Reading through the forums realized new players having same frustrations/problems as others had - as I had - I've realized that maybe it's a bad game. It's not a terrible game. But like...

Perpetually a game of possibilities - but not much of a contender. It could have been so much more. Letting you play as different cultures over the years the game has little else to recommend it aside from pseudo-historical combat (unless a city is involved in which case even pseudo-historically-relevant-game-logic-goes-out-the-window) and being unabashedly gorgeous. The game suffers from all the usual historical 4X a tech tree handed down that simplifies human ingenuity as explicit progress of discoveries that always follows a natural and obvious ... blah.

The one way in which it does celebrate ingenuity is by trying to recognize how different cultures excelled or innovated. Unfortunately as whole the game seems to have been built upon a gutted EL engine. It just won't make a lot of sense if you have a background in history, economics, poly-sci or other political theory. You can revel in the game's ability to portray urban sprawl as 'progress' and it's desire to try and celebrate some cultures ingenuity. But you won't have a complex experience. While that can appeal to some players it's unfortunately been a year since launch and the developers haven't been able to add depth to the game.

There are some mods adding depth to the range of units and the decisions you make building your cities but in the scope of a 4X it's rather underwhelming. Compared with their previous games ability to showcase unique empires it could almost be called a disaster. There isn't a unifying narrative - except from the 'Endless Mod' which while fun actually pisses me off. They're willing to spend a year of development after launch making an Endless tie in that is explicitly - not canon - fan service but not develop a richer experience for the player.

Of course I suppose the argument is how could you add a narrative. The game's already an alt-history 4X it's such a massive break from conventional historical 4X narratives. Unfortunately bouncing between different bonuses at a time when so many games revel in the experience doesn't cut it anymore. The cultures you choose mostly only change how the cities develop. The people/humans/citizens/tribes... in the game have no independence... no identity, not much in the way of culture; aside from a music score and a visual celebration of some of their cultures architecture. Largely the choice of culture is just a question of what production you would like to excel in next - as an Empire.

Your choice of culture / affinity doesn't change the diplomatic actions available to your or even how you conduct diplomacy. Cultures don't change how Events are resolved - you always choose. They don't even have an ideological preference or value set that might differ from your previous cultures. For all the appalling travesties of American politics and horrible things at least our culture didn't indoctrinate us to believe wholly in the authority and sanctity of The State/The Nation/The Empire/The Church. By depicting all people and cultures as slaves to their State/Empire they've actually hollowed out the supposed core of the game.

Even when playing against people the game feels limited and often quickly becomes more than frustrating. The diplomacy is rudimentary and doesn't even have any extra tools to allow multiplayer games to 'resolve' diplomacy in a broader context. Allies are always potential enemies and the game rewards you for taking advantage of the complacency being in an Alliance with an AI creates. Against the AI the game only gives you three strategy choices 1. be a violent monstrous tyrant and capture some cool looking cities. 2. be an occasional douche bag and maybe build some cool cities. 3. Not feeling like fighting right now I'd rather just concede and surrender when a war is declared by the AI and build some less cool cities because I'll have debt for most of the game from one lost war.

At the end of each game your presented with a line graph that has no additional information and no 'zoom in' or detailed by era break downs either. It's hard when you look back at your game to even remember what choices or events happened along the way. Like yeah okay I remember being at war with the orange persona but I don't quite remember if I built the wonder during the war or just after but I think that had a big impact but now I'm looking at this graph and I can't figure out if it mattered at all.

I guess you could do what I did in my last game and just play on the peaceful mode. But you are going to be handicapping yourself for a score. But I was just curious about the Endless Mod and wanted to try it out. It's okay. Definitely shows how even a mildly well though-out narrative could have elevated the entire game from a sim with combat to some kind of weird hybrid I don't know exactly how to definite it but it's interesting game like Endless Legend.