Hmm Deja vu, anyway before I get into my first impressions of FE I'd like to reiterate a sentiment I touched on in my first post on this forum. It's nice to see a large section of the original community that commented and tested Elemental is here for FE (GW, Raven, Vieux, etc). I hope you all are doing well. I'd also like to thank Brad and Stardock in its entirety for not being the typical heartless drone of a corporation.  Now that my sense of community has been satisfied to the game itself.

I suppose the first thing I noticed about FE is how much smoother and polished it is at version .75 then Elemental was at launch. The game seems to have experienced a convergence of sorts that at first glance I mistook for simplification. This actually brings a noted improvement specifically in the areas of research and city management. The UI changes where also noticeable from the start. The tooltips and explanations while not perfect were far superior to the original. The FX for the game has also received some much need attention that was quite pleasing to my eye.

Tactical combat still felt lackluster to me however I had hoped combined tile attacks, animation for combat, and strategic depth in general would have been improved far more over WOM.  The city management while improved felt a little spares on relevant information. The pacing of the game specifically city growth felt accelerated and therefore cheap in terms of value, I was getting LV 5 cities far to quickly for such a limited run in the game. The trait system added to unit creation added a nice twist when deciding what type of unit I wanted to create. At the same time I found myself putting the same traits on virtually every unit because there was no tangible negative or deterrent  for taking them. Strength, Underdog, Bloodthirsty, and Ironskin were principal among these for me. A more balanced trait system for units that incorporates better checks and balance is need in my opinion.

Overall my biggest problems with FE were tactical combat and pacing (especially city growth) the pacing caused the turns to feel cheap and uneventful largely. I can definitively say FE is on the right track and the standard polish applied to any game before launch will go a long way to address most of the other issues I would otherwise bring up. FE reminds me a bit more of CIV 5 to be honest which isn't a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. I'll try to get around to more testing later, hopefully I can get more turns in next time before a crash.