- Chose the Terra Salvum as my first Faction. Looked them up via the Compendium. There are several grammatical errors in the text, mostly in regards to periods where there should be apostrophes. So this Faction is considered eco-terrorists? The pic of the Faction Leader doesn't give any indication of this. Should it?
- [Marketing] who is the target audience for this game? Using words like "Compendium" and "plethora" in the tips can come across as elitist to the game audience.
- first thing after the game initialized was that my first unit wasn't automatically highlighted/ selected. I kept right-clicking and dragging and expecting the unit to move, and it didn't. After I highlighted the unit then was able to move it.
- Selected the "Workshop" option, reviewed the options and saw that I couldn't modify anything. Selected "OK" to close the Workshop screen, then had to select "Return to Map" to actually get back to map. This seems redundant IMO.
- Because of my Faction's bonuses/ weaknesses, chose "Colony Ship Dismantling" as first tech, as I thought this would be the best tech in the early game to boost my Faction along.
- Lost my first scout when I attacked an alien creature.
- OK, so I see its been more than 5 minutes. Stopping to review my notes/ ensure I've documented the highlights.
After 30 minutes of game play
- since I lost my first scout in my first game, I restarted with a new game. Lost my scout in this game under the same circumstances (i.e. attacking a native lifeform). Re-started the game again, and this time produced 2 scouts and attacked an native lifeform with the two units in adjacent squares: both my scouts died. Re-started the game again, and this time I did not attack the native lifeforms. And they didn't attack me!?! :-/ Interesting!
- regarding the opening text that appears during the game load-up, specifically the reference to "discovering nothing but dead rocks". Would it be better to say something like "discovering nothing but dead rocks and burned out cinders". This implies there are/ were other civilizations in space, as well as giving more of a sense of foreboding to the player right from the start.
- Noticed on my restarts that the tech research tree is different on each load-up. Nice!
- so fungus damages units? Interesting!
- May 2102 met my first other Faction, which happened to be Prime Minister Xi. Part of his greeting is "welcome you to our world. to Pandora". In the syntax of his greeting (i.e. confrontational) then I think if it were to instead say "welcome you to our world, and I hope we can help you to leave it".
- Reviewed the "Dialog" options: the order seems intuitive in that it goes sequentially down a list/ range of options, from good to bad. The one item of feedback would be for streamlining purposes: since a lot of the time in other games I play I don't want to talk to AIs (but have no choices because they're the ones who initiate the dialog), then moving the "ends dialog" option to the top of the options list would streamline the process for the player. Or to put it another way, less clicking is good.
- The "Skip Turn" option is usually the space bar. Will have to learn to hit S instead!
- A Ruin gave me a Xenomorph Drone. Parked it in a fungal hex to see if it got damaged like my scout did. It didn't!
- found an alien Observatory. Now I need to figure out how to utilize it!
- Was only attacked once by a native life form, this being a scout in my HQ city.
After one hour of game play
- There seem to be an awful lot of native lifeform units getting in the way. :-/
- Experienced first automatic border growth, which was a mountain. After reviewing the Base Management screen realized I can select which hex is automatically gained upon city growth.
- While attacking Prime Minister Xi my unit died, and his died as well. Different! :-/
- None of my units are strong enough to attack Prime Minister Xi's city directly, so my plan is to pillage his nearby improvements instead, with the idea being to attenuate his growth. I'm assuming this is an intended game mechanic in that in the early game players won't be strong enough to take out nearby AI Factions?
- After Prime Minister Xi sued for peace (and I accepted) I tried to move a unit into his territory, however the game wouldn't let me. The game didn't tell me why, either. Should it?
- There was a Ruin right outside the border of Prime Minister Xi's city, but his units never explored it (as of November 2104). I'm assuming this is because I am playing on Easy and the AI is automatically leaving these goodies for me to gain, and not because the AI doesn't understand the importance of exploring Ruins.
- While in the "Research" window noticed the pop-ups don't detail all the options gained upon researching the technology. This information would help the player in determining which technology to research/ what research branch to pursue.
- I noticed that my Seeker ATV can move 2 hexes regardless of terrain (example: it can traverse two Savannah hexes, and it can also traverse two Mountain hexes). I'll have to keep this in mind, as in past games I've taken the terrain into account when laying out my bases/ cities, as typically in other games the terrain types impact unit movement.
- End of one hour: One thing upon review is that I have explored very little of the map so far! If this is typical, then this is probably to the AIs benefit, as it makes it more difficult for the human player(s) to make long term plans in regards to base placement and unit make-up/ disposition.
D
