While it's clear that the multiple culture system is a key feature of Humankind and unlikely to be changed, I found that while playing instead of enriching the cultures I was playing against, it rather reduced them all to a generic state. Because the Mycenaeans would become the Huns in a few turns and then become the Umayyads in a few more, I just thought of them as "the Bear People," from their game icon. The constant switching erases their personality rather than adding to it.

I stuck with the same culture for each era myself; as switching sort of takes you out of the story, as it were. It's as if you changed the name of character in a book each chapter. Even if their history is the same, it stops them from making an impression. Eventually I stopped keeping track of the switches between the other AI's and who was who. The whole system just removes the concept of cultures from the game:  "Ah, the Ram's and the Castle people are at it again..." 

Kind of ruins the vibe...

I agree, wish they had the civs pick a name and stick with it, and have current culture as a sub-text. 

So you have Gordon (Huns) and Dave (mycenaeans), and then next era you have Gordon (Roman) and Dave (Greek)

I'm hoping for leader names to be displayed better in-game because I think this could correct many of these issues.

True, I do wish that the nations' names were more prominent, than the culture itself, as it tends to get a bit confusing, particularly in situations like, "The Huns ascended to the next era as the Huns", which is no information at all. However, I do love the changing cultures part of the game, as this was something that compelled me towards the game in the first place. Just wish we could access the previous EUs at least, but I guess for balancing, and tech, reasons, that's not viable.

There's a lot of emphasize on the Avatars already, so I really do not get it why they simply didn't make them stand out more. Most of those notifications and whatnot would work with Avatar name, at worst it would need to be changed to "XYZ's people". Half-jokingly, I think that it was tuned to work like that, but then the devs thought "wait, this was supposed to be about story of the people, not a bunch of random immortals, crap!"

The culture swapping itself was amazingly fun in the OpenDevs, especially when I started getting the hang of it and started planning two cultures ahead and thinking about grabbing territories that would be 'meh' right now, but if I could grab the right culture they'd bring some payout.

You cannot give yourself those traits, only your avatar when it plays as an AI. Currently, they have enabled the game's systems with certain personas only.

I wonder how many of you tried "Transcend" option

True. I think it's still unfinished. The finished product should call them by the avatar's name.

It also still has bug where the avatars advanced with the wrong era if they trancend. In industrial, some of them still advanced to the classical era with Nubian or Greek just because they choose the same culture again.

The way the UI communicates who is who over time is terrible.

It has more to do with the current state of the game. Amplitude's mistake is that they never finished this naming part of the game so we're still used to call other civ "Nubian" or "Olmecs" when it should be the Avatar's name.

By not finishing the naming part, community started to call the other civs by their color like purple or brown or bear or castle, and that's ugly and defeats the whole purpose of having an identity.

I'm sure when the game is released Amplitude will have finished this naming issue.

Valmighty wrote:

It has more to do with the current state of the game. Amplitude's mistake is that they never finished this naming part of the game so we're still used to call other civ "Nubian" or "Olmecs" when it should be the Avatar's name.

By not finishing the naming part, community started to call the other civs by their color like purple or brown or bear or castle, and that's ugly and defeats the whole purpose of having an identity.

I'm sure when the game is released Amplitude will have finished this naming issue.

I'll spoil it

they didn't

Triarii wrote:

While it's clear that the multiple culture system is a key feature of Humankind and unlikely to be changed, I found that while playing instead of enriching the cultures I was playing against, it rather reduced them all to a generic state. Because the Mycenaeans would become the Huns in a few turns and then become the Umayyads in a few more, I just thought of them as "the Bear People," from their game icon. The constant switching erases their personality rather than adding to it.

I stuck with the same culture for each era myself; as switching sort of takes you out of the story, as it were. It's as if you changed the name of character in a book each chapter. Even if their history is the same, it stops them from making an impression. Eventually I stopped keeping track of the switches between the other AI's and who was who. The whole system just removes the concept of cultures from the game:  "Ah, the Ram's and the Castle people are at it again..." 

Kind of ruins the vibe...

I agree, I understand why, but wish that the symbol changed and that the notification also mentioned the persona. So let's say we get a notification, Devplayer1 has taken the Myceneans into the new era as the greeks, and that it showed the symbol changed. This way I can quickly see who is who.

IA need a leader you can remember.

Let's say "Napoleon". So, even when Napoleon change culture, you remember it's Napoleon.

Maybe, leaders could have an additional bonus. (not too strong).

So, you not only choose your cultures, but at one point, you choose a leader.

Instead of cultures, leader is for all game long.