Playing the first hour or so, I read some help screens in the game - which were already pretty convoluted how you'd read something and instead of going in a sequential order it'd go back to screens that sort of changed topics and grayed out like topic 1 and 3 and not 2 and 4 - and started a game.

It was a bit unclear how to proceed on some things - like soon clicking clans wouldn't bring up all of them, and the ones in the field it wasn't clear what to to do with them. I could click move one turn like to move the wood cutter toward a forest and then do nothing with them the next turn; I put them on a forest and they just sort of sat there with all their buttons grayed out.

Even trying to end a turn, there's no finish turn button - only 'switch disciplines'. You have to press that and have a window come up about switching disciplines, close that, and THEN you can finish turn. And finish turn! One of my pet peeves is completion bars that chance pace in completion - this game has it go to about 95% done and then sit there a long time. And there's no indication of progress during that time; click anything and a Windows warning window pops up saying the game is not responding and offering to close it. And turn waits are long.

I could go on, but while it has the basics of what you'd want - the tech trees - it feel very rough, not at all smooth to play. That detracts a lot from the enjoyment.

I hate to say this - I saw as Shafer worked for several years to compete this, after the Kickstarter said estimated delivery 2014 and explained that's a long time to wait, but he wants to try to ensure there's time to get it done and be somewhat accurate - but first impression says 'go back and play Civ instead'. But I'll try some more. Just looking like it's a game hard to expect to be a lot of fun. The tech trees do look they might be nice though depending what I see after the first ones.

Seeing just two victory conditions - conquer a city or get 5 legions into Rome - makes it seem pretty focused and perhaps limited.