So far I’ve had the opportunity to play through 3 games during the Lucy OpenDev and have had an absolute BLAST. I think that the game in its current state is almost worth the money that I’ve spent pre-ordering it, and have no doubt that it will turn out to be an incredible finished product. Huge props to all of the devs who have worked so hard to make this the game that I as a long-time Civ fan have always hoped that franchise would eventually develop into. Each time I finished a playthrough I wasn’t connected to the Internet, so I couldn’t fill out the post-game survey. I wanted to leave some thoughts here regarding some things that stuck out as major pros, and areas for development:

Pros:

• In its current state, the game is already very addictive, very fun, very “just one more turn…”

• Choosing the next culture each era feels great and very balanced. Strategy games are built upon their ability to provide interesting and meaningful choices to players, and this game delivers on that in this area in particular. I chose different cultures for each of the games that I played mostly because the situation that I was in in those particular games called for it, and partly because it was fun to play around with different cultures. This speaks to an incredible amount of work on the part of the devs to make each and every culture interesting, fun, and balanced. AMAZING work in this regard! 

• The tactical combat system is a big upgrade from most 4X titles. It is a pro for me as-is, but could use some improvement, which I’ll elaborate on below. 

• The map is absolutely gorgeous, the best-looking of any 4X title I’ve ever seen. I like that Humankind took a realism approach, as opposed to the cartoony approach of Civ VI. I also love how the look of the map interacts with gameplay in so many ways, whether that be combat, movement, or tile yields. Best map in the genre, hands down. 

• City development is very fun. I like that cities must be built up over time from outposts that are under construction to cities. I also love that “city development” in this game really means “territory development”, and I like watching the whole map change based on how cities are developed. There are some concerns that I have regarding district balancing, which I’ll elaborate on below.

• World wonder claiming with influence is a great idea, and gives you something to spend your influence on when you’re not actively settling territories. The consistent buff to stability from world wonders is great, and the variety of other bonuses is also very fun. I chose different wonders in each of my playthroughs based on the situations that I was in, and felt rewarded for my choices each time. This is another example of deep, fun, strategic choices making this game great.

• The dynamic story that unfolds throughout the game is awesome. The events were a lot of fun to read and experience, and I really loved how civics decisions were brought up based upon the situation that my culture was currently experiencing. It was actually pretty incredible how accurate and natural it felt for me to be making the civics decisions that I was making at the time that I was making them. 

• The grievance system is a fun take on “casus belli” and I really like it. It also ensures that losing a war doesn’t disqualify you from eventually winning a game, and makes it so that the player can’t just wipe out their neighbors whenever they feel like it. From a historical perspective, I feel like it does a pretty decent job of capturing the complexities of negotiating peace during wartime.
  
  

Areas for development:

General:

• I felt like the UI elements took up too much of the screen. I would love to see information presented in a more efficient way, with skinnier panels, so that it wouldn’t take up so much space. 

• In particular, the production UI for cities could be improved upon. I could only see two rows of options of about 4 items each at any given point in time, but there was a ton of what I would consider to be dead space right above that. All of the information above the production panel could be pushed up to the top of the screen, and the area presenting me with my production options could be expanded greatly. 

• I was unable to hover my mouse over the affinity symbols on the culture selection screen to see what those affinities would do for me. This would be a great feature. 

• I honestly wasn’t a fan of any of the affinity bonuses that my chosen cultures got to take advantage of for a variety of reasons. Here are the affinity bonuses that I used in my games:

  • Aesthete: It felt strange that a couple of clicks on my end could make it so that my culture was totally dominating another player’s territory’s culture instantly. That doesn’t feel balanced to me from a gameplay perspective, and doesn’t feel real from a historical perspective. I would also love some flavor text to tell me exactly why my money from tourism is doubling with a couple of clicks, otherwise it feels way too game-y. 

  • Agrarian: Even though I was making crazy amounts of food, the meter never filled up for me to use the agrarian abilities. Even if it had, my cities were growing so rapidly without the help of the agrarian abilities that it wouldn’t have felt too impactful to be able to use them. 

