First playthrough, had a blast!
First of all: I really like this game! I spent 150 hours on my first run on the default difficulty settings on the starter island and I had a great time finishing my first time playing in the ingame year 609. I'm stopping now while I'm researching Robotic Assembly II, because there isnt much more endgame in it for me personally at the moment.
Here's how it all kind of started
I came from games like Anno 1800 ans Satisfactory. I never got into Factorio, so I cant compare it with that one, but Captain of Industry feels like a really nice blend between Anno games and Satisfactory for me. It has a lot of freedom like Satisfactory, beautiful automation stuff and belts/pipes/conveyors/trains/trucks! And it feels like Anno because you keep on expanding, growing bigger, managing stuff and your stockpiles, but some things run out eventually and you just need to keep up the balancing act. Wonderful!
My first (or maybe second) rocket into space!
For an early access game, this game has a lot to offer, and I've been following the updates for about 2 years or so, I really like how the devs keep improving the game and keep bringing in more content. Feels the same as with Satisfactory early access for me, so good job there as well!
Another rocket in my personal endgame moments
Since this game doesn't yet have a specific endgame goal, for me it was fine to stop before I got all the research done. The game felt really balanced up until I launched my first rocket. After that, everything kind of became slower and slower, unless I built a LOT more stuff. But I was fine for my first run like this. And I didn't have any of the dreaded death spirals. There were a few hickups, but if there's one thing I learned from Satisfactory is that you can never have enough buffers of stuff in storage, so I built a lot of those.
And this game taught me something: I't fine to tear down stuff and rebuild it for better efficiency. I really dislike doing that in games, but I didnt mind doing it in this one. Although if you look at my screenshots: I could've been a LOT more efficient! But thats all part of playing a game for the first time, efficiency will be something for another run in the future.
Yeah I'm not one of those people who wants everything beautiful or perfectly placed, especially not during a first run. I had a blast discovering everything and had a lot of fun exploring the research tree and advancing further.
Overview of of my entire factory
So thanks a lot devs for this game! The only advice I can give is:
- The UI could use some more polish
- The "endgame" can use some more balance
- Building longer train tracks with curves and corners can use some more love.
But I'm pretty sure you are working on this already, seeing the history of updates so far. So just keep up the good work! And thanks again for this gem of a game!
For new players: dont forget to buffer up! And keep track of those stats in the right hand of your screen!
For a next run somewhere in the future (taking a break from this game now for a moment), I will try other maps. Any advice from all you experienced players for me?