First Impressions

[christophzeller]

Hey guys.
I'll just give a quick overview of my thoughts after installing the game and putting in 1-2 hours or so of gameplay. I'll try and complete a game ASAP and return with impressions (+ being things I liked, - being things I disliked, and o being neutral comments/suggestions).

Installer:
+ does its job adequately.
+ asks whether I want to add folders to the Start menu or desktop shortcuts.
- doesn't tell me how much I still need to download (launcher/updater)

Game, initial launch:
+ menu picture and background music set a fitting mood
+ menu structure feels intuitive, i.e. I didn't have to look long for anything
+ showing the gameplay effects of using different factions
+ lore text for the different factions adds a bit of depth and identification
- music won't stop when I Alt-Tab out of the game

Game, after 5 minutes:
+ Tutorials and tool tips are helpful.
+ feels a lot like Alpha Centauri with a lot of Civ4 in it, Hexes aside.
+ Good thing the research tree works as in Civ, not as in AC. I know what I'm going to get.
+ unit controls are for the most part intuitive
+ Workshop seems clean and efficient
+ Clicking on the "news items" opens up Encyclopedia entries providing details. Nice.
- Why use two separate tool tips in the research screen - one for the tech itself, and another one for the improvements? I'd prefer all of this information in one place.
- I want to define the name of that city! No popup dialog appeared.
- Some more Tutorial screens would have been helpful when first entering the city screen, explaining growth and the functions/effects of using population.
o I'd prefer Civ-Style shortcuts (Fortify, Heal, Sentry, ..), but that's may be just me and it's so minor I didn't even check whether or not I could manually relocate Hotkeys.
o The sound during the cinematic stopped around 20 seconds short of the ending, and some i-dots were missing in some of the text screens.
o The Workshop should provide a new name (or add a number counter) for a cloned unit.

Game, after 20 minutes:
+ Interface is efficient and easy-to-learn.
+ Combat against indigenous species is fun.
- Using Formers would be more fun if I had shortcuts to their "advanced" orders, like Building a road etc. - as it is I have to click the button instead of hitting Alt-R or something and be done with it. Come to think of it, a Route to-Order would be nice.
- It would be helpful to know which city hexes are being worked. Or I'm simply blind.
o Maybe use a larger version of a resource symbol to indicate 5 or 10 units of the same resource, rather than squeezing 17 resource symbols in one row? Looks a bit cluttered.
o Maybe the indigenous species are a bit too docile - they hardly attack units that are pretty much sitting on top of their hive.
o I haven't met another Civ yet. But that is most likely because of this particular map and not necessarily the game's fault.
o Adding a research queue would be a nice feature.

Overall:
The game makes a good first impression. I can't yet make a final judgment on the pace of the game, but it definitely doesn't feel very fast. Which is good. Graphics are adequate and pretty, but that's not a priority in a turn-based strategy game, to me. Can't say much about the AI yet, because I only just encountered them. Music and sounds are fitting to the overall theme. What I like most so far is that I feel at home very quickly, coming from a background of playing all of the Civilization-series games. Some improvements could be made on the interface (see above), but it's quite nice already.

[Kordanor]

It would be helpful to know which city hexes are being worked. Or I'm simply blind.

You are blind.
No actually, the difference is so tiny, that you do't see it if you look for it particularly. Normally the tiny icons on the tiles are like greyed out. And once someone works on it the icon looks like in the resource overview (where your total mineral gain is listed).