The most important thing to say about this game is that it is fun, addictive, and so far living up my expectations. It is far more fun for me even in its current incomplete iteration than any Civ title, and I’ve been playing Civ titles literally all my life. This is the game that I’ve been wishing Civ would evolve into for years. The reason that I fell in love with 4X games was because I used to be able to play Civ games for hours on end, and for years at a time, without ever getting bored. That franchise became a cartoonish caricature of itself and no longer holds the same magic that it used to, and no other 4X title has been able to hold my attention the way that Civ used to. I firmly believe based upon my experience in each of the OpenDevs that Humankind will finally be the game that captures my attention and brings the magic back to playing 4X games for me. 

Strengths

Pacing is a notable and satisfying difference in the Victor OpenDev build as opposed to Lucy for a variety of reasons:

It feels like I am less able to snowball very quickly. My growth feels limited by my circumstances in a way that is challenging, but not punitive. The “soft cap” philosophy that is being implemented in various different game systems is quite successful, in my view. 

Tech research is taking a lot longer which means I’m not blowing through the eras. I love for each era to almost feel like a game in itself, and the pacing in this build gives me the opportunity to feel like I’m really experiencing each era for all that it is supposed to be. Earning era stars is taking longer, which I am a fan of. 

The size adjustments within the city UI are a very welcome change. I still think that more optimization could be done to use space as effectively and efficiently as possible, and that more areas of dead space within that UI could be eliminated in order to make the production area the star of the show that it should be. As an arbitrary goal, I’d like to see this UI developed to a point where three rows of production possibilities are immediately visible without having to scroll. As a rule of thumb, with a game this beautiful, any UI that draws one’s eyes away from the map itself better be important, or just as beautiful. To me, this applies to the icons within the production UI, but not the useless dead space within it. 

I appreciate that the game no longer refers to the players as “Empire X” and instead refers to them based on the culture they’re currently playing as. 

The AI seems to be better than it was in Lucy at combat, even in lower difficulty. 

The change of the system for city growth being dependent upon surplus food is a welcome change.

The most important thing for any strategy game is that it presents fun, interesting, and tense decisions to the player. There should be many “right” ways to play, and no one way to dominate the game. Humankind does this so incredibly well. Every time I switch eras, there are many different cultures that I want to grab based on my current circumstances and the decision about which one to go with feels tense, important, fun and interesting. Developing my civics, religion, and choosing what to do during the narrative events present similarly interesting choices where I can genuinely see the benefits and pitfalls of going in either direction. This might be Humankind’s greatest strength. 

Areas for Development

“City creation” should not be tied to the production of the outpost.  I’m fine with the city creation taking some arbitrary number of turns, but now with the number of turns being dynamic based upon the production output of the outpost.This is something that I feel pretty strongly about for a few important reasons: #1 We’ve already saved up enough influence to claim the territory, waited for the outpost to be built, and saved even more influence to create the city. In one case, my city was going to take an additional 15 turns to create. I’m all for relatively slow pacing to have the best experience, but this is way too slow. #2 (and most importantly) The best choice is ALWAYS to get your city up and running as fast as possible. That means that the best thing you can do in EVERY situation is settle the highest production spot to built your city as fast as possible and then immediately attach a territory with good food income to give your new city growth. It is NEVER a better idea to weigh any of the other yields besides production when determining where to put an outpost that you intend to develop into a city. This takes what should be a very tense and interesting decision with a variety of pros and cons and turns it into a non-decision. 

Number of cities vs. number of territories attached to a single city needs balancing. It felt weird to have cities that spanned like 4 territories with a ton of undeveloped land in the early game. Additionally, the AI seemed to only really want to add territories to their cities rather than ever building new cities. I’m all for having a cap on the number of cities, and I like the attach territory mechanic, but I’d like to have more cities that are only 2 or 3 territories. 

I’d like to be able to right click on something in the production queue to send it to the front of the line, rather than having to left click and drag when I have lots of things already sitting in the queue. This was particularly cumbersome if I had queued up a bunch of infrastructures to the point of having to scroll to the right, but then had a war declared on me and needing to quickly switch to unit production instead. 

