kakujahawk wrote:

Narrative events seem kind of RNG dependent on when they occur, which I'm generally fine with so long as the consequences from them aren't too drastic. The most unbalanced and unfair narrative event I experienced was during a war with the AI. We were generally evenly matched and I slowly gained the upper hand. I was about to finish the war, but then my opponent got "The only game in town" event and picked the choice that gave his units the "Ferocious" modifier which gave all of his units a whopping plus seven combat strength! I suddenly lost so many units and had to retreat. I was very frustrated by this extremely unfortunate timing. These are the kind of narrative events that I think need to be toned down, and I hope to see less of.

I respectfully disagree. In my opinion there should be more of these kind of (very impactful) events, however the players (both human and AIs) should have more tools to mitigate the effects. (Via temporary diplomatic options, temporary civics, temporary celebrations etc.)

I think the frustration does not come from the event('s powerful effect) itself but rather from the fact that the player does not have the agency to deal with it.

While I did enjoyed enacting Civics in the last 2 OpenDevs for their bonuses and flavor, I felt in this build that due to stability management, Civics and related Ideologies were less valuable to enact, at least at early stage. I’d usually select a few of them (such as Professional Soldiers, Natural Right, Small Council) to help grow my cities and empire, but generally would leave the others behind not to be penalized too much with stability. Being able to de-enact them with influence is a great addition though.

EndlessFun wrote:

FinalFreak16 wrote:

I've been thinking about the Idealogies and have come to the conclusion that they are pretty underwhelming in their effects.

As others have mentioned here and in other threads, since stability is so important, staying in the middle of the bar is often the best choice for the higher stability bonus. As stability drops off as you go into the extremes in either direction. I don't think this is necessarily a bad design decision. The bonuses provided for hitting the extreme end of each idealogy just needs to be more enticing and have a more dramatic affect on gameplay and diplomacy.

For me personally, just bumping up some numbers isnt going to be all that interesting. A +10% to city food income for focusing on the Homeland idealogy is hardly even going to be noticible.

Instead, why not give the player access to unique mechanics? For example, if I hit the far extreme of the Progress ideology, instead of a +10% science boost, how about I now have a chance of getting random Eurekas (to borrow a Civ mechanic for a moment) in which my progress on my current research is instantly boosted. This is a noticible positive effect for leaning into a specific idealogy at the cost of empire stability for being more balanced. You can also actually add specific negatives for doing so as well. Maybe leaning too heavily towards Tradition would give you a different bonus but at the same time might randomly trigger 'Heresy Banished!", an opposite affect of the Eureka in which science progress is set back a bit.

I don't know all of the mechanics available in Humankind currently to figure out specific bonuses and negetives for each ideology right now, but I can forsee some more emergent gameplay and decision making arising from such a system if implemented.  Perhaps being on the opposite end of an ideaology bar compared to another civilisation can cause negative relations (Extreme Liberty vs extreme Authority).

Can anyone else think of some mechanics or abilities that could be tied into the idealogies?

I would second this, and also would add that even from the perspective of just being bonuses, most of the ideologies have a clear "winner" that makes them even more uninteresting. Individualist/Collectivist is the only one that makes you want to choose between the two. Homeland and World both give you food, but Homeland is more stable, usually gives more, and is equally viable despite how many players there are. Liberty, by giving you Influence, prevents your territory from being converted, on top of converting other's territories and getting you more purple to spend, while Authority merely delays your territory from being converted. Progress gives a percentage (and therefore scaling) bonus to a resource that is needed to move forward in the game, while tradition gives a small bonus to faith, which only has value as pressure relative to neighbors.

Even if it's too difficult to change away from a bonus focused system now, the bonuses ought to be far more competitive on both ends. I would say they were better in Lucy, though I do like the "stability in the center bonuses at the ends" idea that's been in since Victor.

All very fair points. +1 to this. During my run, I was all in towards the progress axis from the very start, yet my religion was the strongest one (probably because I built more holy sites than the AI) and that feels wrong (I also didn't have any unique districts that provided faith). The only thing that I would disagree with from the quoted post is the affirmation that Individualism / Collectivism is balanced. At least from my point of view, industry is much more valuable than money.

Love the changes, but please, bring back elimination mechanic behind a civic, it is boring when a player is eliminated this early.

Civics have veey limited affect on playing style of your empire except ideology hits on stability. And that one keeps you in middle more or less which leads to an empire with no ideology at all. 

If civics had more affects on gameplay we can shape our empires quite nicely. There could be choices between quality vs quality, number of pops vs resource per pop choices, trade income vs tradeable goods, influnce gain vs influence use discount ( we have exactly this but less effective atm). We can buildup our own playstyle in addition to choosen culture variations

The civic and ideology changes feel great, I'm a big fan. As for events all I can ask for is more and perhaps a bit of a balance pass as some options just seem better. The narrative element of this game is a big part for me so I hope it keeps expanding.