  • Scientist: I put every one of my cities into science mode, flew through the tech tree, and then absolutely roflstomped every AI on my continent with superior units in one of my playthroughs. This felt WAY too powerful. I would either put a hard limit on the amount of time a city can be in “science mode”, or make it so that only one city can do it. 

  • Expansionist: I tried buying territories off of the AI, but even though I spent the money it didn’t work out. I’m not sure if the AI did something to stop me, but the game never let me know what had happened. I also do not think from a historical perspective that it’s particularly believable to sneak units into an opponent’s land and “peacefully” steal that land. This felt way too game-y for me. 

  • Merchant: I never knew if the AI was buying the resources that I was buying from other AIs, so I never really knew if the merchant bonus was doing anything for me. Additionally, it felt silly that the AI wouldn’t just buy the same resources from the original owner for cheaper, rather than paying a premium to buy them from me.

  • I hated the names of many of the affinity abilities such as “science mode”. As a long-time Civ player, one of my major gripes about that franchise is that it has departed from feeling like playing through history and become way too game-y. Humankind usually does an excellent job of avoiding such pitfalls, but pressing a button called “science mode” to make more science doesn’t feel like watching history play out before me. I’d rather push a button called “Enlightenment” with some flavor text explaining how my people are enjoying an unprecedented time of scientific achievement… and then receive the same bonuses.

  • I wish that the affinity bonuses provided a “pro” and “con” in order to make it a more interesting choice whether to go with them. For example, maybe entering science mode puts a temporary debuff on the amount of faith generated by the city because people are more secularly minded at that point in history. Maybe using “production mode” provides a hit to stability because people are unhappy about being worked to death.  

• I wish that natural wonders were as varied in what they do for a city as world wonders are. If I see multiple natural wonders on the map, I want to have to make a painful choice between one or the other; as it stands now, they’d just provide me with the exact same bonuses, so which one I choose feels irrelevant. 

• Districts, and for that matter all city yields, need some serious rebalancing. For instance, after some initial development to get your city into “Abundant” for food production, you never have to think about food again, and will still see your cities spitting out a pop each turn. There’s really no reason to ever build a farmer’s quarter past a city’s (maybe) tenth turn in existence. For that matter, merchant’s quarters also feel pretty useless in the current build. 

• I don’t like that the game refers to the player and AI as “Empire 0”, “Empire 1”, etc. I understand that you can’t really refer to them by the name of a particular culture because the cultures would change, but just use the name of their avatar. That makes it feel less like I’m playing against a computer, and more like there are some personalities that I’m trying to beat. 

Trade/Diplomacy

• Trade screen lacks information. Who am I selling my resources to? What bonuses am I actively receiving from buying other people’s resources? 

• War Resolution screen is very unclear. I’ll post a screenshot here that I’ve posted in a few other places that I think communicates my confusion about this screen pretty well. Who the heck gets San Lorenzo when this war is over?!

• I would love to see a screen similar to the screenshot below of Civ IV’s diplomatic relations web. One screen that shows me how everybody in the game is relating to everybody else. 

• I would like to see a screen where I can see all of the independent people that I’ve met in one place. I would also like to be notified upon first meeting a new group of independent people. 

• Most importantly regarding independent people: interacting with independent people does not feel interesting by any stretch of the imagination with the game in its current state. Every single independent city is destined to be either conquered or assimilated by a player… what’s the point of them existing at that point?

• I never received notifications when AIs declared war on me, or broke alliances with me. 

• I’d like a notification when my allies declare war just in case I’m interested in going to help them out. 

• I would really like to see more kinds of diplomatic interactions. I really like the direction that the game is headed in as far as diplomacy is concerned with regard to the treaty types, but it just doesn’t feel all that fun to interact with the other players at this point. 

Pacing

• I thought that the pacing in the neolithic and ancient eras felt good. Beyond that though, the game moved way too fast. I usually got 7 era stars within the first 10-15 or so turns of any given era on serious difficulty.  I was also able to blow through the tech tree way too quickly, even when I wasn’t on “science mode”. 

