Well here we are again.

And like that, the Lucy OpenDev has come to a close, leaving me with a messy notepad of notes based on the 80ish hours of time spent playing. I enjoyed myself immensely, much more so than the Stadia OpenDev mostly because it ran much better on Steam.

As before, I won’t try to harp on about bugs and whatnot, just criticisms, ideas, and ramblings.

On Era Stars:

I like era stars a lot, I really do, but the numbers still seem like they could use a bit of adjusting, especially the Aesthete, Merchant, and Expansionist stars. They all seem to be asking a lot, and there is very little you can do to gain in those unless you seem to be focusing on it. Merchant stars in the early game especially are difficult to produce because Market Quarters are fairly weak and not as important compared to maker’s quarters and food producing quarters.

I feel like expansionist stars should count the territories of vassals as expanded territories, but I’m not sure how difficult to program that would be. 

On the Eras and their Pace:

Not counting the Neolithic, which I’ll get into in a moment, I found myself very satisfied and ready to move into the next era in about 50 turns or so. VIPs have claimed the game is generally supposed to last 300 turns, so at about 50 turns an era, give or take, that feels pretty good to me. The Lucy OpenDev only being 150 meant I was feeling quite rushed to get through from era to era if I wanted to play “right,” but jokes on the game because I can go at my own pace and still hold off the AI. I will say that every major era feels good. Nothing jumps out as immediately missing or poorly placed. 

On the Neolithic:

The Neolithic Era is, well, incredibly busted. I could go into the Ancient Era around turn fifteen with twelve scouts and five outposts already up and running. Sure some of the AI may have picked their cultures before me, but I already have more population and territory than they do, and if I’ve found enough curiosities, a good chunk of science too! Give it a few turns and I’ll have a nice handful of cities up and running, all with a nice injection of scouts. I do really like the idea of the neolithic era, giving the player the chance to scout around to find the ideal starting location so it isn’t just “oof this start sucks, new map!” is really cool, it just needs a few adjustments.

Either the food gain should be reduced across the board, from the map and battles so you don’t end up with that many more nomads, or the amount of food that needs to be gained per nomad in the group should rise by five per nomad, so second nomad is 20, third is 25, fourth is 30. Of course, splitting the unit early would negate this, but also more dangerous should you run across more aggressive animals or other neolithic people when in a bad position.

Additionally, curiosities should spawn more often and their rewards should be slightly nerfed in kind. Before kind of memorizing the general layout of where everything spawned based on my movements, I was always running myself ragged trying to find the last of the curiosities I needed to finish off the era. This should also stop players from having more than two or three outposts around their starting area, any more than that seems a bit much.

There’s no indication that players can set up an outpost in the Neolithic, might be worth pointing out on a pop-up after they’ve accumulated enough influence to be able to do so. Similarly, a pop-up could tell players that they don’t have to go and ascend right away, another turn or two of exploration, hunting, and collection could make all the difference.

On Religion:

Religion feels markedly improved upon since the Stadia OpenDev, though I’m sure it’s still in its developmental phase. It feels a lot nicer to be able to freely pick a historical religion for aesthetics, though I do like that there are events, or rather just an event, tied to them. The drop-down menu used to select a historical religion is a bit hidden though, so perhaps some more attention could be drawn to that. 

There should be a counter somewhere that says how many holy sites you’ve constructed and how many you can still construct, just a simple “3/4 Holy Sites” line on the Religion screen.

Similarly related, a lot of people didn’t seem to realize that faith producing wonders count as holy sites for your religion. So you’d build your first one, then Stonehenge/Temple of Artemis, then the next time you go to get a new tenet and additional holy site, you’d get a shiny new tenet and choose a new fancy historic religion and then not get to build it’s unique holy site, because Stonehenge/Temple of Artemis filled up the slot. So on the counter previously mentioned, it’d look like “2/1 Holy Sites” and after the new tenet gets picked, “2/2 Holy Sites,” something like that. Perhaps even hovering over it brings up a tooltip listing off the Holy Sites in your Empire.

I take it religious splinterings and reformations are a bit beyond the scope at the moment? Probably best saved for expansions anyway.

On Territories:

Territories can be shaped awful weird, and I like that. Makes it interesting how you want to claim stuff and how you want to combine cities. The stuff that really grinds my gears about it is the way it claims water tiles. There’s a handful of locations I noted on the Lucy OpenDev where coastal claims will awkwardly bend themselves around the land of an adjacent territory, giving it access to the ocean with only one tile or stopping a harbor from utilizing a few good coastal tiles.

I do hope that in future eras or perhaps an expansion, that we will be able to carve territories up to make them fit nicer and the like.

On Cities:

I’m not one for city builders, but I quite like this. The quarter sprawl and unique look to each with their color coding tickles my fancy. Early on I’m quite particular about what quarters I build and what infrastructures I include with it, but in later eras I just build it all, I’ve got production to spare!

On Affinities:

Most of what I have to say about affinities is not different from what I had to say about them during my Stadia OpenDev thread. All Affinities range from, really good, Scientist, Agrarian, Builder, to good Merchant, Aesthete, to not great, Expansionist and Militarist.

Agrarian is great, a giant “win more button” because as you grow the population, the thing your culture excels at, you gain points toward pressing a button that gives you more population. It’s especially good early to build up larger armies in early eras since units cost a pop to create.

Builder is great, even if it has just one ability, Industry is king, after all. 

Merchant is a ghost, passively generating you more and more money as you do what you do best. Just make sure your trade routes are protected and no one ransacks a single thing in the trading territory and you’ll do fine.

Scientist, now that I’ve had more time with it in the Lucy OpenDev, is really the most overpowered affinity. My misunderstanding of how Scientist Era Stars would be gained made it seem very dangerous, when in fact, Scientist Era Stars are the most reliable ones to gain. Locking your city into Science Mode for a few turns seems about as much of a debuff as Honor Code is on the Varangian Guard and Naginata Samurai, and the excess of infrastructures to build is more annoying at best. Scientist cultures are great cultures to pick if you’ve fallen behind in the tech tree, they really are, allowing you to quickly catch up to your neighbors in record time, but it’s their ability to go beyond the current era is the crazy part. Especially if you use Science Mode to blaze through the era in record time. I fear Builder Mughals into Scientist France, I really really do.

I think the best way to fix it would be that all cultures can research ahead into the next era, but with an increase to the amount of science needed if they aren’t in that particular era. Scientist cultures could ignore the increased amount. At least then it’s not too crazy.

Aesthete, now that I’ve been able to play it beyond the Mauryans, I’ve found it to be pretty fun. Easy to generate grievances against your enemy or remove pesky bad influences from your own. Tourism yields are very nice if you’ve got some good money making trade territories or just were a merchant that had made lots of money last era, does feel pretty neat, a sort of “patron of the arts” thing. I fear the money gained from going Merchant Dutch into Aesthete Austro-Hungary/Italians. 

Expansionist is an affinity alright. It’s militarist but focused on a wider variety of things, but mostly combat so it can expand its borders. It’s affinity ability is pretty good but involves too much red tape to use effectively. The best use for it I’ve found is to use it on vassals, but I believe it’ll be very difficult to effectively use against other players in multiplayer. 

Since Expansionist feels like the “taking and holding great amounts of territory” affinity compared to militarists’ “we fight extremely well” thing, Expansionist’s second ability should probably have something to do with stability, or perhaps it’s bar refills from stability.

Militarist is an affinity carried by its cultures. It’s current only ability is to spawn some militia, which are subpar units at best. The best thing I’ve heard people say about this ability is it’s great for moving the population around, which doesn’t really sound like the intent that the ability is supposed to have. I imagine it’s supposed to be a defensive ability, so you can get some extra units to defend a city or draw fire during a fight, which, I mean, sure, why not? It just doesn’t feel all that great.

For a secondary ability, I’d suggest something like a mode that lasts for a handful of turns that makes newly produced units not cost a population with the caveat that they do not give a population when disbanded in a territory. To fill it’s bar until next use, I could see perhaps something like the amount of experience gained via combat being used. Additional ideas towards a secondary militarist effect be that grievances generate more war desire, or if unit maintenance is ever introduced, a reduced maintenance cost on all units.

On Events:

I LOVE the events in this game, especially that your civics can adjust how you can respond to them, it’s so good. I just wish there were more culture specific answers that you can choose, as I don’t think I encountered many? There’s the one Celt one that can trigger in the Classical, and it outright says “As the Celts…” or somesuch, but none of the other ones, if I found any, seem to say similarly, so I don’t actually know if I encountered a unique cultural response to an event or not. Perhaps a unique border could pop up around options that have appeared due to a specific reason, be it civic, science, culture, or whatever, to show off it’s uniqueness?

