MisterSalem wrote:

Please please please bring back the extermination civic or at least make it an option to toggle when setting up the game. I thought the feature was perfect for multiplayer and made war more regular and engaging rather than something that is shied away from on account of kicking someone out of the game.

In two of the three games I played through, I was able to exterminate the green player to the South w/o any problem; this was in the first full "age / era".  Received a message saying they had been defeated, their icon dulled, and had a large X across it's bottom.

There is no "truce" after a war is over. 

It happened to me twice during my games. I won a war, my war support (WS) went to 0, then after 2 turns the empire that I've just defeated declared war on me, won a small skirmish and force my surrender after 2 turns because my WS was still at 0. 

Now, I don't mind at all that AI can declare a war on you even just 2 turns after been defeated, but in terms of WS this should give a HUGE penalty to them and a HUGE bonus to me. 

This would feel way more realistic. You have the option to drag your people into another war against tho ones that have just defeated you, but don't expect much support from them without outsanding results. On the other hand, your people will support you in crushing a defeated enemy that is trying to raise its head too soon.

Vassal issue: I didn't get a screen of it before the Beta ended, but I had Green as my vassal; when they updated to Nubia, they built a Nubian Pyramid on my territory -- a territory they never had access to as Nubia.

I feel trade should be a bit more interesting, especially strategic resources.

Strategic resources don´t seem to be ´used up´ so if you have for example saltpeter, you can make an unlimited amount of gunpowder units, while also trading that same saltpeter.

I think it would lead to more interesting strategic decisions if a saltpeter mine gave a limited supply of saltpeter to only support X amount of units (maybe there may even be higher or lower quality mines). For example 1 saltpeter mine can support 5 gunpowder units. 

Also you should be able to choose which resources and how many you trade. Maybe even allow trading one strategic resource for another.

This would make geopolitics and diplomacy more interesting and engaging. You'd actually need to think about how you utilize your resources, and how to build your geopolitical relationships. You wouldn't just make an alliance/trade deal based only on strength, but also on which resources you have to trade, and which ones you need. You also need to consider if you really value having another gunpowder unit, or if you need that 1 extra saltpeter to trade it for something else you need.

This game could (and should) have a lot more depth, but it's painfully lacking right now.

I enjoyed the Independent people as a military road block to my expansion, and as a source of mercenaries to fight unexpected wars.

Mercenaries really helped me play on a higher difficulty setting once I started planning on scouting them out and hiring them ASAP.

That being said, two things really frustrated me about Independent Peoples.

1) AI empires with no shared border should not be able to integrate an Independent Territory until (perhaps) the Early Modern Era. Prior to that, it just feels unbelievable and is annoying. Though, I do like that I and the AI can hire mercenaries from them, and thus engage more long range military actions without moving my own troops far away.

2) We really need a "Raze Everything" option upon conquering an Independent Territory. Not once in 6 games did I want or need their terribly placed city, and it just wasn't fun spending 4-12 turns camping my units to burn down the conquered city, especially since 1 turn is supposed to be around 16 years. Why would it take an army over 50 years to raze a city?


Regarding Warfare in general:

I love how important terrain is. I love it. Great job.

However, we also need a *Raze Everything* option on conquering regular AI empire territory. Their city placements are often untenable stability nightmares because of their AI bonuses, and it shouldn't take hundreds of years to burn down a city (It took a 4 stack army 12 turns to raze one of the Nubian pyramids, that's 192 years to tear down some pyramids = ridiculous and annoying).

16 years is enough to raze and tear down any city district. If you won't give us instant razing upon conquest, At least reduce it to 1 or 2 turns per district (not 12!)..

My main problem with warfare (which I otherwise really enjoyed), is that troops take *WAY* too long to build. 3 turns is about 50 years of game time, and it also stops construction, which seems silly and is not a fun mechanic.

I would strongly, strongly encourage you to remove all construction time from military units. Let us queue whatever we want, and have them appear on the next turn. This would prevent instantons responses to attack, but would prevent the need to pre-build massive armies (as 16 years is enough time to raise an army).

Armies should be limited by the Pop cost & upkeep. Early armies should have a food upkeep, so that depleting a cities population to make a massive army is still very costly (reducing pops & increasing food upkeep, thus decreasing the rate of pop regeneration).

