I hadn't played ES2 for months. Came back recently, after the expansion, played a couple games, then tried the Unfallen.

Restarted 5 times. Quit.

The 20 turns for entwining in the early game is making early expansion nearly impossible.  I'll get one system entwined, and the other players will colonize 3 systems.  Since they can skip to good systems, they get to good systems before I possibly could.

Worse, in one case a system I was entwining got colonized. I finished the entwining before they finished their colony, but when their colony finished the system was theirs.

I played a lot of ES2 when it came out. I don't remember this being a problem. I assume the entwining duration has been increased to make up for issues in the mid and later game, but it has crushed them for the early game. I don't consider myself incompetent, I had no trouble playing the Imperials and Sophons, but I couldn't get an empire even up and running with the Unfallen.

Perhaps change the entwining duration back, and if necessary, increase it when the Unfallen reach some milestone in the game (tech 3? A number of entwined systems?)  As it stands right now I'm not going to play them, and I'm not going to allow the AI to play them. They just don't appear to be viable.

But you know you can stack vineships, to lower entwining duration, right ? The second vineship in one stack halfs the duration, i.e.

Yes, but they are so expensive that putting one out in the early game doesn't solve the early game expansion problem.

I think this is why there are random variables in the game. To make you adjust your strategy.

Yes Kuma, I actually did get your mod and it fixes the problem and balances it for later game. Good mod, thanks.