I played the game (version 1.1) for roughly 10 hours. I did manage to become familiar with what is happening - regularly winning at higher difficulty settings. Here are my thoughts on the game - of course, my own view is just that; not meant to encourage or discourage anyone from playing.
I will start with the positives:
1)The game does look nice. Graphics are believable and not cartoony. Spacing, while not realistic, isn't just symbolic (eg like what it is in Civ games, at least up to Civ6).
2)Learning curve is not hard. Probably this was highly intentional - to lure people into the game. You can understand what you are doing and what it leads to, with only a few hours played.
The negatives:
1)This felt quite empty. After I became aware of what was happening, there simply wasn't anything else to achieve. Maybe in later ages (only reached medieval) things change and you have to adapt; but that would only mean that the previous part of the game was empty.
2)War is virtually in your mind, with very little representation or control. This is almost at Victoria III level of bad. Moreover, due to non-open war goals, you can - and will - manage to have the war automatically end when you were 20 times more powerful than the enemy but the enemy had some minor force sneak through and take one of your cities; then when you take your war goal the enemy ridiculously keeps the conquered city and the conflict ends...
3)There doesn't seem to be any factor of moving your resources to the factories/other points where they are fed to. It appears that they instantly get there - again this has those bad Victoria III vibes. In effect, it becomes a tabletop game where cards mean you have stuff, instead of an actual in-game world that is in flux.
Overall - and I can be very wrong - to me this felt like a strange transformation of the Settlers games to a turn-based tabletop-like analogue.
Conclusion: the game has its merits, and there is a lot of room for serious improvement. Maybe in the future this will happen. Either way, not a bad game, but a bit soulless.
I will start with the positives:
1)The game does look nice. Graphics are believable and not cartoony. Spacing, while not realistic, isn't just symbolic (eg like what it is in Civ games, at least up to Civ6).
2)Learning curve is not hard. Probably this was highly intentional - to lure people into the game. You can understand what you are doing and what it leads to, with only a few hours played.
The negatives:
1)This felt quite empty. After I became aware of what was happening, there simply wasn't anything else to achieve. Maybe in later ages (only reached medieval) things change and you have to adapt; but that would only mean that the previous part of the game was empty.
2)War is virtually in your mind, with very little representation or control. This is almost at Victoria III level of bad. Moreover, due to non-open war goals, you can - and will - manage to have the war automatically end when you were 20 times more powerful than the enemy but the enemy had some minor force sneak through and take one of your cities; then when you take your war goal the enemy ridiculously keeps the conquered city and the conflict ends...
3)There doesn't seem to be any factor of moving your resources to the factories/other points where they are fed to. It appears that they instantly get there - again this has those bad Victoria III vibes. In effect, it becomes a tabletop game where cards mean you have stuff, instead of an actual in-game world that is in flux.
Overall - and I can be very wrong - to me this felt like a strange transformation of the Settlers games to a turn-based tabletop-like analogue.
Conclusion: the game has its merits, and there is a lot of room for serious improvement. Maybe in the future this will happen. Either way, not a bad game, but a bit soulless.
