Things of note:
All of this is on Vostok or whatever as I didn't want to deal with aggression....which will be funny when you finish reading this post
On water cities starting civs/Korea-
I think soldier is going to be way better than worker. A starting worker can easily upgrade all the starting tiles before you're even close to being ready to move/expand and will often have a lot of down time or force you to spend energy.
A starting cutter however will let you explore more of the map and snap up a TON of resource pods(and by extension artifacts). This is also VERY important for korea as having a high move unit right out the gate lets you meet someone quickly. Further you'll almost always be able to get the marvel quest done faster than others (oh and btw leashing quest is broken as hell and will almost certainly need a nerf)
Further i'm testing knowledge/prosperity/might as my open. Knowledge for the + science on expiditions, prosperity because the free settler will proc the quest (usually getting done after i've rushed pioneering) and then grabbing the + expeditions and health if needed, and might because on the ocean it's VERY easy to farm aliens for XP. I think affinity wise purity/supremecy or the hybrid of the the two should be ideal. Helps explorers, helps alien murdering, and you get an early lev unit which is important for aquatic battle.
On artifacts-
These are easily the best thing about the expansion. We'll need to figure out what gives what reward, as passive rewards are worth saving for, but non passive ones are probably better waiting for later and popping them for the bonuses at the start. Either way even if broken as hell this is the system that's bringing a lot to the game. Some of the bonuses are NUTS though (+50% to air passive, +2 free worked tiles building, +10% yields when at war building, +50% internal trade routes building, etc).
On traits-
I hope these open up more playstyles. Just having a +Health trait makes me think you might be able to do openings like the one I posted above with some quick knowledge/might rush and not instantly hate your life.
On virtues-
Holy god do these feel out of place now. I feel here is especially where aquatic cities suffer
On aliens-
So uhh....i lost my capital to an angry kraken (and basically the game given I was slow expanding and only had one other city). I had the forces to stop it had I been concerned (and honestly I feel like it just spawned there...no nest or anything) but I had a fence on my capital and even though the aliens were red, who cares. I'd sent my army of sea dragons (seriously..leashing marvel quest is DUMB) to go clear alien nests for artifacts backed up by my subs and no one was even close to me militarily.
Then it destroyed my farm and I was ticked so I started poking at it. Then it hit my city for half its hp. Then it did it again. Then it blew it up. I'd been racing my units back since I saw it, but no one was close enough, and frankly I would've needed quite a few.
So yeah. At the very least for all that they may have screwed up a LOT more in many directions, rogue krakens seem to be a thing, and they're actually legit. Oh this was sub turn 70
Finally I present the glorious AI with the best city ever(note that I am hovering over one of those tiles. Check the yield):
http://imgur.com/2oegVSc
