It should have been released as an early access title, as that what it feels like currently. Missing fundamental 4x features and being wildly unbalanced due to seemly still experimental formulas on top of feeling like it all needs a final polish from the UI to the main menus.

I think you give the game a disservice by relegating peoples concerns and thus negative reviews of the game to "people don't like it because it isn't civ". Many people who discuss the games state both on these forums and in the Amplitude discord barely mention civ, and are more concerned with the lack of meaningful decisions, management, repetitive nature of the game and missing features - especially in comparison with Amplitudes previous 4x titles.

It isn't helped by the balancing of the game that has occurred over the last couple of months feeling as if its directionless, that they don't actually know how they want to end product to feel and act. Monthly updates should come every 2 or 3 months if deeper changes could be made rather then the seemingly surface level changes introduced by the last 2 patches. Surface level changes aren't going to solve the issues this game has, as its not a matter of numbers being too high or too low, its a matter of the means in which those numbers are produced being too free-flowing. It's getting to the point where decisions being made are made at such a macro-level due to the plethora of +X% Per X means of balancing the game that it doesn't feel satisfying, it feels like a slog where all I'm deciding is that I'm going generally in "that" direction. 

The game mechanics need to allow players to understand both what it happening, and what to do to solve it. In solving one issue another will pop-up due to inter-connected game systems playing into or against each other and the cycle of management continues. If its all too blurry and hazy to understand then the player will just start clicking for the sake of clicking, which is neither satisfying or fun. This is both a problem Humankind has, and is a growing problem with the way balancing is being introduced.

lbasil wrote:

We could spend hours or days talking about how a 4x game should be or not to be. I don't agree by any means on what you are stating (and I am really getting bored by the tune that everything that is not civ4 is bad, than just play civ4 and don't bother), for example I really like civ5 as well as humankind and had very different impressions from those games in respect on what you say, so i guess that we are very different players with very different tastes and I mean its fine. And that is my point, I didnt like how civ6 came up for various reasons and i really expected a different game from various aspect, but i did not put a negative review on it just because "it is not civ4" or civ5 or its not the game I wanted it to be. There are a a lot of good strategy game out there and also some good 4x in particular (im thinkink about old world or oriental Empires as an ex.) and everyone is different with points of strenght an points of weakness and again i would love to spend days talking about what se like or dislike about those games and that is why forums like this exists. But those games are good even of they are not civ4 and humankind Is among this good games. So reading reviews disliking the game because "I cannot take Greece" or "I cannot conquer the whole world easily" really underwhelm me.

We could spend even months, but makes no sense, as you clearly don't understand my post at all.

I am not stating everything except civ4 is bad. But I mention it as it is the same genre and the most complete of any in this genre.

I am stating that giving multiple content without forcing a player to take care of it in any way is bad. That makes game incomplete. And Humankind unfortunately is the very good example of releasing incomplete game.

I mentioned Endless Legend in contrary to HK. EL is complete - you neglect any aspect, you start to fall behind. In HK you neglect most aspects, you still win with ease. 

Lol this thread is aging pretty poorly imo. People slowly getting more emotional and blinded of the current state of the 4x game genre. I'll play a bit of devil's advocate here but try to keep it real still.

The patch times to fix some issues definitely is a bummer. Especially multiplayer fixes. But to suggest the game is bad or even garbage is preposterous. I have more fun and actually witness strategy in a 4x vs AI than I ever did in Civ 5 or Civ 6. I would say this game is also more interesting with challenge than also Stellaris as only some crisis events really make that game shine due to how you can surpass AI in that game too. People have gotta step back to some extent here and understand the game didn't hit it's mark, sure, but the game is far from mediocre or a bad 4x. It's a good game that we wish could have launched more stable and with more tuning of industry, science, etc pacing. I can't say this enough though that because this strategy game has largely better AI than most if not all current 4x games this alone should be praised more imo. Perhaps most 4x gamers do not want challenging AI though and just want to win inevitably every game? It sadly does seem to trend that way with how wildly popular Civilization series is despite no work ever enhancing the bloody AI through the years. Personally, if Civ 7 doesn't get better AI I quit the civilization series I'm sick and tired of how every game I'm simply going to win and never be challenged. Whenever I have played civ 5 and civ 6 I can even clearly define exactly when the game generally turns into what I call "sim city" and I'm just managing cities rather than considering action of strategy and planning anymore. Fancy fun animations of leaders does not make up for a lack of challenge in a bloody strategy game. I especially miss Ghandi living up to his meme tier of asking if I'd like a vegetarian curry as he amasses an army of insanity at my border. Where my Ghandi gone yo.

