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Closed Beta Feedback from My Game

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4 years ago
Jun 21, 2021, 7:12:37 PM

I intended to post my feedback in the dedicated threads, but I found it difficult to put some of these thoughts into those categories. I'll still break most of my feedback into categories, but I think that everything works best together. I played a game over the weekend to 200 turns. It was my second full game in this Closed Beta. I played a bit during the Victor OpenDev, but only a bit. So, I don't have a lot of experience with Humankind. I'm not an expert player. I don't know the best strategies. I just played to have fun. With that in mind...


Overall, I had a lot of fun. I liked making new cities, I like exploring the map, and I liked trying to place districts and grow my populations. The current version of the game is mostly better than the Victor version of the game. But, since this is a beta, I'm going to mostly provide feedback about what I didn't like and what seems broken. I tried to organize my thoughts somewhere, but each category is basically a running log of notes that I took while playing. So, I might sometimes bounce between topics a bit. I hope that's OK. Also, this is going to be a very long post. I don't expect anyone to read it, but I hope that the contents make their way to the developers.


UI

The UI is the most troublesome part of the game for me. It doesn't provide me with enough information to make good decisions and the information that it does provide is hidden behind menus or is otherwise presented in non-intuitive ways. It's really lacking.

  • The clock doesn't show in the game screen when that option is enabled in the settings. It does show on the menu screen that pops up after hitting the gear button.
  • When ransacking a sanctuary, I can't see the reward tooltip because my unit flag covers it.
  • All units have the same flag, which makes them difficult to tell apart. This is especially bad when fighting against an AI player. I don't have time to click his armies to see what's in them while I'm trying to catch his units or run from them.
  • The game sometimes uses region names instead of city names. How can I see region names unless I have an outpost in that region? When I upgrade the outpost to a city, the name changes.
  • The alert, "The Hittites now feel differently about you..." doesn't tell me much. How do they feel?
  • When I hover over another player's flag in the top left corner, it should tell me who they are.
  • Clicking city flags of another player should bring up the diplomacy screen for that player.
  • When the AI has multiple grievances against me, he can forgive one grievance per turn. However, I can't find a button to do this. It seems to be that I must forgive all grievances at once.
  • At the start of the turn, there might be multiple pop-up windows that prevent me from moving armies. In Endless Legend, I had the option to reduce these popups to side alerts. I would like that functionality in Humankind.
  • The button to execute pre-planned moves only appears at the very end of the turn, after doing everything else. In EL, there was a separate button for this. Humankind should have it, too.
  • When selecting a culture, I can't see what the different affinities do. Hovering over "Expansionist" shows flavor text, but not mechanics.
  • Why did I earn the Thief badge? The game doesn't tell me. How does anyone earn any badges?
  • I later discovered that I earned a Thief badge because some trade routes were broken, even though it wasn't my fault.
  • What's the red ring around a garrison unit? And what does sieging do if I don't have siege engines? Does it do anything?
  • In one independent peoples city is selected and then another is selected, then the influence chart at the bottom doesn't update for the second city. In fact, the only way to update the influence chart is to start a new turn.
  • There's no way to determine how much Influence a treaty costs unless I can't afford it. I didn't even know that treaties had a cost until I ran out of Influence.
  • When looking to place an outpost, there are multiple problems.
    • If trade routes are going through the region, then I can't see the potential yields because the tooltip is behind the trade information.
    • A similar problem occurs when ransacking yields are visible.
    • When my unit is in one region and I click the button to settle a outpost, the game shows me recommendations for adjacent regions. If I move to one of those regions, then the recommendations are gone. So, the game never shows recommendations for the region that my unit is trying to claim.
    • The potential yields for an outpost don't seem to include my cultural bonuses, like +Food on rivers.
    • I can't see potential outpost yields if I don't have enough Influence to claim a territory, which makes planning difficult.
    • I also can't see potential yields if a unit is on a tile, even if it's just a bear or something.
  • When I load a save, the options to see FIMS, the grid, and the district colors reset to off. They should keep the previous setting.
  • The district highlighting isn't especially useful and I imagine that the light green and yellow colors aren't easy to distinguish on some monitors and for people will color blindness.
  • When "Clear Ruins" is available, the ruins should be highlighted so that I don't have to look at every tile to find them.
  • The alert, "You can ask for reparations..." should tell me who's involved.
  • In combat, the attack box takes up too much space and blocks the units.
  • I can see Faith production and the number of trade routes passing through an attached outpost, but I can't see this information for a city center.
  • I had a Terra Rosa tile next to a Farmer's Quarter. Since the FQ only exploits Food, the Science native to the tile was hidden. I can get that Science back by building a Research Quarter on or next to the Terra Rosa, but how would I know that the tile had Science unless I tried to build the RQ? The hidden yields are a big problem for planning cities.
  • When a district's potential yield hits three figures, the third figure overlaps the resource icon. For instance, a V.O.C. Warehouse that gives +100 Money looks like +10 Money because the second zero is on top of the Money icon.
  • The notification that a city has lost population comes too late to do anything to prevent the problem. It would be better to get a notification when a city goes into negative food (but not every turn). That way, I can act to prevent the loss.
  • How can I tell which districts must be built adjacent to the city center blob (e.g. Farmer's Quarter) and which can be built anywhere in my territory (e.g. Hamlet)? The Hamlet looks really weak until you realize that it can be built anywhere end exploits the surrounding tiles.
  • It's not obvious that the player can ransack his own cities and districts to remove them.
  • The infrastructure tooltips should tell me what yields I should expect to get from building them. I don't want to count stone fields and forests.
  • In combat, it's not always obvious where forests and cliffs are.

