Hello to everybody!

I thought it would be a nice idea to create a thread where we can collect all of our ideas and wishes for the game.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the game and let us discuss what features we would welcome and what we do not want to see.

For myself I am mostly excited for the endgame, as I think the endgame ist too linear in most 4X Games. Just press "Next Round" over and over again until you get the "Win-screen".

But for now I do not know any idea how to counter this endgame effect.

But I am excited in reading all of your ideas and what features you guys want to see.

I am very much down for the way that Amplitude is going to implement the terrain in the city building and the gameplay. At first the terrain really looks nice! A city on top of a hill really looks intimidating and hard to conquer. 

I just really liked the way this looks in the different screenshots that were shown during the gameplay reveal.

It also makes for a much more fresh feel to every new round as you first get to see the entire terrain close to you while being hunters. And just then you decide on the terrain you saw which terrain bonuses are most dominant and therefore decide your early playstyle. For example you spawn in a mountain/hill area, you get a hard to conquer city with good defense and then maybe focus on production and military.

Otherwise you could spawn next to a river and a lot of open field. You then maybe want to focus on expanding and using the river as a way to expand and trade with other nations.

In my opinion the terrain together with the fact that you can not immediately build a city and first need to hunt and gather around is the most interresting gameplay mechanic as it could lead to a very fresh gameplay that REALLY makes every round a lot different (at least in early-game).

Well, as I said already in another thread, let me customize my civ. Name, Flag, colors, building style, traits. Choosing the traits in form of cultures throughout the game is fine.

As I said in my thread, I hope they find a way to make singleplayer interesting beyond having the AI simulate other players. That approach straight up never works, but there has to be some sort of creeping existential threat so we don't just emotionally check out and keep clicking Next Turn.

I see you guys have posted your ideas in different threads already, and I have mostly seen that. I thought it would be a good idea to have some kind of "Megathread" where it all comes together. I hope this encourages everybody to tell their ideas etc. 

My wish is that the Viking civ referenced in several articles not actually be called "Vikings". Viking is an occupation, not a culture. Call them Danes, Swedes, Norse, or even Geats. Calling the civ "Vikings" is paramount to call the Romans "Legionnaires".

EaglePursuit wrote:

My wish is that the Viking civ referenced in several articles not actually be called "Vikings". Viking is an occupation, not a culture. Call them Danes, Swedes, Norse, or even Geats. Calling the civ "Vikings" is paramount to call the Romans "Legionnaires".

Marketing may trump realism here.  Vikings will sell better than Norse.  Also Vikings can then be an intermediate stage towards a group of different modern Euro nations.

I don't disagree with your point.  It's just that if I was Amplitude, I'd call them Vikings, too.  Ideally with an in game option to modify the name to your Nordic raiding nation of choice!

I want something that's like the anomolies of ES or the ruins of EL. Something that gives you an incentive to continuously explore, even if you have to sneak into the borders of other civs to do it. Maybe instead of discovering resources upon researching a particular civ you get points of interest each era that could turn out to be resources?

Being able to mod new meshes and stuff so we can make custom city boroughs, units, etc.

So my Wishlist will be very personal what "I" want and maybe not neccesarily what is best for the game as a whole, but just to let others see where my interests are:

I identify heavily as a roleplayer and I also love the idea of re-enacting history/making alternate histories. I am interested in many regions of the world but I am most definitely the MOST interested in the East Asian Cultural Region (China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan). So while the stuff I want to see has largely been mentioned in other threads, I will summarize them all here.

1. I want the ability to follow the evolution of my culture in way that naturally lines up with history. I think I saw somewhere else it get mentioned like a "civilization skill tree" and I love that idea. So in this case you can choose where you want to start, then i you pick the Zhou dynasty you can choose to evolve into the Han or the Koreans, from Han you can choose to evolve into the Ming or the Vietnamese or the Mongols, and from the Koreans you can choose to evolve into Japan. The main changes that I think would need to be implemented to turn this into an actual game mode would be that there needs to be allowable repeat civilizations. (So you can start out with two Zhou's but they develop into different states later), choices for culutural evolution need to be locked in a way that represents real world history AND/OR game world history (For instance if your closest neighboring nation is Rome, then in the game history it can make sense for why you might have options related to romes civ progression tree as well via cultural proximity) Therefore each civ has a base tree of civiliations they can evolve into, but you can also expand your tree to include the potential offerings of civs you share borders with via the excuse of Cultural proximity.

2. I want an earth map. This is a given for any strategy game that includes real life civilizations. It doesn't have to be as fantastically detailed as Gedemons Civilization Famous Earth map, but any kind of vanilla offering or the ability for modders to make earth sized maps using developer provided tools would be greatly appreciated. This is normally the first thing that gets modded in for a reason. So it is understandable if it doesn't get developer added so long as the developers keep in mind that the desire for one will be there and to try to make a game that can handle modders making it themselves.

