I only found out about the OpenDev yesterday, so managed to play one game in Serious difficulty up until something like turn 80.

Here's key takeaways:

1. Really good 4x game, has a lot going for it
2. Too easy. None of the AI really posed any challenge even though much of the time I really didn't have that much of an idea on my best path forward
3. Game progresses too fast / too easy to get a *lot* of production / science / food.
4. The game setting feels really epic and is very cool. The cultures / era mechanism is extremely cool. However, being able to progress past techs, build districts and kill roaming animals / enemies so easily took a lot away from the epicness of it.
5. It could be nice for (in addition to making the AI players more of a challenge) the environment (animals etc) to be more hostile so it wouldn't be so easy to just scout everywhere and get rewards from fights / ransacking. Scouting in Civ games feels more exciting for some reason.

afarteta93 wrote:
Important improvement to Infrastructures: The number of city infrastructures appears daunting. I did not like clicking into city production and having a list of 20+ things to build nested into a very large scroll pane, especially since it is not evident what each one does without hovering over them. I do not know if it's a UI issue, but I think something should be done about this because, in my opinion, infrastructures are not as easily identifiable as districts. I think they could also use some sort of classification by what function they fulfill and you should not even see or be able to produce infrastructures that have no impact on your city (e.g. cities without rivers inside their territory shouldn't be able to build irrigation or watermills; cities without harbors shouldn't be able to build fishmongers; nor should they appear in the build list of such cities). Another suggestion to make the production UI be more friendly would be presenting it in a list format with an icon that identifies the infrastructure (much like how the Civilization series does it, or how you do it for districts) and reserving the art fot the tooltip. This could also apply to public ceremonies, but to a lesser extent, since they're not as many as infrastructures.

Being able to filter the improvements by production type (food, science, production, etc) would be extremely helpful.

gigaudobaix wrote:

I just finished my first OpenDev run with Lucy, and i loved it.

Here are a few things i noted down:

1. Navy movements, especially for cogs, should not take the shortest route, but take the safest route. It was frustrating to be left between either risking losing a ship or having to give instructions every other turn.
...
4. Empire 1 (or whichever number) is not clear... so it's hard to so see who we get a notification about. Would be simpler if we had the leader's name.

1. Navel movement leading to self-destructive behavior has been mentioned a TON and I really hope it's addressed.

4. I made a similar suggestion in another thread. Seeing "Vlad" instead of "Empire 5" would be much better -- especially as they are numbered top to bottom, left to right and not the other way around (so top row is 1, 3, 5; bottom is 2, 4 -- instead of top being 1, 2, 3, and bottom 4, 5.)

I ended up picking up a lot of things in my 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc., playthroughs, but as a *first* impression, a lot of things were extremely difficult to pick up. I had made sure to turn on all the tutorials, but they actually didn't trigger at all until my 2nd playthrough.

A few things that were difficult to pick up at first playthrough:

1. The interaction between fame and era stars.
   I don't think I intentionally clicked the fame/era star screen at all in my first game. So, I was extremely blind as to why and when the AI or I was getting era stars, or how that led to fame. (I got better for game 2 and onward, but it took me 2 or 3 games to realize that it wasn't always the best move to advance after only 7 stars, because I could get more fame by getting more stars per era.) This leads me to my second point
2. Tech/science rollover between eras.
   In my first few games, I was afraid to hold off advance, because I thought that if I got to the end of the era tech tree that I would be 'wasting' all science. It wasn't until I watched a YouTuber play that I realized that there is science rollover. In future games, I got to a point where I could instantly research all technologies in the first turn after advancing, because I had rolled over so much science.
3. Value of culture
   I didn't realize what cultural dominance was really good for. I eventually figured out that as expansionist cultures, I could buy outposts with money, but I didn't realize until I watched a YouTuber that with cultural dominance, I could press AIs for their outposts. This is because of the 4th point...
4. Grievances/demands
   Wow, the grievance/demand system did NOT make sense on 1st playthrough. I was really bewildered by how often my person would make demands. (Even when rejecting the demand, the voice acting from player and AI gave a bad sense for what was going on.) The AI never accepted my demands and I didn't really feel like going to war in the first few games. I did not try demanding outposts under cultural influence, but from watching YouTube and reading Reddit, I heard that apparently, AIs will give outposts that are culturally engulfed? 
5. Population growth was not intuitive
   I understood from YouTube videos that food is tiered into thresholds like "abundant" etc., but it also seemed to be the case that there could be population growth even without those categories? And that no matter what the category, cities growth more the bigger they are, so it's really just a matter of jump starting their population. There were several times when I would reduce my cities too much because of generating military units, and then it would take a long time for the cities to regrow. That being said...
6. It was really easy to build up food and stability
   I had *no* idea what these mechanics were really supposed to be about, but I somehow had little to no issue keeping most cities in Abundant and 100% stable despite not really dedicating much time to food quarters. I generally only built stability infrastructures for new cities. This might have just been the choice of cultures, but I explicitly *never* picked an agrarian culture because I simply never had food/growth issues. 