Combat/Warfare

• I think that the winner of a war should earn fame upon their opponent surrendering. From a historical perspective, I think that we all remember many great cultures from history based upon their victorious wars. From a gameplay perspective, it feels more rewarding to win a war if you see your score go up afterward. I know that killing units earns you fame, but the losing party in a warn can earn that same fame; something special should happen for the winner. 

• The combat system is an improvement upon other 4X titles, but it could feel more realistic and strategic with one simple change: Rather than having attacker complete ALL of their moves, then defender complete ALL of their moves, I’d love to see each individual unit on each side take an initiative roll at the beginning of combat to determine an order in which they’d move. So maybe Attacker Horseman #3 moves first, Defender Archer #2 second, Defender Spearman third, Attacker Warrior fourth, etc. From a realism perspective, strategic battlefield decisions are made in real-time; you don’t sit there and watch your opponent’s ENTIRE army move wherever they want and attack you while you just sit there; you react in real time to what you’re seeing. From a gameplay perspective, I just think this would be a lot more fun. It would also be interesting to see certain unit types have higher/lower baseline initiative rolls to work with that might help you determine which units you’d like to build. Do I value the higher combat strength of Unit X, or the greater chance that Unit Y will be able to move first?

Sorry to anybody who has a hard time reading this... I copied and pasted from a Google Doc, and it looks like the formatting went crazy. 

I just posted how I think trade works, might help. https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/forums/168-general/threads/38206-confused-on-trade?page=1#post-308211

Agree with most of your feedback. Most of the affinity bonuses seem a little sketched-in right now, which is a shame because I think they're critical to making the game work. Conflict should take many forms, and all cultures in all eras should have their own way of messing with other players. Some of the possible fixes are obvious enough, like making the Aesthete culture bomb a per turn boost over some number of turns to your influence over target city, or over all cities next to one of yours. The design of some of the others, like Agrarian and Expansionist, may be fine with better balance. I haven't got the Expansionist one to work yet because most outposts grow quickly and the AI seems to immediately assimilate them if you're going for the steal, will keep messing with it.

Hard to weigh in on game speed when districts are so spammable. After early game Tribe/Scout cheese and Ancient all-out war with a couple stacks of whatever, district carpets are clearly the best thing you can do in Lucy, and there's no meaningful cap on it because the cost increase from previous districts is too light and the related happiness penalties are fixed by more districts, which get bonuses from all the districts that might have caused problems in the first place. With that under control, the game will slow down significantly. 

The game is very snowbally already, I don't see a reason why the winner of a war should get fame, they are already getting fame from the military kills and territory gained.

I agree that you should get fame based on winning, but make it very much dependent. If you take out a civ with less fame, you get less, one with more, you get more.

I believe you can interrupt the expansionist ability by attack the steal, this happened to me, despite them losing the fight. I was able to follow up by asking for reparations for attacking me, they refused, but I was able to declare war at full war support. Can anyone else support this, I am speculating on a very unclear experience.

+1 to trade / UI comments. In general, for a game of this complexity, the UI needs to be detailed and clear, so that I can make informed choices about my decisions.

@DonPato reformated a bit for you. 

Pros:

1. In its current state, the game is already very addictive, very fun, very “just one more turn…”
2. Choosing the next culture each era feels great and very balanced. Strategy games are built upon their ability to provide interesting and meaningful choices to players, and this game delivers on that in this area in particular. I chose different cultures for each of the games that I played mostly because the situation that I was in in those particular games called for it, and partly because it was fun to play around with different cultures. This speaks to an incredible amount of work on the part of the devs to make each and every culture interesting, fun, and balanced. AMAZING work in this regard! 
3. The tactical combat system is a big upgrade from most 4X titles. It is a pro for me as-is, but could use some improvement, which I’ll elaborate on below. 
4. The map is absolutely gorgeous, the best-looking of any 4X title I’ve ever seen. I like that Humankind took a realism approach, as opposed to the cartoony approach of Civ VI. I also love how the look of the map interacts with gameplay in so many ways, whether that be combat, movement, or tile yields. Best map in the genre, hands down. 
5. City development is very fun. I like that cities must be built up over time from outposts that are under construction to cities. I also love that “city development” in this game really means “territory development”, and I like watching the whole map change based on how cities are developed. There are some concerns that I have regarding district balancing, which I’ll elaborate on below.
6. World wonder claiming with influence is a great idea, and gives you something to spend your influence on when you’re not actively settling territories. The consistent buff to stability from world wonders is great, and the variety of other bonuses is also very fun. I chose different wonders in each of my playthroughs based on the situations that I was in, and felt rewarded for my choices each time. This is another example of deep, fun, strategic choices making this game great.
7. The dynamic story that unfolds throughout the game is awesome. The events were a lot of fun to read and experience, and I really loved how civics decisions were brought up based upon the situation that my culture was currently experiencing. It was actually pretty incredible how accurate and natural it felt for me to be making the civics decisions that I was making at the time that I was making them. 
8. The grievance system is a fun take on “casus belli” and I really like it. It also ensures that losing a war doesn’t disqualify you from eventually winning a game, and makes it so that the player can’t just wipe out their neighbors whenever they feel like it. From a historical perspective, I feel like it does a pretty decent job of capturing the complexities of negotiating peace during wartime.

Areas for development:

General:

1. I felt like the UI elements took up too much of the screen. I would love to see information presented in a more efficient way, with skinnier panels, so that it wouldn’t take up so much space. 
2. In particular, the production UI for cities could be improved upon. I could only see two rows of options of about 4 items each at any given point in time, but there was a ton of what I would consider to be dead space right above that. All of the information above the production panel could be pushed up to the top of the screen, and the area presenting me with my production options could be expanded greatly. 
3. I was unable to hover my mouse over the affinity symbols on the culture selection screen to see what those affinities would do for me. This would be a great feature. 
4. I honestly wasn’t a fan of any of the affinity bonuses that my chosen cultures got to take advantage of for a variety of reasons. Here are the affinity bonuses that I used in my games:

• Aesthete: It felt strange that a couple of clicks on my end could make it so that my culture was totally dominating another player’s territory’s culture instantly. That doesn’t feel balanced to me from a gameplay perspective, and doesn’t feel real from a historical perspective. I would also love some flavor text to tell me exactly why my money from tourism is doubling with a couple of clicks, otherwise it feels way too game-y. 
• Agrarian: Even though I was making crazy amounts of food, the meter never filled up for me to use the agrarian abilities. Even if it had, my cities were growing so rapidly without the help of the agrarian abilities that it wouldn’t have felt too impactful to be able to use them. 
• Scientist: I put every one of my cities into science mode, flew through the tech tree, and then absolutely roflstomped every AI on my continent with superior units in one of my playthroughs. This felt WAY too powerful. I would either put a hard limit on the amount of time a city can be in “science mode”, or make it so that only one city can do it. 
• Expansionist: I tried buying territories off of the AI, but even though I spent the money it didn’t work out. I’m not sure if the AI did something to stop me, but the game never let me know what had happened. I also do not think from a historical perspective that it’s particularly believable to sneak units into an opponent’s land and “peacefully” steal that land. This felt way too game-y for me. 
• Merchant: I never knew if the AI was buying the resources that I was buying from other AIs, so I never really knew if the merchant bonus was doing anything for me. Additionally, it felt silly that the AI wouldn’t just buy the same resources from the original owner for cheaper, rather than paying a premium to buy them from me.
• I hated the names of many of the affinity abilities such as “science mode”. As a long-time Civ player, one of my major gripes about that franchise is that it has departed from feeling like playing through history and become way too game-y. Humankind usually does an excellent job of avoiding such pitfalls, but pressing a button called “science mode” to make more science doesn’t feel like watching history play out before me. I’d rather push a button called “Enlightenment” with some flavor text explaining how my people are enjoying an unprecedented time of scientific achievement… and then receive the same bonuses.
• I wish that the affinity bonuses provided a “pro” and “con” in order to make it a more interesting choice whether to go with them. For example, maybe entering science mode puts a temporary debuff on the amount of faith generated by the city because people are more secularly minded at that point in history. Maybe using “production mode” provides a hit to stability because people are unhappy about being worked to death.  
• I wish that natural wonders were as varied in what they do for a city as world wonders are. If I see multiple natural wonders on the map, I want to have to make a painful choice between one or the other; as it stands now, they’d just provide me with the exact same bonuses, so which one I choose feels irrelevant. 
• Districts, and for that matter all city yields, need some serious rebalancing. For instance, after some initial development to get your city into “Abundant” for food production, you never have to think about food again, and will still see your cities spitting out a pop each turn. There’s really no reason to ever build a farmer’s quarter past a city’s (maybe) tenth turn in existence. For that matter, the merchant’s quarters also feel pretty useless in the current build. 
• I don’t like that the game refers to the player and AI as “Empire 0”, “Empire 1”, etc. I understand that you can’t really refer to them by the name of a particular culture because the cultures would change, but just use the name of their avatar. That makes it feel less like I’m playing against a computer, and more like there are some personalities that I’m trying to beat. 