I’d like to see the highest difficulty level be much more difficult. In particular, I think that the AI makes a lot of very silly decisions, even at this level. I was only behind the AI during the Ancient Era; after that I was ahead the whole game. On my victory screen, I think that I had built like 96 districts; the closest AI to me had only built just over 30. 

I Would like to see Natural Wonders not all provide exactly the same bonuses. 

“Haudenese Empire has reached the Early Modern Era with the Haudenese” is not a particularly helpful notification. However, “Animata (the name of that empire’s avatar) has reached the Early Modern Era with the Haudenese” is. I’m glad that the game isn’t calling us “Empire X”, but there should be thoughtful consideration that goes into the circumstances under which the game refers to us as our Avatar’s name, versus. our current culture’s name. 

I felt that ranged units were always objectively far more useful than any other kind of unit. I only built melee units  to stand in between my ranged units and the enemy’s units. They smashed their units into my melee units and then I sat there killing all of their units with my ranged units. Either the AI needs to be smarter in combat, or the unit classes need to be better balanced. 

I didn’t feel that I ever focused particularly hard on having a large army, but somehow I was always more powerful than every AI. For reference, at the moment that I’m writing this note downI have a total of 18 military units on turn 96 in my current playthrough, and I am vastly more powerful than every other AI. This is on the highest difficulty level. 

World Wonders and Holy Sites no longer display a tooltip telling total yields that they’ll pick up when being placed; I would like to see this come back. 

Battle previews will show up on the map and then never go away, even far after the battle has already ensued and been resolved. Similarly, the tooltip notification on the map of having gained food, research, etc. from a place of interest sometimes just never goes away. 

I don’t mind the idea of empires becoming vassals of other empires as a result of wars, but by turn 150 in my first playthrough, there were only two of us left in the game, with the rest of the empires under us as vassals. This doesn’t make for particularly interesting interactions with the AI. I’d also like to have to worry about my vassals revolting against me if I get too complacent, or if they manage to grow too powerful. I would like to be able to interact with my vassals in ways that either help or hurt my relations with them. Perhaps I could increase their tributes to me, granting them grievances that they could eventually use to press a war demanding independence? Something like that would be cool... 

The notifications regarding foreign wars aren’t particularly informative. “Foreign war started.” Between who? What are the stakes/grievances? What will happen if one side or the other wins? Similarly, when the war is resolved, I don’t know who gained what from the war. 

Independent people are still not fun to interact with. Their only destiny is to either be conquered or assimilated. This is the one and only time when I would implore Amplitude to take a look at Civ 6 for ideas to improve a game system. I would love to see some combination of the new Barbarian mechanics they just implemented (there are a number of interactions that players can take with barbarians, including paying them off to attack other players, etc.) and the city state mechanics from that game. I’d love to see independent people who stick around for an entire game because they provide useful benefits to their patronizer, and are worth defending. 

ALL FIDS should show up in ALL of a city’s territories when I want to place a district, regardless of whether I have the FIDS map mode on so that I can plan out my city development carefully without constantly toggling the FIDS on and off. When I’m not placing districts, I want to admire the beauty of the map; when I am, I want to see all of the yields. I would like the same to be true when placing an outpost, city colony, etc. 

The AI seems to prefer to send a whole bunch of small armies all over the place without grouping them up, and this makes their units way too easy to pick off. I’m looking at my other screen right now, and the Huns have an army of 3, another of 2, another of 2, and two of 1 each all within one tile of each other; why doesn’t the AI group them up? They are also at war with me, and rather than making their way to defend a territory or come attack me, they are just wandering aimlessly through an empty territory. 

I’ve given this same piece of feedback during each OpenDev, and I’ll say it again: The graying out of the battle era is SO UGLY and makes it very difficult to discern what kind of terrain units are standing on. My suggestion: In the whole-world mode where you’re previewing the battle, keep things as is. But, as soon as you open up the battle, switch the grayed out area to the outside of the combat area, and color in the combat area as the map should look. I toggled the combat area thing off in this playthrough, but that made the experience worse for me in the game’s current iteration because I didn’t know what was combat area versus what was not. 

