Hey everyone!

You may have read about our plans for the Independent People in our Lucy Announcement blog.

While not all of these plans have made it into the currently available version of the game, we'd still like to hear from you what you think of the independent people know, as they were an aspect of the game we received a lot of constructive feedback on during the Stadia OpenDev.

Hello,

about my experience with independent people in the "Lucy" Open Dev:

First of all the map areas are just the right size to make independent people an important asset to control but not having them block off too much of the map.

I really miss a lot of elements from f.e. Endless Space 2 concerning culture/lore/uniqueness. Without a big picture and description of culture It is hard to imagine how their city/customs might differ from mine which takes away a bit of atmosphere. Also, the way a unique assimilation effect was presented in es2 felt a bit nicer because I immediately knew what makes their population differ from mine/others through gameplay. Kind of miss this feeling of multiculturalism in that regard.

All in all so far they felt more like tokes to pump resources in to get a city. It did not make my gameplay experience worse, I just see more potential for their cultures being expressed a bit more (clearly) in both gameplay and atmosphere/Lore; especially given that the game's main theme is closely connected to multiculturalism.

I generally am really enjoying my experience with the game, and it already feels very polished. Can't wait for the final product :)

Hi,

please for the love of god let me destroy unwanted cities, there's freaking Independent People everywhere where I can't claim with a outpost fast enough.

I now got 17 territories of which 10 are cities and due to 4-6k influence cost on merging, I am stuck with unadministered cities everywhere!

ForgottenTree wrote:

I now got 17 territories of which 10 are cities and due to 4-6k influence cost on merging, I am stuck with unadministered cities everywhere!

I agree the influence cost for merging cities is too high. I wanted to relieve myself of some tedious heavy micromanagement of the ~30+ cities I head under my empire in the end game, but just didn't have the influence to do it.

The biggest problem I saw with Independent Peoples was that any one I didn't assimilate, the AI empires did. Which made keeping a bunch of unassimilated people under my patronage not a possible strategy.

There should be some reason to just patronate independent cities without assimilating them, like dealing with city-states in Civ, but currently there is no reason to. Well, it's written you can use their resources or control their army - but you will get resources anyway, and who needs that silly peasants?

I like the free peoples, but there aren't enough of them - especially in the ancient era. During a fast-paced playthrough, you and the AI might grow so quickly that there is hardly any place left for them.

I think there might be an opportunity to make independent people a lot more common and more robust in the ancient era, so that similar to hunting in the neolithic era hunting, a player has a clear theme of consolidating tribes. The initial cultural choice might have a much stronger diplomatic effect with independent people tilting the balance and making assimilation vs domination choice a lot more meaningful.

It would also be cool if some of the independents had a technology, knowledge of a resource (revealing it on the map nearby) or unique structure for a player to acquire.

In my few playthroughs with Lucy, independents appeared later in a game and almost always got assimilated immediately.

There should be a better benefit for keeping them as a vassal state.

ihrd wrote:
It would also be cool if some of the independents had a technology, knowledge of a resource (revealing it on the map nearby) or unique structure for a player to acquire.

I really like this idea. It would promote diplomatic or agressive relations with the independant state. If science was much harder to research than it is now and I could get one for free by assimilating them it would really give them a higher value to persue.

They are useful for making a landing on a new continent and that's about it, really wish there was a reason to give them outposts and babysit them in general.

My main issue is the same as with minors in ES2, if you let them stick around someone else will snatch them from you with seemingly little effort. Maybe there could be some kind of 'guarantee independence' as an alternative to assimilation, that would make sure that this particular group will remain around? Could make it cost upkeep in influence, one way or another (either by flat per-turn cost or by keeping the relationship with them a race between majors, so that you need to invest into it to stay ahead). Then we could maybe start to talk about how to balance/incentivize interactions with patronaged Independent Peoples.

I also like the idea of some form of 'special powers' for them. Maybe they could have an access to some kind of specific emblematic unit, that you could hire with a long cooldown, or ability to cooperate with single town to boost FIDSI... uhm... FIMSI? FIMRI? I'm not sure what's the shorthand in Humankind. But as I wrote, to even think about it we must first assure that they'd ever stick around the map for long enough to make it worthwile.

The Independent peoples in Humankind, to me, felt as though they were more "in the way" than contributing anything interesting to to the OpenDev scenario. The way similar things are used in Endless Space 2 or Endless Legend - with them having unique units or populations to add to your empire would be interesting. In Humankind, this could probably be achieved with Unique Luxury Resources or Unique Quarters or Infrastructures or even  Unique Units that assimilating them or patronising them grants you. What might be even more interesting would be getting Bonus A (e.g. unique unit) if you are their Patron (90+%) and Bonus B (e.g. unique improvement) if you assimilate them, where your playstyle can lead to you getting either Bonus A or Bonus B, but not both.  