I love what I've had a chance to play so far and I'm excited for release!

The Good:

Neolithic era was a lot of fun! I like the options of being able to fight or forage and being able to brawl with the other players right off the bat.

City management feels great. To me, this takes some of the elements I love most about Endless Legend and mixes them with the sense of snowballing and scale of Endless Space 2 and expands on these ideas. Bigger cities, more flexibility, sense of scale, and a nice aesthetic. Generally speaking, the city management aspects were my favorite parts of the game regardless of culture selection. I have some minor criticisms but that’ll be for later.

The cultures all felt diverse in terms of gameplay, geolocation, and style. Compared to something like Civ it was nice having a special unit that is guaranteed for that era. Games like Civ tend to have units that replace other ones and then get phased out. I also liked the culture pressure system where different empire cultures will slowly affect each other and either homogenize or separate further.

I didn’t do much combat, but it seems solid and the first Opendev’s Combat scenarios were a good exposure to the general idea.

Era Stars are a really cool system that encourages players to do more than the classic victory conditions of conquering the world or sitting in your corner and building up your favorite resource. I really like that you need to dynamically decide if you want to lean into your strengths to snap up some easy stars, or if you want to swap to a different culture and smooth out your rough edges. I also like that players that are behind everyone else in the eras get some bonus era stars slowly dripped to them to keep them competitive and “in the game”. This will stop some medieval-era players from getting steamrolled by industrial-era players.

The Negative:

UI

The UI could really use a lot of love. Across the game there were multiple instances where I didn’t exactly remember what an icon meant or how to interpret its impact and when I hovered over it nothing would happen. Things like your Rationalism vs Spiritualism come to mind. I also think it would be a huge mistake to not include functionality like clicking on an icon (such as the rationalism icon) and be taken directly there or being able to click on a technology.

I ended up being confused as well near the beginning because when you hover over a particular city improvement (the square ones that give you +food on a river or whatever) it also shows a big picture of the upgrade to it along with red text showing you cannot build it. There were points where I just assumed, I was missing the technology for a building I already had access to.

The purpose of luxuries was unknown to me until I became a trading culture later and began actually looking for these resources and actually doings some trading. When you encounter these resources in the map, hovering over them should include details about what they do. I also wasn’t sure how to sell a resource, only buy and I never quite figured it out.

My biggest UI complaint though is for Wonders. If you do not claim a wonder when prompted, the menu to claim or vi wonders is buried in the menu in the top right- which is not intuitive. Once, I skipped the prompt to claim a wonder because I wanted to save my influence for expansion and could not find out to claim it after that for two eras. Ultimately if a new player said “I want to build a wonder” they would need to leave their city management, click the menu at the top-right, click wonders, click the desired wonder, click ok, and then go back into the city and build it. My suggestion would be to put it in a special category IN the city building menu with something like “claim a wonder”.

The diplomacy screen is mostly fine, but the big square buttons don’t seem to convey that they are different “levels” of friendliness. This could be improved by something as simple as adding a double-sided arrow behind the columns and a symbol to show friendly and unfriendly states.

There seems to be a general theme of the game having too much functionality hidden in menus and either consolidating the menus or allowing functionality to be possible in multiple places would be a huge step forward. While I am seasoned at 4X’s and know how to find some of these resources it really felt like a player new to 4X would not even know they could build a wonder if it didn’t have a prompt to do so.

Mechanic readability

Generally, I am a fan of show and not tell. I don’t want a popup to pause gameplay and explain every detail. That being said, I felt rather left in the dark on certain mechanics.

