First of all, I must give my compliments to Amplitude, as even in early access the game seems very promising and I've greatly enjoyed it.

I've played four games, with every faction avable and here are my firsts thoughts (I know the game is in EA, so don't think of them as critics, but as constructive feedback. And as always, forgive my bad english):

RESEARCH: For now, it's very unbalaced. As the Sophons, I managed to research 80% of the tech by the endgame turn (around 126, if I recall), while as all other faction I barely reached era 3 (roughly 50% of total tech), and I've even researched many science tech and build many science building, sacrificing other sectors.

It seems either the sophons receive a too large bonus, or the base tech cost is too high.

TECHS: Biggest issues of all, if I may say so. I liked the tech tree of ES1, and even if I not initially like it, I've even come to like the era system of EL. But I don't like it now.

Why must I research a Planetary Specialization tech (+1 x per pop) instead of waiting the next era and reaserch the advaced one (+2 x per pop)? I know tech systems are not easy to balance, but this seems a little broken.

Also, why put some techs that are almost complementary (like Earth Foams or the one that makes you build Planetary Improvement)? Just make them freely availeble until you reach era X. Techs systems are about choices, and if the game force you making specific choices, what's the point in having the possibility to choose?

DIPLOMACY: I know, I know... We're in EA and so diplomacy isn't developed. But I must say so: why the IA is constantly declaring war or forcing truce? That seems very random: it declares war even if you have large military and you are far away. And then force truce. Which I've not fully understood. Is it something that happens automaticly after X turns of war, or is it a diplomatic interaction? Because I don't seem to find the option for doing it, even if I reaserched the diplomacy techs...

LUMERIS: While played by IA, seems that if left alone in the first game phase, the rapidly reach an incredible score and colonize half galaxy in no time. No other IA controlled empire manage to do that. IA is good with Lumeris and suck at other races.

CRAVERS: I know that I may be missing something, but why the get a great happiness malus every election? There is a way to avoid that? As a race that need constant expansion (with all happiness penality tied to it) that seems really unmanageble. The whole empire in in rebellion around turn 60 even with all happiness buildings.

VODYANI: There are already many posts about them, so I won't write about it anymore.

DEUVYANS: It's very strange that a Gas-dwelling race suffer the -20 happiness for being on a Gas planet. They should get a happiness bonus for gas planet to balance this.

SENATE: As I've already written in another post, it seems no matter what you do, in endgame Militarist get the lead. Many have already wrote about it, so I won't detail it.

BATTLES: There are a few bugs, and not much conceptual issues here. After every battle a fleet that was Guarding stops Guarding.

Sometimes happens that a enemy attack first the weakest fleet around a system instead of the strongest.

Enemy can invade a system even with your fleet guarding it? That's very weird.

Seems that the Religious Laws wich makes you able to invade in cold war doesn't always work.

Repairing ship is way too costly. And seems that paying is the only way of doing it. Why can't a ship in an hangar being slowly repaired? You could even implement a system production like (repair 10% ship health in hangar, infinite turns) if you really want that repairing is something a player should do actively.

STRATEGIC RESOURCES: The feeling that I have is they are not very useful. They are used only in ship parts (and 1 building), but for now you can easily ignore them. Even if you use them, you seem to never finish your stock (exept exeptional cases) so many of them there are around.

Also, if you want to use the red and orange ones, you have to research a tech to extract them, a tech to locate them and another tech to use them. That's a little excessive...

INFLUENCE: First, the tecnology which makes you absorb an enemy system if it's in you area of influence is a great thing. But I think there must be some way to counter it (ex. spending influence to postpone the absorbtion).

Second: why and empire in cold war with you can colonize system in your influence area? I really hope this is only a bug (the Lumeris seems to do it the most).

HEROES: Let's skip the bug that makes you unable to heal heroes ship and let's go straight to the "Why can't I pay to make a disbled hero to heal faster?".

Also another note: it seems to me that heroes level up much faster as governors that as fleet commanders, even if they fight quite frequently. Why? At engame I've had the initial hero (fleet commander, fought all large battles of the game) at level 6, and a governor hero which I recruited later was at level 10.

HAPPINESS: It just isn' very visible, like in ES1. You should put average happines in evidedence somewhere easy to see.

Also, it's not very manageable. There should be laws (some already exists) or options (I don't know, a production like: +10 happiness, infinite production) to affect it other than a few buildings.

I agree with most of this in general, but I especially like the idea of letting you "build happiness" as an infinite/repeatable action. Currently it feels both like there aren't enough ways to control your happiness and that you often don't have enough things to build in the early game, so this kills two birds with one stone. You could call it "Vacation Time" or something since your workers aren't doing anything in particular.

Clarste wrote:

I agree with most of this in general, but I especially like the idea of letting you "build happiness" as an infinite/repeatable action. Currently it feels both like there aren't enough ways to control your happiness and that you often don't have enough things to build in the early game, so this kills two birds with one stone. You could call it "Vacation Time" or something since your workers aren't doing anything in particular.

Something like this seems like a very good idea.  OR make it something you have to research.  Maybe like a research that gives you a  unique system improvement that lets you do the 'build hapiness' in all other systems (Vacation resort that you can send pops to).  Or maybe a planetary improvement that gives a small '+ Happiness' bonus.

Clarste wrote:

I agree with most of this in general, but I especially like the idea of letting you "build happiness" as an infinite/repeatable action. Currently it feels both like there aren't enough ways to control your happiness and that you often don't have enough things to build in the early game, so this kills two birds with one stone. You could call it "Vacation Time" or something since your workers aren't doing anything in particular.

In EL 'stockpiles' served in many ways as a production dump: spend production now and have resources (Food, Industry or Science) later. I don't see why we couldn't have a similar thing here. You spend resources to make a 'happiness' stockpile. It could even be in the form of a luxury resource that can only be synthesized. The game makes frequent reference to narcotics and advanced forms of entertainment, so this luxury resource/stockpile could be represented by having your workers, drones and factories work on producing these 'Happy Pills' which you then give to the population for cheap, thereby increasing happiness for their duration.