I agree strongly with the below, by which I mean, in their current state, Independent Peoples just feels like a just another territory that you invest some gold/influence into for a turn or 2 before immediately assimilating them, as this grants you the most benefit: 

Xahutek wrote:

I really miss a lot of elements from f.e. Endless Space 2 concerning culture/lore/uniqueness. Without a big picture and description of culture It is hard to imagine how their city/customs might differ from mine which takes away a bit of atmosphere. Also, the way a unique assimilation effect was presented in es2 felt a bit nicer because I immediately knew what makes their population differ from mine/others through gameplay. Kind of miss this feeling of multiculturalism in that regard.

All in all so far they felt more like tokes to pump resources in to get a city. It did not make my gameplay experience worse, I just see more potential for their cultures being expressed a bit more (clearly) in both gameplay and atmosphere/Lore; especially given that the game's main theme is closely connected to multiculturalism.

I generally am really enjoying my experience with the game, and it already feels very polished. Can't wait for the final product :)

Yeah, independents just feel like placeholders at the moment.

In the first games I played, it was unclear that there was anything peaceful I could do with them. So I basically confronted every independent people by conquering them.

In later games, I realized that I could spend money/culture to bring them into patronage. I did *not* understand the various civic affinity sliders -- it just seemed like always, the independent peoples were very different from my own culture.

I ended up assimilating all independent people once I realized I could get them to 100 in patronage. If there was supposed to be another steady state beyond conquering vs buying them out, it was not apparent to me during gameplay.

It has been like a rollocoaster ride with the Independent People - in first OpenDev, there was not enough of them, in the second one, they were everywhere in a no time, and now... they are again rather on the low point. I have several thoughts whirling in my head, some of them echoing sentiments brought up here before.

1. There could be more Independent People and they could come earlier.

2. IPs could be rather stronger, to make for more interesting gameplay - as it stands now, it is rather easy to prevent them ever settling and bullying them, their Cities are easily conquered with minimal amount of units and without the repercussions.

3. Becoming Patron seems bit like a chore and lacks the funny and interesting elements that other parts of the game sport - clicking on the button for Influence/Money repeatedly was really tedious, also does not really have the feel of becoming someone's Patron. In comparison to ES2, where interacting with Minor Factions felt really flavorful, engaging and rewarding. There could be more interaction between Patron and Independent People besides the option to assimilate them - also dumping loads of Money/Influence on IP one turn and Assimilating them on the next turn feels really anticlimatic and unrealistic - if there was a period of several turns that such city is Patronized but unable to assimilate (like 5-10 turns) and then there was a pop-up "Assimilation possible", that would give more time for other players to join the tug of war over independet cities.

4. One of the ways to make Patron benefit from their IP under patronage would be to give the Patron some benefit - like minivassalization - that would be worth having them in the form of IPs, not Assimilating them on the first chance - what comes to mind is giving bonus to FIMS, or only Food/Money, getting access to their Luxuries and Stretegics or counting their Territories as "Owned" for the purpose of Expansionist's Era Star.

5. If long-term Patronization would be a thing, after spending whole Era under Patronage, there could be pop-up that the IPs grew so close to you, that you could instantly Assimilate them without the cost (that could have higher base values); this could be refuse, but than IPs would go into decline and dissapear next era, like they do now (I believe - there was no IPs alive long enough for me to experience this).

6. I agree that IPs could have more flavour identity, than they have right now. Without the need to go for unique Units or other stuff, each IPs could have one of several identities based on some circumstances (currently, they are either Hostile or Peaceful, making them more or less likely to attack you on sight). There could be for example "Warriors", "Pastoralists", "Traders" and "Worshipers" - each with bit of unique twist on the interaction with Players and with Era appropriate generic Art for their representation (to give them more flavour and enhance immersion - with 4 types in six eras, 24 small new arts could be mannagable, and could have differently looking City Centers).

6a) Warriors - would represent "Barbarians", "Sea People", "Hordes", later on "Rebels" or even "Terrorists" - they would spawn in territories with Strategics and would be highly agressive, would attack on sight, seek Players, pillage their countryside, spam units and mainly in early game provide pressure on player so they can not just ignore defenses. They would have fortified city, maybe with several Garrisons in territory, making them difficult to conquer and rather difficult to assimilate and probably provide only small bonus if Patronized - something like 5 % reduction to Unit production comes to mind. Once Patronized, they could also be much cheaper to buy as Mercenaries.

6b) Pastoralists - would represent prototypical peaceful tribes and peoples of various eras, they would expand their city a bit and only fight in defense, but their population would rise steadily. They would be easily Patronized and once done, they could provide Food to Capital or simply give Population to nearby City of Patron every couple of turns in addition to normal Population growth.

