I have lumped together the broad topics I have thought about in the scope of Humankind's potential and my experience playing the open dev. I am open to the suggestion of dividing this thread up into sections 1-9 (design) and (10) separate post for makers quarters (11) general post for addendum / uncategorized ruminations. This may turn out to be deeply unfeasible. I just keep thinking over ideas suggested here and, in the discord, and I try to consider in the framework of an April release for next year and I’ve tried to come up with something a little more generalized and abstract that might be feasible and still significant. But one thing I wanted to do was address the absence of a logistics mechanic (which so far as I can determine has not been discussed as a planned feature). 

What follows is unfortunately a summary of multiple ideas I’ve come to that might each deserve their own forum posting. 

1. Don't Reward District Spam
Remove the gold star for districts and replace it with, great works with 3 categories: 

Built a holy site (1 star). 

Built a wonder (1 star). 

All cities have the most modern infrastructure (1 star).

This might remove the double dipping success of production carpets from end game scoring.

2. Civics

I strongly encourage each “Civic” has more than one potential unlock because I see the potential for Civics to end up reducing variety in strategic planning. Even just one unlock from events and one unlock from requirements would be good. Events might unlock a civic early or potentially out of order.

3. Gameplay Experience - catch up but not all the time behind.

Instead of a constantly updating number for the Fame of the other nations, this number should only be updated when they progress era’s – or – when players are in an alliance with open cultural borders. Perhaps this could be different for the last era. If you choose a Contemporary culture your fame score becomes constant knowledge.

4. Purchasing Military Units

Cost should be inflated by the market value of the resources needed to produce the unit.

5. Science. Unless you chose a scientific culture, you do not bank research points.

6. Food. I’ll admit it. I’m having trouble internalizing how food is supposed to be capped. So I’ll just throw out a terrible idea. 

Unfortunately, I feel like an easier fix to some of the early-mid game population advantages is basically to have a soft cap of spoilage in the earlier eras. Something like 50% (neo) 45% (era 1) 40% (era 2) 30% (era 3) 20% (era 4) and 10% (era 5) With agrarian cultures getting an added reduction of 10% from spoilage. Ex. Era 5 agrarian cultures just have 0% food waste!

7. Logistics mechanism exploiting available resources.

Presuming you don’t want to change too many mechanics of the game as they are there is a problem with military sizes and the only limitations of ‘logistics’ being technology. I have a suggestion for this which also probably a terrible idea. 

Military units have 3 upkeep costs. Firstly, they have an Influence cost on a turn-to-turn basis. An inability to pay the influence may result in the unit disbanding – becoming population – or potentially joining an uprising or revolt of a city with low enough stability that you do not influence.

Secondly when a military unit (non-scout and non-infiltration) leaves your or an ally’s territories there is a small currency cost - it receives a commission. The cost of each commission should seem small but significant. The cost should be scaled up by a greater distance to friendly cities and potentially size of the army. 

Finally Military Units outside of your or ally's territories also require food. You use the food waste mechanic introduced above. In this case it’s not wasted per say, it’s being allocated. But make each army increase that waste by 1% when it is in non-neutral territory you do not have influence over.

8. Urban Sprawl across a continent by the 2nd Era breaks immersion for me.

I would be enthusiastic to participate in an early access version where districts can’t be built without population exceeding the number of districts built. I recognize this might DRASTICALLY reduce the pace of the game. I am still very interested in seeing how this plays out. 

9. Does the Common’s District becomes redundant?

Unless there are stability caps or limitations in the future era’s that come in the form of trading off stability for greater yields this district seems like an effort to give player’s control over stability. I would be willing to play an early access version where this district is no longer available. I was going to try another game where I handicapped myself by never building this and then trying to see how things went.

10. Makers Quarters 

I’ve already made one kind of oddly specific suggestion about Maker’s Quarters which I liked but I’ll reiterate it. Mountains or mountain ranges should only grant a production bonus to the first maker’s quarter built adjacent, in each era. Mountain ranges with strategic supplies will provide 1 additional bonus to the next any maker’s quarters built, in each era. In this way you might receive a more significant yield from 1 well placed maker’s quarter but also have some geographical decisions to make. 

