I played a couple hours of v .90 over the past 2 days and wanted to share my impressions.
I want to start by saying overall I like it alot! Seems like alot of game mechanics are being streamlined. But admittedly I haven't played all aspects so this is just going to be a smattering of my observations.
- I absolutely LOVE the bottom bar, which shows you all your actionable options and analytical tasks in one place. In previous games, these things seemed spread out across different UI elements. (though I have to ask, why isnt research on this bar?!?)
- Text highlighting seems weird. For example anytime an action relates to Ideology, the word "Ideological Awareness" is hightlighted in yellow....but really the word that should be highlighted is Liberty/Opportunity/Harmony. (this reminds me of someone I knew who used to do technical documentation and BOLDED the "action words" and not the subject works. So they would write: "Step 3 *click* the ok button" This resulted in a huge document with the word "click" bolded hundreds of times, when the bolded words should have been the name of the button you had to click on)
- The leaders screen needs work. It uses Drag & Drop, but no other part of the UI does, so it's kind of unclear what to do with the screen. Right-clicking does nothing, but double clicking commits to the purchase...which you can do accidentally when you're trying to figure out what to do.
- I just said Drag & Drop isnt used anywhere else but it actually IS used in the Ship build-queue, and there it is AWESOME! Nice job on the construction-yard UI!
- Sorry, but the Research screens are a MESS! Arguably one of the most fun parts of the game is reviewing your tech-trees and what you want to accomplish...but for the life of my I cannot figure out how to see everything, or what everything means.
- Grey means not-researched? But then things that CAN be researched are colored, and looks like you already have it....but it has a number for how many weeks it would take to research? Confusing an inconsistent.
- I understand what the different colored techs mean from previous games. But some trees now have different colored items in the same tree? Also there are times when the 4 suggested techs have items from the same tree, and it becomes impossible to browse the other trees?
- I dont understand the benefit of a Tech minister to unlock a 5th research candidate? They arent all being researched at once...and you are restricted to your options based on prior research. Maybe I'm missing something.
- I love the idea of the smaller "areas" that link. It let's you maintain interaction with your "close neighbors" before being subject to an "incompatible civ", like a war monger that sends ships to attack you, when you were just trying to get a start with your neighbors.
- The planet management screen still needs work. I love that "upgrade manufacturing" is now a thing instead of upgrading each manufacturing hex. But there's now SO MANY options on what to do that the planet screen seems overwhelming. Right-click-build menu + Unique-building + level upgrades + citizens + projects (and I'm still not sure how to build a new ship yard)