Hello! Vanilla Improvement Project modder here. First, I'd like to thank you for the kind words about the mod. About the Battle AI, I am as critical as you are to it. It is coded to maximize damage dealt at all cost, so it disregards its own safety to attack even if suicidal. Sadly, while there are some AI Behaviour definitions in the official modtools, as far as I experimented they only change the AI behavior outside battle, and the battle mechanics seems to disregard them. So unless I cook up a BePinEx mod with custom dlls (with all the security risks that entails), I can't touch that. We (as the modding community) have feedbacked that to the devs and I still have hopes that they rewrite the AI battle code to allow us to touch that part with mods sometime in the future. Humakind is kind of a guilty pleasure for me, and despite its flaws I really enjoyed my time with it, to the point I can't get into Civ6, Old World or other historical 4xes anymore. I don't think that it is for everyone, and while the gaming space in general is really into the "best game in its category" mindset, I truly believe that having different takes for each genre is better as each game can cater to a different type of player. Anyway, thanks for the great video and hope you get all the views it deserves!
Thanks for your comments and kind words! I am surprised the combat AI is THAT simplistic, massive oversight to have its behavior so limited. I suspected there's not much modders could do, so i'm happy to have it confirmed by you. It seems that Amplitude is receptive of feedback, so that's encouraging at least. But from the outside it looks like things move slow. Understandable for a not so big studio, of course, but the fact remains. It's good that Humankind exists, even in this shape. Particularly due to its differences vs Civ, even if i like the latter too alongside Old World. It's the time commitment of the genre that makes the discussion turn towards "best 4x to play". Imho, it kinda sucks to take your limited time into one option and then deal with the AI issues. I can get iver the balancing quirks, and some mechanical choices can fall into "personal preference" territory, but the AI hurts the game big time.
I can't say I entirely agree with the "no trace left behind" point. You retain emblematic districts throughout the game, and have the choice to refurbish old centres - but they don't change by default. I also wouldn't consider the cultural traits to be "minor" buffs. They are incredibly impactful, particularly ones such as the Egyptian -20% district construction cost.
I can see what you're saying, I definitely should not have said "minor buffs", but I also should clarify what I meant by "no trace left behind". It's more of an aesthetic thing. Cities made under one culture keep that name indefinitely, with no variation or translation when switching to another. Crusader Kings has a very neat feature in which changing the culture of a territory or kingdom as a whole changes the names of territories, towns, castles etc in the first case, and of titles in the other. I wish that my Thebes had its name altered in different languages just like they do in real life, starting with them not being by default in English only. It's an ambitious thing to want in a game, but I think it would give more weight to the cultures and their transition. Your nation's supposed to become a hodgepodge of cultures, and I am not sure if it's really reflected in Humankind.
@@DarthZombie510 Cities also keep the design of the culture under which they were founded. And that makes sense, as it happens in real life too. France is basically Celts into Romans into Franks into French, and the replacements were not that violent, even the Celts into Romans once the conquest was over. And there are cities that are still heavily influenced by Romans or medieval architecture
I get that the combat ai isnt great but the way humankind does wars for me is just so much for fun than civ it allows you to fight wars that dont take 100 turns because the battles reslove so much quicker not to mention the battles are much bigger and actually feel intense instead of oh my 3 guys fight your 3 guys and bam I take the city after a few tries
It's by far its greatest feature, I agree. My only complaint is that by the late-game it becomes suffocated by the number of troops - fights become meat grinders with little to no tactical movement because there's simply no space left to make moves. I also find it game-y that you can lock an entire city's production with a well-place battlefield. Sure, it makes sense up to a point, but it's also very exploitable.
@@DarthZombie510 very fair criticisms, ideally those sound like things that can be dealt with some balancing patches, but that goes for a lot of the things you brought up in this video so who knows how long until they get to it if they do, heres to hoping its soon
I am not sure how much they could adjust this, since it's a core design issue imho. You can't make battlefields even larger or else they'll swallow way too much land, but you can't allow stacks of 2-3 units per tile because it would be too radical of a change in ways I'm not sure Amplitude wants. Very tricky situation to be in
Helloooo DarthZombie😂... I have been playing Humankind™ with Pauses for 2 years since launch, and I must say that Switching Cultures between the Ages is a lot of fun😊. It is, as far as I can tell, Unique to Humankind™. Only a few games let's you switch your nation Mid-game, those being DomiNations , ... And the newest Update for Travian called "Shores Of War"... Altho that last one is just😮 because your Capital's Tribe in Travian NEVER changes, but you can rule Different tribes 😂 with a Senator. It is called and I kid you not "getting Chiefed". As for Humankind™ thank you for the good review❤. Too bad the game did not live up to it's INITIAL expectations😅😅😅
It's a shame about the issues because the new concepts it brings are very interesting, great shakeup to the usual 4X formula. Man, it's been forever since I played Travian haha! Gave it up when i realized some people were setting up alarms in the dead of night to get every slither of efficiency. Didn't sound like something I was gonna do lol!
Nice video, but none of the improvements will draw me back. I had such high hopes for Humankind to draw me in, but unfortunately it just misses the mark.