I have come to the decision that it’s my least favorite district to build. Because it’s boring and nonsensical in its current implementation. Just having more stuff made isn’t the same thing as production. True we now live in a society of massive opulence by comparison to ancient historical cultures where mass production lines store fronts and consumer apartments with extraneous extravagances like Funko Pop Figures. I have a feeling, that, Maker’s Quarters could be changed to reflect their participating in a local economy and while it might be a little fun for people who like playing Riftborn industrialists it’d be more reasonable. To this end I have the following suggestion. 

Makers Quarters expand exploitation but they only add industry to the tile they are placed on - or one supported by infrastructure. A maker quarter supported with infrastructure will gain bonuses from its exploitation as appropriate – but this is absorbed into the maker’s quarter. Once another tile is built over the exploited hex, those bonuses are removed. This sounds like a pretty significant change - but you'll still get the same bonuses but you're not adding industry to the exploitation. Additionally they receive one bonus for each different type of district surrounding them. This is to offset the loss from exploitation but also represent that the maker’s quarter is making something for those nearby districts – for the city. So this probably would result in a decrease in an average decrease in industry as you expand your city but if the infrastructure is rebalanced it just becomes a decision about how you want to gain your industry. 

Unfortunately, this might mean a fair amount of work because I imagine some infrastructure items might benefit from a change to support this new adjacency bonus over exploited hexes. Also it might be just as prone to other exploitative concerns. But if you can make the maker’s quarter more significant with fewer tiles this might make the scaling monetary adjacency requirements of agriculture and commerce districts less frustrating. Also I think I pointed this out earlier I think the logging camp infrastructure should be changed to making the logging action better not change the landscape into one where 2/3rds of all tiles are industry tiles.

Also, on the whole it might suck, but I wanted to type it up and put it down.

10. Time, distance, and, abstraction.

I feel a definite attachment to each culture I’m playing but I also get a strong sense of detachment. I feel like the choice between small council and autocrat as a civic is woefully understated. The way the game handles wealth (currency coins) starts to confuse me pretty rapidly. It’s always an odd thing in these 4X games but part of what I love so much about Endless Legend is that it always feels to me like (at the game speeds I play at) it’s basically over the span of a few generations at most. But I feel like in Humankind the turns don’t always have the same sense of time. 

Individual turns seem to span what could be several generations of progress while others hardly measure any change at all. I’m not entirely sure if this is anything to focus attention to as it’s a purely subjective experience. One thing that struck me in particular was the speed at which boats move. It would seem that in earlier era's they should move slower and later ages move faster. I think this is how it's been laid out in theory but I'm not wholly certain it's been put into stone.

11. Addendum - rhetorical questions that I’ve chewed on.

If Trading is meant to be a consistent exchange of currency for a resource – why would a far away resource immediately be available (available in the same turn, even). If a trade route it meant to abstractly approximately the cost or profit of the exchange of goods, is it currently using the same math for ocean and land-based trade routes. If trade routes can be physically prevented – despite the amplitude (hah sorry) … ample roadways should it be easy or hard to do this. Which brings to mind questions of smuggling and other such details. Commercial cultures effectively act as a secondary source of the resource – but this is sort of an infinite supply of resources which are now not only endless (hah sorry) in their supply but also rates of excavation, refinement, and! Have instant transport capabilities.

I think the most problematic situation for me however is new continents and conquered lands – immediately having the same costs and rates of production. A city or territory in a new continent shouldn’t be able to buy anything with a resource requirement just because the motherland has access to it. At least not at the same rates of production and instantaneous transport.   

I hate to propose a radical idea so late in the production of the game but basically, trade should be slower and happen in larger chunks at different rates – slower earlier game and faster later, If the supporting infrastructure has been built. 

Perhaps any new continent should have a separate wealth pool – but – you can take loans out against your starting continent’s capital/wealth. An island chain which “buys” anything should be considered as a loan as well. And yes. Loans have interest.  Ugh. There. I typed it. 

Will there be a government system ala Endless Space 2? I hope so.

Will there be a population system with ethnic/cultural trends – ties? I hope so. But I also completely understand avoiding this very complicated topic for the sake of fun and sanity.