Having construction time be the delimiting factor in army creation is a bad mechanic, because the game is already bogged down with glacial construction times for districts and infrastructure (as a separate issue, this should be changed),. But you can easily keep army sizes small through increased upkeep, and help allow for larger city construction and more combat through the game.


Regarding Diplomacy, I wish there were more resources to trade and that it was more worthwhile to import and export them. I tried playing a peaceful "mercantile" empire, but there just wasn't enough to it to make it worth my while to *not* simply conquer my close neighbors and take their land.

I did really like, however, that "loyal" AI were actually loyal, and once I got them trading for my luxuries, they were reliable, peaceable neighbors for the whole game (when I didn't betray them and take their land, later, of course). Having AI empires behave rationally when they had good reasons to remain friendly was something I appreciated.

I'm not sure if we should just *know* that our neighbors are loyal or traitorous, right away. This made it very easy to go after the neighbors I couldn't trust and invest in building stable relationships with the AI that I knew I could trust.

I generally hate espionage and intelligence systems in strategy games, but I feel like "something" is needed here, where we have to put in some kind of effort to learn about our neighbors.

Simply knowing upon first contact who I can trust and who I can't really took all the mystery and risk out of diplomacy.

In a similar vein, I wish there were more traits my leader could earn, and I wish they lasted throughout the Eras. It didn't really feel like my decisions had any kind of lasting impact on how other empires viewed me, and all my diplomatic choices were based on their pre-determined traits, rather than on any kind of "traits' that I earned.

1) As it is, when you reject or counter an AI diplomatic offer (most often: all resources to be tradeable) the AI spams this offer again and again. 

2) War management is confusing: it is only after trial and error that I discovered that I had to make my opponent have a zero war support figure in order for me to win. This isn't realistic and its confusing. A system used by Paradox Games where you can reach peace according to how your demands are "weighed" with respect to your war score would be much clearer to the user. Let's say that I have won three consecutive battles and destroyed 12 enemy AI units but his war support is still around 30. Why should I have to wait for it to reach zero if all I want is a neighboring outpost in return for peace?

3) Some of the grievances are totally irrelevant (the AI refusing citizens warshipping rights in some extremely far away province). 

4) AI trespassing for militaristic civilizations is extremely annoying and time confusing. I remember having the Assyrians as neighbors in one of the games I tried and they would keep on trespassing despite the fact that I had obliterated all of the tresspassers time and again. What's the point in doing something over and over again if it achieves nothing? 

5) As I've stated in another post, there are currently no tools to manage Independent People thus rendering their presence irrelevant. Also, it's completely easy to spam money and influence at them as simply gobble them up. 

The war score is an interesting mechanic, but the calculation should be changed a bit, e.g. the losses correlate with the size of the total troop strength of the empire. In addition, it should be possible to make peace if the war score is not 0 and to enforce some claims only if I have also conquered territory. If I just fight in the defensive, I can make the opponent after a few battles without problems to my vassal or take all my cities although I was never there.

Are there plans to implement Influence within the diplomatic system, either before launch, or in an update/expansion/dlc? If not, a huge opportunity is being missed or overlooked. I find it odd that there is a currency called INFLUENCE which is not used in ANY WAY to INFLUENCE, and yet, by all accounts, we all end up with a metric schmeckle-ton of it by the end of the game, and we have NOTHING to spend it on. 

Perhaps not in the early game, where agreements are simple, and influence is at a premium, but CERTAINLY in the late game, there NEEDS to be some sort of diplomatic congress/UN/EU/NATO-type body into which Influence can be sunk.  Additionally (especially?), more "complex" 1:1 agreements between two nations, which unlock with later techs/civics, should be considered an influence sink. Or, if that is a pipe dream, and nowhere in the future cards, then perhaps Allied proposals (cultural agreement/infrastructure use/scientific agreement/etc.) could require an investment of influence. 

I *think* having another influence sink would also help to address runaway snowball AI/human players, as well as some other issues.  If nothing else, not using Influence in the diplomatic system is a head-scratcher, to be honest. I hope the two eventually collide.