The only thing events are lacking is the ideology bars showing up to show how far we’ll move along based on what choice we make. If the event window were moved up slightly, the bar could be shown at the bottom of the screen, right below where the choice is made.

On Civics:

Civics are one of my favorite parts of the game, along with the culture selection and events. The mystery behind what unlocks some of the esoteric civics is what I spent a good portion of my later games doing, while also trying out odd culture combos and farming for new events. One of these days I will figure out what causes the Leadership evolutions. I really do like the idea behind “civics will unlock when you have reason to unlock them,” there are a number of civics that should unlock via event by the time you hit certain eras. You shouldn’t still be at Small Council/Autarch in the Early Modern Era, for example.

Furthermore, might I suggest adding a crumb of a hint to what unlocks a civic? That way players who are stumped as to how to get a civic can at least stumble towards it in the right direction?

The Propaganda civic choice stops revolutions from occurring in the empire. While an authoritarian dream, this feels like it really oversteps its bounds. It’s such a strange choice because unless I am constantly suffering major stability loss in all my cities, I’d never pick propaganda. If you have stable cities that are usually stable, you’ll pick Freedom of Speech every time because it’s so good. I’d nerf the rate you get civic points via Freedom of Speech and instead make Propaganda some sort of stability point modifier instead of some blanket protection from civil unrest.

A civic allowing us to purchase privateer and future privateer-styled units would be nice. Presumably balanced against something making trade more lucrative. “Letters of Marque” vs. “Treasure Fleets” or somesuch. The only way to get privateers at the moment is through an event, which is well and good, and ocean curiosities, which is kind of odd.

On Diplomacy and Trade:

I still really like how Humankind implements diplomacy and trade, even if the AI can still be wonky with it. You’d think Merchant cultures would be very interested in getting luxury trade up and running to make more money, but nah. I spent a good 50 turns petitioning a Ghana/Venice AI for luxury trade only to be denied every five turns.

Badges are interesting, and I can’t wait to see more of them beyond the new three that we did see and the old familiar one from the Stadia OpenDev.

On Luxuries:

Luxuries are quite insane right now. Each one having its own special effect really makes it so you want to collect them all, because some of the boons they give can be really wild. Some luxuries are equal to the Greek, Khmer, Dutch, and Haudenosaunee LTs, and you can have more than one at once. It’s really wild, I love it, but some of the luxuries definitely need some kind of nerf.

On Auto-Explore and Sentry:

When a unit is in auto-explore and I select it to move somewhere, this should automatically turn off auto-explore, it instead does not, and keeps on keeping on on it’s own lackadaisical adventure. 

There needs to be a proper “sleep” mode for units beyond sentry. Sentry units seem to get woken up by anything and everything, especially units from cultures I have an alliance with moving past them. No need to wake up for that!

Naval units that are set to auto-explore should not auto-path themselves to end their turn in deep water unless they have the High Seas ability. I found it totally bizarre that my early ships would instantly auto-explore themselves into the deep sea to die instantly. I also witnessed numerous times where I’d tell a ship that could not survive deep water to travel somewhere, and calculate their whole route to end their turn in deep water several times while they would be able to get their safer in the coastal water right next to them in the same turn.

On Independent Peoples:

One of my big complaints from the Stadia OpenDev was that IPs were everywhere, infesting every territory like vermin. Well, it certainly seems a lot better as of Lucy. It’s possible that their spawn rates were turned back in addition to there being more cultures around to expand into territory, leaving less for IP to grab.

I like the Ideological Independent People system and that you can passively gain favor with them for being close to where they fall on their spectrums. I like that you can use influence and or money to throw at them for favor, it’s a good influence sink, though I still feel Influence doesn’t have enough sinks yet.

I still feel like the suggestions that I made in this thread (where I forgot the word "improve" existed) would be beneficial to making IPs better.

Often I would have other cultures dump all the money or influence they had stored up into a single IP  the moment they reached the point in their life where they could be assimilated and assimilate it on the spot, which felt very wrong. I feel like if a player throws money/influence at an IP in it’s decline stage and gets top patron spot, they should have to wait a few turns before they assimilate. Players who were already at the point where they could patronize the IP shouldn’t have to wait, as they had already sunk cost into the IP when it was relevant.

Perhaps even then, the assimilation process could take a few turns, so that way other players who want to assimilate the IP can have a chance, so they can keep throwing money at it to take top patronage and whoever maintains top patronage slot for x amount of turns gets the IP.

The grievance that occurs for another player taking an IP you were invested in is a bit weird now, seeing as you can barely even acknowledge the IPs existence and get a pretty decent grievance out of it. I think it’d be better if this grievance only triggered if you actually put some money or influence into the IP.

On War and Grievances:

I love grievances and war and how Humankind handles it. In 4xs I’m usually relatively passive, but I really do like how war and battles work in Humankind, enough to break me out of my shell and become a warmonger. Some of my issues with particular grievances are spread out amongst the review, so this section will be generally sparse.

On Battles:

Auto-Resolve needs some serious work. I feel like sometimes it didn’t generate me Militarist Stars for battles won, and occasionally seemed more of a coin flip if anything. I lost two scouts to a single deer once. A single deer.

Sometimes the defenders flag spawns in very indefensible locations. If an attacker gets to go first every time, could the defender at least get a choice between a few locations where to set their command post?

On Retreating:

A very annoying part of the Lucy OpenDev was that a single unit could run up and engage your forces, netting four or five different stacks, then retreat, causing all those units to lose their movement while the retreating engager rushes off in a random direction, but generally back towards their frontline. Thankfully, the issue with them netting all your armies in the battle area as reinforcements is an obvious glitch on Lucy’s part. However, the fact that a unit can engage you and then retreat causing the army to immediately lose all of its movement, feels very bad. It would feel much better if they only lost half of their movement when an engagement results in the other player retreating, that way they are slowed, not ground to a halt.

The AI seems like they will always retreat when they encounter a markedly stronger force, regardless if the terrain advantage works out for them, this makes the Roman LT and larger armies feel redundant if not using the large army to siege a city.

On Sieging:

I like sieging. I felt like there would be a lot more using siege engines and the like to destroy the fortifications and walls of the enemy to get into the city, but there’s not much of that actually. That’s fine, sieging is still fun and makes for some real fun moments during war. 

Something worth noting is that if two enemy cities touch on the border of a territory, the section where the two walls would be pressed together just stops existing if you were to engage in a siege or combat there.

On Ransacking:

The money gained from ransacking only really feels worth it if you invest a lot of your pieces into it. Having a ransacking unit, having the Paid Wages civic, Mongol LT, or using one of the handful of “ransack” units nets you a nice chunk of money, but not nearly the amount you think you should be getting. Having gone Mycenaean into Goth into Mongol into Spain, I was making some 300ish gold per ransacked quarter, while without any of that I’d be making maybe 100ish gold per ransack, usually taking anywhere from 1 to 3 turns to do the ransacking. I mean, sure, you deny your enemy the benefit of the quarter you just razed, but money is really good too!

It also feels very strange to ransack your own quarters and get money and possibly war slaves from them. I mean, I get it if you ransack the quarters of a city after taking it in a war, making the looting and pillaging less likely to get swooped in on from units within the nearby city. 

The War Slaves civic clearly just generates a free population from the ransacked quarter instead of taking them from the city or outpost from the territory you ransacked in, because I managed to get around eight free populations from a city that had zero population in it. That doesn’t feel right.

Wonders can get ransacked, which is terrifying, but I feel like it should take longer for a wonder to get ransacked than a regular old quarter. I had numerous times where an aggressive IP would swoop in and raze the Lighthouse of Alexandria into the sea before I could do anything about it in early games. That just may be how it is though, to teach players that your wonders can be ransacked and you’ll suffer for it if you let it happen.

On Surrendering and Vassalization:

Back during the Stadia OpenDev, I was but an apprentice, but now, I am the master of the Treaty Window. The avatars though, they still got it wrong. But that’s fine, it’ll get fixed.

Other than maybe some tooltips explaining just what the heck is going on to new players, I think a symbol denoting what territories are the city territory and the attached territories are would be nice. Or perhaps even a magnifying glass icon that focuses your view on the administration center/city center of the territory in question.

On Naval Units and Naval Combat:

I found what naval combat I could engage in fun, in a basic sort of way. The Lucy AI didn’t seem to ever be too keen to build up their own navies, so the seas were dominated by more wandering carracks and the found privateers. Most naval combat was initiated between my ships and the occasional aggressive IP coming to ransack my harbors. I presume that, in time, naval combat will be spiced up by randomly occurring ocean effects, such as wind, storms, fog, the like. Rarely occurring events could be things like whirlpools, that’d be interesting.