3. I love East Asian culture and as a massive Sinophere fanatic I hope that Humankind can be one of the first strategy games to finally "Complete" the Sinosphere, I.E. Including Vietnam. I joked on the Civilization forums that whichever game adds Vietnam first will be my new best friend. But I do feel mildly disappointed that no one has thought of it as important enough to include up until now. However I think Vietnam's cultural influence and recognition as a Sinosphere nation comparable to Japan, Korea, and China has drastically increased in the last couple of years and hopefully it can win its rightful place among the seat of other civilizations worthy to make it onto this awesome new Strategy game. There is quite obviously many other good civilization picks that have impacted the world such as Denmark, Portugal, etc. But I think of Vietnam as being pretty similar to Korea in that it never really had colonial holdings but had a culture just as rich that survives into the modern era with a quickly developing young population. No one questions adding Korea and I hope that people see Vietnam as integral to East Asia in the future as well. I made another post elsewhere detailing the gameplay advantages to including Vietnam despite it probably not being as influentially important as other picks.

With just these three I would be more than happy enough to invest 60 dollars into the game and support via every DLC that comes on its way. It doesn't even need to be quite as much detail as what I posted. But I figure most of this stuff has already been considered and likely will get added without me even saying so. The developers know their fanbase well.

One ANTI-Wishlist thing though. And this is kind of a huge pet peeve I had no idea would crop up until Civ 6 did it. Please don't let there be too much stuff built on oceans. I know you will hear suggestions saying the opposite. But as a cartographer by hobby I was absolutely horrified when I realized that the "Seemingly" cool idea of letting players build windmills on water in the late game of Civ 6 would evolve into literally THE WHOLE OCEAN BEING COVERED IN WIND MILLS. Disgusting... I don't even like playing into the future era because of the endless ocean windmills and the grossly half flooded tiles from global warming. The map becomes a complete eyesore to look at, and I don't want the natural beauty you all have developed with your amazing world design to go to waste.

Customisable look of leader/avatar , with new options and clothes each age.

Xefjord wrote:

Please don't let there be too much stuff built on oceans. I know you will hear suggestions saying the opposite. But as a cartographer by hobby I was absolutely horrified when I realized that the "Seemingly" cool idea of letting players build windmills on water in the late game of Civ 6 would evolve into literally THE WHOLE OCEAN BEING COVERED IN WIND MILLS. Disgusting...

Agreed. Plopping improvements everywhere on the map is something that should strictly be avoided from a gameplay perspective because it doesn't encourage any rational thinking, it just encourages to spam everything that you can. Boring and ugly.

Make soldiers cost population/food:

It always struck me as unrealistic how you have to spend industry/production to build military units, as if they were some kind of robots or golems. I understand this for war engines and ships, but not for soldiers.

I think it would be cool if you had to spend food to train soldier units. These units would initially be militia units and you would have to spend a certain amount of turns to train them into stronger units (warriors, archers, etc.). Then you could also disband units you don't need and add them back to the workforce of the city where they were trained, which would give you a food boost.

Additionally to time, healing units would also cost food. The rate at which you can train units could be affected by certain infrastructure.

(Optional features that could also be added): Technologies or traits that would improve your army in different ways. For example: the trait 'warrior clans/tribes' would make militia units stronger, or after a certain era, if you favor certain ideology, you could adopt 'professional army' which allows you to reincorporate a ceratin amount of trained soldiers to the workforce during peacetime without disbanding them.

Good idea @afarteta93 

But probably one of those that is just too radical to implement post-hoc.

Hallo zusammen!

Ich hoffe ihr seid des Deutschen mächtig, denn mein Englisch reicht nicht aus, um euch meine Vorschläge und Wünsche in dieser Sprache adäquat mitteilen zu können. Vorerst ein großes Hurra zu eurer Entscheidung ein Spiel zu kreieren, dass der alteingesessenen Civilizationreihe Paroli bieten möchte. So gut ich die Spiele auch finde, Konkurrenz schadet ganz gewiss nicht.