BUGS
I didn't run into too many obvious bugs. Not bad for a beta.
  • When settling a city, I get an alert that the new city will go into mutiny if I don't do something. But, the new city is stable at 100% stability.
  • One turn after discovering a natural wonder and getting the deed, I always get an alert that another empire locked that deed. And, the world deed screen shows us both having credit. it works the other way, too, in that I get credit for discovering a wonder second. This creates grievances that probably shouldn't exist.
  • I chose to use the default AI avatars, but after loading a save, they were replaced with Twitch people.
  • The Rams player built an outpost near a natural wonder that I'd discovered, which created a grievance. I demanded the outpost and he didn't give me the territory. So, I ransacked the outpost and then  built my own. But, the grievance remained in the crisis screen.
  • My army of two units was attacked and I only had one deployment space. When the AI killed my first unit, the battled ended. Then, the battle restarted with my second unit, which the AI immediately attacked and killed. So, I didn't get to defend with the second unit and the two units were in separate battles. This is very awkward since both units "fit" into one space on the world map, but they couldn't both be in the same battle. Also, doesn't attacking end the army's turn? Was he able to attack twice?
  • An independent people set up a city in a territory that I wanted, to I absorbed them into my empire and then ransacked the city to delete it and build a better one. The ransack action broke some trade routes, which generated grievances. After a few turns, I added more units to the ransacking army, which automatically stopped the ransack action. Restarting the ransack action somehow broke the same trade routes again and generated the same grievances again.
  • I purchased access to a luxury resource from an AI player and the trade route was immediately halted by violence. I suspect that it was already broken when I bought it, but the UI didn't know that.
  • I had an event with refugees. The event said that they were going to the nearest city, Mohenjo-Daro. However, the bonus population actually went to Harappa instead.
  • The Settler unit says that he will found a city with all era 1-3 infrastructure built. But, the infrastructure is not built.
  • When allied to another player, war support decreases over time. When it hits 24, I get an alert that I'm about to win/lose a war that doesn't exist.
  • The alert about another player choosing a culture seems to use the culture's era rather than the player's era. So, in the Industrial Era, I had an alert that "The Nubians reached the Ancient Era and kept their traditions." They were much more advanced than the Ancient Era, of course.
  • The Steam Engine technology unlocks "Colony Blueprint", but there's no unit to go with it. The Settler still builds the 3-pop city instead of the newer 6-pop city.

