Here are a couple random thoughts on this video.
1. Why does the first, lower tier submarine fire like an artillery, while the other first like a proper submarine?
2. So submarines remain invisible after firing? Does this mean we need a newly introduced destroyer unit to deal with them?
3. I think the diplomacy screen could be far better if they re-woked it a litte. They way they organize it is really weird. They seem to have a minimalistic approach to it, trying not to clutter the screen. Unfortunately, it makes things worse IMO. I think they should just make a copy of the icons on the left side, and move them into the main bar next to Kozlov's name. Grouping the nations based on the ones he hates, is Neutral against, and is friendly with. The way the current setup is makes you look through the entire bar over and over again, and that's only with 8 players, imagine it it with 10, or even 12 if that is possible. It just isn't practical, and what is the point of reducing screen clutter to this degree in a menu screen in which we can't even mess with the background anyways, it's just too much of an attempt the keep the screen clean in my opinion.
4. Now let's talk artifacts. Do they add something to the game? Well, I guess, but what exactly is it? I see the military usage, and the quick bonus. But do they add enough to make them worth making the game more complex? I really don't know. Are they going to be balanced? Is there a way for other players to know that you have recently acquired an artifact they plan on using on you? I am also skeptical about these bonus that they are tacking onto these artifacts, I think keeping them good at doing one thing is good enough, but do we really need +yet another 50, + 50 that? We will really have to see how these turn out, as for now I really can't tell.
5. Alien Egg Resources? (3:25 in the video) I guess they are referring to where the tile where spawns from. Is this going to be something a Harmony player can interact with? Or is this going to be another bland +2 food?(maybe both combined) I don't really know, and there isn't much I can say about it since I really don't know how this expansion works yet in terms of water cities.
6. The diplomacy system. Are we just going to pile up points to give ourselves traits/use them to influence others? and will this feel meaningful? Will this system be better than civ V's diplomacy?
7.Will they have fixed the majority of Civ BE issues with this? Honestly, who knows, but hopefully they at least hit some of them.
8. I really hope they work on their color pallets, the tile colors seem so uninspired and empty. They still have a menu color obession with everything being this space blue color. Please, look at your colors again, because the game is just hard to look at. Get some lively colors in here and there.
9. Lastly and more importantly, is the game fun to play yet?
These are just some questions that hopefully will help people keep their expectations in check, and make us think a bit more about how much this expansion will actually do to Civ BE. I am aware Firaxis does usually fix their games eventually, so I definitely have hope, but I won't expect anything until I play this new version.
That's about it, I am not trying to hate on something that isn't even out yet, again, I am trying to adjust my own and other's expectations of this. I am really trying to assess how much of what they have changed in the game is what they have currently showed us. My guess is this might just be 50%, and the other 50% might be the big 2.0 patch that is coming up. In terms of this expansion, the more things they attempt to change/fix the better, because for, the majority of things could be better.
