First of all I have to say I'm very pleased with settlements, hex utilization, city development and territory management options in this game. That's exactly kind of system I wanted from civ-like 4x.
I never imagine that kind of battle system thought. But I kind of like battles in Humankind. There is no major concerns about field battles. I want to talk here about the most common kind of battles of Classical and Medieval era in history: sieges.

Sieges.
1. Walls
- Siege engines annihilate walls in one turn. Where are breaches? There could be breaches first, that still would give some bonus for defending melee units against offending melee units(narrow places always easy to defend), negate high ground bonus for offenders(even if city tile is lower, defender is behind the breach, which is not lower that hole I suggest).
- Currently cavalry could run around city ignoring zone of control, find empty part of wall, put ladders(they bring ladders with them instead of lances I believe), open gates, move into city and charge units on the next wall section. Shouldn't defenders be aware of that movement and be able to respond? I propose stopping(same as river) any unit before wall. Probably instead of stopping after wall or even in addition to(fortification bonus could be reduced in that case).
- Cavalry defending and attacking walls without debuffs is highly questionable. Even cavalry efficiency inside city(same as tanks) with limited place to maneuver is doubtful for me.
- Siege engines next to walls. I suggest block placement of siege engines next to walls. In real life they could be build/assembled at some distance, in forest or any other place that blocks line of sight to defenders. Otherwise, why defenders cannot build they own engines and destroy engines of besiegers? Probably it's worth placing all units and building spots at the beginning of the siege, and not when sortie/assault happens? I really hope to see something like this.

2. Castles
+ Besieger can take advantage of badly placed or not protected castles. Sometimes it is even makes sense to leave badly placed castle. There were such historical cases. I like it.

- Currently army in castle requires general. There is no point in building castles behind city walls then. When I have few castles spread around every territory and want garrisons them I will be short on generals very soon.
- Castle fortifications could be destroyed with siege engines as easy as city walls. That makes them very vulnerable places. This is questionable decision.
- Fortification bonus for all kinds of fortifications is +6. I suppose it's a subject of change. Castles and castles behind walls deserve a better fortification bonus.
- Currently castle is one unit per tile plus other units in reserves can take its place. I would say its good mechanics, if suggestions above were taken into consideration. In any case ability to select exact unit from castle stack to be on walls(active defender) is missing.

I understand that some suggestions above could lead to turtling for few eras, but I believe that it is how it was in history and what Humankind strives to represent: different ways of play, not only domination. You could still be able to capture such cities, when you know which city has less protection, but it's not that easy now.

grey_Sanchez wrote:

...Currently cavalry could run around city ignoring zone of control, find empty part of wall, put ladders(they bring ladders with them instead of lances I believe), open gates, move into city and charge units on the next wall section... 

Moreover, I even know were those ladders came from. 

1.Walls

-Yes wall were too fast to breach in openDev (maybe because they had obsolete walls?)

-Yes Cavalry and Elephants should get penalty / not be able against walls

-Giving ladders to cav would be weird, yeah they can dismount but hard to represent ingame without adding complex mechanics (because once inside they lose their horse)

-Crossing wall should require to be next to it to cross + another one to go 1 tile inside (might already be the case not sure)

-Deployment zone should just not be next to walls for attacker, siege or not

2.Castle

-Garrison on castle about general is a concern

Also I'd like to see inner walls/ several walls layout. Castle inside a walled city should still get walls and be harder to take

As I remember, in scenario 2.3 Paris had extra fortifications behind walls. administrative center of  territory had extra fortification, and inner castle near the city center provided fort.bonus to unit inside it, even against unit behind walls. That didn't helped them a lot. Administrative center oneshoted with engines. Castle doesn't prevents city center from being captured, so I can ignore it.

About ladders I'm just joking. I meant that is the way it works now. If you're have at least one less defenders than city walls hexes - cavalry has a chance to outmaneur you and enter the city without battle. In that case you have no chance to respond in time, even with cavalry too.

About horses behind wals: it's okay, they could easily open gates ones on walls.

What

Lord_Funk wrote:

I'm sure they can keep adding and adding to the combat system. Make it so indepth and so advanced that it unfortunatley will scare alot of players away. Already alot of players were overwhelmed by the existing combat system during OpenDev. Even if I personally realy enjoyed it ALOT after deciding not to just give up. Setting my mind to understand it. Unfortunetly some, few or many (I don't know how many) will not do that if has a too steep learning curve. They just want to have fun and things should just feel like they come natural to them as they play. Not requiring reading indepth charts, rules and tables to understand what they are doing. That can come after having played for a long time, but not get that advanced system thrown at them from the beginning in the first introduction game in a potential new series of historical 4X games.

It's important to find that balance in design. The sweet spot where it's advanced enough to be engaging, but not so advanced that it becomes tideous micro-managment and too hard for many to get into. If looking at this game as a series long-term, it might be smarter to keep it as it is now, then wait and make it more advanced than it alreaday is in upcoming games like Humankind 2 and 3 etc. Better to draw a new audience into the game without having too steep learning curve and once they are used to it, build and add more things. Not overwhelm them and scare them away with the first game. This games combat is already more advanced than Civ. More advanced than some players could handle. Hopefully enough will not get scared away. Lets' not overdo it, so that very few will play this game. Rather see it as an entry point to an ever evolving game series. Hook as many as possible. Establish the game and it's franchise/IP on the world stage among all the competition.

I don't want it to just be a game that I personally find so awesome and advanced to play, but maybe end up being among very few that likes it and then the game just becomes a small footnote in the history of 4X games. I want it to becomes something more than that long-term. I want to sit here in 15 years and play Humankind 4 and look back on this being the game that started it all. In 15 years in Humankind 4 sure the combat can be ALOT more advanced and having been built upon piece by piece in game after game.

People don't just need to learn this more advanced combat system that Humankind have. They also need to learn all the new terms used in Humankind and understand civilization bonuses, outpost systems and all other new or tweaked mechanics and systems Humankind have.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying any of Your ideas are bad. Some tweaks and adjustments are surely needed, as this was pre-alpha after all. I'm just saying please consider what I wrote above before going too far in over designing it all and adding so many rules and mechanics to combat that alot of people won't be able to handle it and just find it tideous, boring and overwhelming.

Simple solution: Simplified battles checkbox.

Don't get me wrong.  I don't see these batlles as overcomplicated. There was only one thing that was't clear at the beggining: full stop at river/fast movement along the river. There was 4 mechanics influencing movement at opendev: rivers, walls, blocking spawn points, zone of control. Only blocking is totally new for most of the players, rivers and walls have impact in civ-like games and turn based tactical combat games, ZOC is simply similar to any other civ-like. Other mechanics are rather bonuses to battle power, which is not the thing you obligated to know and understand in your first games. There is still the option to be bad in battles, but good at strategy and be better in unit quantity an quality. There is still the option to give battle to AI or just be not that good before you learn how to use bonuses for your advatage.

I see the expantion\exploration learning curve as much steeper than battles one.