Religion felt like it didn’t do anything. I know upon reading details that objectively that’s incorrect, but it didn’t really feel like anything related to the religion had much weight to it. I leaned into religion and it felt like all I got was some extra prompts and one holy site every era or so. I think this mechanic needs some serious expansion and re-examining. Maybe some more direct player input would make a big difference other than passive faith. Perhaps new religious districts are unlocked such as monasteries once the religion grows enough? Maybe more milestones and fanfare for converting people?

The political system influenced by events was not communicated well enough. It took me until a significant portion of the game to realize that where you were on the scale significantly impacted my empire’s production of certain resources. For example, being very rational improve science but harms faith.

The value of the trade system was also a little confusing- often I found myself asking “am I passively getting money or just lump sums from purchases” and I never quite figured that out either. Maybe I missed it but consider putting an element in the trading screen showing how much you are making from trade or some sort of purchase history that shows you what you are actually getting from these deals.

City Management:

The city improvements (square) felt horrible to build. Their bonuses were great but the problem is that literally everything else you build in the city has a physical presence on the map, be it troops, wonders, or districts. I like the idea of something that increases your yields on a river or what-have-you but I think even just making it a district such as a “food market” or "flood plain" that does the same thing would make a huge difference. In their current state despite their impact they feel like a waste of time. Calling back to the UI problems, the readability on these icons could be improved. At a glance there’s usually a general color  theme indicating what resource they boost but maybe a border around the whole icon or just the picture would make a huge difference.

Eras/Cultures:

Neolithic Era is a lot of fun and sure as hell beats the classic “better found a city or else” mentality of most 4X. But I think it could benefit from just being a little bit longer. Obviously it’s not the “real” game but it often felt like just as I was starting to gain traction it was over. This may be helped by reducing the amount of food spawning in the map to encourage a little more exploring.

Ancient Era and Classical Eras are pretty fun. You’re setting your roots in, and starting to claim territory. However, technology feels like it progresses extremely fast regardless of how you are building and playing. I do like how with your small population you need to decide whether sacrificing them or using them for slower production is a better investment.

Beyond the Classical Era is where I feel like the “true” game takes shape. If you don’t lean into technologies, they’ll come slowly. If your production is behind your cities will have trouble taking shape, and everyone’s cities are built up enough that anyone can consider war as an option. To me this overall stage of the game is the best-balanced section and the true meat of the game.

I really liked the cultures that were available. It was nice to lean into certain playstyles or get bonuses. However, it was not clear to me right off the bat that certain types of cultures have certain types of era stars. For example, merchant cultures getting stars based on income.

A small disappointment I had was that Humankind sells itself as a sort of tapestry of humanity and constantly building on the past. However, each time I advanced an era it felt like all the identity of my previous culture was washed away except for their special district. It felt less like a tapestry and more like changing gears. One thing I would suggest is maybe keeping the aesthetic of certain districts one or two eras behind as “historical”. This could either be just a random 20% of districts or ones surrounding special districts. Consider places like Italy which have been across multiple eras but still have places in Rome that look very classical even if the construction is newer.

Era Stars are a real cool, but I feel like they need to take more of a front-facing position. Every time you get to a new era you should be shown the exact era stars available and how to get them without needing to get to the empire screen at the top-left. Not quite stuffing them down the player’s throat but era stars and fame are the most important resources in this game.

Fame has a lot of problems. Namely for new players it’s “how”. I couldn’t find anything that seemed to indicate the best ways to get fame or how to orient myself. I think I get it for getting era stars? But does it scale on how many I have in each category?

Overall

Great work so far! The game is extremely solid but I think there’s a few big oversights especially in UI and newbie friendliness. Menus need to be cut down, simplified, and consolidated and information needs to be more readily available.

my first impressions.

playtime: around 80 Rounds (sadly I wasn't fast enough, and couldn't end a complete run)

play on easy

Overall look:

the game and the ideas look really cool. I'm really look forward to the release of the full version.

good:

- I like the first era very much. it's all different to similar games (but sadly it goes not long enough ;-) )

- I like the battle system (even I never really battle long enough to see the full potential (on easy))

- build Wonder mechanic (build with multiple citys / claim your own wonder)

- city building (with the tiles / combine with other typ of tyles)

bad:

- Diplomacy (Tradesystem / lack of possibilitys)

- in later eras: no use of influence points and money

- once a wonder is placed on a tile, you cant delete it and start over at an other place

- the more difficult parts of the game was sometimes hard to understand (what do cultural influence / how does religion spread / and so on)

- sometimes I it was really difficult to understand, how much resources i get for placing a certain tile to my city. sometimes I didn't understand why the tiles aren't give other tiles the adjacent bonus.