I like that there are now much more ways to spend influence. As for ideologies, It feels that the benefit of Authority is somewhat less impressive.. Strong governments delaying foreign influences? That does not fit well in my opinion. Societies with strong central governments should benefit from it's (relatively) faster decision making or better public control. Thus I think either one of two options would be a nice twist for gameplay. 
1) better construction planning
slight percentage decrease for construction costs. Districts, Infrastructures, Shared Projects (World Wonders or Religious Districts).
or (if production cost reduction is too overpowered) maybe slight decrease for the cost of claiming World Wonders?

2) better public control
slight percentage boost for Stability generation or slight decrease for Stability consumption
or (if percentage boost to all Stability generation is too much) slight boost for Stability generation by Garrison Districts?

I dont like civics system works now.There are two main reasons, one is randomness, another is some options are op.

In early stage,there is very few way to get influence,but the civics give easy influence.

Such options as +1CityCap,+5influence on MainPlaza are op,if you get these civics by luck,you may have two more cities,one over cap is acceptable.But if you dont,just makes you want to start another game.

gamereg wrote:

I dont like civics system works now.There are two main reasons, one is randomness, another is some options are op.

In early stage,there is very few way to get influence,but the civics give easy influence.

Such options as +1CityCap,+5influence on MainPlaza are op,if you get these civics by luck,you may have two more cities,one over cap is acceptable.But if you dont,just makes you want to start another game.

I think the devs commented that they will put hints on how to unlock these civics so you are not there stuck with 3 cities losing half your influence every turn praying that whatever unlocks the civic will happen next turn.

The main thing I find lacking is that other ideologies have no impact on your territories stability if that territory belong in someone else sphere of influence. If your empire is extreme indvidualistic and a territory is under an extreme collectivist empire, there should be a huge stability hit (workers revolution), but if the other empire is also extreme indvidualistic, the stability should not drop at all and this should be done for all four ideologies.

This mean players would have to care more about their sphere of influence, which also become a tool to make other empires become weaker or start crumbling.

Another advantage of tying ideological different sphere of influence to stability is it would make more sense out of wars between neighbours with different ideologies given the issues they can create for each other.

Removing civic points was great and made influence much more relevant, I liked that. The tuning for influence is a bit off, but a definite improvement.

Narrative events were interesting, but feel like they will become repetitive and predictable in the long term. Unless there will be a lot more on release?

Ideologies did not really register with me initially, so they definitely need more prominence. It is also part of the skill ceiling for such a game too, so I don't see that as a huge issue, but would be interesting to see those impacting throughout, as it is defining the nature of the society.

Ideology
I really like the overall ideology mechanic with stability at the center and bonuses at the edges - but I agree it's unbalanced right now: Bonuses don't quite make up for the stability cost, and one edge is usually more powerful than its counterpart. (Homeland, Liberty, and Progress feel stronger, and maybe also Collectivism).

Homeland: Bonus combat strength in home territory
I'd like to change Homeland's bonus for thematic reasons, but also so it doesn't give the same resource as World.

Thematic reason: Nationalism and patriotism usually arose in reaction to foreign invaders/occupiers/imperialism.
I would like if Homeland gave +1 / +2 combat strength in territories where you have a city or outpost. If that is too powerful (I don't think it is) then it can apply to your city territories only. If it's too weak to make up for the stability cost, then it can ALSO apply to territories in your sphere of influence ("the people here speak our language, so we belong in the same nation-state")

World: Make it stronger

World is always weaker than Homeland until you have 3 or more alliances, which I never managed to have (I assume and hope vassals don't count as allies - I feel "World" should encourage diplomatic relations rather than vassalization wars).

Possible solutions:
1) More food per alliance: e.g. +3% / +6% per alliance, maybe more?
2) Food per non-vassal you have treaties with: e.g. +2% / +4% food per non-vassal you have 2 or more treaties with

3) Food per treaty type: e.g. +1% / +2% food per each category of treaty (trade, borders, information, military accords) you have with each non-vassal empire

Authority: Make it viable

Ideas for making Authority viable:
1) A production discount on some buildings (e.g. shared projects) like someone else mentioned.
2) +x% effect when sacrificing pops for any reason.
3) some kind of protection from both influence and religious pressure (but I still feel that adding turns before conversion will just postpone the inevitable)

The rest:
I like the other bonuses thematically, but I hope the devs will tweak the numbers e.g. to make faith/religion a bit more impactful compared to science.

I would personally love more unique abilities/limits with each ideology (e.g. forced labor limited to Authority) - but that's a bigger change that can wait until after release - right now I hope the devs focus on bug-fixing, balancing, pace, making influence/religion less opaque, and adding a minimap.