good game ;) : Feedback

[Flef]

It is the most refreshing 4X since a while. Thanks for that.


general feeling
I really feel in the position of a ruler with the automation, the tech tree and all. I give the direction to the empire and do not do everything. And the empire behaves more or less like a system.
Graphically it is correct (but the galaxy is marvelous to watch). The soundtrack is in the theme and not annoying at all.
Battles can be intense and wars can be epic.
The pace is unique. Very slow at start and getting faster progressively.

UI
It does the job.
populations are expressed in a very simple and "raw" way (ie 110 000). It lack the taste of managing an empire ruling the life of billions of people.
It would have been more immersive (to my taste :p )to have 11 billions instead of 110 000. It is purely cosmetic.

Tech tree
I really enjoy the tech tree. I didn't see such one since MoO3. I guess there is still room for improvement like race-specific branches to give the races a bit more taste. However it is hard for the player to understand what he is doing really. I tried to figure during a long time how to get better energy generators. And I found it by accident :XD: Same thing for some kind of weapons, or even tech that I do not see their purpose. It is a kind of blackbox.
At least I perfectly understood the benefit of focusing on "frigate", "destroyers",etc... :p

Ship designer
The ship designer is a nice minigame. It could be nice to put the arcs to guide the player to understand where the weapons are pointing. Energy generation is requiring a tremendous amount of space with the basic nuclear reactor.
The impact of technology is tremendous on many aspect

Tactical battles
Tactical battles are nice and a technology can be a gamechanger. The AI likes the right flank of my formations apparently. The scattering of the ship is something quite good in definitive. It forces to adapt quickly, delay, sacrifice ship if necessary. And it adds a strategic choice during the ship design phase. fast ship can regroup and fight quickly but will be lightly armored, while heavy ship will sustain heavy damages but might not be able to regroup in formation. Same with weapons. Ion beams are like a kind of artillery, while UV laser seems to be a CIWS. Fleets can take advantage of this. or not :p

Ressources.
Their number is fine.
When the stockpile is empty I do not have the information of how much I miss in terms of ressource flow.

Logistics
At last. Someone made it.

Planets density
I think there is too much oceanic and earthlike planets in the games I've [s]played{/s] started . They should be rarer imo. It seems easy to feed the people of the desertic planets when there is a bunch of earthlike and oceanic planet secured in the empire.
I've started sometimes right at the side of another empire capital. I'm not against but the AI should build a lot of ground units to protect its main world in that case.


Automation.
It does help the player. the "plan invasion" button is a marvel of automation in a game
It is very comfortable to tell the machine "do me an agricultural world". At the very least it helps a lot to get into the game.

I'm still trying to figure whether it is better to micromanage or to leave the AI doing the job.
For example. If I land a colony on a world with 7 deposit in the idea of making it a mineral extraction site, I will build something like 6 domes (1 from colony) and 7 "extraction plant". It make a need for 7000 people only, and so 7000 food ( or so). If I leave the AI at handling the job, the AI will fill the planet until every slots are occupied or blocked.
In the end it creates 2 very different worlds with very different needs and capacities.

Diplomacy:
Funny sometimes ^_^
Classic but with some interesting options.

Spying
A very nice feature that I underuse for sure. I still don't believe I can intoxicate the AI

Thoughts:
The game lacks internal politics. Could be fun to have to deal with pros and cons factions on a subject (war with a race, tribute and trade agreement etc...). Therefore leading at the end to revolts and the creation of independent empires. And to deal with specific rules for each kind of government.
The domination victory should be incompatible with the external threat.

[jtg0d]

Thoughts:
The game lacks internal politics. Could be fun to have to deal with pros and cons factions on a subject (war with a race, tribute and trade agreement etc...). Therefore leading at the end to revolts and the creation of independent empires. And to deal with specific rules for each kind of government.
The domination victory should be incompatible with the external threat.

Revolts and declaring independence actually may happen in the game. I had 2 colonies revolt and declare independence and thus becoming pirates when I ran out of food because like you mentioned, AI seems to be filling up mineral worlds with pop whether needed or not. I suspect revolutions and independence can be achieved through spying too, but i've never done it or seen it. Not my thing.

[Flef]

Thoughts:
The game lacks internal politics. Could be fun to have to deal with pros and cons factions on a subject (war with a race, tribute and trade agreement etc...). Therefore leading at the end to revolts and the creation of independent empires. And to deal with specific rules for each kind of government.
The domination victory should be incompatible with the external threat.

Revolts and declaring independence actually may happen in the game. I had 2 colonies revolt and declare independence and thus becoming pirates when I ran out of food because like you mentioned, AI seems to be filling up mineral worlds with pop whether needed or not. I suspect revolutions and independence can be achieved through spying too, but i've never done it or seen it. Not my thing.

I know that colonies can revolt. And I suppose independence possible for I read on eXplorminate. You just confirmed it.
I think this mechanic can be exploited to create something a bit bigger.

[jtg0d]

Thoughts:
The game lacks internal politics. Could be fun to have to deal with pros and cons factions on a subject (war with a race, tribute and trade agreement etc...). Therefore leading at the end to revolts and the creation of independent empires. And to deal with specific rules for each kind of government.
The domination victory should be incompatible with the external threat.

Revolts and declaring independence actually may happen in the game. I had 2 colonies revolt and declare independence and thus becoming pirates when I ran out of food because like you mentioned, AI seems to be filling up mineral worlds with pop whether needed or not. I suspect revolutions and independence can be achieved through spying too, but i've never done it or seen it. Not my thing.

I know that colonies can revolt. And I suppose independence possible for I read on eXplorminate. You just confirmed it.
I think this mechanic can be exploited to create something a bit bigger.

Agreed. I liked the idea of revolt/independence, but unfortunately the guys just become pirates and independent of each other, not sure if pirates cooperate between each other. It would be nice if a whole separate nation would be formed as a result of whatever action precipitated the revolt in the first place, thus creating a race offshoot with its own research/diplomacy line, etc etc.