I'm about 3 hours in the game and loving it, it feels like a great blend of MoO2 and Civilization. For an alpha game, its in an incredibly good and stable state. All i have is a few nitpicks on the (already pretty good) UI and other stuff:



- Being unable to select the fleet you wish to engage a enemy fleet with, i have lost colony ships against pirates despite arming a second protection fleet

- Being unable to retreat ships prior to or during a battle

- Lack of important notification when you meet an AI or when they give you an offer. I've gone turns without realizing i'm acquainted with another empire, and i swear I've missed heaps of offers because i ended turns too fast.

- For the forums, you guys should make a board for people to discuss strategy and post gameplay guides, and also an AAR section

I agree with your points, retreating would be a cool option for/prior to combat. Maybe consider the speed stat, if they're faster you can't outrun them obviously, but if you're equal you should get a chance.

Also the create a fleet/fleet overview/planet hangar is one area that needs work, it's still a little fiddly. Also that combat starts automatically, for example:

you create a fleet from 2 reserve forces in a system where pirates orbit, and lose the battle. But reinforcements from another system were on the way, and you could have easily defeated the pirates if you could have joined the two somehow, something that should be possible. On your turn, you should be able to pick the terms you are fighting on without having to rush.



And as Rebun said, notifications should stay until you dismiss them, so you can skip-go a few turns and then check all your notifications that have piled up, and not have them disappear. That's how the dismiss button should work.



Another thing that would be cool to have further down the line is a tech advisor like in civ5, I find it hard making my way around which tech and area would be important in the beginning, and spent quite some time until I figured out where I can unlock additional ship classes. Some handholding in that area (maybe with a military, economic, science and diplomatic etc. advisor, so you can still pursue your playstyle). I understand that this is an early alpha with more to come and maybe you already have all these features planned, but I still wanted to throw in my 2 cents.