Not a fan of the combat start

[Butterland]

I can really see both sides of this argument. 

I really like the "Battlestar Gallactica" element of we just survived the last attack and the AI assumes we are finished.  However from a gameplay/RL perspective it's not that helpful to thrust the average Steam player into Adama's things on your feet because they will fall short.

I really liked picking my Home Planet in AI Classic, but if I'm honest with myself I abused the set conditions/no fog-of-war /let's see what our Fabricator situation is aspect of the start screen, so I sort of like the idea of pushing the random element into the "pre-game".

Wouldn't it be fair to say to the 1st time player: "Ok you are in charge of The Ark.  You are the survivor of the Wars.  We need 'Metal' (or whatever), and the AI has taken all of it over.  Our AI suggests we take this planet.  Here's how you do it.  What do you think Sir?'.

I don't want to Dog-Pile on hating the combat opening.....but it's not my favorite. 

Anyways, I feel like my role is to give my visceral feedback on the hotdog factory floor....so there it is!

Because I feel I must:  It's so wonderfully exciting to be seeing AI:War Deux!

[WolfWhiteFire]

Our AI suggests

Wait what? I am not really sure that they would make a replacement AI so soon after the last one betrayed them, and they definitely wouldn't make it smart enough to make suggestions unless they are complete fools who don't learn from their mistakes.

[treyra]

hat said, any tutorial needs to be skippable when playing again, and if skipped it could just have the first planet empty of AI presence.

You gotta take into account people not doing the tutorial or not paying attention.

I would do what a lot of strategy games do and have the default new game settings have players start with a tutorial. Better yet, so that new players don't get overwhelmed with new game options (as I'm sure there will be tons), is have a quick start be the first thing on the main menu, that automatically takes you through the tutorial into a game with the best new player settings (ie most things off). You could even have a little note pointing it out to new players if its the first time the games been launched.