I have no recollection of doing it in the Stadia OpenDev, but others claim we could use our ships to shoot land units, and this particular ability was denied to us in Lucy, which felt bad. Not being able to siege the small island cities with a ship made invading them very annoying.

I mentioned Privateers earlier, and I was delighted to see them, and even more elated to see how they worked, but they share some of the problems that saboteurs do, which comes up next.

The Transport Galley, Langskip, and Caravel need some rewording as to how they work. I can’t count how many times I saw a post on Reddit or in the Discord of confused players asking “Where do I build the transport ship?” or “How do I make units board my ships?” Then again, these players could have been in the minority.

On Saboteurs:

It has been pointed out by more eloquent folks than I, that saboteurs are in a weird spot. While proper espionage appears to be an expansion dream at the moment, current saboteurs and the like are in an fairly weak state. I have to assume that this is due to them not being fully coded at the moment, because they simply cannot do much else besides reconnaissance. One would hope they could ransack unguarded quarters or resource deposits in peacetime, maybe even get some use out of a sneaky Expansionist Affinity ability, but that’s not the case.

RNGzero made a good thread already about the issue, and PARAdoxiBLE makes some good follow up points a few posts in.

On Settlers:

I actually forgot about settlers until someone pointed them out in the Discord. One they had, I used them in pretty much every game that I wanted to settle the new world with afterwards. If more people didn’t know about their special uses, they could possibly use a little pop-up elaboration explaining their use when next opening up the city construction panel.

My usual thing with Settlers was sending an army or two to the new world to explore the place and conquer any IPs and curtail any expansion by other empires while also claiming outposts in good territories and their borders. Then, while that was occurring, I’d send over some settlers with a naval escort, even though Lucy AI’s didn’t do much boat building, they’d land and set up the good cities and after they freely built some good stuff and I paid for a bunch, that was really that. Sometimes I’d attach nearby outposts, or sometimes I’d bring an army back to raze my own outpost so a settler could build a city on that spot, since the settlers took quite a while to raze anything.

On Wonders:

I like all the wonders quite a lot! Some fun staples and some new additions, all good stuff. My one general thing on wonders is that a lot of them reference a number of districts, like Halicarnassus and Basil’s, but don’t specify if they mean in the city or empire-wide, so some elaboration there would be nice.

Wonders probably could use a more dedicated menu for their selection, all fancy and whatnot to better show them off, as opposed to wherever they're currently tucked off in a tiny tab.

Ancient Wonders

So in the Ancient, as I understand it, we have one trade wonder, one production wonder, one stability/religious wonder, and one war wonder. While I build each of these wonders several times, I personally find Stonehenge to be my favorite for early religious power and the stability it brings to conquered territories. The Temple of Artemis is a very close second however, the regen is never not useful in addition to the faith it brings. Pyramids are great, and the Hanging Gardens seem okay. The clear winners of the era are Stonehenge and the Temple of Artemis.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon seems to be okay? It lacks any proper meaningful description, but seems to act as an early Wonderous Manufactory. I imagine that it’ll have the proper description in the future since we know precious little about Wonderous Manufactories beyond they make your luxuries better. It feels like it should carry a second effect however, maybe something Influence related.

The Pyramid of Giza is quite nice. Lowering the cost of districts, by such a nice 25% is fantastic, and feels like a wonder ability. I feel it’s a powerful enough effect to not need something additional, like the Hanging Gardens.

Stonehenge feels incredibly useful for it’s stability and food bonuses, as well as counting as a Holy Site. Keeps your religion out of the hands of other cultures too. An all around great wonder, possibly too good. 

The Temple of Artemis feels like a must have, not just war cultures who plan to focus on war, but for everyone. The regen and pathfinding ability are simply that good. It counts as a holy site too! Certainly seems the best out of the available ancient wonders.

Classical Wonders

The Classical Era contains a defense wonder, a science wonder, a naval wonder, and a stability/money wonder. One of the big things I like about this era is the diversity of the wonders. Even if they had various levels of actual effectiveness. I think the big winners this era are the Statue of Zeus and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, however.

The Colossus of Rhodes is pretty weak, all things considered. While I understand and quite like the reasoning behind the wonder not letting militia’s expire, compared to its contemporaries it is the weakest of the lot. Since the Colossus is a statue of the patron god of Rhodes, Helios, I don't see why this wonder isn't considered to be a Holy Site as well. Seeing as the Temple of Zeus is the only other religious wonder of the Classical lot, surely a second could be spared. Perhaps another buff idea could be something related to trade? Perhaps influence, extra money, or perhaps even faith per trade route that passes through the territory? A sort of early VOC Warehouse with additional flair. Currently it’s a nice wonder to have for the sake of having a wonder. 

And this one is a bit nit-picky, but I’ve never seen art done of the Colossus where he has an actual crown on. It’s supposed to be sunbeams, spikes of light going out from the head.

The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus is pretty strong, and a very nice wonder. The scaling on it can be pretty wild depending on how well developed the empire is, but I suppose that’s  how it goes for wonders. I think the Mausoleum has perhaps the strongest snowballing potential of any of the early wonders, and is a boon to any non-scientist culture, and overkill on preexisting scientist cultures. Still, I think it’s a good wonder regardless, not in need of any secondary effects.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria is a pretty decent naval wonder if one has naval plans for the future. Yet for some reason it’s bonuses to movement speed does not affect embarked units, which I’m chalking up to being a bug. It feels like a wonder you want if you’re planning for eras ahead, rather than in the now, though.

The Statue of Zeus is a fantastic wonder. Stonehenge 2 in terms of extra stability, and it’s mini Byzantine bonus is nothing to hate on. Any big empire will want this wonder.

Medieval Wonders

Perhaps making up for only one holy site wonder in the previous era, the Medieval has three, and one war focused wonder. I’d say all of these wonders are pretty good, though there are three strong showings and one okay one.

Though I’m not sure exactly how Notre-Dame is going to work, as the wonder was relegated to Pre-Order DLC. Is there going to be a 4th medieval wonder we just haven’t seen yet? Or will there just not be a 4th wonder in medieval for players who didn’t pre-order the game? 

Angkor-Wat seems pretty useful, until you remember how the population grows in Humankind. By the time I was able to build this wonder, my main cities were usually pumping out citizens in one to three turns, so it seemed like overkill to build them there, where the Wat’s stability bonus would be more appreciated. It seems like the perfect wonder to build in a newer city to get it’s population growing quickly. Or you could build it in a big city anyway, because the food generation you can get with this wonder is fantastic, and it will definitely come in handy in later eras, as well as comboed with another wonder down the line.

Notre-Dame is a good holy site wonder, one able to produce the second most faith in the game, though perhaps more reliable in the hands of smaller empires. It is also one of the best looking wonders in the game. Nothing much to say about this wonder, it’s pretty solid.

The Forbidden City is another good wonder, as sometimes generating the right grievances can be trickier to do than one may think. As it isn’t a holy site, I still think it could gain something from a secondary effect, as this one seems almost too straightforward.

Tōdai-Ji is a nice holy site wonder, but the weakest, I feel, of the three holy site wonders in this era due to the fact it’s bonus isn’t immediately notable, but I feel it’ll definitely have a better impact if fighting against someone with a more aggressive religion. I definitely wouldn’t call it a bad wonder though.

Early Modern Wonders

Four very meaty choices this era. A growth wonder, a super faith wonder, a money wonder, and an industry wonder. All of them, I’d say, very good picks, though I think Machu Pichu is still probably the best, presuming you have the mountains for it. If you don’t, all three other wonders are good choices per playstyle.

Machu Pichu is fantastic, presuming you’ve got the mountains in a good food making city, especially in one you can combo with Angkor-Wat. Otherwise, it’s only okay, but when it works, oh boy does it work. I feel like nerfing it to 25% would be better, but due to it’s requirements for construction, I’m not so sure.

Additionally, it’s model looks a bit wack. I don’t know what could be done to make it look better, but it looks like it was constructed atop the Giant’s Causeway, not a mountaintop.

Saint Basil's Cathedral is fantastic as well, especially if you’re a big empire with a lot of districts. Hell, you don’t even have to be a big empire to get a lot out of Saint Basil’s. Even a small three or four city empire is going to get a lot out of Saint Basil’s, and it will probably produce more for you than Notre-Dame will by endgame. I almost feel like it should maybe be brought down to .5 faith per district rather than a whole 1 faith.

Taj-Mahal is quite nice, though it needs an elaboration on what a “reliable city” is. I believe I learned after the fact it’s a city with high stability?

Topkapi Palace is a very good generalist wonder, and I can only see it getting better when we learn more about these “national projects.” It’s 5% industry isn’t too shabby either, though again it should be noted whether this is specifically for the city it was constructed in or empire-wide.