CULTURES & AFFINITIES
I like the spread of cultures. I mostly enjoyed the music the the clothes and the flavor text. The graphics are very nice. But, I do have a few criticisms about some of the cultures and affinities that I played with.
  • The Harappans' Canal District seems really weak. I guess maybe it's a long-term investment because it will eventually get bonus Food and Industry for being a river, but it's hard to justify the -10 Stability and the building cost so early in the game when the initial returns are so weak.
  • The Umayyads' Grand Mosque doesn't interact with Research Quarters at all. Emblematic Quarters like this aren't as fun as Quarters that interact with others. They make city planning awkward.
  • American in the Contemporary Era doesn't really represent America in that time period. America's expansion phase had mostly ended by the then, so representing America as Expansionist is weird. Also, the flavor text for the Defense Agency is really lame. I don't think that we need a dig against the "military industrial complex". In fact, I'm not sure that Defense Agency is even the best choice. Why not something to represent the massive entertainment industry? Finally, the "quote" isn't a real quote and there are plenty of really good ones to choose from.
  • Joseon and some of the others seem exceptionally powerful and possibly broken. One Joseon harbor is worth many Research Quarters or Grand Mosques. Similarly with the Dutch V.O.C. Warehouse and a few others.
  • The icon for the Ottomans' Sultan's Realm shows Money, but the bonus is all about Influence (unless you act a specific civic). Many traits seem to have the wrong icons.
  • The Agricultural affinity's active ability is frustrating to play against because there's no way to defend against it. It works when the other player is "Unknown". Even when the other player is known, the expected grievance isn't generated. Finally, Agricultural cultures probably don't need to steal population since they already tend to generate tons of food. So, the ability is actually kind of weak.
  • There are a few problems with the Merchant affinity's active ability:
  • I can't see which resources I've invested in.
  • When the ability is on cooldown, the tooltip has a missing string. So, I don't know how long the cooldown is.
  • I tried to use the ability on another player's "saltpetre" resource and it said, "Cannot target a Resource Deposit which has been over the top of". What does that mean?
  • The other affinity abilities, both passive and active, seem fairly weak and uninteresting. I rarely used any of them. The descriptions aren't very clear, either. For instance, it's not obvious that the Aesthete active ability grants Influence, even when there are no other players neighboring the territory that you select.

AI & DIPLOMACY
The AI was mostly absent during the game. They were there when I wanted to buy resources or sign a treaty, but otherwise they just fought amongst themselves and didn't bother me any. In fact, I played through 2.5 games over the last week and the AI never once bothered to attack me. I didn't even bother to build military units except to kill independent peoples that got in my way. The AI was also very far behind in fame, tech, and eras. There was no challenge at all. I was only playing on normal (Metropolis), but I still expect the AI to do something. As I said in my introduction, I'm not an experienced player with a lot of great strategies. I was just playing for fun and picking fun cultures.
  • The AI would often reject a treaty, then propose it one turn later. Or, it would accept a treaty, then cancel it one turn later. Or, if would keep asking for the same treaty. There should be a minimum duration for treaties or something.
  • The AI rarely enforced a grievance. If I reject it, they always withdrew it.
  • The AI never declared war or attacked my outposts. The Rams player would sometimes attack my initial Scouts or Runners, even if he was outnumbered, but the rest of the game lacked violence entirely.
  • The AI didn't explore the "new world" continents at all.
  • If I propose a treaty and the AI sends a counteroffer, but I can't afford the counteroffer, then I'm forced to reject the treaty that I proposed, which hurts his opinion of me. That doesn't seem fair.
  • There's no way to negotiate with the AI. It's all or nothing. The only negotiation at all is "counteroffer", which is limited.
  • I'm not sure how to predict which treaties the AI might accept. There's the general "feeling" word (e.g. Hesitant, Bound, Reverential) and the up/down arrows, but those don't seem very indicative of the AI's response when I prose treaties.
  • The AI is very willing to accept alliances. Probably too willing. I had every AI player in an alliance at the end of the game. That actually happened in both of my games.

CIVICS
Overall, I find that the civics system is one of the weakest aspect of Humankind. I didn't like Civic Points, so I was happy to see those go in the latest version of the game. Still, I don't have much good to say about the civics system. I mostly just ignored them by the time I started my second game.
  • Civics affect Stability, which is already tricky to balance. This is especially true earlier in the game when the bonuses from civics might still be meaningful.
  • Civics cost Influence, which means that they're usually not worth investing in until later in the game, when the bonuses aren't as meaningful. Getting another city or wonder is always better.
  • Most of the civics aren't important because the bonuses are too small to matter.
  • I don't know how to unlock civics. There's no way to find that information in the game.
  • The few civics that do offer good bonuses usually have one very obviously good choice and one very obviously bad choice.
  • Thematically, the civics feel wrong. Are we supposed to think that our people's ideals and governments don't change over time? Or are we supposed to revoke and then re-select civics, spending even more influence for bonuses that don't matter?
  • Some civic unlocks conditions (whatever they are) need revision. I shouldn't be worrying about Press Freedom in the first 1/3 of the game.
One particular civic that bothers me in Slavery. I'm not bothered by the inclusion of slavery in the game, but rather the horrible way in which it's been handled.
  • The game prompts you to select an option for this civic. If you don't, then the button keeps glowing forever. Rather than asking if your people will accept slavery or not, the civic instead asks, "How do we procure slaves?" As if slavery is inevitable and an obvious choice and only the specific form of slavery is in question. The game is actively encouraging us to accept slavery. It's gross.
  • Anyway, why are the options "criminal slaves" and "war slaves"? Why not both? Why not debt slaves, a slave caste, racial slavery, and so on? If we're going to have the bad parts of history in the game like this, then we should handle them in a historically reasonable way. Allowing only criminal slaves or war slaves is absurdly ahistorical.
  • There are no drawbacks for choosing slavery, which further suggests that it's a good idea.
  • If you choose criminal slaves, then you move toward the "World" ideology, which has the following description: "The choices taken emphasize cooperation, humanism, universalism, militarisation for reasons of unifying groups, etc." So, slavery is about cooperation, humanism, and universalism? Gross.
Again, I'm not protesting the inclusion of slavery in the game or anything like that. I just think that it was handled exceptionally poorly. While I'm thinking about it, the population sacrifice mechanics are also really bad. Sacrificing population is too powerful and doesn't have any real drawbacks. It should cause instability, at least.

