The Neolithic era

[The Doctor]

I have to confess, the more I play with it, the more I hate it. It just adds a whole layer of RNG to how other games do it. My very first move can mean the difference between a really good start and a terrible start because I headed away from where the goodies needed to advance are.

Then I get mixed yields from sites which means I may not be able to advance with science for a while because I only get 1 or 2 points from each site.

I just want to get out of it asap when I play. The rest of the game looks and sounds beautiful and I enjoy pretty much the rest of the 4X gameplay. But the Neolithic is definitely not fun for ME.

I get some people think it's absolutely genius and simultaneously pour syrupy praise on it while pouring scorn on other games because they don't have this but it just doesn't work for me and I definitelky coount not having it as a big positive in favour of games without it. I do not want to see it more.

I understand that there is ZERO chance of this being worked out - it's a core element of the game and some love it so I just have to live with it and if Humankind 2 has it, well, other things would sway my decision to purchase it rather than this. But it's always going to be something I rush through so that I can play the game the way I really want to.

[Twelvefield]

I'm not sure I agree either with you or the people you don't agree with. I see Neolithic as the part of the game that sets up the level of challenge you'll need to overcome in the next couple of eras. I don't see a bad Neolithic start as being a bad thing at all, it just means that Plan B has to be stronger. Frankly, I find the Plan B's more entertaining in this game anyways. I can't think of a game I've played where the Neolithic start had a catastrophic effect on my gameplay.

I have had starts where there where super-low resources and starts where I didn't get the Empire I wanted, but that is just an invitation to work out a new game plan, and maybe something I've never done before in the game.

That being said, I tend to rush the Neolithic era as well, and I don't find it super-entertaining either. However, it's the only era where all those elephants make sense.

As for HUMANKIND 2™, ooo, wow. I hope the devs make it, and I hope they learn from making HUMANKIND™. Not sure if I'd buy it, though. Maybe on sale. I'll buy the next HUMANKIND™ before I buy another Civ game, though.

[Oksennus Oliver]

I don't like it either, it's very gamey and doesnt feel natural, just a weird rush for bonuses.

[AOM]

If you're willing to add a mod to your game you can skip the Neolithic and start in the Ancient era. There is a mod here: https://gc2021.com/showthread.php?tid=47

The downside is you have to assign yourself and any AI opponent to a culture before beginning the game.

[Dorok]

A lot of aspects, I don't know where start.

I - The more I play the more Neolithic feels as an annoying introduction forced to you

Originally posted by The Doctor:

I just want to get out of it asap when I play.

I definitely defended previous update making more tricky Neolithic, it's objectively game-play improvement. But start a new game feels a bit like more and more annoying because of Neolithic phase and yeah the more you play the more it's tedious.

But it's saying nothing on the cause, just RNG, the gameplay design... more.

II - Chain of little frustrations

I don't think it's exactly the RNG the cause of problems in Neotlithic, but that Neolithic is chaining micro frustrations:
- There's a constant timer in your head, you feel in a rush and any turn lost could mean game lost, in fact hardly, but it's easy to feel it like that and very obviously the culture race is a large part of the cause of this.
- Move and quote you lost a turn by doing a multi tiles move.
- Move and see move derail, oops there was a cliff here. Honestly I don't do anymore the error or very rarely, but there's still this persistent bad UI design to no let players have a default setup showing move path.
- Oops another AI stole a culture choice.
- Since previous update, oops I started combat without putting enough care of terrain.
- Oops did a hunt without notice I'll lost all the food from having already a stack of 4.
- Dam I didn't plan well my move with river and will spend one turn to move one tile and do nothing (the timer rushing is a large part of the problem).
- What? There was a resource here, I need a long walk back and lost two turns, not really because you could know and your move choice was the most coherent, but you cannot stop think you did wrong.

III - Play it with the right spirit, RNG is more diversity

Let say it's a problem of spirit, with a negative spirit it makes it worse.

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

I see Neolithic as the part of the game that sets up the level of challenge you'll need to overcome in the next couple of eras.

Sure that's the theoretical way to see positively the RNG, as variation for more play diversity. But there are two problems:
- Many players start a play with a thematic plan, this time they want try many wars, or focus on harbors, or build a money empire, and more. And your suggestion break their plans.
- What are the plans, and how many plans? I don't think the game is very strong on any Neolithic plan (but target a lot of scouts) so it starts very wrong, and even with first era perspective and full play, that's limited when you struggle in Neolithic. Plan, none, you constantly just do micro decision and you feel lacking of control, so of valid plans.

