Void2258 wrote:

I just completed a full play through as Horatio. Most of the feedback isn't race specific, though.

Basic Issues:

• There is far too much extra clicking. For example, if I get to choose a hero, I then get a notification that I got a hero. If I upgrade a hero, I then have to reopen and manually close the notice that I have a hero who has leveled.
• Popup levels get to be too much, especially in the late game when you have population growth, research, and construction coming up every single turn.

this is subjective, i am fine with it. however you can assign governors to systems if you want to reduce micromanagement. 

• There are too many unclear items. For example, I never, even at end game, figured out how to raise my command point cap. Many of the icons and subsystems are not well explained.

i agree, however this could be solved by a tutorial or in-game wiki. those systems are not hard too understand you just need to get the information somewhere, e.g. what is the symbol of command points.

• Pirates were an insane and never ending issue. They were clearly spawning from the ether, as I had an entire wing of the galaxy locked down and they would come out of hyperspace into systems I had surrounded. They were more trouble and less fun than any AI empire because there was nothing I could do with them.

never had problems with them in terms of being a threat. however they are certainly a pest with never-ending one-ship fleets.

Subsystems:

• What does the trading and marketing system do? I never once interacted with this screen since there was neither a need nor an explanation of how trading works, nor did it seem to be hurting me if I ignored it. What are the commodity resources for?

you can sell and buy strategic and luxury resources and later heroes and ships. i seldom use it and then it is mostly for making a bit of extra dust or buying heroes for my fleets. luxury resources are used to level up your systems (another not well explained system): you unlock the upgrades by advancing in the industry/dust tech tree area. in the trade route screen you can select luxury resources on the right hand side that are permanent bonuses to your systems, the first upgrade can use one type of luxury resource the next one two and the last one three. those upgrades are quite powerful since they always need just 1-2 turns to finish and can give a lot of fidsi. especially for new colonies the first upgrade with the resource that gives 50 production is quite good to get the system up and running.

• Diplomacy is very lackluster, not helped by the diplomacy options being buried down the tech tree. The idea of a "peace treaty" shouldn't be new to a spacefaring race. You are just making artificial gating. Also the current status indicator for the centermost race is hidden by their image.

agreed, basic diplomatic interactions should not use research. i would love to see better diplomatic techs, e.g. a late game tech to declare war without involving the allies of the target, manipulation of the enemies senate and so on.

• There are not enough ways to influence happiness, nor is what influences it clear. I spent most of the game with half my systems in revolt and the other half euphoric and I couldn't figure out why, nor did I have what to do with the revolting ones.

never had an issue with it. the easiest way is to use a colony upgrade with a luxury resource that grants approval. with cravers i just spend some turns with propaganda making the pops militarists. in the system screen you also get a detailed tooltip on what influences the happiness.

• My empire also kept going to anarchy for no apparent reason. The government in general seemed to have no impact on the game, nor could I ever get extra laws.
• The Horatio special (gene assimilation) didn't seem central or even particularly useful. There should be more to the racial mechanics so you are actually playing differently based on the race.

i agree the horatio affinity never seemed that game chancing compared to the other races (at least cravers, vodyiani and united empire).

• The whole "sphere of influence" that you have seems arbitrary and beyond your ability to control, making it hard to grab systems with bonuses (black holes, nebula, etc.). Some kind of contiguous territory with outposts to help you get systems without planets would make more sense.

afaik it is tied to influence generation of the system

• Anomaly investigation needs to be automated. manually moving your ship around and zooming in to search, but only every X turns, is an annoying and pojntless piece of busywork.

agreed there should be an auto explore button. it is especially tedius to go back to your old system an scan anomalies that you unlocked via research (to avoid using production in the system and research them via the build queue)

• The hero trees were lackluster, and not balanced so you can purely specialize in governing or fleet, due to there not being enough fleet items to level without taking governing items on most trees.

Tech:

yep

• The tech tree needs more iconography. Mousing over hundreds of icons is not a quick way to figure out what you want. On the later levels, by the time you can look at everything you have forgotten the first items.

have you zoomed in on the tech tree? imho explains enough when you zoom in 

• The division of techs is not clean enough for it to be obvious where to go for things, forcing you to read absolutly everything on mouseover at a time.

first playthrough issues and i think the categories are fine. there are some outliers, e.g. why are new ship types where they currently are.

• Several places still refer to "ages", as in the older tree style.
• A lot of the research gives unclear benefits (you don't know what the special materials unlock before you unlock them).
• There don't seem to be reasons to focus on one type of wepon over another, other than that you picked one at random and now you have to keep going due to exclusivity, since they all seem roughly equivalent in cost and power. 
• The military tree in gneral is not used much, especially since the warship chasis are not in it.

the only important thing in there are the general weapon/shield upgrades and the command point increase technologies.

• Having buildings and ships in the same queue means that often buildings from new techs never get built if you are busy fighting anyone or if the pirates won't stop showing up. Having a separate queue would make things more dynamic.

never had that issue, imho production is a bit over-abundant at the moment (especially with the vodyiani).

Combat:

• Combat is bad. The interface is horrible; among the things I could not figure out how to do were a) assign ships to any other than center lane, b) get more tactics cards, c) get overall data on the enemy so I didn't have to mouse over one ship at a time.

a) afaik this is dependent on the cards you use

b) military techs to research -> military screen -> change combat deck (or something like this) to choose the cards you want to be able to use. it is a bit hidden. as a paradox game player i am however used to important things being hidden in obscure sub screens XD

• Space combat with AI likes to trickle in repeated single-ship fleets prompting you to go through the menu over and over.
• If multiple combats are happening the wondows will popin over what you are doing and eachother, with results for battles coming in over other ones and generally making it impossible to track what is happening.
• Ground combat is badly signaled; it is never clear WHY you are winning if you don't have large differences in ground troop numbers.
• Watching ground combat is horrible. Either make it better or just get rid of it altogether.
• Often you will engage the wrong fleet, ie killing a civilian transport when you meant to fight a pirate fleet.
• Wars are awkward. I kept getting forced into truces because I would be penalized if I didn't take them. I also don't have any options to impose terms myself, I just have to wait for the AI. I was never actually able to kill any enemies because there was no good way to force a surrender and somehow (I think it cheats) there was always another planet hidden somewhere.
• No good way to conquer outposts that are not yet full colonies, short of blockading the system until they become full colonies and invading.
• The retreat system is arbitrary and often leaves you with no good options.