PACING
The pacing was all mixed up. Eras went by quickly, but technology advanced slowly. I always delayed advancing to the next era by 20 turns or so because I wanted time to build my Emblematic Quarters. And since the AI was so far behind, there was no risk in waiting. Even though I was usually focusing on high population and research, I still found my technology lagging the current era. Ahead of the AI, sure, but that's not saying much. The aesthete stars and the agrarian stars were very easy to earn. Probably too easy, though.

My game was like this:
Turn 9: Harappans
Turn 47: Achaemenid Persians
Turn 86: Umayyads
Turn 130: Dutch
Turn 174: French

In each case, I delayed by many, many turns before selecting a new culture. So, I was able to earn 3, 12, 13, 14, and 10 stars in those eras. Since I wasn't at war and I didn't bother expanding much once my continent was full, most of those stars were aesthete, agrarian, science, construction, and money.

At the end of the game, the players were like this:

Horses (Me): 9753 Fame, 8 Stars, Industrial Era (but able to advance)
Rooks: 4002 Fame, 1 Star, Industrial Era
Eagles: 2969 Fame, 6 Stars, Early Modern Era
Roses; 2128 Fame, 0 Stars, Early Modern Era
Bears: 2004 Fame, 6 Stars, Medieval Era
Dragons: 1795 Fame, 0 Stars, Early Modern Era
Boars?: 1156 Fame, 4 Stars, Medieval Era
Rams: 918 Fame, 4 Stars, Medieval Era

So, the AI was really far behind. Maybe "normal" is just too easy, though. I didn't have a chance to play at higher levels. Since I'm new to Humankind, it felt right to play on normal. Anyway... what is that icon? Is it a board?  A furry rhino dragon? What is it?!

OTHER
I have a few other notes that didn't seem to fit anywhere else.
  • One time, I discovered a natural wonder and instantly completed a technology that I had just started researching. Is that intentional? Did I misunderstand something?
  • Why don't some "natural wonders" (e.g. Tongass) count as natural wonders? And if they don't count as anything other than map labels, then why do I get alerts about them?
  • All of the real natural wonders grant the same bonuses. That's boring. Are they just placeholders?
  • Units on land seem to project zone of control onto units in the water, which doesn't make any sense to me.
  • Infrastructure for +3 Money or +3 X on the city center are very weak.
  • There are infrastructures for copper and horses, but not for iron. It's strange that "Forge" doesn't work with iron.
  • I don't think that I understand some infrastructure, especially Animal Barns. This infrastructure looks weak in cities that don't have horses, but it's actually very strong. Is it counting every instance of horses on my empire, including imports, instead of just the horses in the city in which it's built? I started a new city and built Animal Barns before anything else and it was providing more than 30 Food. Where's that Food coming from? In another city, I could count +8 Food from Animal Barns on Farmer's Quarters and Canal Districts, but I was getting +35 Food from Animal Barns. Where is the other 27 coming from?
  • Event bonuses tend to be very strong or very weak and they don't seem to scale properly with eras. Early on, +10 Science in a few cities is pretty good. In the Industrial Era, +25 Science on a few cities isn't very interesting at all.
  • Please, please, please provide a way to disable the Twitch avatars in the game.
  • Please remove the obsolete Denuvo DRM or at least update the license agreement to let us know what it's doing and what it's allowed to do.
Anyway, that's it from me for this beta. Thanks for reading!
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