IV - The problems

I don't think RNG is the core problem, it's only a part of the problem, in my opinion, the problems are:
1. The race to culture choice. It sets a timer that make any detail a little drama.
2. Weak UI designs (move not shown, move not interrupted by detecting new stuff as a special location,
3. Complexity point spread through repetitive parts, requesting a sudden attention increase except you are in a rush and most turns don't need much thinking.
4. Not enough strategy choices, ok the plan to get 15 or 20 scouts is clear, but there's no other that aren't very RNG dependent. Even hunting isn't now a low RNG element it was in some older version.

V - Fix it

Originally posted by The Doctor:

I understand that there is ZERO chance of this being worked out - it's a core element of the game and some love it so I just have to live with it and if Humankind 2 has it, well, other things would sway my decision to purchase it rather than this. But it's always going to be something I rush through so that I can play the game the way I really want to.

Perhaps a mod can add predefined starts, 2 outposts, 2 scouts, 3 area revealed, first turn player is forced to choose a culture.

Perhaps even the game could have a new game mode, like this suggested mod.

[The Doctor]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

I'm not sure I agree either with you or the people you don't agree with. I see Neolithic as the part of the game that sets up the level of challenge you'll need to overcome in the next couple of eras. I don't see a bad Neolithic start as being a bad thing at all, it just means that Plan B has to be stronger. Frankly, I find the Plan B's more entertaining in this game anyways. I can't think of a game I've played where the Neolithic start had a catastrophic effect on my gameplay.

I have had starts where there where super-low resources and starts where I didn't get the Empire I wanted, but that is just an invitation to work out a new game plan, and maybe something I've never done before in the game.

That being said, I tend to rush the Neolithic era as well, and I don't find it super-entertaining either. However, it's the only era where all those elephants make sense.

As for HUMANKIND 2™, ooo, wow. I hope the devs make it, and I hope they learn from making HUMANKIND™. Not sure if I'd buy it, though. Maybe on sale. I'll buy the next HUMANKIND™ before I buy another Civ game, though.

It's okay. This is just an opinion piece and just something I wanted to get off my chest. Trust me, my wife and my family don't care about this at all so here it is. :D

I just don't enjoy the Neolithic for the reasons I described above but I'm sure there are plenty of folks here who do and that's all fine. This IS Humankind's own dedicated forum for discussion of the game after all. But since it's also a place for fans of the game to express their feelings about the game for the developers to take or leave, heck, why not?

Originally posted by AOM:

If you're willing to add a mod to your game you can skip the Neolithic and start in the Ancient era. There is a mod here: https://gc2021.com/showthread.php?tid=47

The downside is you have to assign yourself and any AI opponent to a culture before beginning the game.

I might actually be tempted to try that mod out. Having to choose cultures at the start sounds like a plus rather than a minus to me. Plus there would be more time to enjoy the ancient era gameplay and the whole game in general since the first few turns are otherwise 'wasted' in a game with 300 turns.

And because some folks will just be falling over themselves after reading that to point out to me that I can change that, I know. I'm just denying you your 'fun'!)

[knighttemplar1960]

Its a unique element that Humankind has that sets it apart from other games of its type and you are right that it isn't going away.

One of the biggest complaints in the Civilization series of games is being stuck in your starting spot and being stuck with a civ that can't take advantage of it or losing too much time, especially on higher difficulties, to find a more appropriate location. Humankind brilliantly solves that problem with the neolithic era.

You can stay in the neolithic era as long as or as little as you want. I spend long enough to find a source of copper so that I can make spearmen as early as possible to stop the IP chariot rush.

[The Doctor]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Its a unique element that Humankind has that sets it apart from other games of its type and you are right that it isn't going away.

One of the biggest complaints in the Civilization series of games is being stuck in your starting spot and being stuck with a civ that can't take advantage of it or losing too much time, especially on higher difficulties, to find a more appropriate location. Humankind brilliantly solves that problem with the neolithic era.

You can stay in the neolithic era as long as or as little as you want. I spend long enough to find a source of copper so that I can make spearmen as early as possible to stop the IP chariot rush.

I've read many complaints about Civ in my time and I have to say that that is not one of them. Top tier complaints appear to be (in no order of importance)...

• The AI
  
• 1UPT
  
• the cartoonish graphics.
  
• the lack of real innovation.

I honestly can't recall seeing anyone complain about the start but then, I don't frequent Reddit and I certainly haven't read every single post ever written about Civ so I'm open to the idea that it belongs on that list.

I'm sure it's here to stay. I have no doubt about that but Humankind 2, well, I can always hope. I really don't think it's a step forward at all but I can live with it. Unless I'm just shy of a certain science star in the next turn, i.e. I have 9 points and I have a unit less than one move away from a science anomaly, I get out of it as fast as I possibly can so the number of turns is not really an issue. :D

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by The Doctor:

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Its a unique element that Humankind has that sets it apart from other games of its type and you are right that it isn't going away.

