1st Time playing

[mrhade]

Started game without reading manual (is there one?). Turned music off. Figured I'd just type this up as I played.

5 minutes:(picked the research faction)
Graphics are good. Game could be fun.

15 minutes:
Workshop is a pain. Found I had to first copy a new and then edit it otherwise it would overwrite my existing unit. Was wondering how that colonist design disappeared.

30 minutes later:
Had 2 cities, got a message about hordes of aliens and the planet reacting to you (around 2108). Lost 1 city, getting attacked and all units except 1 lost. Spend the next few turns getting bombarded, built 2 more units only for them to be killed again. Aliens moved off eventually.

1 hour later:
Getting kinda bored with the game, just randomly clicking research, just does seem to be enough info about the tech you're picking. Found out you can kill airborne units with artillery which didn't make sense, no need for AA?. AI has lots of cities and units, while only have 2 cities. I spent most of my times killing aliens in my area to make it safe, AI doesn't seem to suffer from this. AI not interested in negotiation. 2 Artillery, 3 tanks and 1 sniper units killed in 1 turn in various location. Got frustrated and started a new game, AI had way more cities and units, no hope of getting anywhere in this game.

2nd game:
Stuck on a peninsula with a hive blocking off the western access.
10 minutes into play, got same message, massive aliens, planet reacting, lost all exploration units. City was being pummeled by artillery units, all units were dead. Quit, started a new game

3rd game: (Solar faction)
Was kind of disappointed that I could see a lot of the tech tree, where as in the 1st game I couldn't, even though I picked a different faction.

15 minutes have 2 cities, have not been attacked, working on my 3rd city. I'm completely out of minerals 0 (-4) but yet I still manage to complete all Items in my build queues.
Starting to get bored of having to constantly tell my exploration units where to move? No auto-explore?

4th city up and running, still at 0 (-7) minerals and still completing build items.

In 2108 I was once again attacked at every city by aliens.
In 2109 combat sound effects diminished, I kept having to up the volume on my speakers All other sounds were normal.
In 2111 combat sounds are completely gone, sound effects are maxed out and still no combat sounds.
In 2112 combat sounds come and go, but if there are some I can barely hear them.
In 2120 bored, decided to wage war. Lost a lot of units and time due to them not using road but taking shortest path over any terrain. If automated formers don't build roads, and units don't use them, why even have them? Funny that the AI former due build roads.
In 2121 I eliminate a faction but get no message about it
At this time I'm not even bothering to read the techs, just pick one and go.

Still playing the game at 0(-72) minerals.

Some notes:

Gave a water unit order to go onto land, It just kept going around the same area try to get to that hex. Gave another water unit order to go on the other side of the continent. Unit just kept moving around in the same area instead of pathing to the other side.

Can't set research goals when you see most of the tech tree.

Research needs more information then just a short summery.

Automated formers don't build roads between cities.

Initially I though that moving onto a mountain would give you and extra sight bonus, I was wrong.

Tried to move a former onto water when I didn't have water travel tech, instead it showed me a path to my 2nd city. I tried different lakes and the former pathed 8 square in a random direction.

It would have been nice for the colonist to show the city limit border, I wasted a few turns counting spaces and trying to figure out where to build my cities.

No zoom combat when your cities/units are being attacked, just a message at the begging of the turn that I missed, I was wondering a few turns later why I wasn't getting the option to move my units.

Don't build watercraft if your city only borders a lake.

If you give a unit orders to move to a city if it's far away, it doesn't do anything.

Telling a unit to move to another city doesn't work well, instead of following the roads, they go across water.

Too much mouse clicking in this game. You have to click for production for each city, you have to click for research, you have to click unit order or they go by bad pathing.

Questions:

Will I be able to upgrade units in the future?

[mrhade]

So I figured out how to upgrade units, though doing one at a time is a pain and it's too easy to accidently upgrade to the wrong unit.

Noticed that the AI just has units sitting around in water for many turns and not moving them even in times of war. Though this makes it easy for me.