Hello everyone, and thanks Chris for giving me the opportunity!
I haven't spent as much time as I would've liked yet (6 hours on Steam), but I've started about 6 games now, fiddling around.
6 Games. Restarted 4. Lost 2. Won 0.
I've held true and didn't bother reading forums/Mantis up until now, in order to let me figure out things on my own.
I've also never experienced anything which I could call a bug... which is great! So no Mantis reports from me yet...
Feedback:
Learning Curve and game mechanicsObviously, without a tutorial, the learning curve was very steep... but I enjoyed it thoroughly! Figuring out the UI was easy enough, figuring out adjacency bonuses was also easy, having played GalCiv3 alot...(although resources/manufacturies took me some experimentation to understand), combat/exploration was easy. Overall I felt I got a hang of the mechanics without too much trouble, and immediately started pondering about the depth of the mechanics - how reactive to the environment (other factions, starting location, starting faction and resources) and how easy/difficult min/maxing is. The fact that I started to really think how to juggle these, with building and tech orders, is a good point in the game's favor and will (hopefully) lead to much replayability.
The actual game mechanics I found very refreshing. The massive bonuses which starting faction and initial resources gives makes, imo, for a very reactive game - much more so than other 4Xs I've played. I also felt an aggresive urge, not for the sake of aggresiveness in itself but rather because I wanted specific resources and adjacent building spots to wonders other factions had already claimed. This is great! I'm just hoping there is a way (eventually, or one which I haven't discovered yet) to gain access to these resources through means other than direct war (such as diplomacy or espionage). City building in such depth is very fun for a 4X (or at least, a 4X-like?), since I generally like playing tall rather than wide in 4X games.
The game is very random though - I lost in one game due to disease spiralling out of control (which I think now I would've been able to stop with more knowledge), and the second one to a very sudden invasion from seemingly out of nowhere. On the one hand such randomness is nice, but I hope there is a way to better react to almost cataclysmic events after a certain point in the game - I don't necessarily want to start a new game every hour and cross my fingers that nothing too bad will happen everytime.
UI/GraphicsThe UI is quite nice, but clearer overlays would be appreciated - it is a bit difficult to clearly see where smog/crime is in the UI (or perhaps, again, my crime/smog levels hadn't progressed to too high levels). Every time I use sonar I have to click on the Scout button again to go back to the normal view - I guess this might be a bug? And more tooltips/building descriptions, and eventually tech descriptions will be very helpful. Otherwise,the UI is very clear, and I love the no-lagginess of it. The graphics I also enjoyed very much - I like the look of everything alot! A slightly more detailed combat report would be helpful, to figure out what happened where quickly.
FactionsOne of my favourite parts of 4X gaming is the ability to have very different playthroughs with very different factions (thinking of Endless Legend). I don't know whether this is the case here. Since I can't find any information regarding the strengths and weaknesses of different factions, I can't really say how different they are. Up to now, my early build order has been almost exactly the same. I hope in the future there will be slightly different versions of buildigns each faction can build; otherwise, clear information regarding the different factions will be greatly appreciated.
Overall impressionsI have a feeling I am going to love this game. It plays very smoothly, has very interesting and different approaches, and has the city governance I've always wanted in a 4X game. The little bit of the lore I could ponder thus far also looks very interesting. My only gripe currently is a generic first few (10-20) rounds, regardless of faction/starting location, and too little information regarding the different factions. I'm hoping that I can plan (to some extent) a game before hand - thinking that "In this game I'm going to rush science first in order to get a tech advantage, and then go aggressive military". Thus far, it plays more like a traditional city builder in the sense that you start building as you would normally do, and only start to get a unique city/game later on.
I will keep playing and posting my impressions, to the point that I can hopefully start to make some meaningful contributions!
Again, thanks for the opportunity, and best of luck for the coming months!
-EM