Trade/Diplomacy

• Trade screen lacks information. Who am I selling my resources to? What bonuses am I actively receiving from buying other people’s resources? 
• War Resolution screen is very unclear. I’ll post a screenshot here that I’ve posted in a few other places that I think communicates my confusion about this screen pretty well. Who the heck gets San Lorenzo when this war is over?!
• I would love to see a screen similar to the screenshot below of Civ IV’s diplomatic relations web. One screen that shows me how everybody in the game is relating to everybody else. 
• I would like to see a screen where I can see all of the independent people that I’ve met in one place. I would also like to be notified upon first meeting a new group of independent people. 
• Most importantly regarding independent people: interacting with independent people does not feel interesting by any stretch of the imagination with the game in its current state. Every single independent city is destined to be either conquered or assimilated by a player… what’s the point of them existing at that point?
• I never received notifications when AIs declared war on me, or broke alliances with me. 
• I’d like a notification when my allies declare war just in case I’m interested in going to help them out. 
• I would really like to see more kinds of diplomatic interactions. I really like the direction that the game is headed in as far as diplomacy is concerned with regard to the treaty types, but it just doesn’t feel all that fun to interact with the other players at this point.

Pacing

I thought that the pacing in the neolithic and ancient eras felt good. Beyond that though, the game moved way too fast. I usually got 7 era stars within the first 10-15 or so turns of any given era on serious difficulty.  I was also able to blow through the tech tree way too quickly, even when I wasn’t on “science mode”. 

Combat/Warfare

I think that the winner of a war should earn fame upon their opponent surrendering. From a historical perspective, I think that we all remember many great cultures from history based upon their victorious wars. From a gameplay perspective, it feels more rewarding to win a war if you see your score go up afterward. I know that killing units earns you fame, but the losing party in a warn can earn that same fame; something special should happen for the winner. 

The combat system is an improvement upon other 4X titles, but it could feel more realistic and strategic with one simple change: Rather than having attacker complete ALL of their moves, then defender complete ALL of their moves, I’d love to see each individual unit on each side take an initiative roll at the beginning of combat to determine an order in which they’d move. So maybe Attacker Horseman #3 moves first, Defender Archer #2 second, Defender Spearman third, Attacker Warrior fourth, etc. From a realism perspective, strategic battlefield decisions are made in real-time; you don’t sit there and watch your opponent’s ENTIRE army move wherever they want and attack you while you just sit there; you react in real time to what you’re seeing. From a gameplay perspective, I just think this would be a lot more fun. It would also be interesting to see certain unit types have higher/lower baseline initiative rolls to work with that might help you determine which units you’d like to build. Do I value the higher combat strength of Unit X, or the greater chance that Unit Y will be able to move first?

Thank you! Much easier to see

boydo579 wrote:

@DonPato reformated a bit for you. 