On Cultures:

During the entire Lucy OpenDev, I played enough games to be able to play every culture at least once. I’ll likely note in the following mess if I ever only played the culture once or if it was one of the ones I played quite often.

One thing I’m not entirely sure of is the Harappan, Egyptian, Celt, and Mayan LTs. From the way they read they make it seem like only the tile extracting the yields gets the extra bonus yield, so the farmer’s quarters/maker’s quarters, not it’s exploits. This isn’t how it works in the game, as the quarter and it’s exploits gain from the bonus, so the farmer’s quarter/maker’s quarter and it’s exploits gain the specific bonus. I’ve heard some people say this is a glitch, but I’m not so sure? I like this supposedly glitched version a lot better. The more specific wording and not slapping all tiles with food/industry cleans up much nicer, because now all harbors built by a player who went Mayans won’t overshadow a Cothon. It also opens up some more fun stuff with tiles that grant otherwise small amounts of food/industry to make them more powerful. For example, the Egyptian and Mayan LTs both effect Common’s Quarters if the player has taken the Criminal Slavery civic that grants common’s quarters one industry, as well as English farmer’s quarters, which get three industry from their LT. They wouldn’t normally have gotten this bonus with the Mayan LT, if I understand correctly. So I’m hoping it’s not a glitch.

I’ll mention during the culture ramblings, a lot of EQs exploit yields when they seem powerful enough to not have to, so I’d re-evaluate if some of them really do need to exploit yields. 

On the Ancient Cultures

Being graced with the Ancient Era LTs by VIPs in the past, I was quite excited to see what the reworked LTs looked like, and if we’d see them in Lucy, and indeed we did. I find that most of the LT adjustments made the starting cultures much more fleshed out, balanced, and interesting. 

Currently, I would say the best Ancient Era cultures are, in no particular order, Babylon, Zhou, Egyptians, Olmecs and the Hittites.

Assyrians are a solid choice. Since they’re the early expansionist culture, clearly focused on doing so militarily, but since it’s the very early game, they’re a fine pick for general expansion as well. However, I fear they’ll lack the funds to properly utilize the steal territory trait, but that doesn’t seem too important. The Assyrian Raider EU is quite good, considering it only needs a single horse. The Dunnu is quite nice for border protection, I can see why the Assyrian’s constructed these on their conquered territories. While I think I found their previous LT more flavorful, I can understand why it was changed. I feel it’s LT and the Hittites LT should be swapped, however. 

Babylonians start the trend of automatically being a good pick of the era due to the fact they are a scientist culture. As mentioned prior, the scientist ability to science into the next era is so good, it catapults any scientist culture into the best cultures slot for any era. But Babylon specifically, I like the new LT a great deal, as the prior one seemed far far far too overpowered for its own good. This one is pretty good. The astronomy house also seems pretty good, I’m not sure if it’s a “transcend to keep building” level of pretty good, but it’s probably quite close. Would certainly get more value out of it if farmer’s quarters were more valuable in Lucy. The Sabu is, I feel, a good unit for it’s cost of one copper. Strongest of the basic melee units in it’s era, tied with the Promachoi with it’s free level of vetrancy. While I said earlier that Babylon being a Scientist culture automatically made it good, I’d go so far to say that Babylon feels good even if it weren’t a scientist culture. Definitely one of these, if not best, picks of the era.

Egyptians feel a lot better after their rework in Lucy, a much stronger Industry outputting culture. While their -10% district production costs are already very nice, the extra industry from industry tiles (they got the crumbs left over from the Mayan nerf) is icing on the cake, especially now that the Pyramid EQ now scales off maker’s quarter’s rather than merchant’s quarters. Shame though that it makes the Pyramids seem a little less desirable for them now. Ah well. Since it is so early, builder mode is nice to hammer out some things once all techs have been discovered, so why not hammer out the best Ancient Era unit, the Markabata? It’s only one horse and can hit and run opponents in combat super well. Compared to the Hittite Gigir and Zhou Zhanche, this thing is incredibly easy to use, and will see some good use in the next era as well, seeing as it basically won’t get replaced until the crossbowman. The Markabata definitely feels like it should at least get a copper or a second horse slapped on it to at least make it more in line with the costs of the Gigir and Zhanche, and that’s being generous. Even so, Egyptians are definitely one of the best picks of the era.

Harappans felt okay. I only played the Harappans twice, and that was only so I could get their canal EQ down. While a beneficial tile, I feel like it’s particularly usefulness was reigned in with the change to the Harappan LT. It’s still a fine LT, getting the slice of the nerfed Celts LT while maintaining a fragment of their nerfed LT. They seem a little weak, and are very spawn dependent. If your starting zone doesn’t have a lot of rivers, they probably won’t get picked to much, but I can see them getting a decent headway if the area is a proper river valley.

The Runners concern me though. For a people who we believe to have been peaceful, they are one of the best early (like really early) warfare civs when it comes to bullying the poor AI. Stick around in the Neolithic long enough and you can overwhelm your enemies with your legions of super scouts.

These guys are definitely a start dependent people, so their particular usefulness varies, but I’d still call them good.

Hittites sure are scary. A free additional strength on all units, not tied to vetrancy like the Mycenaean LT? Very nice. The ability to spawn units at their unique outpost the Awari? Incredibly nice! The Gigir? Would be terrifying to fight if I ever saw the AI build them in the Ancient Era. The most I ever fought these guys was the tail end of Classical and they weren’t too frightening with my classical era units to fight them back. It’s resource cost is awful high, though I suppose it does make sense based on how good the unit is. I just fear the AI, unless it gets quite lucky with it’s expanding/trading, won’t be able to utilize it as well as the player.

As mentioned prior, I think the LTs of the Hittites and the Assyrians should be changed. The Hittites appear to be all about speed, with a unique chariot unit, the ability to spawn units at outposts, they’ve a lust for war, and that, to me, translates with getting units lightning fast to the battlefield. Meanwhile, Assyrians should get the additional plus one to better benefit their ransacker unit, as well as their sieging capabilities. They are after all, siege masters.

Anyhow, since the Militarist affinity doesn’t feel too fantastic, I can’t really say that the Hittites are one of the best cultures of the era, but they’re pretty good for war ready culture in Ancient! They almost feel like they should be the expansionists and Assyrians the militarists.

Mycenaeans are very nice. Their CC is probably my favorite of the ancient cultures, but that’s probably because I’ve a soft spot for the Minoans, which the CC seems to be more based on, since the capital they found is Knossos, the capital of the Minoan civilization, whom the Mycenaeans sacked and brought into their empire. It’s fine though, love it. Their LT seems a lot better now, yet worse at the same time. Getting a free level of vetrancy, while nice, is a plus one out of a potential plus three. Presently, a Hittite unit of the same type as a Mycenaean will have the same strength, but the Hittite unit has the potential to grow stronger simply because it’s LT’s combat strength point isn’t tied to veterancy. So I can see why it was tied with the second part of it’s LT, faster unit production, a trait it stole from the Aztecs to make it a generally better trait. The Cyclopean Fortress, like the Dunnu, is a pretty good Fort EQ, and I would say it’s better than the Dunna due to the plus one combat strength it gives to adjacent units. The Promachoi, which comes nice and early as a warrior replacement, is all the rage if you’ve the spare pop for it. I had two Promachoi’s lay waste to armies of aggressive culture’s scouts in the early game thanks to their high strength and good defensive positions.

They’re really dragged down however, like the Hittites, by a lackluster militarist affinity. However, they’re nowhere near bad to be considered so, and I’d put them similarly as Hittites and Assyrians, as all being good war cultures, but not the best of the era.

Nubians are quite nice. Whenever I didn’t know what to pick for the Ancient Era, I generally found myself defaulting to the Nubians. The plus four gold to luxuries and strategic resources is nothing to sneeze at, especially early game where money is hard to come by. The Nubians, despite their reworked LT, so now only gold is given, still are the production/money culture, since their EQ pyramids get bonuses from nearby maker’s quarters. However, since Production is so vital, I’m never going to surround a Meroe Pyramid in maker’s quarters, I’m going to keep them on the fringe, meaning in future eras, they’ll probably be replaced with science or common’s quarters. They are quite useful as holy sites however, I wish I could’ve played around with that aspect of them some more. The ta-seti archers are pretty alright, considering there is no Classical ranged unit to replace them, so you get to carry them until Crossbowmen. However, they just feel like slightly stronger archers, until you remember what their special ability is, which is really more of an “oh yeah, neat.” moment than anything else.

