The best I’ve done so far is to get to industrial on turn 153. Even then the map is so resource starved that I struggled to research the right techs and exploit the right resources to get trains And planes. I feel like I’d have to go all in on science to even be able to get to the right techs in time to play out the industrial era. 

I played one game on empire difficulty and I only managed to reach the industrial era during the last 10 turns or so. I don't think it's a pacing issue (I rather liked the current pace of the game) but if the goal of the beta is to test the industrial era, I'm not sure it will work too well.

Maybe the current beta could be updated to last 50 or 75 more turns?

I was able to play 2 full games. Those two games I was 1 or 2 era stars short of getting to Industrial.

Those 2 games I focused a lot on science and was the world leader in tech and despite that I didn't even finish all the medieval techs, let alone all the pre-industrial...

I don't think this is a pacing issue, I think the beta is 100 turns too short for us to test industrial age.

magilzeal wrote:

In regards to the Wonders, I think the Statue of Liberty is a LOT better than the others:

Yeah... part of this is probably due to the AI being not terribly good at spreading their influence.

It's only this good because you play on a low difficulty setting.
On higher lvls the AI pushes harder on influence and having so many vassals is also very unlikely.

You also have basically won already, so it just means winning more after you've won.
Big ben gives more science right if you satisfy the conditions, no vassals needed.

Since I was missing one Oil and there was non in the new world, I couldn't test much. (why can't I build Oil refineries in my vassals territory?)
Science is also way too slow to properly test anything, at least on higher difficulty. (on low difficulty there would be nothing to test the weapons on)

Except for "Osmosis Events" that suddenly started triggering each turn and helped me clear the entire tech tree in 10 turns.
Whatever these are supposed to be, they are way too powerful and random.

What I noticed the most is that you have too little influence on your vassals. You can't take their territory, help them build resource deposits or do anything with them really.
Give me the option to demand outposts or cities, even if that could make them rebell.

AkashaX1885 wrote:

It's only this good because you play on a low difficulty setting.
On higher lvls the AI pushes harder on influence and having so many vassals is also very unlikely.

You also have basically won already, so it just means winning more after you've won.
Big ben gives more science right if you satisfy the conditions, no vassals needed.

I feel like giving feedback based on the default difficulty is important since the majority of players will probably play there. But I will give Empire difficulty a shot later when I can get some more free time.

1. All of the CS values for pretty much every industrial era unit are incredibly underwhelming. Musketeer upgrades to line infantry which as 1 more CS. The Biplane has 2 less CS then the Man O' War, as does the siege artillery. I found the out-teching my opponents in the indutrial era was somewhat useless and not even worth the gold upgrade cost. On average, the CS of this era seems to be maybe 3 higher than the previous era. Every other era has featured an 8-10 CS jump for many units when entering the next era. 

2. Coal power plant is pretty underwhelming as well. It's just another copy of the other infra that slightly buffs maker's quarters plus it gives +10 production per coal. Most infra costs are in the thousands of production by this time. Unless you found at least 10 coal, this will be an incredibly underwhelming bonus throughout the rest of the game. Coal should be a game changer that forces you to trade or war for it, and right now, it's incredibly generic and weak.

3. Loving the bombard ability of siege artillery and biplanes, just wish they did more damage. Can't even get through stone walls that easily with them. Also, biplanes start automatically on patrol, and when you try to bombard with them, it tells you that they can't since they were already assigned an action. This is really annoying, as I want to assign their first action, not have it automatically decided for me. Also, when you select the biplane, it actually selects the aerodrome, and you wouldn't even see this unless you clicked on the biplane unit card. 

4. Train stations were pretty cool, just the animation that needs to get fixed. I don't think they needed to impact stability though. It's kind of annoying to have this new fun feature and then realize you have to build a bunch of garrisons/common quarters again to use it. Also, maybe increase the +1 production per adjacent makers quarter, have them exploit industry on surrounding tiles or don't include it at all. It would literally always decrease your production to put this next to a maker's quarter currently since it would demolish the exploitation it replaces (unless it's on a food exploitation tile next to a maker's quarter, but that doesn't happen very often) 

Only got to play a few turns of Industrial era before the game ended so didn't actually get to explore the era at all. :(

The industrial cultures do seem to have an immense impact on the output of cities though.

