First couple of games

[fortydayweekend]

Bought the game a couple of days ago and have played 2 partial games - first as Togra to work out most of the tech, then as the Dynasty with aggressive aliens for some fun with flamers.

I love the lack of micromanagement and the resulting pace of the game, at least in the early/mid game. I don't think I ever actually finished a SMAC game because the mid-game development got too time-consuming, and I wasn't much better at finishing Civ4 if there was any late-game military action. I'm hoping Pandora won't get bogged down with producing and moving around huge stacks of units.

The pace to me so far seems perfect - if I need e.g. a new weapon on my tanks it's a few turns to beeline research and another few turns to build, relatively quick and then on to the next project.

Also love the shared resources, global growth and migration, all really obviously good things that Civ should've had long ago. The city specialisation that comes out of it means a lot fewer buildings are needed, speeding up the midgame a lot. You need to plan city sites and specialisation ahead of time but once your strategy is set, the implementation isn't time-consuming.

The random tech tree is really cool, needing a bit of strategy on the fly rather than going the same path every time. Having some random techs missed completely could also be an interesting option.

The production/morale/pollution/taxes/etc dynamics also seem to work really well - it's easy to see how they affect each other, complicated enough to be interesting, and seem to be reasonably balanced.

Obviously the diplomacy needs some work, but I'd hate to have to come up with the algorithms for the usual "mood"-based diplomacy system. Maybe a randomised plot/story-driven dynamic would work better, or an economic driver (e.g. factions need more space so invade their closest neighbour regardless of how they feel about them. Or they ally to attack someone getting too strong or about to win. Or they invade to control strategic resources etc ). Ideally with some options, different systems and aggression levels to keep more people happy. At any rate something more interesting than just a plus/minus "like/dislike" setup.

The terrain feels like it could do with some variation, perhaps some more common features that add single extra food/resources. Or savanna/tropical/arctic having a small effect.

And so far my military fights have been wars of attrition with huge casualties on both sides (few units surviving to retreat to heal). I think this was a combination of nukes attacking stacks, and any units not in stacks getting wiped out. I kind of like this because it means less micro moving units around but it does make things a little bit harder for the defender (who would usually expect to be able to heal and/or hide in cities).

My top request for a feature though is some sort of progress screen/graph - e.g. each faction's progress on different victory conditions on a graph, maybe total pop/production etc... it's nice to see how you're tracking and whether your strategy is working or not

[NightReaper]

I would like to add that what I really dislike where diplomacy is concerned is the inability to make demands when AI blatantly encroaches on your space. Most 4x's seem to let the AI voice displeasure but precious few allow the same for the player(s). The AI is or seems capable of judging your strength so it would seem quite easy that they could evaluate your voiced displeasure in the same manner and act appropriately depending on their strength in comparison to their appraisal. What am I missing?