One of the biggest complaints in the Civilization series of games is being stuck in your starting spot and being stuck with a civ that can't take advantage of it or losing too much time, especially on higher difficulties, to find a more appropriate location. Humankind brilliantly solves that problem with the neolithic era.

You can stay in the neolithic era as long as or as little as you want. I spend long enough to find a source of copper so that I can make spearmen as early as possible to stop the IP chariot rush.

I've read many complaints about Civ in my time and I have to say that that is not one of them. Top tier complaints appear to be (in no order of importance)...

• The AI
  
• 1UPT
  
• the cartoonish graphics.
  
• the lack of real innovation.

I honestly can't recall seeing anyone complain about the start but then, I don't frequent Reddit and I certainly haven't read every single post ever written about Civ so I'm open to the idea that it belongs on that list.

I'm sure it's here to stay. I have no doubt about that but Humankind 2, well, I can always hope. I really don't think it's a step forward at all but I can live with it. Unless I'm just shy of a certain science star in the next turn, i.e. I have 9 points and I have a unit less than one move away from a science anomaly, I get out of it as fast as I possibly can so the number of turns is not really an issue. :D

The AI in V and VI is terrible. The AI in IV was much better and part of the reason that the AI was better in IV was because a stack of units was built to use a rock/paper/scissors and the AI was able to use that better than 1UPT.

The other issue with 1UPT was the range of the units. Archers have a range of 2, English Long bows have a range of 3 as does Artillery. Gatling guns and machine guns have a range of 1. I did the math on that once and it turns out that English longbows were able to accurately fire an amount of distance that was equal to the distance from Detroit, MI to Chicago, IL based on hex size.

The cartoon graphics were an issue with VI. Even though V was an older 32 bit game the graphics were better than those of VI.

The only thing in VI that was an innovation for the Civ series was districts. Every thing else was from previous versions or were downgrades from previous versions.

You don't have to look on Reddit to find those complaints you can do it here on Steam in the Civ IV, V, and VI forums.

[folgra]

If you don't like the micro of running around looking for things. put the scouts on auto. I believe it was pointed out the ai has a benefit because the scouts seem to know where to go, but player scouts on auto have the same benefit as the ai.

[Azunai]

there's a reason why civ games start with a settler. even the decision to move the settler for 1 turn to get a better spot for the capital is a very important tradeoff.

adding a whole era before that point (and one filled with nothing but RNG) may sounds like a fun innovation, but it's really not a good idea. i guess it kinda works for this game. there's 0 chance humankind will ever be anywhere near as engaging as the civ games. it's mostly just an unfocussed mess with a ridiculous amount of snowballing. just like all the other amplitude game.

don't get me wrong - it can still be a fun experience in its own right, but for very different reasons than the civ games (or other, more serious strategy games)

[ghost88]

Originally posted by folgra:

If you don't like the micro of running around looking for things. put the scouts on auto. I believe it was pointed out the ai has a benefit because the scouts seem to know where to go, but player scouts on auto have the same benefit as the ai.

Is still in there was talk of this being patched out because the haters whined about it.

[folgra]

Now, that is dumb.

[Spacesuit Spiff]

The concept is solid, the execution missed the mark by 180 degrees. If it was just a chance to scout and everybody came out at the same power-level (aside from picking cultures a turn or two later than others, and in a balanced game this would be decent because counterpicking) that would be great. Neolithic RNG giving people exponentially growing scoutswarms ruins that.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by ghost88:

Originally posted by folgra:

If you don't like the micro of running around looking for things. put the scouts on auto. I believe it was pointed out the ai has a benefit because the scouts seem to know where to go, but player scouts on auto have the same benefit as the ai.

Is still in there was talk of this being patched out because the haters whined about it.

It was patched out. Automated units don't automatically head toward unseen curiosities or food. Now they don't even always head toward revealed ones either. They need to make changes to the spawn points so that they make sense (food should be more likely to show up in coastal tiles, forest tiles, and river tiles, and less often in stone and desert tiles) and the automated unit needs to recheck each time it moves a hex and when a curiosity is revealed it needs to head directly to it once it is revealed.

[AOM]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Originally posted by ghost88:

Is still in there was talk of this being patched out because the haters whined about it.

It was patched out. Automated units don't automatically head toward unseen curiosities or food. Now they don't even always head toward revealed ones either. They need to make changes to the spawn points so that they make sense (food should be more likely to show up in coastal tiles, forest tiles, and river tiles, and less often in stone and desert tiles) and the automated unit needs to recheck each time it moves a hex and when a curiosity is revealed it needs to head directly to it once it is revealed.

Yeah, and I don't think the auto scouting was patched out because "haters" "whined." I think it was patched out because it wasn't intended to be in there. Just my guess because it was completely an exploit that made the whole thing feel sort of pointless.