Eines der zentralen Spielelemente einer Partie Civilization, vor allem zu Beginn, ist die Entdeckung der Landkarte. Ich nehme mal an, dass ihr ähnlich verfahren werdet. Eine Gruppe Menschen wird in eine ihnen unbekannte Gegend geworfen, die sie allmählich erkunden muss. Sie entdecken Flüsse, Seen, Gebirgszüge und vielleicht die Gestade eines Meeres. Sie treffen auf andere Menschen, entdecken nützliche Dinge und Ressourcen und vieles mehr. Das ist interessant und man ist gespannt was sich hinter der nächsten Ecke befindet, denn schließlich bewegt man sich auf einer terra incognita, über die man vorerst nichts weiß. Umso erstaunlicher ist es, dass uns die Entdeckerfreude bei der Forschung verwehrt bleibt, denn schließlich betreten wir auch hier völlig unbekanntes Land. Stattdessen bekommt man einen Technologiebaum serviert, der vom Anfang bis zum Ende aller Zeiten reicht und alles offenlegt.   Ich sehe die erste Errungenschaft, die ich entdecken kann und was sie mir bringt, das ist klar. Ich sehe aber auch was danach kommt und was es mir bringt, und was danach kommt und was es mir bringt usw. und so fort. Und das Ganze noch in Runden. In 11 Runden habe ich das, in weiteren 17 runden das usw. Das klingt vielleicht kleinlich, aber Geschichte drückt sich in Jahren, Dekaden, Jahrhunderten, Epochen aus und nicht in Runden. Das römische Imperium hat nicht 478 Runden gewährt. Civilization ist mittlerweile eine Rundenzählmaschine, bei der die Zeit keine Rolle mehr spielt und die Jahreszahl ersatzlos gestrichen werden könnte. Vielleicht könnte man dem Spiel eine Bemerkung voranstellen: für das spielen dieses Games kann die Benutzung eines Taschenrechners hilfreich sein.

Natürlich ist vielen Spielern der Technologiebaum mittlerweile lieb und teuer geworden. Aber vielleicht könnt ihr über die Möglichkeit eines Authenticity-Modus, oder wie immer man das nennen möchte, nachdenken, in dem nur Informationen bereitstehen, die man realistischer Weise haben kann.

Vielleicht eines noch: das Interface trägt viel zur Atmosphäre eines Spieles bei und sollte zusammen mit dem Spielfeld eine Einheit bilden. Das Interface von Civilization VI kann man, wenn man freundlich ist, gerade noch als zweckmäßig bezeichnen. Bei weniger Freundlichkeit ist es schlicht ideen- und inspirationslos, einer Exceltabelle nicht unähnlich.

Übrigens und ohne ins kriecherische verfallen zu wollen, eure Idee das Spiel in der Jungsteinzeit mit einem Jäger- und Sammlerstamm beginnen zu lassen, finde ich ausgezeichnet, ohne mir jetzt vorstellen zu können, wie ihr den Spannungsbogen hin zur ersten Epoche aufrechterhalten wollt. Aber da fallen euch sicher einige Dinge ein oder sind euch schon eingefallen.

afarteta93 wrote:

Make soldiers cost population/food:

It always struck me as unrealistic how you have to spend industry/production to build military units, as if they were some kind of robots or golems. I understand this for war engines and ships, but not for soldiers.

I think it would be cool if you had to spend food to train soldier units. These units would initially be militia units and you would have to spend a certain amount of turns to train them into stronger units (warriors, archers, etc.). Then you could also disband units you don't need and add them back to the workforce of the city where they were trained, which would give you a food boost.

Additionally to time, healing units would also cost food. The rate at which you can train units could be affected by certain infrastructure.

(Optional features that could also be added): Technologies or traits that would improve your army in different ways. For example: the trait 'warrior clans/tribes' would make militia units stronger, or after a certain era, if you favor certain ideology, you could adopt 'professional army' which allows you to reincorporate a ceratin amount of trained soldiers to the workforce during peacetime without disbanding them.

So a little like the manpower resource from Endless Space, where food is converted into soldiers and units need to draw manpower from a city's pool? That could be interesting, especially if we make it so units gradually lose manpower from disease, desertion, or resistance until you get tech that lets you lessen this. You could even get special units whose whole job is to ferry manpower to the front lines and let damaged units replenish from them.

I just finished a CIV game playing as Japan and going for a Religion win. First I once again encountered that I do not like the fact you have to concentrate on one "ressource" early on (Faith) to be able to win in the way you want.

The match started like all the others before and I quickly managed to build Holy-Sites and found a religion. I was having such an enormous faith output that I was early on converting 4/8 empires to my religion. In mid-game I easily converted the other nations. But what I did not understand and also did not like was the fact that the last empire I had to convert were the Arabians, which have also been going on a religious path and therefore didn't like me converting their cities. Also since they were the last CIV I needed to ceonvert I expected them to declare a Holy War on me etc. But no, they just denounced me and then slowly fell to my religion. 

I was able to win a game of CIV with faith without any resistance by the year 1500.

Why am I telling you this?

--> AI

I want to see a strong and understandable AI, that can actually be a challenge. I sometimes feel like the hardest challenge in CIV is finding a decent starting location.

Can you guys give me some feedback about other Amplitude games and their AI? Was it good or bad or any other mentionable stories?

afarteta93 wrote:

Make soldiers cost population/food:

There is a mechanic like this in Europe Universalis IV and it works perfectly. If you want a larger army - you need to invest in your population growth - development.

