have your pick of cultures you have to play it like it is a race, making the fame mechanic redundant.

Oh, my. A person who is actually suggesting that a game be fun for the player rather than saying the player should just get on the stick and be a better player to be able to enjoy the game.

I too read the post you quoted and wondered what this post is supposed to accomplish. You can't force someone to like the game and recommend it to their friends by scolding them. Yet developers live and die on people buying their game and recommending it to others. All posts like that do is make the Amplitude community feel toxic and hostile. How is telling someone to go play a game made by a competing studio supposed to help this dev with their game? It doesn't.

I added a mod to the game that allows one to choose any culture one wants, and it changes the dynamic of the game in a good way. You can pick the culture that will most benefit you given the terrain that you have explored. It's actually very fun. People should have the option of playing it one way or the other as they choose. This would give the game more re-play value and accommodate different play styles. 

Elteras wrote:

I think your reply was not very helpful. OP is criticizing an aspect of game design that contradicts what the game is supposed to be about. Your solutions, instead of dealing with the design flaws stated, instead assumes that it is a skill/difficulty issue and completely ignores the purpose of why OP posted in the first place.

The whole premise and strength of humankind's take on the genre is that;
1:  Unlike civilization, players get to choose and explore the benefits of different cultures in a game to craft one that best suits their preferences.
2: Unlike civilization, humankind's fame mechanic means that games are not just about a race to the finish like a science victory but about amassing prestige for as long and as much as is possible.

The current way the gameplay is designed contradicts the unique selling points of humankind. Namely, unlike how the game was touted to be, players do not really get to choose if they did not play the game like a race. Meaning in theory although the game was not designed to be a rush, if you want to have your pick of cultures you have to play it like it is a race, making the fame mechanic redundant.

I think your reply was not very helpful. OP doesn't criticize anything (in a constructive way), he states he can't play the game differently. Which is natural, because frankly, it is different game to that he used to play. This isn't a design flaw at all, this is entirely different design. As was already mentioned - you either pick cultures first, or limit your options as a trade off for fame farming.

It is 4X, dude, it IS the race. 

AOM wrote:

Oh, my. A person who is actually suggesting that a game be fun for the player rather than saying the player should just get on the stick and be a better player to be able to enjoy the game.

It is fun, you just suck at it. So do I, but at least I try to do better at it, and that is where fun comes from.