With all that in mind, I’d call the Nubians a good springboard choice, definitely for setting up future picks, rather than being a great “in the era” choice, like the aforementioned best cultures. I think that the Ta-Seti archers could use a minor combat strength buff, and I think it’s a bit unfair that the Egyptians can place their pyramids anywhere to set up great industry zones yet the Meroe Pyramids can’t, so I’d buff them so they can be placed anywhere as well, like their upper nile counterparts.

Olmecs are great and feel great. Every territory brought under your control brings you closer to getting another territory, and another and another. It’s a very satisfying feedback loop. Presuming the AI doesn’t bother you, of course. I picked Olmec every time I wanted to do a one-city per territory thing, and it pays off very nicely. Their Javelin Throwers, who are stronger than the ta-seti archers mind you, have an interesting effect I never really found good spots to utilize at, as I mostly had them defending my cities from the rather aggressive AI, which again, they’re pretty good at. More damage than ta-seti archers by the way. Their EQ is fantastic, food and faith, both good yields for early game, especially if you’ve settled in a river heavy territory.

All in all, I’d say that the Olmecs are perhaps the best culture of the era, and a definite good pick for starting players.

Phoenicians are pretty good but not that good. Their new LT is a cheaper version of the Carthaginian LT, which I was surprised to see unchanged. I think I would’ve preferred their previous LT of gaining a flat rate of money from the number of trade routes they had, but alas. The new LT is still good. The Haven Port EQ remains a fantastic money printer as always, presuming you’ve good coasts, but why would you pick the Phoenicians if you didn’t? The Phoenicians are carried by their affinity, because the Phoenicians are about sailing the seas early and finding those out of the way cultures to trade with, presuming they’ll sign the trade treaties, of course. I suppose they’re also good at discovering new lands to settle in the future. So the Phoenicians are more of a springboard culture than a good in their time culture, but still, not bad by any means. I just can see a lot of Phoenicians getting vassalized by more militaristic neighbors early on.

Zhou are good, but in an odd spot. They’re the first to get stuff that isn’t really useful to their affinity, yet still remain a good culture. As Aesthetes, they require influence to fill their bar, but you need to rely on the base methods of gaining influence, natural wonders, infrastructures, etc., because their LT and EQ don’t do that. It’s an interesting choice. Their LT is pretty good to help get civics quicker since it reduces all district stability losses to three rather than five. The Confucian School is fantastic. I found myself expanding my districts directly towards mountains to get the most out of these bad boys, because they’re really nice, especially if you decide to go Greeks next era. I feel like their science bonuses could be switched though. Three science per adjacent mountain and five science per religion in the territory feels better, because mountains are probably going to be more prevalent early on than the number of religions in a territory later on.

The Zhanche costs the same as the Hittite Gigir, and I rarely saw the AI use it, because they never had the resources until the classical, where it was more easily dispatched by my Classical units. However, they still do have the benefit of being a good classical era unit like the Gigir, since it doesn’t get replaced until the medieval. So I find nothing particularly wrong with the Zhanche.

Altogether, I’d still say the Zhou are an excellent culture to choose, a great springboard into something like the Greeks while also being an okay “in the moment” culture.

On the Classical Cultures

It’s during this era the scales begin to tip towards the unbalanced side of things, where the difference between good and bad cultures start to appear. I’d say, in no particular order, the best cultures of the era are the Mayans, Greeks, Celts, and Huns.

Achaemenid Persians were originally on this list as Persians, until I remembered you decided to slap Achaemenid on them. I still think Persia works fine for these fellows and Iran works for the Industrial one. Anyhow…

Persia here is definitely a strong contender for expansionist, what with the two free administrators. The only downside is that I sometimes ended up with two administrators free in the next era, after my conquerings had slowed. That could quite possibly have just been how I was building my empire, however. The Immortals are a great unit on offense and defense. The Satrap’s palace is clearly meant to spur the economy so you can use the Expansionist Affinity ability, but early markets generally aren’t too fantastic, so I rarely build Satrap’s palaces. Besides, it’s 2 gold per adjacent market, which feels pretty weak. I could’ve sworn it was five, just like the Aksumite Grand Obelisk, back during the Stadia OpenDev.

I personally liked going Persia after picking Nubia, the combo felt pretty good, because I already had the money network inplace and didn’t have to build it up when I should’ve been building up armies to expand. For it’s free administrators and Immortals, I’ll say the Achaemenid Persians are good, but the currently lackluster Expansionist Affinity and Satrap’s Palace keep them from being great.

Aksumites are okay? I think. Their LT and their Merchant affinity are the best parts about them. Due to how easy food is to acquire, their Grand Obelisk is less worthwhile due to farmer’s quarters not being as important, so you probably aren’t going to ring an Obelisk unless you really want to, and you aren’t going to build many anyway. The Shotelai, on the other hand, are a pretty good EU. I think this makes them an average pick, unless you plan on going heavy trade in the future, like the Dutch or Venetians.

Carthaginians are great. The LT is nice, presuming you have set up an extensive trade network or claimed a lot of luxuries to make money. The Cothon is great, even if it was slightly nerfed, because Industry is always beneficial, especially since this makes the Cothon affected by the Egyptian LT from the previous era. The War Elephant is utterly terrifying and a full army of the things hit like, well, a stampede of elephants. Especially absurd as the War Elephant only requires two copper! That’s pretty insane, especially if you look at the last era’s Gigir and Zhanche requirements.

Where the Aksumites are the passive merchant culture, the Carthaginians are the more active merchant culture. My one gripe with them is they don’t have a rather dedicated way to make money beyond trade, and it’s probably the only thing making me keep them out of the arbitrary best cultures of the era list.

Celts are, despite the nemeton and LT nerf, still pretty good. Their new LT and agrarian traits mean you’ll be popping off population a lot sooner than your rivals. This is especially nice in coastal cities, where you’ll have a handful of really good harbors, which are also affected by the LT. Makes sense though, as harbors are still pretty expensive. The Gaesati is a great unit, you get it early, it’s nice and cheap, and it doesn’t lose out from taking damage against this and the last eras’ bigger heavy hitters, so they’re an excellent swarm unit. The new Nemeton feels a lot more fair now since it’s not exploiting everything, though I still do kinda wish it still exploited science or had a researcher slot to represent the druids. It’s faith gain was also nerfed into something far more manageable, bringing it in line with some other basic faith EQs.

I’d be happy in saying that the Celts, while nerfed, are still one of the top picks of the Classical Era, though now they aren’t number two next to the Huns.

Greeks, oh man, what’s not to love about the Greeks? An excellent influence generating EQ? A classic and fantastic EU? Scientist affinity allowing them to research tech into the medieval so they can run around with knights, crossbowmen, and a unit that replaces their EU?

Oh yeah, it’s their LT, which is the same as having access to a single lead luxury. I mean, I get it, but alas, can’t win them all, right? With the scientist affinity, I gotta put the Greeks up in the best of the era category, even though I think without it, they’d still be a good culture, just not one of the best.

Goths are, I feel, in a weird spot. Their LT makes it sound like they get +5 combat strength from ransacking, and it just sort of stays with them the whole time, allowing you to create super soldiers from ransacking loads of stuff, so changing it to say “+5 Combat Strength while Ransacking on Army” would help with some confusion. Not that I was ever confused by it, of course. Anyway!

Gothic Cavalry is weaker than the Carthaginian War Elephant, yet costs more to make than it, that’s one horse/two iron versus two copper, by the way, which seems frankly absurd. That’s one less horse than a medieval knight, who has the same strength as the Carthaginian War Elephant. I also don’t think the extra money from a ransack seems to be all that much.

So really, I feel the Goths are probably in one of the worst spots of the Classical Era.

Oh my god, here I am, mid writing my Mauryans stuff, when I suddenly remember I forgot about the Tumulus. It’s pretty okay. Influence and faith, buildable anywhere? Pretty good, thanks. It feels like it should have an effect like the Stupa and old Nemeton, where it gets a yield for the number of adjacent exploitations, but I’m not sure what a good yield would be.

Huns. What can I say except they’re overpowered? I could basically copy/paste everything I said about them in my last take from the Stadia OpenDev. An LT that just makes their showstopping EU better and said EU that makes you suffer unless you deal with it immediately. Their only downsides are their Ordus not letting them make new cities, and the lackluster militarist affinity abilities. However, despite this, they still maintain their spot as one of the best cultures of the era, because like the Celts, they produce swarm units without even having to grow their population. If the effect is to make me feel like I’m actually playing against the Scourge of God, you have succeeded, however, no need to make it that easy for anyone who just picks Huns.

A possible nerf I like could be that the Hunnic Horde can only be produced from Ordu’s, since they are a nomadic unit, makes sense they wouldn’t be produced in a city, right? So a possible way to stymie the horde is to find and raze it’s outposts. Similarly, increasing the amount of food each future Hunnic Horde in the stack needs would be another good way to slow down their near exponential growth, as well as decreasing the amount of food they get from fighting units. Ransacking should be the better way to grow the horde. Also, making it so you can’t split horde units would also be helpful, if not a bit more severe.