Details what I like to mention:

- Scroll around with Mouse (to the edge) and/or WASD is too slow!  - could you pls make a setting for faster srolling with WASD

- the research in the first two eras is too fast. compared to the city developement.

- you should mention, that placing an outpost at the province border, is a huge disadvantage.

- every 3 turns a new message pops up: " a new deal with one of your neighbors" - but then, I can't do anything with this information. and the AI don't want to buy any of my luxuries.

thank you for the OpenDev :-)

I honestly really like the game and I'm looking forward to the full release, it has its fair share of problems but just playing the game and experiencing each turn felt very enjoyable, moving pops around felt good, combat felt good and it was relaxing seeing my people grow. The core of the game is very well made it just has a lot of rough edges I hope to see ironed out.

Things I liked

Visuals. Game looks gorgeous.

Neolithic era was a really fun addition. Ability to scout a land before settling a 1st city was really nice.

Ability to grow cities geographically (by joining regions) and merging cities was nice addition. I really like the idea that instead by the end of a game I don't need to manage ton of cities since like in real life they merge and become bigger.

War system, where you have to have claims and make sure you population has enough desire to fight, seemed promising. Did not have enough time to really explore that system, but it seemed promising and interesting.

Things I did not like so much

Terrain height is not always intuitive. Quite too often I assumed that my units would be able to ascend/descend the hill only for them to take 5 turn detour because the terrain is too steep. Also, when zoomed out to map mode, this information is lost as well. Makes planning movement really difficult.

Ability to grow cities so large in 1st era. Since exploitation of neighboring tiles is so powerful, it makes sense to join bunch of regions to your first city. This makes your 1st city look really strange and unrealistic (how did they even manage this metropolis without having roads?) You really should develop your city 1st before being able to expand it so much.

Lack of resource management. A one or two resource deposits can satisfy all your needs. That's bad for strategic resources, you should need to maintain large amount of deposits, to be able to produce and sustain large amount of troops or infrastructure. But even luxury ones, it's strange that single deposit can equally satisfy 30 cities as it can 1. Also, there's not that much tradeoff for selling them.

Some combat limitations. For example, as a defender, you cannot choose where to place capture point. This means it can spawn in poorly defendable position. Or another example, inability to swap units during combat.

Religion and influence seemed underwhelming. Sure they give you some bonuses, allow you to claim territory and if you're losing at it gives you some trouble... But overall it seemed boring - just build some stuff to push those numbers and that's it.

Cultures

This deserves a special mention.

On the one hand, I really liked that you get cultures which are appropriate for a time period. Also, the fact that your people can change their culture is fun and interesting.

However, the lack of non European cultures is sad. The fact that you need to ascend to a completely different culture from the other side of the world to get relevant game bonuses is also sad.

I wish you could build your culture in a similar way you can build your religion in this game. So that when you pick your Greek culture it mostly bings aesthetic stuff (unique units/buildings, city names), but most of the bonuses are picked from a different list. That way you can have your philosophical Greek culture, or you can build your militaristic Sparta, or naval Athens, etc. That way you could have more or less sane cultural progression while being able to adjust to the gameplay needs.

I enjoyed the very little bit that I got to play during the holidays. I love being able to attach outposts to my existing cities, and I hope that that'll be balanced in a way that will allow me to effectively play Venice from Civilization V, which I loved. I can't stand having to build copies of the same city over and over again.

The combat seemed interesting too. Particularly that early game unit that would grow more units when you found things or defeated enemies. Defeating that first mammoth by flanking it was especially satisfying.

Diplomacy was fun too. Very straight forward, and the AI was very agreeable for once, even despite me not building any sort of real military units. The AI in 4x games that I play have a tendency to grossly underestimate me just because I often don't have a standing army until later in the game, making them hate me (affects diplomacy) and wanting to conquer me (wasting mine and their time and resources). Although admittedly that did become a problem when I'd made two allies very early on and neither of them wanted to assist me when somebody declared war on me.