Pros:

1. In its current state, the game is already very addictive, very fun, very “just one more turn…”
2. Choosing the next culture each era feels great and very balanced. Strategy games are built upon their ability to provide interesting and meaningful choices to players, and this game delivers on that in this area in particular. I chose different cultures for each of the games that I played mostly because the situation that I was in in those particular games called for it, and partly because it was fun to play around with different cultures. This speaks to an incredible amount of work on the part of the devs to make each and every culture interesting, fun, and balanced. AMAZING work in this regard! 
3. The tactical combat system is a big upgrade from most 4X titles. It is a pro for me as-is, but could use some improvement, which I’ll elaborate on below. 
4. The map is absolutely gorgeous, the best-looking of any 4X title I’ve ever seen. I like that Humankind took a realism approach, as opposed to the cartoony approach of Civ VI. I also love how the look of the map interacts with gameplay in so many ways, whether that be combat, movement, or tile yields. Best map in the genre, hands down. 
5. City development is very fun. I like that cities must be built up over time from outposts that are under construction to cities. I also love that “city development” in this game really means “territory development”, and I like watching the whole map change based on how cities are developed. There are some concerns that I have regarding district balancing, which I’ll elaborate on below.
6. World wonder claiming with influence is a great idea, and gives you something to spend your influence on when you’re not actively settling territories. The consistent buff to stability from world wonders is great, and the variety of other bonuses is also very fun. I chose different wonders in each of my playthroughs based on the situations that I was in, and felt rewarded for my choices each time. This is another example of deep, fun, strategic choices making this game great.
7. The dynamic story that unfolds throughout the game is awesome. The events were a lot of fun to read and experience, and I really loved how civics decisions were brought up based upon the situation that my culture was currently experiencing. It was actually pretty incredible how accurate and natural it felt for me to be making the civics decisions that I was making at the time that I was making them. 
8. The grievance system is a fun take on “casus belli” and I really like it. It also ensures that losing a war doesn’t disqualify you from eventually winning a game, and makes it so that the player can’t just wipe out their neighbors whenever they feel like it. From a historical perspective, I feel like it does a pretty decent job of capturing the complexities of negotiating peace during wartime.

Areas for development:

General:

1. I felt like the UI elements took up too much of the screen. I would love to see information presented in a more efficient way, with skinnier panels, so that it wouldn’t take up so much space. 
2. In particular, the production UI for cities could be improved upon. I could only see two rows of options of about 4 items each at any given point in time, but there was a ton of what I would consider to be dead space right above that. All of the information above the production panel could be pushed up to the top of the screen, and the area presenting me with my production options could be expanded greatly. 
3. I was unable to hover my mouse over the affinity symbols on the culture selection screen to see what those affinities would do for me. This would be a great feature. 
4. I honestly wasn’t a fan of any of the affinity bonuses that my chosen cultures got to take advantage of for a variety of reasons. Here are the affinity bonuses that I used in my games:

• Aesthete: It felt strange that a couple of clicks on my end could make it so that my culture was totally dominating another player’s territory’s culture instantly. That doesn’t feel balanced to me from a gameplay perspective, and doesn’t feel real from a historical perspective. I would also love some flavor text to tell me exactly why my money from tourism is doubling with a couple of clicks, otherwise it feels way too game-y. 
• Agrarian: Even though I was making crazy amounts of food, the meter never filled up for me to use the agrarian abilities. Even if it had, my cities were growing so rapidly without the help of the agrarian abilities that it wouldn’t have felt too impactful to be able to use them. 
• Scientist: I put every one of my cities into science mode, flew through the tech tree, and then absolutely roflstomped every AI on my continent with superior units in one of my playthroughs. This felt WAY too powerful. I would either put a hard limit on the amount of time a city can be in “science mode”, or make it so that only one city can do it. 
• Expansionist: I tried buying territories off of the AI, but even though I spent the money it didn’t work out. I’m not sure if the AI did something to stop me, but the game never let me know what had happened. I also do not think from a historical perspective that it’s particularly believable to sneak units into an opponent’s land and “peacefully” steal that land. This felt way too game-y for me. 
• Merchant: I never knew if the AI was buying the resources that I was buying from other AIs, so I never really knew if the merchant bonus was doing anything for me. Additionally, it felt silly that the AI wouldn’t just buy the same resources from the original owner for cheaper, rather than paying a premium to buy them from me.
• I hated the names of many of the affinity abilities such as “science mode”. As a long-time Civ player, one of my major gripes about that franchise is that it has departed from feeling like playing through history and become way too game-y. Humankind usually does an excellent job of avoiding such pitfalls, but pressing a button called “science mode” to make more science doesn’t feel like watching history play out before me. I’d rather push a button called “Enlightenment” with some flavor text explaining how my people are enjoying an unprecedented time of scientific achievement… and then receive the same bonuses.
• I wish that the affinity bonuses provided a “pro” and “con” in order to make it a more interesting choice whether to go with them. For example, maybe entering science mode puts a temporary debuff on the amount of faith generated by the city because people are more secularly minded at that point in history. Maybe using “production mode” provides a hit to stability because people are unhappy about being worked to death.  
• I wish that natural wonders were as varied in what they do for a city as world wonders are. If I see multiple natural wonders on the map, I want to have to make a painful choice between one or the other; as it stands now, they’d just provide me with the exact same bonuses, so which one I choose feels irrelevant. 
• Districts, and for that matter all city yields, need some serious rebalancing. For instance, after some initial development to get your city into “Abundant” for food production, you never have to think about food again, and will still see your cities spitting out a pop each turn. There’s really no reason to ever build a farmer’s quarter past a city’s (maybe) tenth turn in existence. For that matter, the merchant’s quarters also feel pretty useless in the current build. 
• I don’t like that the game refers to the player and AI as “Empire 0”, “Empire 1”, etc. I understand that you can’t really refer to them by the name of a particular culture because the cultures would change, but just use the name of their avatar. That makes it feel less like I’m playing against a computer, and more like there are some personalities that I’m trying to beat. 

Trade/Diplomacy

• Trade screen lacks information. Who am I selling my resources to? What bonuses am I actively receiving from buying other people’s resources? 
• War Resolution screen is very unclear. I’ll post a screenshot here that I’ve posted in a few other places that I think communicates my confusion about this screen pretty well. Who the heck gets San Lorenzo when this war is over?!
• I would love to see a screen similar to the screenshot below of Civ IV’s diplomatic relations web. One screen that shows me how everybody in the game is relating to everybody else. 
• I would like to see a screen where I can see all of the independent people that I’ve met in one place. I would also like to be notified upon first meeting a new group of independent people. 
• Most importantly regarding independent people: interacting with independent people does not feel interesting by any stretch of the imagination with the game in its current state. Every single independent city is destined to be either conquered or assimilated by a player… what’s the point of them existing at that point?
• I never received notifications when AIs declared war on me, or broke alliances with me. 
• I’d like a notification when my allies declare war just in case I’m interested in going to help them out. 
• I would really like to see more kinds of diplomatic interactions. I really like the direction that the game is headed in as far as diplomacy is concerned with regard to the treaty types, but it just doesn’t feel all that fun to interact with the other players at this point.

Pacing

I thought that the pacing in the neolithic and ancient eras felt good. Beyond that though, the game moved way too fast. I usually got 7 era stars within the first 10-15 or so turns of any given era on serious difficulty.  I was also able to blow through the tech tree way too quickly, even when I wasn’t on “science mode”. 

Combat/Warfare

I think that the winner of a war should earn fame upon their opponent surrendering. From a historical perspective, I think that we all remember many great cultures from history based upon their victorious wars. From a gameplay perspective, it feels more rewarding to win a war if you see your score go up afterward. I know that killing units earns you fame, but the losing party in a warn can earn that same fame; something special should happen for the winner. 

The combat system is an improvement upon other 4X titles, but it could feel more realistic and strategic with one simple change: Rather than having attacker complete ALL of their moves, then defender complete ALL of their moves, I’d love to see each individual unit on each side take an initiative roll at the beginning of combat to determine an order in which they’d move. So maybe Attacker Horseman #3 moves first, Defender Archer #2 second, Defender Spearman third, Attacker Warrior fourth, etc. From a realism perspective, strategic battlefield decisions are made in real-time; you don’t sit there and watch your opponent’s ENTIRE army move wherever they want and attack you while you just sit there; you react in real time to what you’re seeing. From a gameplay perspective, I just think this would be a lot more fun. It would also be interesting to see certain unit types have higher/lower baseline initiative rolls to work with that might help you determine which units you’d like to build. Do I value the higher combat strength of Unit X, or the greater chance that Unit Y will be able to move first?

boydo579 wrote:

@DonPato reformated a bit for you. 

