First Impressions

[kevinsky]

*intro music and splash screen with the cloud movement are very nice and suitable
*pictures of the leaders seem bland. The outlines of their faces are too soft and airbrushed
*the font for the dialog boxes is way too small for my eyes and it does not appear that it can be adjusted by the user
*I found the dialogue with the leaders broke the mood. By attempting to be funny it made me think "I would never say that to a rival leader". The little quips could be shown as an afterthought or internal thought.
*when you click on a city or unit I have similar issues with sidebar icons which describe the attributes of the item: they are so small it makes me squint
*disappointed that there are no keyboard shortcuts. This is not a new thing for a user interface to have and should customizable by the user
*saves are fast, nice work
*build queue: very surprised to see that when you click on an item that has already been added to the queue it disappears from the queue. This is not an obvious outcome.
*it does not appear you can reorder items in the queue unless you remove everything and start over
*none of the dialog boxes with the leaders are re sizable so you can see all the choices without scrolling
*formers do not appear to have a command for "Build road to this point"
*it is not obvious that units can become amphibious once you have the right research for naval stuff. The research description led me to think that you had to build a freighter and put the formers and troopers in the sea going unit.
*research tree is odd in that one goal does not seem to logically derive from another. I expected that naval research would lead to naval motors. In a number of cases what one research leads to seems to have no relation to the previous goal.
*when you are moving units there is an overlay to show the farming/mining/productivity for each hex. I find this to be visually overwhelming. The only time I want to know about minerals and food is when I am moving a former. This should be a user option controlled by a keyboard command like Alt + g.

[kevinsky]

Played as the gaians and lost in less than an hour. It seems I cannot play my usual build in the early game and destroy in the end game. The faction seems a little underpowered or I don't know how to play to their advantages.
I think the surface similarity with Alpha Centauri is actually a disadvantage as I tend to play with the same methods and expect the same results. I like the differences so far and would buy the game.