Initial impressions

[gunnergoz1]

I'll be posting to this thread as I gather more experience with the Beta.

For my first comment, I just want to say that it is a pleasure to be included and I'll do my best to give the game a fair and thorough looking over.

Boot up was quick and unremarkable. I began using my desktop resolution in fullscreen (1920 x 1080). Everything looked good. Only change I made was to add anti-aliasing.

First few turns were predictable and easy to sort through the choices if you have played 4X before. The game is strongly reminiscent of Alpha Centauri but that is hardly surprising given the shared premises. I built my first colony immediately since the colonizer and trooper were clearly in a choice location with ample minerals and food sources. Research was easy to figure out and turn button took a minute to locate but then I remembered to get out of the city screen. I moved the trooper around a bit to explore and found my first alien fauna. At this point we began lunch around here and about 10 minutes had gone by, so I quit for now. I'd set sound low so as to not disturb others but I will check out the music and effects on my next login.

So far my impression is of a user-friendly game with fairly predictable features but inviting enough to want me to see what it has in store for me. No bumps in the road yet, it is stable and has not crashed. So far, so good...

[gunnergoz1]

OK, have about two hours under my belt, with two different starts. I have to say it is a challenging game because the locals seem to be cleaning my clock!

Game grows on you like alien flora.

So far it is stable, no crashes, animation works well. No real delays on my machine, turns process almost instantly. The closer you zoom in, the more the aliens seem...alien and menacing too. The sci-fi abstract musical score fits it well.

I do think there is a possibility that the research tree will become too familiar over time. It needs some variety or variability in it to keep things fresh. Once you see what you need to survive and grow, the research tree becomes automatic choices pressed upon you and that makes for a dull game after a while.

The workshop is a bit plain. I can create different flavors of units all right, but I cannot rename them (at least not that I've seen so far) which would be really nice and practical too.

There is a bit of a claustrophobic sense in the opening part because your view of the world is so limited. If you send out your trooper to explore to much, he's likely going to get eaten alive or your base will fall without his presence to defend it. There are a lot of things you need to build to grow the base, but you also have to build units to defend it and the formers too, since they are easy picking. The AI knows how to spread out and force you to defend yourself, or else lose everything.

Maybe there needs to be an early scouting unit - cheap enough to be easy to produce and of little consequence if you lose a few, but having at least a two-three hex line of sight so you can explore the land. Maybe not allow the scout to exploit finds, only discover them...perhaps a "robo-scout" sort of unit. Make the player have to send his "biologicals" i.e. human troops out to explore the finds ("goodie huts"), of course at risk to the human troops.

So far it is interesting and fun but I hope it does not get repetitive too quickly...early indications are that it might be tending that way. That's why variable research and surprise events might be a way to open the game up a bit.

[Okim]

Hi.

I must say that at first i was surprised to see a e-mail from Slitherine with all the stuff for beta testing this game. I must confess that i followed a link for beta participation without realising what this game was about. I forgot about this beta and tried to recall it while it was installing and loading up.

Initial screen with a tower surrounded by a virgin forest didn`t tell me much about the game as well as the game set up window (i just clicked to start the game without picking whom to play).

What happened later was a real surprise to me! I saw a hexagonal map of a familiar yet alien world, a window telling me about my faction and a cool looking trooper. This was the time that i recalled everything about this game and why i submitted to participate in beta! I`m a fan of Sid`s products and Alpha Centauri was always among the most favourite games of his design.

Now about my first impression.

It took me some time to figure out how the cities work (and i still have some questions). As a civilisation player the first thing that i tried was to put a worker into a hex. Stupid me "Its AC, not Civ!" - said i to myself and began to recall how AC was meant to play. It was much easier after that.

I love to customise various stuff and the cool looking workshop was the first thing that i opened after messing with the city. Workshop is quite intuitive though some things (like artillery weapons) should have some additional info on how to use them (i failed to find any info on artillery range).

I like how the food and minerals are used in the game. This kind of approach is what all similar games truly lack. Here in this game you can create a truly specialised city that harvests food or minerals for other cities that you can specialise in producing things or generate research. Specialising cities in Pandora does really have a meaning.

Combat is still a bit of a mystery to me. I can`t figure how it works, but i like it. I like how different types of equipment have different effects against various types of enemies. I always liked rock-paper-scissors approach in the games. I enjoyed the looks of units (except for mech - he it rather fat for my liking) and how the battles are animated.

The first and second my games crashed when i was about to move a unit. The third played well and i was even able to finish it (by crashing all the AI opponents). Medium difficulty AIs are quite easy to deal with, btw. Or it might be easy for an experienced players, perhaps. Need to try on harder levels to see the difference.

Overall i really enjoyed the game - how it looks, how it feels, how it works and how intuitive its GUI is.
The only grips i have so far are:

- inability to raze cities.
- inability to build a road in the forests straight away (it forces me to remove the forest, build the road and then to plant the forest).
- inability to replace an improvement by formers (it forces me to bring in a military unit and do the work in a hard way).
- inability to see a full tech tree (just to grasp the whole picture and to see where to expand).
- inability to see what weapons, units, devices, buildings and other stuff a tech will unlock (a weapon name, its type and who can use it - that`s what i mean).
- inability to see what makes a farmer/miner to get assigned to the already exploited hex (i usually get +1 extra resource in the already worked hex even if there are hexes with 2 food/mineral that are not yet worked).

I didn`t test the diplomacy yet, so i can`t say anything about it.

[Okim]

Oh, and how do you upgrade your units? Is it possible to do at all?

[SephiRok]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Could you please attach your logs so I can see where it crashed, Okim? And no you can't upgrade units yet.

Best regards,
Rok