Also, the only way to "heal" your units is also to refill them from your home population. And you get attrition in enemy territory. 

My number 1 wishlist is to get a good IA, so far no 4X I played had a good and balanced single player mode. I want others civilizations to feel like rivals, they need to be proactive and try to reach their win condition before you, make alliance when someone is too far ahead, so when you win you feel like you bested them. Right now in EL every difficulty bellow impossible they're just just minor annoyance and in impossible and endless it feel like playing against someone using cheat engine. Increasing the difficulty should make the IA play more and more optimally and not just boost their stat.

Drogan wrote:

My number 1 wishlist is to get a good IA, so far no 4X I played had a good and balanced single player mode. I want others civilizations to feel like rivals, they need to be proactive and try to reach their win condition before you, make alliance when someone is too far ahead, so when you win you feel like you bested them. Right now in EL every difficulty bellow impossible they're just just minor annoyance and in impossible and endless it feel like playing against someone using cheat engine. Increasing the difficulty should make the IA play more and more optimally and not just boost their stat.

Yeah I am with you on that, but I am very sure that this is also a really tough challenge for the devs. For me the AI does not need to be superhuman. I just don't want an AI going fully retard, running away with their swordsman and sending Archers to the front :D

Interactions with the map.

One of Civ6's last expansion's successes is how the map evolves through climatic events and at the end of the game, climate changes; You have volcanoes, tempests and rising seas altering your experience.

I would love to see this evolve even further. In Civ6, certain civs get a bonus on certain types of terrain, so at world generation you get spawned in the appropriate area. But in Humankind there cannot be such things. So I hope we can develop an "adaptability" to where our culture lives more organically, with a "practice makes perfect" logic. That is, living on islands would make your people develop as sailors, while living up in mountains could make you able to build terrace farms, instead of having to pick "Incas" to get that bonus.

What should be: a changeable gameflow.

When i play Civ6, one of the main things i don't like about this game (though I am fan of it) is that you almost can not change drastically the flow of the game. I mean if you are loosing, its 95% that you will eventually lose and if you are winning, again its 95% that you'll win. The game is very linear and straightfoward like a trajectory of a flying arrow.

But history was never like that. A nations' paths were more like a flow of an unpredictable river with its rights and lefts, ups and downs, rises and falls. There were many nations in humankind history that rised from the ashes.

p.s. And certainly I'd love to have a chance for a rebirth in the game. What i mean: for example, in Civ6, if you loose your last city it's a gameover. Well i'd like to have a chance to rise once again. Like it was in history - you can conquer a country, but unless you raze its people, they always keep the chance to eventyally unrest and restore their country. I'd love to have this mechnic in the game. That would be so realistic!!!

   

Ezumiyr wrote:

Interactions with the map.

One of Civ6's last expansion's successes is how the map evolves through climatic events and at the end of the game, climate changes; You have volcanoes, tempests and rising seas altering your experience.

I would love to see this evolve even further. In Civ6, certain civs get a bonus on certain types of terrain, so at world generation you get spawned in the appropriate area. But in Humankind there cannot be such things. So I hope we can develop an "adaptability" to where our culture lives more organically, with a "practice makes perfect" logic. That is, living on islands would make your people develop as sailors, while living up in mountains could make you able to build terrace farms, instead of having to pick "Incas" to get that bonus.

Yes! I think this would really synergize with the event system. Certain events would trigger depending on the terrain in your empire and then you could choose from two or more bonuses.

I hope the Georgians are a culture you can choose for your civilization!

droneriot wrote:

I hope the Georgians are a culture you can choose for your civilization!

I'll be happy as long as Tamar is one of the great people you can recruit.

Banoon wrote:

I hope you can build your nation up with a bit more depth. Everything does need to come as a cost of resources though.

So it's not just like Civilization 6 where you press a button and select a tile and there is a Government Plaza there and done!

Things like:

- Building walls around your city and choose exactly where there's going to be a wall and not automatically and instantly around your city.

- Choose where your citizens are going to live and build roads that don't look automatically glitched out because they are computer generated (just like in CIV 6).

- Make sure there is good public transport. Even for your soldiers.

- Design your own military base(s) with more depth.

- Design your own harbor(s) with more depth.

And I could go on forever, but hopefully you get the point. In the end this will cost resources and will also affect you strategically. And the most positive point about this idea: you get the feeling that it's really your own made nation and not just the ordinary stuff that's always presented in a way like Civilization 6.

I dunno. It feels like if they went this route they would also have to make you micromanage everything else too, such as police station placement, where you put your water wheels along the river, etc. I want to play a Civ like game, not Sim City with multiple cities.