My experience on this topic:

a) AI behavior on diplomacy can be described as erratic at best.  They change opinions with the wind and transit between generating useless grievances (trespassing) and asking for treaties randomly and spamlike.

b) UI is problematic as always > Influence costs didn't show at all and war resolution mechanics are confusing.

c) I saw no point in maintaining alliances... Don't even know what they are about because I didn't even could call my ally to join my wars.

d) I think it would be good if we could know the AI civics as we know the ones from independent peoples just for information. It's important as well to know how are the relationships between them beyond war status.

e) When someone blocks a trade route of mine i think it should generate a grievance against them.

f) Counter proposals should get a timer. Sometimes we have interest in accept the terms but we don't have the money at hand. We should be given the opportunity to get it.

g) Borders are glitched. AI kept trespassing every turn and I could abuse it killing all their units and getting militarist stars constantly.

h) Money reward from vassals are still super high and unbalanced.

THINGS I THINK ARE NOT POSSIBLE TO BE IMPLEMENTED IMMEDIATELY BUT DEVS SHOULD LOOK AT:

More granular treaties - possibility to negotiate terms or make multilateral treaties. Possibility to take more actions towards players and IP's, as exemplified by this posts and etc:

https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/forums/212-closed-beta/threads/40608-feedback-diplomacy-war-and-independent-people?page=5#post-321181

https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/forums/212-closed-beta/threads/40608-feedback-diplomacy-war-and-independent-people?page=2#post-320115

In general, the game is fun and full of potential, but it's still a bit away of being a contender on the market. Considering the release date, maybe after some updates it will be on par with the great other titles of the genre!

I feel that diplomacy in the game is pretty weak, the AI doesn't appear to understand how it works and just does a rinse and repeat cycle most of the time. For example, the AI just continuously offers the same treaty every turn, despite my refusal or counter request for them to make a better offer since I have something they want (i.e. resources, open borders, non-aggression pact, etc.). The AI just spams it until they annoy me into accepting after dozen turn of continuous treaty offers or I just decide it's better for me to just go to war to stop the endless treaty offers. Additionally, I think the counter proposal option should be more interactive than just me clicking counter and then me getting gold for them accepting if they choose to accept, perhaps implement a choice of counter proposal demands? Such as for a non-aggression pact, then give me open borders (one way, as they give me the open borders, while mine remain closed to them), or give me this outpost, or etc in return. A choice for the counter instead of just gold would be make negotiations much more worthwhile, especially as one can actually have enough gold at times.

Also, "closed borders" apparently mean nothing to the AI, especially to those with who are expansionists as they just violate borders either way with no regards, which I do not on that much if they do, as it gives me grievances to use against them for gold or etc., but the AI doesn't even violate my borders for any reason than just because they feel like it. I can understand if they want to go across my lands to attack someone they're at war with, but in game all the AI does is violate my borders 90% time just to go near my armies and annoy me with zones of control, limiting my mobility to 1 action point and when I get fed up enough to attack them to either force them to retreat from my army (using up my action points) or to eliminate the trespassers, they AI just makes a grievance with me, even with me having stacked up about almost half a dozen trespass grievances against them and them having yet to settle those grievances. I think this needs to be fixed, as the AI seems to have no purpose in their border violations other than to block my units' movements or just to run around like headless chickens. Additionally, it's not that I don't like the mechanic of grievances that can end up with me demanding gold or use for war support, but I think there should be more to it, like the ability to demand that borders be respected with greater penalties should the AI choose to disregard or the ability to arrest/detain their units (assuming my troops are victorious) and then ransoming them back.

Grievances between the AIs against or from my vassals is very annoying, it seems that every time the AI violates my vassal's lands I get the grievance for it or when the AI has a problem with my vassal's new land claims, I have to deal with the grievances. While I can see why I would have to deal with said grievances as I am the vassal's master I can't really do anything to make my vassal stop doing said actions that cause those grievances, since I have no option to say "Hey Persians, stop claiming lands in this area" without just giving the AI the outpost. There should be a middle ground, where I can mediate things. Additionally, in regards to vassals, there should be an option to liberate the vassals of AIs if the player chooses to become a liberator instead of a conqueror.

Additionally, a weakness in diplomacy is that it is kind of overly simple and a one-way street due to limited choices and what is kind of like a "yes" or "no" mechanic. Such as a lack of cooperative agreements, since so far it's limited to stuff like military alliances or sharing maps and etc. Some more agreements like scientific cooperation and etc would be great. Also, while I know there is a no trade option in diplomacy, maybe add in an embargo option in order to rally other empires to block trade this so and so due to whatever reason.