A thousand times thank you! Good content, now in a more user friendly mode.

Some great observations and cool ideas here, but I disagree with a couple of suggestions that would break immersion, not improve gameplay:

Battles should not become dependent on random dice rolls applied to initiative.  If I'm the attacker, I should have the initiative.  I don't want a random dice roll undoing my strategic decisions to choose the time of battle, the defender has already gained the advantage of choosing the location of battle (whether the defender made a wise choice or not).  If I surrender the initiative and wait for the enemy to attack me, I should not count on lucky dice rolls to undo the consequences of that decision.  The current mechanic forces a defender to decide if they want to initiate a counter-attack to (take the initiative) or sit back and wait and hold their ground (give up the initiative).  Leave random initiative rolls to the RPGs.

War fame: I agree that the grievance system is much more interesting than the "civ" style all-or-nothing style of war.  However:  Fame should not come from the final victory, but the battles and territories that lead to the victory.   I can see increasing the fame you acquire based on what level/difficulty units you destroy, but otherwise if you "Win" a war but don't defeat your opponent on the field of battle or seize critical territory, who cares?  What nation in history is famous for winning a war in which nothing notable was accomplished, except as a trivia game answer? There's little fame to be gained from ROFLstomping a weakling - if anything history looks down on superpowers crushing helpless natives or technically backwards nations. Final surrenders are symbolic moments that are remembered for how the victors earned their victory.  Multiple obvious examples:  Vietnam and Afghanistan gained fame for defeating powerful invading armies even if they didn't conquer territory themselves.   England and Spain gained fame for conquering the Americas, not so much for easy-mode murdering the original occupants who lived there. Russian rightfully gained historical fame for their role in defeating the Axis, because that victory was hard-earned in multiple epic battles against a tough opponent, but gained not so much fame for their crushing the likes of South Ossetia. The Mongols are remembered for their stunning victories in battle after battle, not for 'winning the Mongol invasion'.  Alexander is remembered for for the great battles and tough victories that earned him the Persian Empire, but once the Persians collapsed, how many people can name his other conquests, other than the nation that finally stopped him?  And so on...  Just saying, fame should be tied to how you earned your victory, not just counting the total surrenders.

Pretty much everything else in the OP's list is great stuff, especially the UI issues and the hidden impacts behind various trade & diplomacy decisions. The Culture progression system is much more engaging and interesting than the typical "civ" style of choosing a single nation to play the whole game, but the downside is the opponent A.I.s lacked a recognizable personality, I didn't feel like I was facing off against a other personalities.  The neolithic period was a really refreshing way to start a historical 4X, with a natural progression from wandering to settling, but it was either over too quickly, or (if you game the system) never ends until your neolithic tribes have conquered the continent.  So there needs to be a spiraling cost to taking territories or building armies with no cities to support.

I have comments and some suggestions.
First, I want to justify the existing system in order to gain fame. Now there is no other way to neutralize the army than to kill, so we get fame for the destroyed units. Think Rocks Drift or Breitenfeld. Perhaps it is necessary to give glory not for the killed, but for the total damage or force of the defeated army.
Secondly, you can give glory for the first use of a new weapon or, as you suggested, for defeating a technically stronger enemy. Example: the use of poison gas near Ypres or tanks during the Battle of the Somme.
Third, you can give glory for victory after a series of defeats. Example: the battle for Moscow in 1941 or the defeat of the Spaniards near Rocroix.

DonPato wrote:

• I would love to see a screen similar to the screenshot below of Civ IV’s diplomatic relations web. One screen that shows me how everybody in the game is relating to everybody else. 

I'm even more radical here. I don't think any 4X game should be allowed to release without a screen like this. Sadly, most do. If the diplomacy is done right, that might well be the most important info in the game.