6c) Traders - would represent small trade partners - like many Mediterrainian City States, Hanseatic League, Native Traders of Americas and Africa - they would spawn only in territories with Luxuries and once under Patronage would give Patron access to their Luxuries and/or small Money income; they would be easier to Assimilate with Money, than with Influence.

6d) Worshipers - would represent famous Religious and Cultural places that are not playable right now - Israelites, Tibeteans, Norte Chico etc. - they could have own Holy Site, that - once Assimilated or Patronized, could count as Players Holy Site - considering they share Player's Religion. They would be easier to Assimilate with Influence and could be done only if they share Religion (or might not be necessary, as they could adopt state Religion upon Patronization/Assimilation).

So these are some things I had on my mind since the second OpenDev - some of them being rather bigger changes to how IPs work right now and would be probably out of scope for the game's release, but maybe they come handy as an inspiration for some stray Dev that stumbles on them in future.

Thanks for the amazing time spent with the game (playing or discussing it with other fans) so far, cheers!

Independent People need a few flavour changes and a few mechanical changes, the base is there but needs a lot of tuning.

Some unique colours would be great instead of the same grey everywhere, also perhaps a randomized religion instead of it all being the same generic one

That's all for flavour, mechanically independents exist purely as extra cities and nothing more, you dump money and influence into them for a city and not much else. Taking over them should be harder, both from a military and conversion perspective, while actions like trading should be much easier so that empires have an opportunity to interact with them before they get eaten. They have lifespans of upwards of 50 turns but are eaten in 9, and I haven't seen a single one last long enough to be able to offer goods which should be one of the main interactions with them, trade. They also only seem to spawn civilian units so buying them as mercenaries is out of the picture, but this problem is easier to fix by giving them the same unit pools as players, and thus would make mercenaries worth it.

The act of converting them is also rather dull, just clicking a button over and over, it'd be fine if that was the alternate method and instead tolerance/compatibility was the primary method of conversion, where you have to either change your ideals to suit the independents or the other way around in order to convert them.

Overall a lot of potential but they get eaten up too easily before that potential is realized

oggysu wrote:

6. I agree that IPs could have more flavour identity, than they have right now. Without the need to go for unique Units or other stuff, each IPs could have one of several identities based on some circumstances (currently, they are either Hostile or Peaceful, making them more or less likely to attack you on sight). There could be for example "Warriors", "Pastoralists", "Traders" and "Worshipers" - each with bit of unique twist on the interaction with Players and with Era appropriate generic Art for their representation (to give them more flavour and enhance immersion - with 4 types in six eras, 24 small new arts could be mannagable, and could have differently looking City Centers).

6a) Warriors - would represent "Barbarians", "Sea People", "Hordes", later on "Rebels" or even "Terrorists" - they would spawn in territories with Strategics and would be highly agressive, would attack on sight, seek Players, pillage their countryside, spam units and mainly in early game provide pressure on player so they can not just ignore defenses. They would have fortified city, maybe with several Garrisons in territory, making them difficult to conquer and rather difficult to assimilate and probably provide only small bonus if Patronized - something like 5 % reduction to Unit production comes to mind. Once Patronized, they could also be much cheaper to buy as Mercenaries.

6b) Pastoralists - would represent prototypical peaceful tribes and peoples of various eras, they would expand their city a bit and only fight in defense, but their population would rise steadily. They would be easily Patronized and once done, they could provide Food to Capital or simply give Population to nearby City of Patron every couple of turns in addition to normal Population growth.

6c) Traders - would represent small trade partners - like many Mediterrainian City States, Hanseatic League, Native Traders of Americas and Africa - they would spawn only in territories with Luxuries and once under Patronage would give Patron access to their Luxuries and/or small Money income; they would be easier to Assimilate with Money, than with Influence.

6d) Worshipers - would represent famous Religious and Cultural places that are not playable right now - Israelites, Tibeteans, Norte Chico etc. - they could have own Holy Site, that - once Assimilated or Patronized, could count as Players Holy Site - considering they share Player's Religion. They would be easier to Assimilate with Influence and could be done only if they share Religion (or might not be necessary, as they could adopt state Religion upon Patronization/Assimilation).

If something like what you're describing here isn't implemented in the full game, I will be instantly downloading the first mod that does do something like this! I really feel like this is the answer to what IP can and should be.

They need to 

1. give special bonuses to your empire when you are their patron (give IPs an affinity, and that affinity determines the bonus they give)

2. give a different bonus in their city when you assimilate them (probably based on their affinity)

3. As a patron be able to prevent other patrons from assimilating them

4. be harder to attack, and be able to be liberated by a previous patron. 

oggysu wrote:

It has been like a rollocoaster ride with the Independent People - in first OpenDev, there was not enough of them, in the second one, they were everywhere in a no time, and now... they are again rather on the low point. I have several thoughts whirling in my head, some of them echoing sentiments brought up here before.

