I posted a rant before about how early game feels unsatisfying and how changing culture ironically strips off personality.

I feel like both problems create games that feel more or less the same every time. It starts without any surprise because we know 10 out of 10 cultures will be picked, and we'll completely forgot who's who in a few turns because they keep changing culture. This is ironic because for the game that promotes 1 million+ culture combination, almost every culture will be picked in every era.

It's made worse because the release version of Humankind shipped with only about 10s of default personas which can't be randomized. Not only we always know who we'll meet in the game, but the game refers these people as culture, which we will forget because it will be changed in the next few turns. So they all just become faceless placeholder that we don't care about.

Importing personas is a good feature, however to make the game feels more surprising (hence exciting), there are 2 easy fix for this:

1. Give feature to randomize AI persona, flag, color.

2. Stop referring AI as the culture. Change how we refer other AI by their avatars. Avatar first, culture second, example: Edgar (Aztec) or Edgar as Aztec

Improving this issue is a big-long gameplay fix and I firmly believe adding much more culture will definitely take care of this problem. However, those two above are some things that can be done in the short run.

I really like the second idea actualy it is annoying to remember wxho is who

Valmighty wrote:

I posted a rant before about how early game feels unsatisfying and how changing culture ironically strips off personality.

I feel like both problems create games that feel more or less the same every time. It starts without any surprise because we know 10 out of 10 cultures will be picked, and we'll completely forgot who's who in a few turns because they keep changing culture. This is ironic because for the game that promotes 1 million+ culture combination, almost every culture will be picked in every era.

It's made worse because the release version of Humankind shipped with only about 10s of default personas which can't be randomized. Not only we always know who we'll meet in the game, but the game refers these people as culture, which we will forget because it will be changed in the next few turns. So they all just become faceless placeholder that we don't care about.

Importing personas is a good feature, however to make the game feels more surprising (hence exciting), there are 2 easy fix for this:

1. Give feature to randomize AI persona, flag, color.

2. Stop referring AI as the culture. Change how we refer other AI by their avatars. Avatar first, culture second, example: Edgar (Aztec) or Edgar as Aztec

Improving this issue is a big-long gameplay fix and I firmly believe adding much more culture will definitely take care of this problem. However, those two above are some things that can be done in the short run.

Your math is wrong. It is per empire 1 million possible combination not per game. You combine several cultures into one empire, written as 10^6.

The personality come from the personas. Not the culture. As such, the persona traits have weights for culture choice. Bringing the personas more to the foreground in messages may alleviate this.

You are too set in your one civilization from beginning to end.

100% agree with opening post.

The second point is disgustingly right. It would alleviate so many issues and would give actual, well, personality to personas. I don't really care that it's Brazilians or Pink Empire (I do try to rotate the colours/symbols manually, but please let us randomize those too), but if it's that dastardly Poe doing it again... I'll get you one day, Poe. And more of that, please. The playthroughs are relatively fast for the genre, even on Endless, but there's potential to create rivalries/friendships extending over multiple games, just put the AI personas more to the front.

I know it's heresy for many, but I do miss the Civ leaders spamming you with flavour remarks about your Empire and I wish this was added (as an option) to HK as well. Once all trade routes are set and all treaties are done, I don't even have a need to look again at those guys, aside of misclicking a new grievance on accident, thinking it's someone who I could actually demand it from.

shakee wrote:

Valmighty wrote:

I posted a rant before about how early game feels unsatisfying and how changing culture ironically strips off personality.

I feel like both problems create games that feel more or less the same every time. It starts without any surprise because we know 10 out of 10 cultures will be picked, and we'll completely forgot who's who in a few turns because they keep changing culture. This is ironic because for the game that promotes 1 million+ culture combination, almost every culture will be picked in every era.

It's made worse because the release version of Humankind shipped with only about 10s of default personas which can't be randomized. Not only we always know who we'll meet in the game, but the game refers these people as culture, which we will forget because it will be changed in the next few turns. So they all just become faceless placeholder that we don't care about.

Importing personas is a good feature, however to make the game feels more surprising (hence exciting), there are 2 easy fix for this:

1. Give feature to randomize AI persona, flag, color.

2. Stop referring AI as the culture. Change how we refer other AI by their avatars. Avatar first, culture second, example: Edgar (Aztec) or Edgar as Aztec

Improving this issue is a big-long gameplay fix and I firmly believe adding much more culture will definitely take care of this problem. However, those two above are some things that can be done in the short run.

Your math is wrong. It is per empire 1 million possible combination not per game. You combine several cultures into one empire, written as 10^6.

The personality come from the personas. Not the culture. As such, the persona traits have weights for culture choice. Bringing the personas more to the foreground in messages may alleviate this.

You are too set in your one civilization from beginning to end.

You misunderstood. I indeed was pointing out the irony about the game that has 10^6 culture combination yet every run feels almost the same.

Valmighty wrote:

1. Give feature to randomize AI persona, flag, color.

2. Stop referring AI as the culture. Change how we refer other AI by their avatars. Avatar first, culture second, example: Edgar (Aztec) or Edgar as Aztec

Point 2. This is something I was vocal about in the Poe opendev. I agree with you that the game needs to refer to Persona/Opponent names and team color...not the current culture they're using.

Point 1. Yeah I really want this as well. I also want this ability to exclude the base game personas from this randomization, as they're mostly a difficulty level behind all the Persona's of friends/acquaintances/forum members I have downloaded.

There's something about having to pick out my opponents in a 4x game that ruins the surprise of exploring/finding another opponent. It also makes me feel slightly like I'm cheating setting up players. Like if I'm playing a mostly land Pangaea game I feel like its cheap to use personas with maritime biases. Randomize just lets me have fun verse whoever ends up in the match.

Agree with all of this. I think predefined AI personas should have names so they're consistent from start to end of game, and maybe some cultural selection biases so they're also consistent from game to game as well. Randomized AI with random names are also fine, but same name if I decide to play them again. 

Cristata wrote:

Point 2. This is something I was vocal about in the Poe opendev. I agree with you that the game needs to refer to Persona/Opponent names and team color...not the current culture they're using.

Point 1. Yeah I really want this as well. I also want this ability to exclude the base game personas from this randomization, as they're mostly a difficulty level behind all the Persona's of friends/acquaintances/forum members I have downloaded.

There's something about having to pick out my opponents in a 4x game that ruins the surprise of exploring/finding another opponent. It also makes me feel slightly like I'm cheating setting up players. Like if I'm playing a mostly land Pangaea game I feel like its cheap to use personas with maritime biases. Randomize just lets me have fun verse whoever ends up in the match.

Yeah that'll be great. The surprise is a factor in exploration.

Having filter like how advanced a persona is (normal, advanced, expert), downloaded, friends, etc, is good.

Adding to this, I think they could maybe give players an empire name based off the territory you settle first. For example if you settle in the territory of Atakoraka first, your empire is known as the Atakorakans, instead of the Empire 3 (AI). You should have an option to rename your empire, of course. I think this would be more immersive in some situatons, especially if the alternative is using player names, which may include community personas that have names like "Xxstealthwarrior583xX" and are not exactly immersive.