4x games tend to be snowball, which is sort of a necessity because success gives you more stuff to get more success later.

For Humankind, because of the fame system, that might be able to change.

Success in the Ancient Era gives you two things

1. Fame (stars)

2. better setup for the next Era

If #2 could be changed I think that could make Humankind interesting and keep the game interesting into the late game.

What I suggest is that Era stars past the 7 you need to advance an Era give you a penalty (decadence/complacency) to your stability/production/influence/combat/etc. in the next Era.  So if you get 21 stars in the Ancient Era, you will Enter the Classical with big Penalties but if you then squeak through the Classical with only 7 stars, you will have no Medieval penalties. (but not much fame)

So there is a trade off between winning the game (getting fame) and moving through the game   So getting the max 129 stars would mean you played the whole game after the Ancient Era [probably wouldn't apply for Neolithic to Ancient] under significant penalties. (and it would be a big achievement)

KurouRingo wrote:

Penalties for doing good are never a good thing imo, I'm not playing a game to be punished when playing well. It probably would be better to have it the other way around, the player that are too behind should get buffs to try and catch back. 

The issue is playing well = surviving the penalties.  I could see: default is large empires (territories & pop) have a decrease in stability over time, but when you go to the next era, the fewer stars you have, the more the stability penalty is removed.  It could also figure into difficulty so that on easy level you just snowball, but on the highest difficulty your empire Will fall apart at some point, unless you stay small. (but that’s ok, as long as you have one or two really good fame eras)