After 100 h, I wanted to give you some feedback from an industry veteran perspective, being a director myself for many years. I hope it helps the project in the long term because I love your game, and it has potential. And ping me, please, if you need more info or support, i.e. financial.
UI
If the actual strategy gameplay is fine, the UI is usually why a strategy game fails. You might want to focus on the UI dev of TI with top priority because it is, from what I've read on Steam and IGN, and what I've seen on YouTube, your only weakness so far. A few tips:
- The Alien Threat Level is your most important mechanic. Do not hide it. Add it to the main screen, left to the speed meter. Why? If you have a mechanic that guides the AI and the player's game pace, make it prominent -- much like you show other resources. The threat level is a resource in terms of game design. And it is more important than any other resource in TI.
- Currently, almost all players with < 50 h experience complain that they do not understand the Alien Threat Level, on when and how to react, when to attack, or on how to prevent an attack. Now, TI is played over dozens of hours. It means you are punishing the player playing your game for dozens of hours without telling him on what to do and how to prevent mid-game losses. This is not how XCOM or CIV6 are designed, for instance, since a good game design always makes it possible to somewhat recover to a certain degree. In TI, however, the game not only leaves you alone with that, but there is absolutely no way to recover past 2030-35 if you played too aggressively -- without knowing that you should be non-aggressive, right? Therefore: Edit the Alien Threat Level tooltips. Remove the redundant text. Add proper instructions. Also, add hints on Alien Threat Level changes to every action, every building in the game, if they affect the Threat Level. Why? Because this is your most important mechanic and resource. And yet you hide all the info from the player. You literally can see right now how the YouTuber MrPotatoWhiskey gave his best but then, after dozens of hours, loses everything because of this lack of info. Yet this is dozens of hours of gameplay, so: if you do a game for so many hours, be transparent about mechanics and instructions. Learn from Paradox Interactive in this regard because you are not a game of only a few hours of gameplay where you can easily start over. It is almost the only reason why you received a IGN review of 6/10 only. Fix that with top prio, please, and it'll be fine.
- Even though the "assignment turns" are one of the most important mechanics in the game, you do not show it in the UI. When I played the game for the first time, I almost refunded the game because it did not tell me why I was unable to move my counselors. Do this: Do not hide the info on when the next "phase" starts. Show a phase progress bar between the resources on the left, and the Alien Threat Level/date on the right side. As a progress bar that goes 0..100 % with a nice tooltip and title "Mission Phase" or so. To make it absolutely clear how it works. Because in turn-based games the "turn" indicator is like a clock. You should never hide it. And TI is a turn-based game above all.
- The tech tree UI is horrible. Add building icons to the tech tree bubbles, please, so that it becomes clear what to expect. It is also a horrible UI design when you try to do the obvious thing that we all know from CIV6: What tech do I need for this building? What building do I need to do this?
- In late game, when the councilors become overpowered and the game breaks a bit, it is more important to see more details. How safe is my nation? It is not safe if the alien counselors can turn it in 4-5 turns, right? Even though it is a huge EU Federation blob. The balancing issue aside here: the game UI does not tell you in what danger your nation is at that point and on how to prevent it. MrPotatoWhiskey lost all 3 of this federations like this within a few turns, and he stated rightfully that he had no idea on what to do about it because the game does not tells him. Again, think of all these things as a resource (much like time is a resource), and then it becomes more clear on why the UI matters.
- Land army movement: Navies are the best because it is so much easier to move them to distant shores. Land armies, on the other hand, are not fun to use if you play across multiple provinces. Instead of a complex feature, maybe make it possible to select any region with access to? Then the army simply moves there. No need for waypoints. Just mark the distant target.
- The space combat UI is confusing and hard to use. I'm sorry to say that because it seems that you spend a lot of time on it but it is horrible. I'd love to do tactical space combat but it is not fun, overly complicated, and the camera and waypoints are just confusing. So, all I did eventually was either "auto-resolve" or "auto combat with AI". Tip: Either make the space combat board flat and an RTS, like that Warhammer 40k space combat game. Or, think "Star Wars Rebellion", how space combat was done there.