Mauryans, I only played once. The stupa was not constructible for some reason, so I have particular comments on it. Since IP were mostly crowded out to the new world or the small smatterings of one/two tile islands, I didn’t get much use out of the LT. I’ll tell you what I did get a lot of use out of though, the Samnahya! A really versatile unit, pretty tough too from the one game I played. Especially nice as it's a good ranged unit for the classical, when everyone else without an EU archer is stuck with the ancient era one until medieval.  Since I only did play the one game with the Mauryans and they were lacking their Stupa, there isn’t much else I have to say about them.

Mayans, while nerfed, are still a really good culture choice. Industry is fantastic, free extra industry, even more so! You can churn out quite a lot of faith and production with their EQ, I personally think that maybe it should be brought down to one faith per adjacent maker’s quarters, rather than two. The Noble Javelineers are great, due to being a Classical archer, and their poisonous ability. Draws enemy ranged units closer to be slaughtered by the front line, or to stay in the back and be whittled away. Plus, the builder affinity’s only ability is a pretty good boon. With all that, how can the Maya be anything but one of the best Classical picks?

Romans need a bit of work I think. The Praetorian Guard comes so late, you barely get to use them, which is why the majority of the time I picked Rome I did so after finishing out the Classical Era Tech Tree with Babylon so I’d have instant access. And man did that instant access help out bigtime. The Triumphal Arch is very nice, but it needs some elaboration on it as to how to exactly trigger the “Victorious” condition on a city. It kind of hints about it in the description, but a concrete “The Victorious City condition is triggered upon winning a war.” wouldn’t go amiss for new players. Their LT, allowing one extra unit per army, is nice, but is wasted with the current way retreat works. I discovered it’s pretty good for transporting units together to be split later so one can engage smaller armies, but that doesn’t feel like it’s correct usage. I’m interested to see if it will return to it’s previous effect when an army cap via generals is brought back, if ever done. Rome also lacks a particular economic power to utilize the Expansionist Affinity ability often.

On the Medieval Cultures

It seemed none of the medievals saw much rework like the Ancients and Classicals did, so I’m interested to see if there will be nerfs or buffs or complete reworks like the prior eras.

Surprising even me, there are a great deal of good picks in the Medieval! I’d honestly say every culture but maybe the Aztecs and English feels really good.

Aztecs, only played them once. Their current LT looks like it’s in the prime spot for a rework, considering it is now part of the Mycenaean LT. I can see keeping it and giving it a secondary ability like the Mycenaeans though. Probably a food buff of some sort, or perhaps getting something out of vassalizing other cultures, seeing as those would be historically accurate, and there isn’t much culture specific stuff to do with vassalization at the moment.

The Jaguar Warrior doesn’t feel like it should have a tech behind it. Or if it did, it should be the one that unlocks Swordsmen from Classical. That would instantly make the Aztecs feel like a better culture choice. As for their EQ, the single pop for such a small amount of stability feels off, though I suppose you can use it as many times in a row as you’d like for pretty absurd stability gains. Keep the war slaves coming!

But yes, with all that combined, the Aztecs feel a bit lacking compared to their contemporaries. Being a militarist culture doesn’t help though.

Byzantines are pretty overpowered and I’m expecting some nerfs. They are one of the major parts of what I call the “Money Line” (Nubia/Phoenicia into Aksumites into Byzantines into Dutch) and it's the second most broken part of the chain.

Firstly, the Byzantine LT is far too much of a bonus. If you want to play a peaceful merchant the whole game, you can easily be allianced out with all cultures and rake in loads of money with trade. I personally recommend dropping the amount of money per alliance to 10%, maybe 15% if you’re feeling generous. Additionally, to make it a more enticing deal to ally with and help out a Byzantine player in multiplayer, why not give the other player who allies with them a 10/15% bonus to their money for allying with the Byzantines?

The Varangian Guard is very very powerful, a full ten combat strength stronger than a Jaguar Warrior with no buffs. The Honor Code debuff they wear is barely worth worrying about, as I was able to, multiple times, dispatch large armies with three Varangian Guards and a crossbowman. Maybe I had the terrain on my side, but still, it was a total slaughter for the enemy. To play with the historic background of the Varangian Guard, would it be possible to make it so they cannot be produced, only purchased for a high cost? Or perhaps if a unit maintenance cost is implemented, they would have a particularly high one. Or perhaps they could be the opposite of Conquistadors, where instead of making money from fights, you lose money, having to pay them for their work?

The Hippodrome is a neat EQ for the Byzantines. My main issue is it is that you can spam it everywhere for a lot of money, based on how many horses you trade your allies for. It seems the equivalent of building multiple sports stadiums for the same sport in the same city, and looks quite funny. To possibly cut down on the spam of the quarter, could the Hippodrome somehow be changed to a unique horse resource extractor? Somewhat like the wondrous manufactory, but for horses, specifically? That way the building cannot be spammed across your territory and you get around a clunky limitation like “one Hippodrome per city” or the like.

In its current state, the Byzantines are a fantastic choice of culture for anyone who would want to make money or go on a conquering spree. Too good for their own good, unfortunately.

English are kinda not great. Like the Mauryans, I could not build the English EQ Stronghold, and similarly, couldn’t build any fortification at all as them since it’s a replacement, so I’ve got nothing to say about the Stronghold, but if they still work the same as in the first OpenDev, it’s a fine fort replacement, though I’ll still be sad it only works for ranged units, essentially losing out on it’s cool specifical effect the moment gunpowder is invented. But I suppose that’s just how it goes. It’d be neat if it had some special bonus if built adjacent to farmer’s quarters.

The Longbowman is basically a crossbowman, but instead of a gunner, it’s still ranged, and only has one combat strength more. It’s really kinda sad. You’d think maybe the longbowman would get some extra range or something, but that’s really it.

The English LT is nice at least. Plus three Industry per farm is pretty decent, and it can be more with the Egyptian and Mayan LTs. The English’s Agrarian affinity is really all that saves them from being bad, and that’s pretty disappointing.

Franks, man I love these guys. With the new way that growth works, I feel their LT lost some value, but it’s still a good LT if you aren’t at that point yet. The EU is a fine knight replacement. The Scriptorum is a beautiful looking EQ, but I feel it could use a raise to it’s base science yield. Unless you go out of your way to set this up, you’ll probably very rarely find a situation where you’ll have more than two holy sites within the distance to make a superpowered Scriptorum. Despite all that kinda of messy praise, I still think the Franks are a very solid medieval choice for anyone looking to get more fame off expansion. If you are lucky, you’ll expand into the territory of an AI who didn’t know what they were doing and clumped up a bunch of their religious EQs together!

Ghanaians are pretty good, though I personally prefer the Byzantines when it comes to making money. But the Ghanaians are a pretty good alternative. The luxuries market is a nice way to make some extra money, though it scales better in the long run compared to the Hippodrome, it pales in comparison to the next era’s VOC warehouse, however, and is likely the more balanced of the trio. The LT combined with the Luxury Market EQ certifies a constant stream of good cash. Of course, like the Hippodrome and a particular later EQ, there’s nothing stopping you from spamming a bunch of them. 

The Meharist is a great unit to combat the notable mounted EUs of the era, the knight replacements of the Franks, Teutons, and Umayyads. It’s just a shame it won’t be doing extra damage to the Mongol Horde because it’s not considered calvary, it’d be a good counter. 

Due to it’s nice synergies and a nice counter to some of the more expansionist cultures, the Ghanaians are a great pick for the era, and are in a really nice spot. It’s just that the Byzantines currently overshadow them in money making potential.

Khemer is the new Celts, purely thanks to it’s Baray, which is everything the Nemeton was with only a lack of faith and a more specific placement requirement. I don’t see any reason why it exploits food, industry, money and science. It already gets a handful of free stats and bonuses from adjacent rivers, it honestly seems like it was mistakenly given the ability to exploit all. I think it’d be a fine EQ if it only exploited food, it can keep everything else and still be good.

Speaking of being good, the Dhanvi-Gaja is a pretty good unit, and feels right for it’s cost, and is an elephant that doesn’t feel totally overpowered. Well… Maybe a little overpowered, it is nearly as strong as the Varangian Guard.

The LT is where the Khmer seem to fall flat. Like the Greeks, it doesn’t feel all that special and can be replicated with a luxury resource. But I do get it, since they, like the Greeks, Dutch, and Haudenosaunee are so good in other areas, they can’t be given a really good LT, as it would make them too good.

All in all, Khmer are a great pick, especially so because of the Baray.

