Pleased to hear you liked the game.

I haven't played since it went beta (work, also days-long migraine) but I'm quite eager to see what has been added. The game is quite smooth an polished considering that it isn't finished yet. Comparing the Endless Space alpha build to Sword of the Stars II's retail build would be hilarious if only it weren't so heart-breaking. Even after 6 months of continuous patching, SOTSII is less polished.

Now that all(?) of the content is in, I expect they will begin to balance it. I'm holding my breath a little - it would be easy for them to accidentally make the factions feel less unique than they currently do. That's one of the main things I like about the Alpha version: each race feels unique in a stronger way than, for example, in the Civilisation series.

I'm not entirely sold on the exterior design of the combat system. I only play SP, so I don't like the timers. When I want to start a battle, I don't want to wait for a countdown to finish before it begins. Nor do I want to be rushed through checking circumstances by that same counter if the enemy attack me. I hope that they introduce a toggle for that timer. Not keen on having a limited period to select my tactics cards either. The time limit there is so brief I can't check what's available to me, and it's not always feasible to memorise the options outside of combat.