General
- Please keep in mind that all strategy games that are played for 50-60 h suffer from the same problem. If you do not inform the player properly on how to play, his 50-60 h of lifetime are lost and there is a high chance that he will not come back. Therefore: Shorten the time span. Keep the time frame (2023-2050-ish) but double the time missions take. You could also halve the tech costs, but I guess that doubling the mission time (1 mission per month) will speed up the game greatly, if you adjust the rest. Add another speed level, perhaps too then. Why? So that the game can be finished after 20-30 h. Think XCOM. 20-30 h are reasonable. But if TI is so complex and is bad at the UI info, it takes too many real-life hours to have even a small chance in 2040/50 against the aliens, right? There are in game design only 3 choices for this problem: Either you shorten the game time to a reasonable amount, you make early mistakes less punishing in the long term (but allow the player to always recover from his beginner mistakes: learn from Paradox Interactive in this regard), or you learn from Paradox Interactive even more and become better at informing the player about every small info and data, to the smallest digit, with extra tooltips and tips. Think of time as a resource, and you'll get the point better.
- Diplomacy is not cool and fun in TI. But it should be. Make it so that you can talk to other leaders any time. And, make the non-aggression pact or any form of "alliance pact" useful in the game. Right now, if I sign a non-aggression pact, the AI takes away counselors from me anyway. I cannot sign a new NAP with them, but it also does not show in the "relations" overview anymore. But diplomacy should be at the core of this game, right?
Mission Assignments
The missions are great, on the one hand, and tedious, on the other hand. I've been wondering how we would have solved the mission gameplay.
- Frankly, I do not have a solution for this problem yet but it is an issue that needs to be tackled, right? The repetitiveness of the mission assignments is not a strength if you do the same mission repeatedly in different regions and nations. It has to be done, it is not fun, so it quickly feels like work. It is an issue of all mission-based games where you assign characters to some form of mission. But in TI is a major thing, apparently, due to the scale at which you use missions as a core mechanic.
Late Game Balancing
If you trick the game and play well, you do not run into this issue easily, but if you play average, the late-game balancing is a disaster.
- As soon as you lose a few of your major counselors, which RNG can do, TI punishes you without a solution. There is no way to recover from the loss of a few major characters. XCOM was always great at that, as that even new fighters were somewhat usable. Also, you lost so many fighters eventually that it got used to. In TI, however, the game expects you to hold your counselors without harm until the very end. Because if you lose 1-2 major counselors, your game will be likely lost -- if you are > 2035. Right? MrPotatoWhiskey is fun to watch in this regard. He is losing eventually, although he holds 3 large federations, because he lost all his counselors and the new ones are worthless, cannot stop anything, cannot hit or change anything. That is a late-game balancing issue that you must fix. Either make the counselors more redundant (like in XCOM) or more replaceable (if I lose an important counselor, why am I unable to spend 1000 points for a new kickass counselor? not as good as the previous one, but also not a cheap 60 points beginner worthless character).
- Why is it possible to turn the EU, USA or India so easily with a coup d'etat in mid to late game? Whatever you build, whatever you do, one single counselor can turn your whole federation into dust in one turn? That makes no sense, and it is also not fun to play.
- If space stations are important and exclusive, that is it is a small crew number, why is it so extremely easily to take over other space stations? It is very easy to exploit this mechanic by simply take over all of them. But wouldn't we expect that it is harder to let unwelcome on a station?
Alien Storytelling
- Like the IGN reviewer said, the aliens feel shallow and invisible in TI. Where is their story and perspective? It is okay at the beginning when you barely encounter them, but mid to late game there should be the aliens speaking to the public, right? Think XCOM, on how much personality and character the aliens had? Think of other alien invasion films and TV series, where the alien agenda is told through the aliens too. In TI, however, the aliens seem to be just ships, armies and counselors -- of which none tell anything, explain themselves, or try to tell anything relevant. That is surely not how any alien invasion would have taken place, unless the aliens plan a total annihilation of humanity which apparently is not TI's storyline.