Independent People are overly aggressive, which isn't bad all that bad, except for the fact that they somehow get way more units than their economy/city should actually be capable of supporting is very annoying, especially when just act like dumb barbarians and roam around attacking everything that moves or "shiny". It's really bad early game with how tech unlocking is slow. Additionally, assimilation for the independent people is kind of a one way street, either you assimilate them or the AI does and you're given the choice of demanding the AI for the independent people's land, there really should be an option to protect the independent people from assimilation, especially since city caps can become a major issue.

In terms of war/battles, I really like how it's done and the terrain, really makes it fun and makes you think. However, there needs to be some sort of "truce time" that occurs after a war, since right after I made peace with one of the AI empires, about a few turns later, we're at war again. I think implementing some sort of penalty for going to war again in such a short time after a peace treaty is needed.

Additionally, there needs to be more flexibility in how wars are ended, most of the time I was forced to take a peace deal from the AI, despite me winning and wanting to continue the war to finish my objectives. Realistically, just being forced to take peace when there's no reason seems dumb, if anything the AI can offer, but I should have the choice to refuse and keep going until either I decide to end it or something like the UN or etc intervenes.

War-wise and just overall, there really needs to be an option is destroy/level/ransack/raze cities, the AI and independent people have the worst sense of city placement most of the time and we're just stuck with the city if we take it. Additionally, the merge city option that is gained once the tech is unlocked does not work for some reason, the option does appears, but I can't merge it with any of my cities and it doesn't tell me why I can't, so I'm stuck with three cities next to each other (mine, the AI's that I took, and the independent people's that I took from the AI). Really kills me due to city cap and block me from attaching outposts to where I need them.

Additionally, while not directly related to Diplomacy and War, it can still be useful as overall there should really be an option to rename outposts/territories (like how cities can be renamed) instead of just having the default names that the game gives, kind of hard to figure out where everything is that the notifications and peace deals mention when there's a lot of territories/outposts/cities later on in the game or just in general as I don't think someone is going to remember or care about the default names of XYZ, ZYX, or etc. when there's no "personal" reason to remember them.

"War Support" and "War Score" should be two similar, but separate, things:

War Support should work more or less like it does now (with the tweaks that have already been suggested by others). However, War Score should only be gained based on offensive victories (winning battles inside the enemy's territory, ransacking the enemy and occupying enemy cities) and lost based on offensive losses (losing battles inside the enemy's territory,). with a floor of 0. 

If an empire's War Support falls to 0, the opposing side should be able, but not required, to force a peace treaty (not necessarily a surrender).

The terms of the peace treaty are defined by the party that is forcing it (the one whose war support is not 0), but the reparations are always based on net war score (the empire with the highest war score being the one receiving compensation).

This way:

• If an invading army loses its war support, but has made substantial damage to the enemy, it is the invading army that is entitled to reparations, just not under its own terms.
• In order to gain territory or vassalize another empire, you will have to invade them and crush their war support. Simply repelling an invasion will not lead to this.
• If you're on the defending side and have managed to repel an invasion or hold it out, you have the OPTION to stop the attack by paying some money to the invader (the size of the payment will depend on the damage done by the invader to you) or force white peace (if you're successful enough at repelling the invasion), or you can choose to turn the tide and take the fighting to the enemy's territory if you want to be the one receiving compensation.

Alright I just want to advocate for a minor change, I would like there to be an option in the final game to determine whether the extermination of empires can occur and the era it unlocks

I just want the civic to return for the choice

As a general feedback on diplomacy and war, I really like the war support mechanic. That and the AI’s attitude is something I constantly checked during my playthroughs, as it gives a lot of information on the opponent.

 I want to add that we should have an option in multiplayer lobby to change how many rounds of battle is in one turn, please give us freedom to choose, dont give us fixed numbers !!!

Had playthrough where I made Vlad a vassal and part of discontent was I was "failing in duties as liege" wasn't sure what I was supposed to do as liege to improve.

Also during war I'd defeat a group of 4 down to 1 with minimal health but it would still attack my strong stack of 4 instead of retreating to regroup.

Otherwise enjoyed it!