I played for a bit tonight, puttering around as the jelly fish people on easy mode in the 12 races scenario. Nothing serious, just toying with the basics and getting familiar with the interface.

Nice game; the presentation is rather ... soothing. Gazing at that attractive galaxy map with quiet music playing and an interface which is kept out of your way; this might be the first space strategy game I've found that's relaxing to play. It definitely feels like a change of pace to all of the strident noise-explosions-busy-intense colour-6,000 buttons-choose stuff right now-here's some stats- scream, wooo! space games. That's not to say I find the pace slow, the gameplay systems simplistic, or the action lacking. Whether through my ignorance or the game's design, turns were passing far faster than in comparable games and there was plenty happening, and the information given felt more straightforwardly intelligible.

There's some concepts that I consider to have promise. In particular it looks like several of those concepts will combine to add a carefully judged balance to rapid expansion. I haven’t experienced most of those measures yet, the range limit is the only one I can talk about much. It’s there, it works, it’s clear and simple. Better so far than GalCiv2’s similar mechanic in that it’s meaningful without needing to play on a huge map.

Does the tech tree grow as research is completed? When I open it up in the tech browser I'm only seeing 6 or so techs before the end of a chain and that seems very short.

Shame there's no freeplay mode for the space battles. It'd be nice to get some practice before my first one in the campaign.

So ... any tips or advice?

And for specific questions: Should I aim for more colonies or quality colonies? One arc ship per colony or multiple? Any must have techs? How much of an army am I likely to need early on; i.e. is the AI going to stomp me into the ground the instant it thinks I'm vulnerable? Any space battle tips?