So, having finally gotten to the industrial era with enough time in the run to play around, I can say the following regarding each feature highlighted:

• Coal and Oil: New resources that can provide bonuses to a variety of quarters and are crucial for modern units.
  I just about entirely skipped Coal, and there were to few oil resources on the map. After conquering a neibhour for oil, I can say that it basically is "just another strategic."
  The economic benefits of Coal were interesting, but even after getting the tech that gave bonuses per coal I did not truly feel the impact. At most, it cut a turn or two of some of my builds. Regardless of how big of an impact it actually had, the effect felt minimal to my empire. Getting more coal was just a neat "cool, I guess" and not something I went out of my way to do.
  
  
• Train Stations: You can construct one train station per territory. They gain bonus industry for adjacent Makers Quarters, and can be used by armies to move to a train station in a neighboring territory for only 1 movement point.
  Investing in train stations gave me a massive advantage with moving armies around, and meant that my core cities could contribute to the war until the last turn. The production bonus on the was too small for me to really consider it, and I just placed my stations where it would make sense or I had space.
  
  Train stations feel like somethiing that should use coal, and I think giving them some yield bonus for having a lost of coal would make the resource feel more valuable. They unlock on the same tech, so it feels like something that makes sense.
  
  
• Long-range Artillery: Late industrial era artillery units have so much range they get access to the "Bombardment" ability: They can fire at districts, armies, or into ongoing battles once per turn.
  Artillery was fun to use, but the bombard effect was mostly a curiosity. They felt more effective as a regular unit in the backline. At the point the AI was at, they were still fielding swordsmen, and in som cases basic warriors. If I was fighting units more at par with mine my opinion could be different. It was neat however to see idle stacks outside of the battlefield getting some use on turns they couldn't fight.
  
  To elaborate on one of the questionare questions: yes, unlocking it first was an advantage, but not as big as that of getting gunpwoder units first. Artillery mostly just replaced the archer/crossbowmen slots in my armies (which had been replaced by Gunner units a while back anyways).
  
  
• Airfields and Aircraft: Biplane fighters are available at the end of the Industrial era; stationed on an airfield, they provide vision on all tiles in neighboring regions, and can perform a weak Bombardment action, but also protect against enemy airplane bombardment actions in these territories by attempting to shoot down incoming planes.
  Planes felt a bit weak. The scouting ability was nice, but never really changed my strategy away from "walk into their land with vastly superior units." I couldn't really move them forwards in my wars, as the frontline lacked the infrastructure to field them after a while. The rebasing range also felt stifling.

magilzeal wrote:

AkashaX1885 wrote:

It's only this good because you play on a low difficulty setting.
On higher lvls the AI pushes harder on influence and having so many vassals is also very unlikely.

You also have basically won already, so it just means winning more after you've won.
Big ben gives more science right if you satisfy the conditions, no vassals needed.

I feel like giving feedback based on the default difficulty is important since the majority of players will probably play there. But I will give Empire difficulty a shot later when I can get some more free time.

I have to stand up and applaud this. It is extremely important that feedback based on the NORMAL difficulty setting is heard. I do not want the highest difficulty setting with the maximum cheats awarded to the AI to be the standard. If you can earn 24+K in gold a turn on normal difficulty because the AI doesn't push influence enough, that is a SERIOUS red flag and we should all acknowledge it as such and not dismiss it.

Maybe it's my style of play, but I found it really strange that I managed to enter the industrial era with my highest scientific achievement basically pre-medieval tech.

The Turn Timer seems too short to actually test any of this stuff. To get there I feel like I'm neglecting other parts of my empire to such an extreme that I could easily lose a war