I played on release until October, my impression was the game has a very nice base, and a lot of potential but would need updates, xpacs, and mods to get there. One of the most glaring issues was how unbalanced cultures were. This wasn't small stuff, or little exploits people found, this was clear from looking at the stats pre release. I have come back to check the game out again, hoping for updates. Now it has been about 9 months since release and it still isn't fixed. The biggest problem of all, is of course the Soviets. Let me break this down, incase someone does not understand: 

They START with +3 unit combat strength, which by its self, is amazing. That means you are going to win most fights given even tech and numbers. NOBODY else gets +3 to EVERYTHING. The closest is Germany with + 3 Naval/Air. But that isn't the real issue. The real issue is the Weapons Factory, each one gives +1 combat strength, WITH NO CAP (how the hell did this go to release?) meaning if you own 20 districts, you can have +23 strength (3+20)  on EVERY unit. This means, your biplanes will be killing multirole fighters (and Lightnings) and your dragoons will be killing tanks, your carrack can equal or beat a Battleship.... sit back and take this in. From a game design standpoint, how is this insanity possible? 

Now you might say "oh but minus stability from the weapons" It doesn't matter. You can pick the Astro-Hungarians and build tons of Opernhaus to nullify it. There are other cultures you can pick as well to pre raise your stability. Also you can just have tons of luxury resources and build tons of military bases/commons quarters... it isn't much of an issue for the INSANE bonus. 

Lets move away from the game balance (which does matter the most) and move into real life... the Soviets have NEVER demonstrated the bonuses in the game. They beat the Germans in WW2 ONLY because of massive numbers, Germans fighting on multiple fronts, and getting Western aid. Time and time again through the cold war, it was proven American and Western weapons were superior to Soviet weapons. Soviets had to steal a jet engine from Rolls Royce to make the mig 15, steal the targeting radar from the USA, heat seeking missiles from USA, Rocketry from German scientists, etc, etc. In the Gulf War, Abrams went against T 72s and it was not even close. People said "oh those are inferior export versions" "Iraq doesn't have training" (guess and 8? year war vs Iran didn't count) and now, as I write this, we are seeing how weak Russia (old Soviets) are in real life. They ONLY win by massive numbers, NOT by elite troops or weapons.

So here is what I propose: Full redesign of Soviets, and yes, a massive nerf overall. Remove +3 combat strength to all units, replace with -50% population cost (rounded up) to all units. So, a unit that now costs 1 pop would be 1, 2 would be 1, 3 would be 2, 4 would be 2. Keep the -20% unit construction cost, I'd even buff this to a greater number. Change weapon factory weapons to be -5% unit upkeep, to a cap of 10. Boom Done. Now you have a militarist faction which gets no combat bonus but can overwhelm with numbers. Thier units would cost much less population, cost less to build, and less to upkeep than all over contemporary cultures. This would help game balance, and be more true to the real world. 

Anyway, a lot of cultures need to adjustments, but Soviets are the most OP by miles. Have they ever even come out and defended why they are so OP or have they still not gotten to culture rebalance? 

I really think that Arms Factory is a good idea, but it shouldn't be exclusive to Soviets, Soviets just should have access to unique version of a new Contemporary Era quarter. I don't mind an ability to expand your units' CS beyond what tech tree gives you and it would give an interesting incentive for game to evolve into alliances that trade weapons with each other.

But yeah, Soviets are extremely annoying to deal with and are a source of major annoyance, they need a nerf before any redesigns to Contemporary - which is also required, imo.

You're absolutely right. Unfortunately I gave up all expectations long ago. In the first week after the release, I reported on the forum the fact the Lighthouse of Alexandria wonder gives ALL units combat strength. Not so later did the same with the Stormborn or whatever that Nordic trait is called, since that also didn't work properly. 

Now I'm joyfully reading the latest patchnotes that they fixed both. Almost a year later, but hey, better late than never I guess, right?!

Cruor34 wrote:

komodowaran wrote:

If u play single Player, just ignore civ ballancing

In a expirienced Multiplayer Lobby

harrapans,egypt,achiemids,france,sowjets,colective minds ,abstain from intoxicants, Silk,wonderus effecs(including gardens)  will have rules around them, to limit there power.

I rly hope they get around to nerfing those

Or u will see a mod like tripple alliance used https://humankind.mod.io/triplealliance

I make my own mods, amazingly, both the popular culture overhaul don't nerf Soviets. I also agree the IDEA behind Arms Factory is good but it needs a cap of like 5, and needs a really powerful downside, like +10% upkeep per 1 CS. Im somewhat of a novice at Humankind modding, I figure out more each time I do it but I have not figured out a good way to nerf weapons without just removing them or fullt changing what they do. I don't know how Id set a cap, or if it is even possible. It would be nice if games just came out balanced... imagine if we had betas to test them.... (we do, it doesn't help I guess?) Not being able to play almost any game until a year after they come out because they need mods is getting really old. At very least, Civ 3, for all its flaws it came with an editor (or it came out super fast, cant recall) and it was child's play to use. I am learning Humankinds editor but I have smoke coming out of my ears learning it, difficult and not intuitive at all in my opinion. Techs and infostructure don't even have names... you need to look at its effects and figure it out from there. We are taking steps BACK now on games, which is sad. 

I feel the best overhaul mod is definitely vanilla improvement project. I feel the game should go towards that and implement a lot of the changes.

This is their Soviet culture fix

Soviet LT reworked to be 30% unit discount and  -3 stability per Luxury Resource on all cities. Weapons Factory now only generates 2 Pollution. Weapons now only increase CS up to +10, then each additional weapon give 2 influence on Main Plaza

Don't know about the -3 stability if that will be too crippling or not but I feel it fixes some parts of it and the factory having a cap is good.