Hey guys. I played the Lucy OpenDev 4 times, but only managed to finish one. While Humankind offers great new concepts and a different approach than other 4x games, it's not without its shortcoming.

Terrain

1. Terrains in Humankind is a great concept. AFAIK, Humankind is the first 4x game to offer more than 1 elevation. But the problem with this feature is that navigation is very hard to predict. The are some hex that in a close proximity but turns out I have to circle around because I can't see a long impassable cliffs. Cliffs are hard to see because a) the lower elevation that are in the north of the higher elevation is really hard to see without the ability to rotate the map around, and b) there are other overlays like district overlay and territory border that covers up the view.
2. Within the said feature, disembarking is also unpredictable. I don't know if it's because of the game is still in alpha stage, or it's because some mechanics that I don't know. A lot of time I find my land unit can't disembark to certain tile from certain angle, but I'm pretty sure it's a coast from the coastal water and the flat looking terrain that is adjacent to it.
3. Battle are great. The fact that it has siege mechanics, prolonged battles that take more than one turn, capture the flag, and any other feature, makes Humankind distinctive than others. That being said, the battle feels clunky because of its terrain unpredictability. Also, after 2 OpenDev, I don't know if the dev will implement "defend" mechanics. There's currently no defend/fortify command, so attacking and defending feels the same (except +1 bonus on defending), when it's not supposed to be the same, especially when combined with terrain features like forest or river.
4. Rivers that are in the hex instead of between the hex offers a different gameplay perspective. But the dev hasn't implemented anything special. In Civ, crossing the river has combat penalty to whoever crosses the river. In Humankind, every unit that goes into a river hex, is doomed, can't attack well, can't defend well. It's different, but if offers no improvement from Civ mechanics.

1. Humankind in the current state has balance problem which I'm sure will be fixed when released. But, playing Endless Legend and Endless Space 2, I still feel like the numbers in Amplitude games are still easy(er) to exploit. In other 4x games, you have to be very strong to leave other empire behind and have a large amount of resource. In Amplitude games, not the case. It's easy to snowball and have a ridiculous amount of resource. Maybe have a cap or something, have a good upkeep system. I don't wanna compare games, but Stellaris does very well in this aspect. They have soft cap and hard cap to limit everything while still being realistic and doesn't feel like punishing good players.
2. Without being capped, having a wide empire will always be better than a tall empire. This is the opposite of having a diverse style to play.
3. Building lacks specialty and distinction. There are tons of building and everything has its own purpose, but it still feels the same. You build a city around production tiles, build makers quarter, build production infrastructure, and everything else can follow. I don't even check which production building I build, I just build it in queue in whatever order.
4. This has a lot to do with making exploitation a lot stronger than worker. In Civ, the terrain is not automatically exploited, it needs pop to work on it. In Amplitude games, it only need district to exploit surrounding area. And exploitation is a lot stronger than pop, so growing pop and science is never a focus.
5. After having a strong production, anything else comes easy. Buildings are very cheap. In other games, making one building can take a lot of turns, but here, with strong production, we can even finish more than one building per turn. This can only hamper the gameplay to have a specialty cities. No need to have a cultural city, no need to have an army building city, no need to have a religion city, every city will follow the same path to have the best outcome.

1. Science is too cheap and having too little technology, with no variation of gameplay like beelining or having a certain technology that is prerequisite to later technology. Please do have more tech either in vertical or horizontal line.
2. With the current cost of science and the "fame" gameplay goal, science empire currently is useless. Why having more science when I need to delay age advancement to collect fame?
3. Fame as a goal is...boring. I was excited when it's announced, but after a few plays, I must say it lacks the oomph to keep me playing into late game. Stellaris has a lot of chained event and has two crisis, one in mid game, the other in late game. Civ has a more distinctive goal which you can focus on and even change mid-way. You need to improve the fame and star system so it's not "build more district" "have more pop" all over again. Sure find/build wonder or the first to research this and that is fun, but it will be stale very quickly.
4. Humankind has influence and stability as a resource, but they aren't used everywhere else aside from city building. Other Endless games used this for trade, and it's a good thing. Maybe use this too as an upkeep for in-empire issue or diplomacy issue.

1. Strategic/luxury resource feels bland and unrealistic. Paying a certain amount of money to trade continuously doesn't seem right. Does trading a resource substract the resource? If not, why having a certain unit need two of the same resource?
2. Civic is good, but needs to be improved. Why can't chance civic? Of course a lot of civilization in history changed their mind about having council, slavery, and any other policy. It's also unrealistic to not be able to change but can be influenced by other civ to change the policy. Maybe have an influence or stability cost, but it should be able to change.
3. Some civics are strange? Individualism vs collectivism feels like egoistical standpoint vs altruism standpoint while in real life it's not like that. Homeland vs world also feels strange, but maybe it's because it's still in alpha stage.
4. Unit upgrade path is inconsistent. Some unique unit replace original unit, some isn't. And it needs to follow certain logic. For example, anti cavalry should be upgraded to anti cavalry, scout should be upgraded to recon unit, not heavy cavalry like knight. This of course, requires a more diverse units.
5. Army strength should be displayed in the map so we know what enemy to deal without checking every unit in the map.
6. Evolve into different culture is a great, but right now it's confusing. I tend to forget which player use which culture, and which era they are in. For example, when a culture choose Roman, I have to remember which Roman do the dev use in this game, the Ancient or the Classical? Applies it to a bunch of culture and we'll get confused a lot.
7. While fixed territory is a good concept, the reality is it gets confusing. Borders are too random and it's hard to see which territory bordering which territory. Maybe use river or impassable cliff to make the territorial limit?
8. Everything is visually hard to see. I can't see which district is which quarter or emblematic building. The UI is not efficient, it doesn't display the needed info in a fold, we have to scroll a lot.