Allow spending more productivity to build a unit in the absence of strategic resources?This is a slightly biased recommendation for a single-player experience. As an example in history, the Soviet Union lacked aluminum in WWII, but that doesn't mean they couldn't build planes that needed aluminum, the same goes for the Germans, who lacked rubber. Lack and complete absence are two concepts, it seems to be too extreme in the game

and……

why cant 11 or 12 player

Why wasteland is irreversible

Why there is no team option

Why can't  choose the starting era?

i ask for many times but no amplitude answer

amplitude，i hate you???

wudimaoxiong wrote:
Why can't  choose the starting era?

I keep seeing this brought up, but while I can see the game cut out at certain era, I can't really see it starting at one with how the culture choice works.

And as for more than 10 players, I imagine it's because there isn't enough cultures for that in the base game.

As for the strategic resources, it could be, imo, interesting if only one copy of it was required to build a unit requiring multiple units of same resource, but it would then have CS penalty for each that you're missing.

DNLH wrote:
I keep seeing this brought up, but while I can see the game cut out at certain era, I can't really see it starting at one with how the culture choice works.

Well, OpenDevs proved us that scenarii are possible, and that the starting era isn't an issue as well : remember the first OpenDev. For instance, in scenario 3 "Hold the fort", we were playing as the English against Aztecs and Khmers -- we had to defend our 2 cities (London and Oxenford if I recall correctly) against the "invaders".

Granted, Mod Tools currently don't allow us to build such scenarii, which is sad as it would certainly open up the community's creativity. I do hope though we'll eventually get there, the game would greatly benefit from it honestly.

Who knows what comes in a few days from now, for Humankind's first anniversary ?

That's not really a game starting at particular era, though? Or do you mean that everyone should start with cultures given at random? Or allow us to choose before the game starts, when so many of them are quite situational and/or geography-dependent? I'm not saying it can't be done because game doesn't allow it, I just can't imagine a satisfying set of rules for such start. The closest would be everyone starting Neolithic as usual but then having their first culture chosen from appropriate era, rather than Ancient one, with all the tech unlocked already. Which still doesn't sound enticing or clean to me.

I like the Strategic Resource deficit with a Combat Strength penalty,

as @DNLH suggested.

As for starting era, I don't know how it would work but it might be neat.

You could also easily test mechanics from a later era without having to work all the way up to it.

I imagine the eras would last longer then.

That is a problem that exists with the current game pace too.

I play on Normal speed, and I can get 7 era stars way too quickly.

Without researching half the era.

Hello everyone,

Let me try to provide some answers where I can. Some of these decisions were made before I joined Amplitude, though.

Why does strategic resource access completely forbid building units?

As far as I know (but this is a decision that pre-dates me joining Amplitude, so I do not have first-hand recollection of when this was decided), the hard requirements are intended to encourage you to either cooperate through trade or compete through war. However, I admit we see it come up fairly often, so it is something we are having an eye on, but I'm afraid other aspects that need work have a higher priority for us.

Why no 11 or 12 players?

As others have already guessed, we could not allow more than 10 players originally because there were not enough cultures in each era. In fact, for a while we considered 8 players at most to guarantee that the final player would still have some choice. Though it is true that as we ad more cultures, this becomes less of a problem and we may want to reconsider player numbers. However, as far as I understand, higher player numbers may also have some impact performance impact, primarily due to AI.

Why is Wasteland irreversible?

Another decision made before my time at Amplitude began, but I believe this was meant to serve as a serious consequence for using nuclear weapons (or excessive bombardment.) You may be able to defeat an opponent by nuking them, but you won't be able to conquer useful territory that way.

Why no team option?

I know this is a popular request, but there are many questions to answer (and then implement) about how deep the cooperation within a team is; is a team of players simply an unbreakable alliance but otherwise each player acts as normal, or do they share diplomatic relations and maybe even technological progress? How are victory and Fame handled in either case? None of these questions are impossible to answer, of course, but given all the feedback we have gotten about other aspects of the game, our focus has been (and probably for the foreseeable future will be) elsewhere.

Why can't you choose the starting era?

Balancing, mostly. A lot of mid to late game content is balanced around the notion that the players have a certain established economy: Population, districts, number of cities. The Legacy traits are probably only a small part of this consideration. It's not terribly fun when even the cheapest units or structures in your build list take a dozen turns to complete at the start of the game. As far as scenarios are concerned, we're working on some things, but we don't know yet if we will be able to share any of the tools.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

Hello everyone,

Let me try to provide some answers where I can. Some of these decisions were made before I joined Amplitude, though.

