[Edit on Sunday Night: I posted this on Friday night, and then a lightning strike took out my internet for 36+ hours.  Over the weekend, I realised that the math presented below doesn't actually change scoring very much (and "drop the lowest, cap the highest" feels more like doing taxes than playing a game), and that Humankind does a reasonable job of capping your runaway "best affinity star" anyways because we stop getting points after three and can't fish for more (which I already said in my original post).  Regardless, I've gotten a lot of upvotes, and I still like the idea, so while the math I proposed may not be the final solution, I think there's a good nugget at the heart here somewhere.  Honestly I think "lowest scoring affinity counts as your final score" has potential if it weren't for the fact that Diplomacy/Militarist stars require neighbours, and unlucky empires are going to lose out on many eras worth of those stars, meaning it's unfair to just go off of the lowest score.]

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Original Post Friday Night:

I just took the "Survey to Rule Them All" and was surprised to see a question about "How would you improve the Fame System?"  I always considered it a bit of a monolith, off-limits to change because of how foundational it is, but it got me thinking about alternatives, and I'd like to share my thoughts here.  This will "out" my survey response as mine because I wrote something shorter and similar, but I wanted to share the idea here in the forum and maybe get some feedback on its possibilites.

Currently, all the points we earn are added into one single "Fame" pool.  It's streamlined, but it's also a bit simple.  It can be hard for me to feel like I have control over getting fame, other than "just do well and fame will come to you".

I do like that Era Stars encourage me to delay my "Era Change" by rewarding me for remaining in an era for a few more turns.  Each star is worth more than the last one, so it pays to be really excellent in an area and hang around to "fish" for those stars that may be a few more turns off.  Additionally, I like that we stop getting points after earning three stars of the same affinity.  It tells us "it's time to move on" (and also keeps us from milking points if we've created an absolute Money/Influence/Science machine).  So this is good too.

But what if scoring points across different stars/affinities meant a bit more?  In the board game Tigris and Eurphrates, players collect points in four independent pools.  At the end of the game, your final score your worst of those colours, so if you have 7 in Red, 10 in Black, 8 in Blue, and 4 in Green, your final score is 4.

Something similar might be interesting in Humankind: Keep your Fame Points separate in seven different fame pools, and at the end of the game, drop certain fame pools and add the rest up independently.  Cap the highest and drop the lowest (or the two lowest?) for balance reasons: Some empires are never going to see combat for several eras — possibly for the whole game — and shouldn't be penalized too harshly for not getting Militant stars.  Tigris and Eurphrates' method of "you're only as good as your lowest points" would be unworkable for those Militarist stars alone.  Cap the highest fame pool encourages some diversification and also keeps empires from running away with fame if their empire is overspecialized in one thing.  Then add add up the remaining pools for your final total.

Fame from Wonders, Competitive Events, and other miscellaneous could be counted as "wild card" points and always added on at the end, increasing their value because they always count.  For this reason, repeatable points from Triumphal Arches might be added to the player's Militarist or Expansionist fame pool, possibly, instead of being "wild card".

Splitting Fame into different pools also opens up the idea for new game mechanics to affect each pool differently:  Wonders or Legacy Traits may give +5% or +10% bonuses on a specific affinity's fame pool.  Narrative Events might give fame flavoured to a specific pool, encouraging you to shore up a weakness or enhance a strength.

Thoughts?