I’d like the diplomacy banner in the main UI to give me an easy view as to whether I can change the treaty statuses with AIs. You have to wait a certain number of turns between suggesting treaties to the AI, but I never remember when that time is up. Rather than having to open the diplo UI and click through all of the empires, I’d like the banner around their flag to be outlined in a certain color, indicating whether I am eligible to propose something this turn. So, if I’m unable to do anything, it could be outlined in red; if I am, it could be outlined in green. Or, there could be an icon in the upper left of each of their portraits (similar to the explanation point that is in the upper right indicating they have made a proposal to you). Maybe just a small circle colored in red if I can’t change our treaty status, or green if I can?

I’d like to know exactly what the terms were when an AI decided to start trading from me. What did I gain from this interaction? What was the method of transportation? The trade UI has improved since Lucy, but I still feel like I am lacking information. Similarly, when I engage aggressively with an AI that I’m trading with, I get a notification saying that trade has temporarily halted, but I’m not seeing exactly what benefits either I or the AI are losing as a result. If they bought something from me, did I just lose money by attacking their scout? If I bought from them, did I just take a stability hit because I’m not getting those resources anymore? The exact results of trading resources with the AI are still unclear at times, especially when they are buying things from me. 

We need a web-view of world relations, akin to something like this from Civ IV. There is no reason any 4X title should ever release without this:

One of the things that I love about Humankind as opposed to other 4X titles is the commitment to not feeling “game-y”. With that in mind, I’d like to see the use of flavor text and careful naming of various systems, abilities, etc. to eliminate anything in the game that makes you feel like you’re “just playing a game” rather than living out human history. I’ll copy and paste something that I said about Lucy that I believe still applies here: 

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

The WASD camera panning is PAINFULLY SLOW. Similarly, while playing with a laptop trackpad, zooming in and out of the map is WAY TOO FAST. Both of these have been issues in all of the OpenDevs, so hopefully they are addressed soon. 

I’m not sure how I feel about religion the way that it is currently implemented. It kind of feels like “just another” version of the civics and influence systems. Earn faith, click a button, get a buff. Press a demand, increase War Desire, grab more territory. I feel like religion should add something unique to the game beyond what it does now, and it certainly shouldn’t feel like a semi-clone of other game systems. As it stands, I don’t hate it, but I’m not excited about it either. 

The war resolution screen still felt fairly unclear, although it was a big improvement over the last iteration. In particular, some of the tooltips were incorrect in explaining to whom territories would be given (I won the war, but checking the box said that my enemy was getting the territory; I was actually the one getting it). Additionally, you couldn’t click the little magnifying glass on that screen to see where the territories were, and since they didn’t match with city names, I had no idea what they were referring to. 

Agree with absolutely everything in this posting wholeheartedly a few things i'd like to add: 

Number of cities: 
This i agree with, personally (though this might be a minority view) i would not mind a degree of city automation comparable to Civ 4 just with district, this could even be (later by DLC perhaps) be expanded into adding Governors which, depending on Skill and Loyalty, might not always place things in the optimal location, a certain feeling of size would do a lot in terms of overall feel. 

Army (Placement):
The AI is really bad at it, right now this seems to be offset by nerfing Terrain Bonuses (Attacking over a cliff with hardly any penalty) which in turn detracts from the positioning system as a whole. 
TBH not hopeful, Firaxis never managed to really get it to work in Civ either, that's why higher difficulties are effectively giving the AI free bonus resources. 
These systems are fun in Multiplayer but for single player I have come to prefer the "Stacks of doom" in Civ 4. 

