Well, I don't have 100+ hours in Humankind, I have about 100+ in 4x from Amplitude :D, but I have questions that kinda close to other games that I still haven't figured out.

Keep in mind that I don't need a 100 words essay for every question, just one sentence with general direction is more than enough. I just want to know if my assumptions are correct, and the rest I will figure out by myself. I don't have much time each week to play games, so I want to save some time by not doing "simple" things wrong. I know I can understand all this with experience, but I don't want to "waste" time going in the wrong direction.

1. Is it OK to "skip" turns?

Sometimes, when I press "End Turn" several times without actually doing anything, I feel like I am doing something wrong and I should change my strategy to be more efficient. Yes, the army is moving and structures are being constructed, but all I did was click "End Turn."

2. At what point in general do you think it is optimal to stop making districts and start building infrastructure?

Yes, I did get at some point that I should build districts to buff them with infrastructure (my ES brain didn't work like that before), but I don't really get when it is good time to actually prioritize infrastructure instead of districts. I know AI is not good a reference, but when I see AI's city has like 15 districts and I only have about 5, I start doubting my choices =)

3. What yield do you prioritize more than others?

I do understand that every resource is important in its own way and depends on the situation, but what is your basic rule of thumb? Personally, it feels like FIDS wasn't named FIDS by accident =)

4. When do you prefer to make combat units?

I have never found that sweet spot between "You have OK production and it will not take eternity to make an army" and "Well, it is too late; AI has a giant army and will stomp you down."

5. At what point do you need military infrastructure?

I think I have never had a game where I really needed to build them (or maybe I haven't played a difficult enough game yet).

6. Do you disband most of your Scouts when you get to Ancient Era to get quick population?

This idea recently popped into my head, but I haven't tried it yet.

7. When is it OK to spend influence on civics and stuff?

I usually spend influence on outposts and don't have enough for claiming wonders, and I am always last to the party and don't have a big list of wonders to choose from, AI already took the good ones. Also, even if I claim wonder, I think I have never had big enough industry to build wonder even under 20 turns. I always had around 50. Spending influence on civics always felt a bit off, because one civic can push claiming a new region a turn or two further. But ignoring "You have civics to claim" feels wrong too.

I will appreciate any help or advice, so you don't have to answer all this question. Thanks in advance.

Hey there, some great questions. Here are my answers, but other people may have different ones:

1. Not sure what speed you are playing on, but I generally don't have this problem? Optimal district placement changes every time a district gets built (because now you can be adjacent to the new one) so I don't tend to massively queue them up in the early game. Between dilemmas, interacting with the AI players etc. I don't find many turns with no decisions. 

2. Basically I only tend to build infrastructures:

a. when I'm getting low on stability and can't build more districts

b. when the food/industry ones are offering a good return.

c. It's late game and I want to specialize as a science or money city

d. There's a interaction with my chosen culture EQ

The very early ones are good (e.g. Animal barns, any of the river ones) but many of the infrastructures are terrible. 

3. Food gives you population, which also gives religious followers and influence points, but Industry is the exponential snowball that you need to meet the exponential scaling of later production costs. So the best is industry, with enough food to keep growing. I find it hard to fit in market or research quarters until pretty late in the game, unless they are the culture specific EQ.  

4. Being aggressive is the optimal way to play (just like in real history!) Ideally you should conquer an early neighbor as soon as possible, so I start units once I'm adjacent to another empire and have a plan to attack them. Combat units are some of the best return on investment in the game (if you keep them alive!) The AI is very aggressive in targeting archers so I prefer to only start building them once I have at least 7-8 melee/cav. Melee are best because it's easier to spread the damage and retreat wounded ones. These victorious units will then deter the AI, and you should then be able to execute a timing push on your next victim by having enough grievances/war score when you get to your next key unit/tech. 

5. The unit cost production buildings are mostly a trap - you shouldn't need that many units if they don't die! The experience building is probably the only one I would build.

6. You'll still need scouts to claim territory and explore, plus it's also easy to just have them die due to starvation if you overpopulate early. Disband them as you start building your early military units.

7. Many of the early game civics are incredibly powerful, the -50% to outpost cost, +1 city cap, and so you should generally get those straight away. Some of the later civics are not worth picking except under unusual circumstances. Wonders are powerful, but not worth losing sleep over, but if you've wiped out a neighbor you should be starting to have enough population snowball to get influence.

Also, try not to attach more outposts once you've hit the expansion era stars, save those easy stars for the start of the next era. 

Best of luck with the game :)

dongliz wrote:
1. Not sure what speed you are playing on

I usually play on normal and fast, depends basically on nothing but my mood =) It's not like I have "no decisions" turns all the time, but it happens and it feels "not optimal," as if I did a bad "order of operations" or poor time management.

dongliz wrote:
it's also easy to just have them die due to starvation if you overpopulate early

That is a really good point, didn't thought about that.

dongliz wrote:
but many of the infrastructures are terrible

That is probably what I need to constantly remind to myself. In ES I usually try to build all the stuff (which is also probably a mistake), but it is really hard for me to switch the mentality to building districts instead of infrastructure. My mind is telling me that the list of buildings needs to be empty. =)

That is really helpful, made some mental notes. Thanks

1. I think that apart from the end of the game, where it's practically won, it's rare for me to go more than two turns without making decisions. Even though it's practical to stack buildings in a queue, military units don't wage wars on their own or create outposts.

2. When I need stability or the infrastructure gain exceeds or is close to building a district in the equivalent time.

3. Industry first, always enough food to keep growing, whether building units or finishing works. What's left goes to science, because the economy only takes off even with many trade agreements.

4. When I'm plotting a war or in one.

5. Apart from critical situations where you need to build something to defend a city or protect routes, very rarely.

6. Usually about half of them, to speed up the city, and mostly when I start to replace with new units.

7. Apart from some very useful civics, I prefer to obtain wonders, such as the hanging gardens, lighthouse of alexandria, machu pichu, which give great advantages in the game.