Slitherine

Most of what I wanted to say has been covered in previous posts, so I'll just post some new ideas.

1) In other similar games an icon appears in hexes best suited to city placement. I don't see anything like that. Is this intended? Does it matter where you build a city?

2) Is there a manual yet? I can't find any way to access a manual.

3) I saved the game twice and then closed. When I reopened the game it defaulted to the auto saved game directory. Took me while to figure out how to access the directory with my saves. How about defaulting to my saved games folder?

4) Pollution. I know you like it, but sorry, to me it sucks. It's bad enough when it occurred later in similar games like civilization and alpha centauri, but to have it right off the bat makes me want to leave the game. If you really want pollution, start it later and give the player options on how to avoid it through production mechanics or building options. To me, pollution detracts from the game.

An additional comment. How the hell are you supposed to expand you civilization if the aliens keep eating you alive everytime you send out a unit. I've even got it set on low for alien aggression and I am simply unable to produce units fast enough to deal with the aliens let alone build colonizers who can get out far enough to even found a city. A when I do the aliens kill everything in it and then the city on the very next turn. Not much fun to simply die every turn at the hands of the aliens.

OK, been playing for about 6 hours now. Some additional comments.

1) Workshop: Why do I need to copy an old unit in order to make a new one? Why not when a new unit is available simply add it to the workshop. It took me a while to realize that whey I tried to update a unit to a new unit unless I copied it first, I lost the old unit. Very confusing.

2) I have had several instances where the game would freeze up on me. When I tried to go back and open a saved file of the game, it would no longer open. I lost the entire game and had to start over again. Hate that!

3) Still don't like spending the first couple of hours of the game trying to stay alive from alien attacks. Can't investigate the planet, can't get other cities built without massive armies to protect them long enough to get them started.

4) I can understand the north/south map limits not being able to be traversed, but why can't when move around the map from east/west? Very frustrating moving a unit all the way to one side only to find you can't go around the world!

5) When an alien or other faction attacks one of my units, I'd like to be able to see the combat and results. Too easy to miss a message and not realize you've lost a unit or even a city until well after the event. Give me the option to view enemy attacks or turn it off. Same with enemy moves. Often don't realize the enemy is about to take your city until after the event because I missed that they'd even moved near or next to my city.

6) Would like a tech tree to see where my research is leading me. Also, what benefits a tech gives me when I finish researching it. Does it give me a new unit, ability, gun, etc.

7) I've read alreay in other posts that I can't upgrade my units. Please give us the option to upgrade. I hate throwing away a good unit simply because I can't upgrade it.

I've played most of the civ games and alpha centuari. This has the feel of them but isn't quite there yet. Can't really put my hands on what's missing yet. Probably because I can't see where anything is headed yet. There's no real difference between the factions and they all seem to play the same. I haven't gotten any difference playing any of the factions. Doesn't seem to be any real reason to choose one over the other.

9) Can't seem to get any idea how to keep from running out of resources. One time it's minerals. Another it's credits. Then suddenly it's food. Doesn't seem to be any logic to it for me yet.

10) This game has real potential. Once you can get passed all the aliens, the game begins to flow better, at least for me. Still some kinks to work out, but it's getting better. Still would like to see the pollution go away.

It would be very helpful if you could attach the save games of when it freezes or crashes.

Cheers,
Rok

I agree that right now the pollution mechanic doesn't add anything other than unnecessary micromanagement. It doesn't add any fun tactical choices, it is unpredictable, and it doesn't really do very much. It also doesn't make any sense. I've never heard of a mine having to shut down because it was too polluted to keep working. It might make sense for the farms.

Mostly the effect of pollution is to force me to micromanage my formers, because the automate former doesn't give me the option of tethering one to each of my cities to deal with local pollution in a timely way. It can disrupt my food/mineral intake, which is the intent I assume, but it does it in a totally unexciting way. If I notice pollution, which you don't always, because there's no event for it, I might reshuffle my population to re-optimize my resource use, but usually that is more trouble than it is worth. Especially because you have to shuffle everything back in a few turns.

It's not like there are any long term consequences for polluting, or any real way of avoiding pollution. It just forces me to have a few extra formers. It's also a problem that gets better as the game goes on, because of the across the board pollution reduction techs kick in later.

Tend to agree - pollution is just irritating as it is.