Is the early game any more engaging/quick since 1 year ago?
1 year ago, I played this game for about 12 hours, doing a single campaign. In that time, I think I just barely managed to make a crappy base on Mars after making a space station. Most of that time was engaged in the early Earth game, and I found that it became really tedious over such a long time, just clicking to shift agents around doing the same things over and over again, fighting in an endless war of attrition with the influence. Even when alien events started happening on Earth I found that they were relatively uneventful to interact with for something that seems like it would be so neat.
So, maybe the game just isn't for me. But I thought it would be worth asking if this had changed at all, since the concept of the game still appeals to me. Has early game Earth-locked portion become at all quicker? Is there maybe a quick or boosted start? Or, alternatively, have there maybe been automation tools introduced so I don't have to interact so much with the tedium? Or have these mechanics been expanded to make them more engaging for a ten hour solo runtime?