War (resolution):
I think the game really needs a bit more fine-tuning, every city having some form of citizen defense (akin to Civ5 & 6) would certainly help against snowballing, likewise Aggressive AIs have very little trouble to hold on to large swathes of conquered land, there really need to be mechanics in place that make overextension difficult, Stronger Revolts against occupation and AIs banding together against aggressors (similar to how they do in Civilization games or EU4) 

Army Size:
Disagree on this one, i personally saw a lot of 4 and 5 Unit Armies employed by the AI

Diplomacy: 
Consequences of treaties should be displayed more clearly, eventually you figure it out, but it should not be trial and error. 
Not sure what the benefit of waiting between offers to the AI is, i think it is best not to overcomplicate such game systems and let you interact in a straightforward fashion, we are after all basically playing "gods" no reason communication shouldn't be instant

Economy: 
There really should be something akin to Civ(4) Trade Networks in Place, Trade Value should increase when you have peaceful relations with another AI, one reason i really like systems such as these due to their effectiveness in offsetting the benefit of starting in an isolated position, Humankind as it is right now, makes being in a strategical choke point a pure liability, there are no real benefits, ideally you are on the edge, with only one neighbor. 

Notifications:
You alluded to this but I would underpin this point and add that often important events don't result in sufficient information whereas you get constant notifications about something as ubiquitous as population growth. 

Just wanted to chime in and say I agree with everything that’s been written here having just completed my first play though.  Very well written posts. 

Good insights here.

I'd quibble with the Ranged versus Melee observation, though, having recently argued with someone asserting that Melee was OP versus Ranged.  I think the balance is really good, and the optimal army composition depends greatly on the terrain in which the battle is fought.  A mix of the two is almost always better than just Melee or just Ranged, but the best mix for any particular opponent or battlefield will differ.

TravlingCanuck wrote:

Good insights here.

I'd quibble with the Ranged versus Melee observation, though, having recently argued with someone asserting that Melee was OP versus Ranged.  I think the balance is really good, and the optimal army composition depends greatly on the terrain in which the battle is fought.  A mix of the two is almost always better than just Melee or just Ranged, but the best mix for any particular opponent or battlefield will differ.

So I'm in a second playthrough right now and the AI is doing a much better job in combat than they did during my first playthrough, especially in the area of combat and using their EUs to their advantage. I am also finding that a diverse mix of unit types, and exploiting the terrain/unit abilities is having a much more satisfying and challenging effect on the game this time around. It is definitely possible that my first playthrough was a bit of an anomoly. 

I’ve played civilization for my entire conscious life. I started with the old Avalon board game, then played every pc version from Civ 1 to Civ 6. I was involved in the modding community for CIV 4. I have played countless thousands of hours worth of Civilization. 

That said, I believe Humankind has the capacity to be a superior game to any iteration of the Civ series. As it sits, it’s addictive and fun. The foundation is extremely strong -- and it is plenty immersive with strong role-playing elements. However, there is room for more immersion; more mini-games within the game; more twists and turns. These are suggestions that I think would help take it to the next level:

Quests. The dev build already contains RPG elements with pop-ups asking players to make choices related to government, social, and religion decisions / policies. A nice addition would be quests given to units in a territory to do something (rather than sit fortified turn after turn). For example:

Pop up: “Angry that their military service was not rewarded with wealth and fame, a large group of ex-soldiers and recruits have turned to banditry. From their hidden camp outside of City A, these bandits are growing in wealth and power by looting villages and robbing caravans in the territory.To deal with this growing menace, local authorities require the assistance of your units in the area. Your quest is to locate and destroy the bandits and their camp within X turns. If you succeed, the recovered money will be added to the treasury and the victorious unit will receive a promotion. If you fail, the bandits will escape the territory and our treasury will subtract the lost income from its current tally. 

Natural Disasters. Pop-up random events that provide news of disasters with some sort of associated consequence. Example:

1. A hurricane has damaged City A’s harbor and must be repaired. Repairs will take 3 turns. Repairs can be rushed for $XXX gold. 

2. An earthquake near City A destroyed the City’s antiquated infrastructure. Repairs to the granary and watermill will require 3 turns. Repairs can be rushed for $XXX gold.

3. Etc. 

Governors: The beta seems to indicate that governors along the lines of Civ6 will end up in the final version. Example: Philosophy gives “Eurodite Administrator”. I do believe that special units would be a good addition, including: generals, admirals, administrators, spy chiefs, diplomats, engineers, ministers of health, education, and finance, etc.

