First 5 min / 1 hr

[awbergs]

Here are some first impressions of the game. From the first 5 minutes:

I came into this game expecting something like an updated version of Alpha Centauri. First thing I did was check out the settings. They’re not too comprehensive, but not sparse either; pretty good.

Starting up a game, it does feel like some additional setup options could be added. It looks like additional ones will indeed be added, given the space on the left side of the menu. The factions present some good choices, though personally I’d rather see a description than a quote for each. I went with Togra, default world size, random world, Easy AI (no bonus/malus; I want to see how the AI plays with the same rules as me), normal pace. I’m eager to try an epic pace for my next game.

In these first minutes of use, I like the interface. It's fast, responsive, and the hover-text works well. Informative, and so far I haven't had much difficulty if any in finding what I need to know. The font could maybe be a bit bigger, though I realize that can be changed in the settings. It does seem slightly sparse, but overall, I like the stark, high-contrast look to the UI. I'd rather it be neat and clean than having too much "character," otherwise it feels gimmicky. Gut reaction: it looks pretty good.

Graphically, other than the UI, it's OK. It's probably a bit late in the game to upgrade the textures, but the black fog of war would be better with some sort of texture to it, instead of just emptiness. In general, the textures seem off, maybe slightly low in resolution. Not bad looking overall, just not crisp.

Opening cut-scene was great in a low-budget way. Got the job done without being too long.

Music so far is gorgeous.

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Now from the remainder of my first hour:

More of the same in terms of impressions. So far, no slow down in my game. I've run into a couple other factions. I wish the diplomacy screens when meeting them could be a bit bigger, show more information at once -- the dialogue options are a bit long to scroll through. If it scaled more with the screen resolution, might be better. I do love the options though, adds a lot of character rather than just choosing "Improve Relations" (yet the help text is there at the end still, good idea).

There are a LOT of aliens out there. Seems like too many to me. It's nice from a scifi perspective to imagine a world teeming with indigenous life, but within the game I just feel like I'm smothered by them. Not even as a threat -- just pure numbers on my screen, there are so many.

I did not establish an additional city, and as the Togra with their Morale penalty, I realize this was a huge mistake. Still, there doesn't seem to be a good mechanism in place for properly managing Morale and Pollution. Or, just maybe, I've been coddled for too long by other 4x games. I'll probably learn to play the game better and it'll work out. However, if there were some dystopian scifi research to unlock revolving around population control later down the tree, that would be great. I just don't know if it's there.

About the tech. Initially as the Togra, it felt like I didn't need to make any choices. Likely because they're just so good as research. I just kept choosing the next tech and moving on. Then I decided to start a new game as another faction, and I noticed the tech tree changed -- that was a great surprise! It'll make each game unique. I'm guessing, though, that there's no really faction-specific tech? At least not at the Colonization level. That would be a welcome addition.

I've also been keeping a log of the few spelling/grammatical mistakes I've seen and will add them to the appropriate thread.

Thanks for letting me participate in this beta!

[awbergs]

More thoughts:

1. Faction name available when hovering over units. The icon is difficult to remember.

2. I'm not sure what to do with my formers. My territory expands so slowly, and in order to keep my population happy, I need to keep as many forests in the few surrounding hexes as possible. I don't know if I'm missing something, but I build one former per city, and after working on 2 hexes I usually have to put them to sleep.