Mongols, like the Huns before them, are still overpowered. Nothing I can really say about them that I haven’t already said about the Huns.

Norsemen are pretty good. Very succinctly designed as a naval culture. Good LT, EQ, and EU that lets you expand sooner and ransack other hapless navally inept cultures faster. I honestly don’t have that much else to say on the Norsemen. Solid pick for anyone who wants to dominate the naval game.

Teutons are pretty good! The LT is pretty good for any culture focusing on religion, although it doesn’t exactly help with maintaining a strong Religion. The extra money and science feels quite nice, even though you make a lot more money or science on holy sites if you’ve selected the tenets for your religion because you have multiple holy sites, so the gain isn’t giant, but it still feels like a good amount of gains.

The Kaiserdom, while I have misgivings about the appearance, is a fantastic quarter, almost too fantastic. It’s basically an Industry Common’s Quarter, giving five industry instead of stability and three faith instead of influence. That’s pretty good, but on top of that, it also works industry from the nearby tiles, which seems a bit much on an already very good EQ.

The Teutonic Knight, now this guy is a classic. Love them. A good knight replacement with a killer ability that’s not so hot when fighting people who share your religion, so people that find themselves at the end of their spears could change state religions to not suffer as much, but then they’ll find their just making the Teuton player stronger! A lovely little counterbalance. Don’t quite know why they get an extra speed compared to regular knights and the other knight replacement EUs though.

All in all, Teutons are fantastic. I made a mistake picking them up so late into the OpenDev, I thought their effect was like the Frankish Scriptorum, requiring holy sites and not just adjacent districts. Which honestly works out better for them, I suppose.

Umayyads are automatically good because Scientist culture, but they’re plenty good for other reasons too! The plus ten science per territory LT is a damn good way to get science, especially if you expanded to quite a large size in the last era with something like the Romans or Persians. A proper Arabic golden age if you play your cards right. The Grand Mosque EQ is a cherry on top, granting a nice chunk of faith and a researcher slot

The Haras is also a really nice unit, while it lacks the iron requirement of it’s fellow knights, it’s weaker that it’s contemporary knight EQs (even Menharists who get an anticav bonus) but that’s fine, because you have access to gunpowder weapons first! I had a particularly scary Nubians into Persians into Umayyads game. Now that was a fun one. Haras and Arbequisers go together very nicely.

In short, Umayyads are one of the best choices for the era, one of the ones that would feel good even if it weren’t a Scientist culture.

On The Early Modern Cultures

Similar to the Medievals, I didn’t see much changes here like the Ancients and Classicals. It’s likely since a lot of the cultures aren’t in a reworked state, there are some really strong choices this era, and some not so strong, but still good choices.

Dutch, oh boy the Dutch. Their V.O.C. Warehouse overshadows everything else about their culture. To be fair, their LT is one of the lackluster ones, replicable by any culture with access to a certain luxury resource, but it sucks when it comes to the Fluyt, which in addition to being one of my favorite looking units in the game, is a fantastic caravel replacement, and able to go toe to toe with the basic naval unit of the era, the carrack and even the privateer and Venetian Galleass (when not in coastal water, of course)! Except in the speed department, of course, which is a shame since the effects of the Norse LT and the Great Lighthouse don’t seem to affect naval transports, but I think that’s more likely a bug than something intended. 

But the V.O.C. Warehouse, the crown jewel of the Dutch kit, able to generate upwards 200 money per warehouse in most cases. It definitely needs a nerf to the amount of money it generates per naval trade route, perhaps to three money or so. I can see removing the adjacency from harbors and instead requiring the warehouse to be constructed next to a harbor to restrict spamming the district which is currently possible. I can also see making it more akin to the Luxuries market perhaps, nerfing the money per naval trade route to something like one or two, while keeping the harbor adjacency bonus. Doesn’t stop it from being spammed, but seems the easier of the two nerfs to commit to.

All in all, the Dutch are a great pick for someone who wants to make a lot of money, especially if they’re on a string of merchant cultures! But they also are a great pick for anyone who wants to speedily send their armies out to colonize the world! Can even sink yourself a Spanish fleet on their way to the new world with Fluyts if you catch them in the ocean!

Edo Japanese are a pretty solid pick. Your Aesthete meter is going to fill up quicker than you can blink with their LT, reminiscent of Babylon’s pre-rework LT of getting two science per district, netting the Edo Japanese a juicy three influence per district. Their Naginata Samurais, the evolution of the Honor Coded Varangian Guard, is another unit that I feel isn’t as debuffed by Honor Code as it should be. I think the same adjustments as suggested to the Varangian Guard (only purchasable, high unit maintenance, or costing money per how well they perform in combat ala a reverse conquistador) would be possible to smooth the unit out, as well as be somewhat historically accurate, right? The Tera is a pretty alright EQ as well, not many things speed up the rate at which civics are unlocked, so that’s always a boon, in addition to being a rather basic faith district. Altogether, a solid pick for the era.

Haudenosaunee were unfortunately broken, as their Three Sister’s Plantation was unavailable for construction. As such, I only played them once, so I don’t have much to say about them. Which is a shame, because their Rotiskenrakehte is a really fun unit to play around with. Basically an invisible sniper to annoy the enemy with, what’s not to love? The LT is a bit boring, being a static 20% food increase. When you can only create one new pop a turn anyway when at cap, it doesn’t seem all that fantastic. Still, the Haudenosaunee are a good pick, if not one of the more simple ones of the era.

Joseon is a scientific powerhouse, good lord. I wholly expect their LT to be nerfed down to two science per turn, if not totally reworked like some of the Ancient and Classical LTs, it really is that good, because everyone is going to have coasts at this point, and therefore a few harbors. Even if you didn’t have coasts, Joseon is a great pick because Scientist Culture. The Seowon is also a neat EQ, one you want to build on the fringes of your cities or directly off forts you put on the edge of your territory to net the most science out of it. 

The Geobukseon costs the same as a Man o’ War, comes earlier, and can reach it’s damage potential via it’s trait. I didn’t get much use out of it in the proper usage due to the AI in Lucy not really building ships, but I did use them to defend more shores from aggressive IP coming to raid harbors, and it’s certainly not too shabby. Anyone attempting to make landfall in Korean territory better watch the horizons for these bad boys.

All together, Joseon, in its current state, is a fantastic scientist culture, perfect for any naval focused player who isn’t interested in making loads of money.

Ming, only played once, wasn’t able to actually build the rocket cart, so my commentary will be rather short. The flat 25% civic points gain is nice, especially when coupled with Freedom of Speech. It’s probably more than an Edo Japanese player will be able to net with their Teras unless they have particularly mountainous regions, they spam them, or they transcend. It seems a good LT,  so if you have a whole lot of unfilled civics, this is the culture to pick to fill them out.

Ming’s whole thing seems to be stability, like their Zhou counterpart in Eras past. Their Grand Teahouse gets extra influence off adjacent common’s quarters. So I build one surrounded by common’s quarters, and it sure looks pretty, but seems to be stability overkill, as well as wasting a large amount of space for some bureaucracy and influence.

All in all, I think the Ming are a good safe pick for large empires looking to benefit off all the common’s quarter’s they’ve built.

Mughals are the kings of industrial output. 5% industry in the capital per territory? That’s insane. Definitely getting a major nerf or rework. Industry is so valuable it’d still be a great LT if it was 1% industry per territory. Especially with the Jama Masjid, which is going to be a major boon, as a Mughal capital likely has a lot of maker’s quarters already to be enhanced by the LT, meaning loads of workers, which means the Jama Masjid is making loads of production. This building, like the Kaiserdom, really doesn’t need to also work industry off nearby exploitations, it’s already so good. Really, I don’t think it needs to be plus two per worker, plus one is more than enough. The Gajnal is a great elephant unit, costly, but still the least worrying part of the Mughal kit.

Mughals are a great pick, I would say probably the best pick of the era since Industry is such a valuable asset to any empire. The only way I can see it not being a great pick is if you don’t have such a good capital or you don’t have more than a handful of territories, but in the early modern if you don’t have more territories, what are you doing?

Ottomans are a decent pick, though I feel Spain is the better Expansionist pick for the Era, but I’ll get to that later. The Ottomans shine with their decent EQ, able to generate at max eight faith, which makes it a very good religious EQ, and their Janissaries are great at conquering cities and defending them via sortie when the enemy tries to take them back. Expansionist affinity is so-so, as mentioned previously, but the real glaring issue with the Ottomans is that their LT is laughable. At this point of the game, the cost for attaching outposts is chump change at best. Either an extreme buff or a totally new LT would be best for the Ottomans. But otherwise, they still seem a good Expansionist pick. They feel like a good culture for a vassalage related LT, maybe reducing the cost of bringing other cultures into vassalage?

