Recent reviews by Zensalin1

An all-round good and enjoyable game.

Resource management is king and this DLC gives you another one to use and manage, with unique mechanics, new stuff and weigth to gameplay.

Reading many of the negative reviews a similar situation to the base game becomes clear: Many either can't or don't want to learn and understand how the new systems fit the game and how to use them to your advantage.

The last Total War with actual depth to the campaign map and battle mechanics.

Humankind is a good game. It's not perfect, no game is, but as someone who doesn't like the slow pace of CIV, I can very much recommend this game instead and all the people complaining about warfare in this game just suck at it. The major difference to CIV is this game's warfare, which is so much better.

I've had a lot of fun with this game already while it was in alpha. This review will be a bit random in structure, as I talk about what comes to mind while writing.

Important to note: My opinion of the game is not influenced by nostalgia for Lords of the Realm (The devs say that Lords of the Realm is the main inspiration for creating this game), because I never played any of the Lords of the Realm titles, so this sort of gameplay is completely new to me.

Looking at the screenshots, you might be inclined to compare it to Battle Brothers, but that comparison doesn't work. The only thing these two games have in common, is that the units are displayed as busts, but other than that, they are different.

If you read through some of the negative reviews so far, I want to counter (or confirm) some of their arguments:

"Too strong AI":
This complaint came from a player who (at the time of writing this) only put 0.8 hours into the game, not even the 2 you get from steam to still get a refund and form a good opinion and while I don't like to do it, I have to: "Git gud". The AI (in this stage of the game) is far from strong and definitely possible to beat on any settings. This complaint likely comes from either not wanting to or not being able to understand how the game's economy works (There is a tutorial video for it by the devs which does a good job introducing it, simply watching that will make you at least on par with the AI and the human factor should then be enough to win).

"Boring":
Well, that's taste. Look at videos from people who play the game and form an opinion if the game looks boring for you or not.

"Bad performance":
Yes, with bad luck, your system is one of the few that seems to have performance issues, but crash- and bugfixes, as well as performance improvements seem to be the main thing being worked on after the EA release. More content as well, obviously.

"Random events can destroy your economy":
Yes, if you setup your economy badly. This complaint comes from someone who (at the time of writing this) has put 5.9 hours into the game, enough to get comfy with the mechanics and economy, but by no means master it. The review speaks of min-maxing your output and I think that is the problem. That is a dangerous thing to do. If it works, then you have the best economy and production of all players on the map, but something like a bad harvest can destroy your plans. If you save up more ressources than you need, then you don't have to worry about things like an animal disease or a bad harvest, because you put security over minimal input and maximum output, it's your choice.

"Combat is not fun/shallow":
I will leave this up to you, again, watch videos and see if you like it. The easiest way to describe it: You have units and you have cards you can play on certain units to have them do a special thing. To quote one of the devs: "The combat works with rock, paper, scissors units, terrain modifications, cards to play and the unique morale system of units". At this point in time, the number of cards you can put in your deck for combat is limited, but are expected to become more as time and development goes on.

The game being in Early Access means there isn't too much content here yet, so if you think what you see in reviews/LPs is not enough for you yet, then it is probably best to wait and check in on the game at a later time to see if you would possibly like it now. (Same goes for the usual EA bugs and possible clunkiness.)

Enjoyable, relaxing and challenging.

After the new client has been mostly fixed, the game is enjoyable again, but it still misses the old feeling to some degree.

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Old negative review:
With the new update the game looks and feels absolutely horrendous. Well, that's what happens when you don't want to pay Direwolf to make your game anymore.

Animations are awful and no longer smooth, sound (for example when cards hit each other) is randomly cut off or plays weirdly when actions are taken, the new card and field designs are much inferior to the previous versions.
All in all, the whole smooth, quick and responsive feel of the game is gone.

Well, at least I didn't spend any real money on/in it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad at the new studio that now develops the game, they are doing the best they can, it's just that their new stuff is so inferior when compared to the "old" design.

Shame. This was a really fun game before, but this absolutely ruins the game if you played it before this new version.
If you are just starting out, you may be ok with it, the game is fun otherwise, but I guess you won't feel very good about it in the long rung.

A very lovely game, an absolute must have if you played Expeditions: Conquistador.

A worthy successor to the first game. Though somewhat less story elements and more focused on battles, but there's still a lot of story.

Not sure if it's ever gonna happen, but hopefully there will be a third game in the future.

Surprisingly fun, surprisingly nice story, surprisingly nice voice acting (at least in the german version).

Very much recommended. ( Although my character once missed a 100% hit chance. That calc was definitely rigged. ;) )