I will btw second the notion that Civ 4 is still the king of 4x games in my opinion like some have. It was also the last Civ game that had competent AI, dare I say challenging AI and even raging barbarians ffs that could eliminate players early game. If I could tell people who never played it how many times I had to restart multiplayer games because friends would die early game to barbarians lol. And how many times they would ask "maybe we should turn off raging barbarians" and I'd be like..... hmmm yeah... no.

Humankind has issues, it was released too early, but the developers 100% have passion into making the game and aren't doing this like many in the industry do these days which is to simply churn out another game by X date and do it simply as a job. I wish more people would recognize these things but at the same time I wish it wasn't getting normalized to release games in awkward states. It's a pickle but a pickle I wish would be given more credit where it does deserve it in the current 4x industry as opposed to just crapping on it for what it doesn't deliver.

I'd like to propose a challenge to anyone here who is a 4x fan. It's simple too, please point out the last 4x game where the AI knew how every game mechanic worked in every victory condition and could win too. I 100% would thoroughly enjoy hearing someone tell me a game that isn't simply Civ 4. It would mean I'm missing something that needs to be rectified in my life lol. If you can't do it though ask yourself what is it exactly that makes 4x games fun then and why. This would at least be an experiment to explain what everyone is actually looking for in Humankind more clearly and 4x games in general and it will also paint the problem to why no one will likely agree on what is a great 4x game and what isn't.

kryton24 wrote:

I'd like to propose a challenge to anyone here who is a 4x fan. It's simple too, please point out the last 4x game where the AI knew how every game mechanic worked in every victory condition and could win too. I 100% would thoroughly enjoy hearing someone tell me a game that isn't simply Civ 4. It would mean I'm missing something that needs to be rectified in my life lol. If you can't do it though ask yourself what is it exactly that makes 4x games fun then and why. This would at least be an experiment to explain what everyone is actually looking for in Humankind more clearly and 4x games in general and it will also paint the problem to why no one will likely agree on what is a great 4x game and what isn't.

I've played one 4X game like that and it was Galactic Civilizations 2. The AI was a challenge because the game used an inscrutable economic system of interacting sliders that the AI could tweak on a micro level far better than the player on every turn. The economic and expansion system was designed for what the AI could handle, rather than coming up with cool things the player would enjoy, and then try to make the AI work with that system. Which is how it seems most 4X games are programmed. The bane of the genre has always been cool features added that the AI doesn't know how to use. HK does do better in this respect than previous Amplitude games.

Anyway and for what it's worth, my take on HK's problems basically boil down to this:

1) Amplitude completely reversed their formula in prior games of designing interesting asymmetric factions with unique playstyles, in favor of constantly shifting cultures that tend to make every game play the same. It also limits roleplay value, because who cares about fighting Color Blue for dominance? There is no personality in the factions. There are some strengths in this design, in the way it offers choices as you move through the eras, but for many players it doesn't make up for bland mixing of cultures by the time you finish the game. 

2) The war score system. I disliked it in Stellaris but I can deal with it, because there are more options in that game for basically ignoring it if you're going for pure scorched-ground conquest, or you could play a more diplomatic game. Options are good. I dislike it here because it's too ham-fisted, too much the game designer reaching down into the game and saying "no you can't do that." If you're going to use this kind of system it has to be better than this. Nobody likes being told they're forced to surrender when their opponent is obviously done. It's a-historical and it's not fun. There are better ways to reduce player steamrolling.