Poles are a-okay in my book. They’re the defensive militarist pick, so they’re good if you transcend in the middle of being invaded or you’ve just finished a lengthy conquering campaign and fear retaliation from your conquered neighbors. The Winged Hussar, a classic, is a pretty good unit, nothing wrong with them. The effect of the Barbican is pretty good, but it feels like it should be an effect that all forts get, rather than this specific one. But regardless of that, the Barbican is a pretty nice fort replacement.

Spain is the better Expansionist pick between the two. Their LT of three extra combat strength non-allied territory is a pretty nice bonus, which doesn’t feel too overpowered or underpowered. The Catedral Gotica looks beautiful and is a pretty good religious EQ, getting a higher base than the Ottoman one, but still able to get a similar max output with good placement and bunched up religious extensions. The Conquistador is also a really nice unit, and you can make a lot of bang for your buck with roving armies of the dudes with their El Dorado trait, not like, Dutch level of money here, but still, a fair amount.

Aesthetics is the 5th hidden important influence when it comes to selecting cultures for me, and the Spanish CC feels really off. While a beautiful and unique building, it doesn’t strike me as “Age of Discovery/Conquistadoring” Spain, it strikes me as “Reconquista” Spain. El Escorial feels like it would be a far more appropriate selection of CC.

Also, the smallest of nitpicks, but the beautiful unit art of the Conquistador has a sort of short shoulder cape, but it’s in-game model lacks this, and makes me very sad.

Venice is the other merchant of the era. They won’t make nearly as much money as a Dutch player, but they will make a lot more influence. Venice’s LT is also nice because it doesn’t specify naval trade routes like the Dutch one, so it can also benefit more inland trade. The Botteghe Di Artisti is a nice influence district, but feels kind of weak due to how underperforming market quarters currently are. I’d often surround them with market quarters to get the max influence but it didn’t feel all that great, just made me think about how much more money I could be making with the Dutch. Venice will surely be better when additional sinks for Influence come up, beyond the few that are currently in. The Galleass is great for protecting ports from roving bands of IP or privateers, presuming they work properly next time. The damage bonus they get is amazingly high, but that’s understandable considering as a unique EU, it’s damage is only on par with the carrack.

But yes, Venice, good merchant pick if you can’t get the Dutch.

On the UI:

When zooming out on the map, would it be possible to color the territories more than with just their outlines? It’d cut through the map’s duller color and look much nicer.

There needs to be two different notifications for ransacking, because at the present time, both notification arts for successfully ransacking someone else and being successfully ransacked by someone else are the same, so at a glance, if you were doing some ransacking, everything is looking really good, as opposed to bad because your Lighthouse of Alexandria just got razed by a random group of aggressive Independent People. While we're at it, when a wonder is being razed, the notification art for it should be unique compared to the regular quarter one. Not like, specific to the wonder but just like, a general one.

When I gain an era star, I am unable to tell what era star it was I just gained unless I was paying specific attention to my stars the previous turn. Either it should specifically state “You gained an Agrarian Era Star!”, have specific art for the era star gained, or it somehow highlights the category that an era star was gained in during that turn.

Similarly, when a trade agreement is done, I have no idea who is trading with me and what they’re trading for. Something like “The Greeks (Empire 3) have purchased your Coffee!” would be nice, just so I know who’s the one what done it.

A notification notifying me that an IP I have sway over is available to be assimilated or assimilated by a different culture would be nice. Honestly, diversifying the “you generated a grievance!” notification to be more specific would be very nice!

All wonders currently work all exploitations they’re next to, like an outpost/hamlet, yet they lack the pop-up displaying the yields they work like an outpost/hamlet would. I’m not sure if this is intended or not.

The UI change to make some of the backgrounds that white/gray instead of transparentish empire color was a bit blinding, and not many people could read it well, especially religion, which is already colored white.

I saw this complaint on Reddit quite a bit, but a lot of people didn’t get the coloration of the infrastructure denoting what stat they effected, and wished for an easier way to tell by site. Maybe a light border color around the infrastructure would not go amiss?

There must be a pop-up, not on the notification scroll, but a pop-up like an event or movement to the diplomacy force surrender screen where it displays what the terms of surrender were when you are forced into a surrender at 0 morale. Several times I had it happen without even noticing, where I apparently ran out of morale and was instantly vassaled by an enemy and I had no idea. I’m certain other players are going to be utterly baffled as well.

On Avatar Creation:

Betcha weren’t expecting to see this. With the debut of the Streamer Avatars, Lucy herself, and her other friends we could play before unlocking the streamer avatars, we’ve gotten a better look at Humankind’s avatar creator. Piecing together what we not-in-the-know know, you get to design an avatar that represents the personification of your culture, an Uncle Sam or Mother Russia, as well as select your color and a symbol to make you distinct. That appears to be the basis of what you get to make for yourself, but I presume that there will somehow be a way to share avatars and give them the traits and bonuses that the AI were sporting. The “builds up navies,” “likes cultures who’s ideologies are similar to theirs,” being the traits and the bonuses being the “15% more money” and “plus one combat strength” being the bonuses. I think that’s really neat, and I hope I’m right!

On the Narrator

Despite my comments towards his annoyingness in my last review, I kind of missed his wisecracks. I do hope for other narrators as well, as opposed to just the main guy, that way we can get a wide bevy of personalities to our narrators, though I have no idea if doing so is even feasible.

On Miscellaneous:

The music is fantastic and the game looks stellar. I never got tired of looking at my cities as they sprawled out across the territories, or terrorizing the citizenry with my cursor.

I’ve seen a lot of people particularly hung up on city names and are too lazy to rename it themselves. I think adding a button up by the rename city part of it’s menu to generate a random name from the current culture’s list of city names to rename the city would tide these sorts of people over. Of course, I imagine doing this to the capital would just make it the capital. 

On My Favorite Culture Builds:

Y’know, for funsies.

Nubians -> Persians -> Umayyads -> Ottomans on the last turn because I forgot to ascend until the last second. Economy and Industry established, army and conquests, golden age of science, preparation for world conquest while keeping faith good.

Mycenaeans -> Celts -> Teutons -> Spanish. Strong army, strong religion, deus vult!

Babylonians -> Romans -> Norsemen -> Joseon. Babylonian science hands you the Roman EU on an iron platter, then carve out your empire. Norsemen to take over the world via the water, and Joseon to reap all the science from your harbors.

Assyrians -> Goths -> Mongols -> Spanish. The ransack build, as of present.

Phoenicians -> Aksumites -> Byzantines -> Dutch. All of the money in the world is great.

TL:DR

I’m so sorry this is so long.

Expansionist and Militarist Affinities feel like they need a secondary affinity ability.

Saboteurs need to be able to do some actual sabotaging.

The Colossus of Rhodes is the weakest wonder and could use a trade based ability as well and even be made into a Holy Site.

The Roman EU feels like it comes too late to make a big difference, the EQ needs to say what triggers the “Victorious” condition on city in its description.

The Aztec LT needs a new addition or rework, I presume that’s on the way. The Jaguar Swordsman feels like it should unlock earlier than when they do, or maybe not on a tech at all.

The English Longbowman could use a new bonus ability and/or combat strength boost. 

Ottomans need a totally new LT or a major buff to it, and maybe it could even affect attaching cities in addition to outposts. 

There needs to be way less food gained during the Neolithic so people aren’t getting out of the era with so many free scouts, or there needs to be an increase to the cost of each nomad generated so more food needs to be consumed.

The Scientist Affinity is easily the best affinity of the bunch because thus of the future is always better than thus of now.

Machu Pichu’s food bonus to all cities should be reduced, 50% seems far too much.

Hunnic/Mongol Hordes need nerfed bigtime!

The Byzantine LT needs nerfed, the Varangian Guard needs Honor Code adjusted to be an actual detriment to it’s massive damage bonus, the Hippodrome needs a nerf to the amount of money it makes or needs to be somehow limited in its construction. 

The Khemer Baray shouldn’t exploit industry, money, or science like the Nemeton could.

The Dutch V.O.C. Warehouse generates way too much money and needs a nerf!

The Joseon LT has the possibility to generate way too much science and needs a nerf!

The Mughal LT and EQ generate way too much extra production and needs either reworked or nerfed!

More notifications and more specific notifications are needed, like when forced to surrender during a war and a different art used for when you ransack someone and someone else ransacks you, as both of those currently use the same art.

There needs to be a better way to learn what Era Star you recently unlocked when you go to check your stars.

There should be a list of Holy Sites that your religion has, and how many can be built or how many holy sites you are over the limit.

Events need to display the ideology bars so we can see the adjustments for event choices.

Wonders could use a fancy menu for their selection, befitting their status as Wonders.