I probably would like Humankind more if I could skip the first era. More often than not I don't even complete it because of the boredom it creates for me.

I have been really trying to love this game, but it's difficult:

1.  Combat: Attacking cities is such a wild card from water. It's difficult to locate a feasible landing point, defenders can shoot units into rubble in 1 hit at long ranges, and you don't really know how far they can shoot. Meanwhile, your units have serious penalties. Attacking units behind walls, range of 1, can't position or flank due to map constraints. No usable intel pre-assault. Just annoying as hell. Many times, my units are unable to get on the field due to terrain limits and it's so difficult to see when terrain is screwing you pre attack.

2. Saved games: Is there an easier way to delete saved games? Manually in the loading menu is horrible. Do you have to goto files in the game folder?

3. Resources: I should be able to just use default settings and have a functional map. Sure, I may have to trade for a couple resources, or wage a war for a specific resource, but on Metropolis, I have been resource starved for oil/coal/alum all at the same time on EVERY game. Does the map intentionally spawn these assets in the most difficult places and furthest from player territory?

4.  Culture starvation: I get it, conquering opponents has its downsides, but merging territories or being 3-5 cities OVER cap near end game gets dumb when it take 106k for a single merge, or you have to burn your new city down and out post it. There's gotta be a better way.

I have about 200 hours played, and the game is fun until about turn 280, then it starts getting stupid.

CoconutTank wrote:

4. Razing the city and re-attaching the newly created outpost is pretty much the only workaround I've come across. It's way cheaper than merging cities, and even in the beta, merging cities still starts getting some crazy high influence costs.

It remains a problem and feels like an exploit, mostly because I'm pretty sure the AI doesn't know it and can not use it.
I'm not sure however that the AI merges cities often...

CoconutTank wrote:
I don't remember if Ironclads can damage fortifications

They can and Inner Sea Mastodonte makes them hilariously good at it too. Researching Propeller opens a small window in which navy can absolutely dominate (probably why I enjoy Industrial Era warfare the most).

I still think heavy ships with siege capabilities should be unlocked at much earlier stage, so that there's more reason for having a navy in earlier eras, both to attack and defend the coast.

DNLH wrote:

I still think heavy ships with siege capabilities should be unlocked at much earlier stage, so that there's more reason for having a navy in earlier eras, both to attack and defend the coast.

I'm going to agree, too. But just want to say that navies are already great at defending a coast from invading armies (if they don't have a navy). A few pentekators can sink a full stack of Mongol hordes :) Worst case scenario, have a few archers on the coast as they'll decimate the transport ships as well.

Unless there's a sliver of land ranged units on those transport ships can reach, then the early navy has to flee and do it quickly. I just think that it's situational, they can come in handy, but they're not necessary even when the terrain is favourable.