Number 3 would be the failure of Multiplayer, but I don't play MP so it's not personally an issue for me. It is for others. There are other issues like bugs but that's expected in the initial roll-out of a major title these days. 

I haven't given up on HK, but I'm in wait and see mode instead of actively playing the game. The first problem might be dealt with by making the Avatars more prominent as your opponents, and strengthening differences between cultures. The second problem could be fixed with more penalties to expansion like city limits, but Amplitude seems to be happy with it and some players like it too, so I don't know where that will end up.

Rather interesting and telling Steam chart, Humankind barely have more concurrent players than Civ4.

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/1124300,289070,8930,8800#1y

Last patch solved the endless turn bug but still havent solved my other problem that is that any higher graphic than Good makes my computer bluescreen and this is the only game that has done that on this computer. Have an Nvidia GTX 1060 and it should be able to run at least Beautiful and other games with better graphic runs fine on my computer.

Was super hyped for this game but it feels like an dud and it is questionable if all lost players will come back and with so few players how much will Amplitude spend to patch the game?

Zenicetus wrote:

kryton24 wrote:

I'd like to propose a challenge to anyone here who is a 4x fan. It's simple too, please point out the last 4x game where the AI knew how every game mechanic worked in every victory condition and could win too. I 100% would thoroughly enjoy hearing someone tell me a game that isn't simply Civ 4. It would mean I'm missing something that needs to be rectified in my life lol. If you can't do it though ask yourself what is it exactly that makes 4x games fun then and why. This would at least be an experiment to explain what everyone is actually looking for in Humankind more clearly and 4x games in general and it will also paint the problem to why no one will likely agree on what is a great 4x game and what isn't.

I've played one 4X game like that and it was Galactic Civilizations 2. The AI was a challenge because the game used an inscrutable economic system of interacting sliders that the AI could tweak on a micro level far better than the player on every turn. The economic and expansion system was designed for what the AI could handle, rather than coming up with cool things the player would enjoy, and then try to make the AI work with that system. Which is how it seems most 4X games are programmed. The bane of the genre has always been cool features added that the AI doesn't know how to use. HK does do better in this respect than previous Amplitude games.

I have forgotten about gal civ series since it isn't hyped or talked about routinely compared to the mainstream 4x but I'm glad you brought it up because you are correct that series has largely maintained very on point AI which focuses on things a bit differently based on which race they are. I'd say it's much better than endless space in terms of AI but ES 2 especially is much more beautiful. Muh graphics! Some races in ES2 hardly function I've gotta point out lol.

I wonder if galciv 3 will make waves and be known on steam when that comes out or if people will largely continue to follow just paradox games and Civilization IP. 

Let’s hope the next game they make they learn from and keep what worked here and ditch the concepts that failed and were widely unpopular.. player numbers are sad indeed but it doesn’t necessarily mean the game is doomed to die, it’s just not gonna have mass appeal just gonna be a niche game played by a small group of people 

Morgawr wrote:

Let’s hope the next game they make they learn from and keep what worked here and ditch the concepts that failed and were widely unpopular.. player numbers are sad indeed but it doesn’t necessarily mean the game is doomed to die, it’s just not gonna have mass appeal just gonna be a niche game played by a small group of people 

To be fair, Sid Meiers Civ 5 and 6 had worse launches than Humankind and nowadays those 2 games are beloved or at the least heavily approved, give Amplitudes some time and they might turn the game around for the better.

DragonGaming wrote:

Morgawr wrote:

Let’s hope the next game they make they learn from and keep what worked here and ditch the concepts that failed and were widely unpopular.. player numbers are sad indeed but it doesn’t necessarily mean the game is doomed to die, it’s just not gonna have mass appeal just gonna be a niche game played by a small group of people 

To be fair, Sid Meiers Civ 5 and 6 had worse launches than Humankind and nowadays those 2 games are beloved or at the least heavily approved, give Amplitudes some time and they might turn the game around for the better.

I wouldn't say that. 

OK, civ6 was released as Alpha and now is Beta, but from the very beginning it offered replayability, that core element that is the most lacking in HK. Civ5 also offered and still offers the same despite lacking 2X of 4X genre