I've just played around with Eclipse for a while and then completed the tutorial. Here are some early thoughts noting that I didn't really know much about it going in, besides that it looked like a cool 4x game...and I often like cool looking 4x games. I also think Neuroshima Hex is an extremely well put together game, so I was happy to at least give this game a chance (every good dev gets one!):
First a screen so you have an idea what I'm talking about. Note the hexes, because they are important to my impressions:
The first thing that struck me is that it isn't really a 4x game in the traditional/Orion sense. It is actually based on a board game, that I of course have never heard of (and hence have no idea how faithful to it this game is, or even if it is worth referencing).
What does this mean? Well each round consists of you taking actions. These actions may be expanding your territory, researching new technology or upgrading your ships. Each action takes up points, and some turns you may even end up passing to conserve them.
This isn't too unusual for a 4x game in the least, but when you first "explore" and you add a hex to the "board" you realise what you are really going to be doing in general gameplay. The new hex may randomly have planets with resources or an enemy or nothing at all. You then assign the wormholes leading in and out of the new hex (connecting it to your existing territory and perhaps other promising directions) and repeat. Your opponents then do the same and the board gradually expands as you build up your fleets and choose to research with your acquired materials.
Sounds simple enough... but from there, things get a little more complicated...
Apart from managing your resources, you'll want to be acquiring victory points. These points go towards your score at the end of the game and will ultimately decide the winner. Often you may be given choices about if you want to acquire these points now or later. For example winning a battle might give you a choice between two victory points or a new gun for your ships. This appears to add a nice layer of strategy to your actions which could get quite complicated with a large number of players.
Sooner or later things will get real in the world of Eclipse and you'll find yourself in battle. Once you clash with an "Ancient" (neutral hostiles) or your opposition, combat plays out via a series of dice rolls. Your ships are chosen via their initiative priority and you choose which enemy ship to attack. If your roll is high enough? (modified by upgrades) you hit, Otherwise you miss and probably get blown up yourself.
The combat interface is slick and fights play out quite quickly. You'll also get into them quite often because the board seems relatively small and there are not many resources to go around. I haven't gone through a full online match yet, but I'm thinking they will be relatively quick compared to the more epic encounters of other games in the genre. You are limited to 8 rounds to get as many victory points as possible, so there will certainly be a lot of strategy involved in deciding upon your approach. Basically you shouldn't expect Orion type 6 month matches here.
If this all sounds complicated, then it probably is. By no means have I wrapped my head around it all yet, and I somehow doubt given my backlog I ever will. The very good news is that (on an ipad at least) the interface is extremely slick. The icons may be very cryptic to begin with and the screens daunting, but once you work it out, there really isn't too much going on. You'll notice in the screens a row of extra buttons along the bottom, but they are just short cuts to the pop out menus on the side rather than completely new functions in themselves.
Functions like upgrading ships are easy to perform. If you capture a new technology from defeating an ancient? Simply drag it onto the type of ship you want to upgrade and all ships of that type are upgraded automatically. Upgrades concern things like giving your ships two shots instead of one, or providing modifiers so that you only need to roll a 5 to hit rather than a 6.
In general, everything drags and drops nicely and the screen is easy to navigate around on and responds well to zoom in and zoom out with a pinch. Other games, such as Orion and ascendency have been a little clunky in this regard as games dragged on, but the large hex based approach keeps everything well laid out.
There are lots of little nice touches too. No loading times to jump between menus here, screens snap in and out promptly and nothing is too hidden behind other options. Even little touches like the ships having a flashy "warping" animation between hexes add to the overall effect of something that the developers spent a lot of time on. Which it should, because they took forever.
Would I recommend it? I really have no idea. It is a little pricey at $7.50 (Aussie taxed price) so it is hard to just relatively jump in and give it a go. My feeling is that because it is more of a board game with set rules rather than the traditional 4x release and patch for ten years until it turns into a game model, it is probably well worth a look if you are the least bit interested.
In the meantime, I feel hardcore board game players might have a much more detailed take on exactly what is going on with the game and if the depth and long term viability of the design decisions is there to sustain the game. For now? I'm happy to have spent the cash and look forward to spending some more time with it.
Note: Tested on an ipad 2 after ~150MB download. No crashes or other technical issues to report but only after about an hours play. No IAPs sighted.
Also worth checking out this video review to learn more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qJtPh0PqIuA# (which probably would have saved me all that typing if I had seen it first...but such is life)