Why does strategic resource access completely forbid building units?

As far as I know (but this is a decision that pre-dates me joining Amplitude, so I do not have first-hand recollection of when this was decided), the hard requirements are intended to encourage you to either cooperate through trade or compete through war. However, I admit we see it come up fairly often, so it is something we are having an eye on, but I'm afraid other aspects that need work have a higher priority for us.

Why no 11 or 12 players?

As others have already guessed, we could not allow more than 10 players originally because there were not enough cultures in each era. In fact, for a while we considered 8 players at most to guarantee that the final player would still have some choice. Though it is true that as we ad more cultures, this becomes less of a problem and we may want to reconsider player numbers. However, as far as I understand, higher player numbers may also have some impact performance impact, primarily due to AI.

Why is Wasteland irreversible?

Another decision made before my time at Amplitude began, but I believe this was meant to serve as a serious consequence for using nuclear weapons (or excessive bombardment.) You may be able to defeat an opponent by nuking them, but you won't be able to conquer useful territory that way.

Why no team option?

I know this is a popular request, but there are many questions to answer (and then implement) about how deep the cooperation within a team is; is a team of players simply an unbreakable alliance but otherwise each player acts as normal, or do they share diplomatic relations and maybe even technological progress? How are victory and Fame handled in either case? None of these questions are impossible to answer, of course, but given all the feedback we have gotten about other aspects of the game, our focus has been (and probably for the foreseeable future will be) elsewhere.

Why can't you choose the starting era?

Balancing, mostly. A lot of mid to late game content is balanced around the notion that the players have a certain established economy: Population, districts, number of cities. The Legacy traits are probably only a small part of this consideration. It's not terribly fun when even the cheapest units or structures in your build list take a dozen turns to complete at the start of the game. As far as scenarios are concerned, we're working on some things, but we don't know yet if we will be able to share any of the tools.

Thank you for your reply! At least I now know that the Amplitudes are working hard and receiving information, but I have some personal opinions. Some functions should at least be used by players first, such as teams, such as choosing the starting era. I do not require these systems to be perfect, but You have to know that this game is about to have its one year anniversary. As far as the largest community in China I am in, many people have lost their patience. If these shiny little things can be provided to players, it will be a big change to some extent. . Finally, thank you again for your reply, especially the reply to the scene question, and your team's hard work

Production cost offsetting the absence of resources would be a tuning nightmare since people would just snowball and not feel the cost. A severe-ish CS penalty (5 or so) would be workable, but then what if you gain access to the resource (and subsequently lose it?). I like the hard and straightforward requirement as a way to promote conflict.

As for starting from a certain era, I'd personally like the option to skip Neolithic purely for testing mods that don't impact it. A quick Catan-style draft where everybody puts down 2 outposts and picks a culture (being shown a large chunk of their continent to pick from) would be cool but difficult to do well, and much more difficult for drafting all the way to later eras. Imagine all the complaining when it's not a perfectly balanced way to play pvp games. Doubt we'll ever get this given how much work it'd be to make a UI unlike anything currently in the game, and then maintaining it forever.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

Hello everyone,

Let me try to provide some answers where I can. Some of these decisions were made before I joined Amplitude, though.

Why no team option?

I know this is a popular request, but there are many questions to answer (and then implement) about how deep the cooperation within a team is; is a team of players simply an unbreakable alliance but otherwise each player acts as normal, or do they share diplomatic relations and maybe even technological progress? How are victory and Fame handled in either case? None of these questions are impossible to answer, of course, but given all the feedback we have gotten about other aspects of the game, our focus has been (and probably for the foreseeable future will be) elsewhere.

Most games go by: unbreakable alliance, each gets their own resources, tech tree and fate (as in can be killed independently). They act independently in their actions. 

Score (Famescore) for winning is teamwide though, but each player/empire still has their own goals and collects fame as usual, the fame just gets cumulated on a team score instead..

Diplomatic would still be separate with some caveats:

- No alliance possible

- War declaration and Peace should be Teamwide (with votes for/against inside teams) ??

- As such, support should be an avg maybe of each member in the war??

- Warscore needs to be changed probably..., or this is each empire their own for taking their dues on surrender ??

The more you think on it, the more questions come up....

hm... Probably better to let each empire be able to declare war/peace independently, so it won't result in a world war each time and it won't interfere with some other stuff. But still, some settings are deactivated like alliance.