Day and Night Cycles. This doesn’t necessarily need to have an effect on gameplay, in which case it’s not a priority. But I think this would add immersion and beauty; a cherry on top so to speak. On the other hand, day and night cycles could be important components of gameplay. For example:

1. Player A initiates Combat. Before deploying their units, Player A must choose whether to attack by day or night. 

2. Night attacks would provide two rolls of chance: Attacker rolls for the chance of surprise, which would reduce the defender’s strength. Then, Defender rolls for the chance of confusion, which would reduce the attacker’s strength. If attacker rolls a surprise attack and defender’s roll doesn’t obtain confusion, then the attacker will cause significantly increased damage. On the other hand, if attacker doesn’t get a surprise attack and the defender succeeds in rolling for confusion, then the defender will cause significantly increased damage. 

3. Day attacks would not involve the rolls for surprise or confusion, so the results should be much more predictable. 

Seasons. Again, this wouldn’t necessarily need to have an effect on gameplay, but this again could create added immersion and beauty. I would suggest 3 day and night cycles per season. Seasons would be independent of the calendar year of course. Seasons could play a role in war; invading armies should suffer a penalty during winter in far north or south regions.

Climate Effects on Units. Units left out in the tundra or deserts without some form of shelter should suffer damage or penalty or both. Similar to ancient ships receiving a warning if ending their turn in deep ocean, land units left in the tundra or desert wilds should be warned; and if not moved to shelter the next turn, then would receive damage and/or penalty. I’m thinking 5% damage and/or 10% combat penalty per turn in tundra / desert wilds.  

Random Events Effects on Combat. Think Gwent card game in Witcher 3. Examples of Pop-up messages:

1. “As battle is joined, dark clouds gather overhead and release a torrent of rain. Mele units suffer negative strength for the duration of battle.”

2. “As battle is joined, a thick fog blocks ranged unit’s view of the battle field. Ranged units suffer reduced strength for the duration of the battle.”

3. “As your unit surrounded the enemy’s unit to deliver the fatal death blow, a strong wind created a dust storm allowing the enemy’s unit to escape out of sight.”  

Multiple Outposts in Territory. New rule: A territory can support multiple outposts (distance rules apply; perhaps hard cap), but still only one city. Maybe this is already possible? Not sure, haven't tried it yet. 

Also, while two civs are at war, an invading nation may establish or occupy an outpost in another Player’s territory. If the invaded player has not captured or reoccupied the outpost before Peace is declared, then the invading nation will retain the outpost and adjacent tiles. While the nations are at peace, the invader will be able to move units in or out of the outpost and adjacent tiles under similar rules to the neolithic era: when you’re inside another player’s territory when borders are closed. An outpost without support or influence from the invader’s homefront may quickly flip to its original owner.  

Spy Unit. Players need a way to explore territory without open borders and get a look at their rivals' territory. During my play throughs, it has been difficult to explore the map. This last game, until I made two alliances about 100 turns in, I basically had no visibility beyond the territories that I controlled. 

A spy unit could be nothing more than an invisible recon unit, but that would at least allow players to get out and scout. That said, I would suggest spy units that can carry out missions and have a promotional tree. Spy units would be invisible except to other spy units. Spy units would do battle with other spy units, although it would be a different form of battle -- not hand to hand combat. 

Spies could commit neutral or hostile acts in other player’s lands, Examples:

1. Neutral Acts: recon, observing city production, long term influence campaigns. If a spy gets caught doing a hostile act by a ‘counter spy’, then there would be diplomatic implications, which could result in the spy being killed, imprisoned, returned on the condition that the spy will not perpetrate any more bad acts, complete immunity--meaning spy returned and no consequence. It is also possible that the spy escapes

2. Hostile Acts: sabotage, stealing technology, create scandal, etc. 

Possible results would be along the lines of what happens in Civ 6.

Barbarian clans and independent states. Think barbarian clan dlc and city-states in Civ 6. I missed this content when playing Humankind. I think Humankind needs to consider adding these systems.