First my impressions.
I'm very impressed I think the UI has been gretatlu improved over GalCiv2 and the new production wheel is far more intuative then the sliders. The grpahics are nicely improved as well. I'm loving the ideology tree. The inclusion af tile adjacency bonuses really adds another layer to colony management. I like that they are bringing nebulas and ion storms in to the game. I love the idea of hiding ships behing a nebula for a quick surprise attack ala Star trek Wrath of Khan (now I dont know if this is really going to work in the game).
Know I have a couple of questions about actual gameplay (I kniw its only an alpha and everything is likely to change).
In the colony management screen I can see the plantes population but cant see the plantest population cap. Have population caps been removed?
As I said I love the production wheel concept but now that the option o raise/lower tax is gone I dont see approval ratings mentioned anywhere. Has this been removed also?
I like the idea that you specialize in certain tech areas. For example for hulls you can pick either +HP, -cost, + cap (this is from memory so forgive any mistakes). However it seems like once you picke one of these options you can go back and research the other 2. Does this meant that your hull will have all these traits?