Some observations, in no particular order:
The AI in this game is brutal! It's refreshing to play against a competent AI opponent in a strategy game. My initial worry about this game was that since it has somewhat of a board game feel, that it would be one of those games where you would HAVE to play multiplayer to get fun game out of it. Worry not, the AI can hold its own.
Most players are going to hate hate hate hate hate the tutorial, lol. Basically, there are five tutorials, and they are less of a tutorial and more of a series of challenges that get harder. The first is simply a solo game where you poke around with the interface and once you build up enough you win. The second is a vs. match against a brain dead opponent and you playing the most straight forward faction. They get progressively harder where the fifth is playing the most complicated faction against essentially the normal AI in a full game. The fifth "tutorial" is actually quite a challenge, and it took me many attempts to get through it! I did a victory lap when I finally won. Even watching Soren play the 5th tutorial in a video shows that it isn't a cakewalk for him. He ends up winning it, but he certainly didn't roll over it.
The game is very dynamic. There are thirteen resources, and any of them can be the 'key' to a game depending on the situation. I remember on another thread complaining about games like Endless Legend because you essentially reach a point where you've won, but you're going through the motions anyway to finish the victory. This game made me realize what a lot of other strategy games are missing, the need to adapt to what happens. In such games, you are essentially playing solitaire during the opening where you try to have as efficient opening as possible. When you meet the other players, if you played solitaire better than they did, then you steamroll over them and eventually win. Sometimes the combat might have essentially a rock-paper-scissors aspect (where you want to try to build units that essentially counter theirs), but most of the time such mechanics aren't a huge factor when you can just outproduce them drastically.
That's what makes this game so much different. There is no one 'build' that's going to be the most efficient, because resource prices can differ *drastically* between each game. You really need to pay attention to the map, which factions your opponents pick (since that will influence which resources they need more), and what they are building. For example, if resources are spread out, then a lot of fuel is going to be used to transport them back to bases. If you get the teleportation patent (once you own a patent, no one else can get it!), you can avoid consuming fuel yourself and make profit selling it to the other players. When I finally beat the fifth tutorial, it was basically I focused heavily on the life support resources (water, food, O2, fuel). I essentially cornered the market because one of the AI plops their base on half the water on the map (meaning they get an initial boost of water, but no one can 'mine' those tiles again for the entire game).
What is the game, exactly?
The mechanics of the game are pretty simple. Every player places a headquarters somewhere on the map. This is done in real time. The first player to place theirs obviously gets first choice of location, but later players get access to the black market quicker, and the last half the players to place get an extra claim.
What are claims? Claims are the most important resources a player has. They are essentially the number of tiles on the map that you own. Oh, so it's just a rushing game where you player who clicks fastest gets the best stuff? NO! Placing all your tiles claims first might give you what you think are the best ones, but the other players are then able to react to you. You don't need to produce every resource on your own, if the other players are overproducing something you need, you can buy it on the market cheap.
The claims you get are very limited, and you get a handful of them whenever you upgrade your headquarters. HQ can only go to level 5, so after that, you can no longer gain claims in this manner. You can buy a single claim off the black market, but the prices on the black market go up every time any player buys something. Black market claims tend to be bought very fast, so the price can get very high very quickly.
The black market is a series of offensive options, one defensive, and claims. Every time you buy something on the market, you enter a cooldown where you can't buy another market thing for a minute, and the price of that specific item goes up forever. Some of these are very nasty. Every tile that has a resource has 1-3 pips showing how efficiently that resource is gathered on that square. The underground nuke will take a resource tile down to .25 pips... PERMANENTLY! An opponent grabbed the best water tile before you, well not anymore! There is a defensive item you can buy on the black market which will shield a tile of your choice until it is attacked. It also has the effect of giving you the item used in the attack it prevented. So if you defend your best resource tile, you might effectively steal a free underground nuke from your opponent who tries to destroy it. Or, maybe you don't defend it, cause your opponent simply assumes that defending it is what you'd do. Oooo bluffing!
Now, how do you actually win the game. You do so by buying all the stock in all of your opponent's companies. You can buy 10% of the stock at a time at whatever the current value is. The value of stock is based on many factors, how many resources the have, the value of their buildings, cash on hand, debt, and how much stock already owned. All stock is 'unowned' at the start. After you buy all the unowned stock, you have to pay double the value for all the owned stock (this is a forced purchase, no one can refuse to sell it). This can lead to an interesting end game where you buy out all the remaining stock to take over one company, and another company can you the windfall cash you just gained them to buyout another company. You can buy your own stock as a defensive measure, since it will be harder to buy you out if they need to pay double for all your shares. Also, simply improving the value of your company will drive your price up. Minimizing debt can also be important because it drives your stock price down.
Phew, that was a lot. If any of you have specific questions about the game, I'll be glad to answer them.