I can certainly sympathize with the sentiment. It gives the impression of an experiment, and they have quite the work to do if they ever intend to make a new Humankind
Hello! Vanilla Improvement Project modder here. First, I'd like to thank you for the kind words about the mod. About the Battle AI, I am as critical as you are to it. It is coded to maximize damage dealt at all cost, so it disregards its own safety to attack even if suicidal. Sadly, while there are some AI Behaviour definitions in the official modtools, as far as I experimented they only change the AI behavior outside battle, and the battle mechanics seems to disregard them. So unless I cook up a BePinEx mod with custom dlls (with all the security risks that entails), I can't touch that. We (as the modding community) have feedbacked that to the devs and I still have hopes that they rewrite the AI battle code to allow us to touch that part with mods sometime in the future.
Humakind is kind of a guilty pleasure for me, and despite its flaws I really enjoyed my time with it, to the point I can't get into Civ6, Old World or other historical 4xes anymore. I don't think that it is for everyone, and while the gaming space in general is really into the "best game in its category" mindset, I truly believe that having different takes for each genre is better as each game can cater to a different type of player. Anyway, thanks for the great video and hope you get all the views it deserves!
Thanks for your comments and kind words!
I am surprised the combat AI is THAT simplistic, massive oversight to have its behavior so limited. I suspected there's not much modders could do, so i'm happy to have it confirmed by you.
It seems that Amplitude is receptive of feedback, so that's encouraging at least. But from the outside it looks like things move slow. Understandable for a not so big studio, of course, but the fact remains.
It's good that Humankind exists, even in this shape. Particularly due to its differences vs Civ, even if i like the latter too alongside Old World. It's the time commitment of the genre that makes the discussion turn towards "best 4x to play". Imho, it kinda sucks to take your limited time into one option and then deal with the AI issues. I can get iver the balancing quirks, and some mechanical choices can fall into "personal preference" territory, but the AI hurts the game big time.
I can't say I entirely agree with the "no trace left behind" point. You retain emblematic districts throughout the game, and have the choice to refurbish old centres - but they don't change by default. I also wouldn't consider the cultural traits to be "minor" buffs. They are incredibly impactful, particularly ones such as the Egyptian -20% district construction cost.
I can see what you're saying, I definitely should not have said "minor buffs", but I also should clarify what I meant by "no trace left behind".
It's more of an aesthetic thing. Cities made under one culture keep that name indefinitely, with no variation or translation when switching to another. Crusader Kings has a very neat feature in which changing the culture of a territory or kingdom as a whole changes the names of territories, towns, castles etc in the first case, and of titles in the other. I wish that my Thebes had its name altered in different languages just like they do in real life, starting with them not being by default in English only. It's an ambitious thing to want in a game, but I think it would give more weight to the cultures and their transition. Your nation's supposed to become a hodgepodge of cultures, and I am not sure if it's really reflected in Humankind.
@@DarthZombie510 Cities also keep the design of the culture under which they were founded. And that makes sense, as it happens in real life too. France is basically Celts into Romans into Franks into French, and the replacements were not that violent, even the Celts into Romans once the conquest was over. And there are cities that are still heavily influenced by Romans or medieval architecture
I get that the combat ai isnt great but the way humankind does wars for me is just so much for fun than civ it allows you to fight wars that dont take 100 turns because the battles reslove so much quicker not to mention the battles are much bigger and actually feel intense instead of oh my 3 guys fight your 3 guys and bam I take the city after a few tries
It's by far its greatest feature, I agree. My only complaint is that by the late-game it becomes suffocated by the number of troops - fights become meat grinders with little to no tactical movement because there's simply no space left to make moves. I also find it game-y that you can lock an entire city's production with a well-place battlefield. Sure, it makes sense up to a point, but it's also very exploitable.
@@DarthZombie510 very fair criticisms, ideally those sound like things that can be dealt with some balancing patches, but that goes for a lot of the things you brought up in this video so who knows how long until they get to it if they do, heres to hoping its soon
I am not sure how much they could adjust this, since it's a core design issue imho. You can't make battlefields even larger or else they'll swallow way too much land, but you can't allow stacks of 2-3 units per tile because it would be too radical of a change in ways I'm not sure Amplitude wants. Very tricky situation to be in
Helloooo DarthZombie😂... I have been playing Humankind™ with Pauses for 2 years since launch, and I must say that Switching Cultures between the Ages is a lot of fun😊. It is, as far as I can tell, Unique to Humankind™. Only a few games let's you switch your nation Mid-game, those being DomiNations , ... And the newest Update for Travian called "Shores Of War"... Altho that last one is just😮 because your Capital's Tribe in Travian NEVER changes, but you can rule Different tribes 😂 with a Senator. It is called and I kid you not "getting Chiefed".
As for Humankind™ thank you for the good review❤. Too bad the game did not live up to it's INITIAL expectations😅😅😅
It's a shame about the issues because the new concepts it brings are very interesting, great shakeup to the usual 4X formula.
Man, it's been forever since I played Travian haha! Gave it up when i realized some people were setting up alarms in the dead of night to get every slither of efficiency. Didn't sound like something I was gonna do lol!
great video buddy
Thanks, I try my best, haha!
Finally! At least this is long azz episode 😍😍
Too bad it took so long to make, but 4X games are hard to glance over in short bursts imho
Nice video, but none of the improvements will draw me back. I had such high hopes for Humankind to draw me in, but unfortunately it just misses the mark.
I can certainly sympathize with the sentiment. It gives the impression of an experiment, and they have quite the work to do if they ever intend to make a new Humankind
The only good review I could find on this game, thank you.
Now we need the same for millennia pls 😅
I might do it in the future, but knowing Paradox' obsession with pumping DLCs for every little feature, I fear any review will be rapidly obsolete.