1. There could be more Independent People and they could come earlier.

2. IPs could be rather stronger, to make for more interesting gameplay - as it stands now, it is rather easy to prevent them ever settling and bullying them, their Cities are easily conquered with minimal amount of units and without the repercussions.

3. Becoming Patron seems bit like a chore and lacks the funny and interesting elements that other parts of the game sport - clicking on the button for Influence/Money repeatedly was really tedious, also does not really have the feel of becoming someone's Patron. In comparison to ES2, where interacting with Minor Factions felt really flavorful, engaging and rewarding. There could be more interaction between Patron and Independent People besides the option to assimilate them - also dumping loads of Money/Influence on IP one turn and Assimilating them on the next turn feels really anticlimatic and unrealistic - if there was a period of several turns that such city is Patronized but unable to assimilate (like 5-10 turns) and then there was a pop-up "Assimilation possible", that would give more time for other players to join the tug of war over independet cities.

4. One of the ways to make Patron benefit from their IP under patronage would be to give the Patron some benefit - like minivassalization - that would be worth having them in the form of IPs, not Assimilating them on the first chance - what comes to mind is giving bonus to FIMS, or only Food/Money, getting access to their Luxuries and Stretegics or counting their Territories as "Owned" for the purpose of Expansionist's Era Star.

5. If long-term Patronization would be a thing, after spending whole Era under Patronage, there could be pop-up that the IPs grew so close to you, that you could instantly Assimilate them without the cost (that could have higher base values); this could be refuse, but than IPs would go into decline and dissapear next era, like they do now (I believe - there was no IPs alive long enough for me to experience this).

6. I agree that IPs could have more flavour identity, than they have right now. Without the need to go for unique Units or other stuff, each IPs could have one of several identities based on some circumstances (currently, they are either Hostile or Peaceful, making them more or less likely to attack you on sight). There could be for example "Warriors", "Pastoralists", "Traders" and "Worshipers" - each with bit of unique twist on the interaction with Players and with Era appropriate generic Art for their representation (to give them more flavour and enhance immersion - with 4 types in six eras, 24 small new arts could be mannagable, and could have differently looking City Centers).

6a) Warriors - would represent "Barbarians", "Sea People", "Hordes", later on "Rebels" or even "Terrorists" - they would spawn in territories with Strategics and would be highly agressive, would attack on sight, seek Players, pillage their countryside, spam units and mainly in early game provide pressure on player so they can not just ignore defenses. They would have fortified city, maybe with several Garrisons in territory, making them difficult to conquer and rather difficult to assimilate and probably provide only small bonus if Patronized - something like 5 % reduction to Unit production comes to mind. Once Patronized, they could also be much cheaper to buy as Mercenaries.

6b) Pastoralists - would represent prototypical peaceful tribes and peoples of various eras, they would expand their city a bit and only fight in defense, but their population would rise steadily. They would be easily Patronized and once done, they could provide Food to Capital or simply give Population to nearby City of Patron every couple of turns in addition to normal Population growth.

6c) Traders - would represent small trade partners - like many Mediterrainian City States, Hanseatic League, Native Traders of Americas and Africa - they would spawn only in territories with Luxuries and once under Patronage would give Patron access to their Luxuries and/or small Money income; they would be easier to Assimilate with Money, than with Influence.

6d) Worshipers - would represent famous Religious and Cultural places that are not playable right now - Israelites, Tibeteans, Norte Chico etc. - they could have own Holy Site, that - once Assimilated or Patronized, could count as Players Holy Site - considering they share Player's Religion. They would be easier to Assimilate with Influence and could be done only if they share Religion (or might not be necessary, as they could adopt state Religion upon Patronization/Assimilation).

So these are some things I had on my mind since the second OpenDev - some of them being rather bigger changes to how IPs work right now and would be probably out of scope for the game's release, but maybe they come handy as an inspiration for some stray Dev that stumbles on them in future.

Thanks for the amazing time spent with the game (playing or discussing it with other fans) so far, cheers!

Love these ideas -- keeps them from being so generic.

As even when patronized thay coudn't offer much (no available resources), I mainly influenced/bought them into my Empire to set foot on the second continent.

Waper wrote:

Another idea is these people can give out quests/missions to players/AIs to complete for rewards where some of which can be small amount of fame points. Completing them may give one time positive bonus relationship pts. It is up to devs to decide if they want to include these in the game and how often they can be. If included, please do not make it too often. Once in a while should be fine.

This could make the game a little more interesting as another source of fame pts.

Mechanically, that's a pretty great idea, but thematically, it doesn't make much sense for empires to gain fame by obeying random small nations.