I am excited for this game and I see great potential so far, but I have some constructive criticism to offer. The technology advancement portion of the game is frankly very boring. Upon entering the technology selection screen we are presented with a list of available technologies to research, already sorted into a list by cost from lowest to highest. There is no visual reference to what technologies a particular technology will lead too, and there is not much detail presented as to what the benefits of a technology actually are. The end result was that I just chose the tech at the top of the list, since it was the cheapest, and continued to do so for the remainder of the game, only deviating from that once. The other problem is with the interface, I have to click the technology at the top of the screen, then click set in the far lower left corner, and then click the X in the opposite upper right corner.
So when new research notice appears, I do in an automated fashion:
1. click the notification button in the upper right
2. click the choose next research project link in the lower center
3. click the tech at the top of the list in the top center of the screen
4. click Set Research in the lower left
5. click the X in the upper right
It’s a whole lot of mouse moves all over the screen and I lost interest in it, it just isn’t fun. The list method is about the most boring way possible to present techs.
I would suggest presenting the technologies like Endless Legends does, all the techs for a given era are available and visible, and the same cost, you can click 1 tech or click many techs to research in order, you don’t have to click a Set Research button, and you don’t have to click an X to close the screen, you can simply Right Click on any screen to close it and be taken back to the map. Having tech eras like Endless Legends is also nice, you get about 16 techs per era but only need to research 9 to advance to the next era, so to get the higher level better techs, you will end up not researching all the lower level techs, but you can still research them later if you still want them. My suggestion is also don’t make the techs having such varying costs either, make more of them the same cost, otherwise I seem to just choose the current lowest cost one.
The other aspect of research that is lacking is the generation of research points. Planets only seem to have between 4 to 6 build slots available, and 1 is always consumed by a factory and another by a market to get trade dollars, and generally 1 is always consumed by a farm, and metals are always running low, so 2 are consumed by mines. Any remaining slots are best served by another factory or farm or mine. Labs will rarely get built then, and thus the only way to get research points is by more population or converting production to research. So there is very little involvement by the player or ability of the player to increase research point production, and the selection of what to research next becomes automated like, thus the whole research aspect of the game is rather bland.
I offer this criticism in the hope that this aspect of the game can be made more exciting. When it comes time to research a new tech, I want to actually sit there for a minute and have to ponder my next tech, or the next 5 techs and in what order. If I see myself falling behind other empires, I want to have the ability to quickly re-allocate my empires resources to research production in effort to catch up.