There's still so much not working with this game. Even things that worked fine, or better, in previous versions.

No wonder the release date seemed unrealistic. Although waiting several more months might have been even more frustrating.

Anyway, my point is, I don't really feel like filing any more bug reports when things seem to be getting even worse. Maybe again soon, but not now.

+1. Played for a week and then shelved it. War score is an unrealistic and messed up mechanic. The immersion disrupting identity changes when eras change is incomprehensible. Add on all the other bugs and system twitches and you get a mess. I fear that the devs will be too invested in "clever" ideas that just don't work to make the changes necessary to make the game fun.

solops wrote:
The immersion disrupting identity changes when eras change is incomprehensible.

I expected I would hate that going in but it really hasn't felt bad to me. At least it's not any worse than starting as "The Americans" in 4000BC like in Civ.

But I certainly agree there's a lot to fix right now, particularly in the later eras.

Funny enough akin to Civ series humankind at launch indeed has more issues compounding the game at the later eras. Seems to be an industry standard for 4x in my experience lol.

I think it's still early days yet, and most of the core concepts (except warfare) are good. We just have to get used to them. The early bugs and and balancing will get better over time. 

As for frustrations... I dislike the war score/war goal mechanic and didn't like it in PDX games either. I understand the reason, to avoid player steamrolling and help the AI, but it's too much of a deus-ex-machina when it's forced so heavily. You get the invisible Hand of the Developer reaching into the game and saying "No, you can't do that" with no logical reason. I doubt this will change, but it could be less annoying with some fine tuning and more options as the game is developed. 

The culture change mechanic will inevitably be a problem for 4X players used to a static identity through a campaign, but I'm getting used to it. Some work needs to be done here to avoid having to just think of other opponents as colors. Maybe keeping the avatar leader's name in the forefront.

Anyway, I'm provisionally happy with the game and wasn't expecting it to be perfect on launch day. Just waiting to see where it goes from here.