after getting stuck, i joined the discord and read the guide, had to decide on waiting for 4 days to gather enough of a resource to unlock something before i spend another 4 days actively grinding a resource to get a perk which won't speed up my prestiges at all but will allow me to start another prestiege that should take me, oh, about 4 days, or continuing to grind the stuff im still working on fairly actively. i am on the second prestige layer and there are probably about ten more in front of me?

i like a lot about this game - the art, the feel of the units flowing into each other, the quips, even the complexity. i do not like the pacing. i do not like how some things progress offline (waste, energy) but other things need you to be online (runes, oysters). i definitely don't like how you are punished for attempting challenges and the ruinous difficulty cliffs. i HATE how the autobuyers are gated behind punishingly high walls - this is not an "idle" game in any meaningful sense for the first few months, this is an active-play game with a lot of clicking and babysitting.

i'm done. it's just too slow, grinding is way too repetitive with not nearly enough automation, and i dread having to do three prestieges to get one upgrade that might make me 10% faster.

the story is incredibly limp. it's actually not interesting to watch an AI ask what nationality she is in a vacuum (although the VA does a great job chewing the scenery) and the "AI gaining consciousness" storyline hits every cliched note you'd expect.

the gameplay is mostly about worker management, but worker management mostly consists of "build more workers". there isn't too much control you have over prioritization or anything. in fact, the solution to everything is "build more". not enough raw mats? build more mines. supply chain issues? build more factories. need to start terraforming? build just.... a shitload of water treatment plants. no, more than that. an absurd amount. water levels rising? don't try and manage it, just rebuild everything (but more) on higher ground. again. again!

which finally brings us to the Pure Ideology - Oh no! Humans destroyed the Earth with their relentless pillaging of natural resources!! We must retreat to Mars to secure a future for our fourteen words, I mean -- start pillaging THESE resources, it's fine, I mean -- hey, look, it's just a game, right? Right? There's not any shoutouts to Elon Musk in here, implying he's a super genius who is going to save humanity, right? Oh. Hm.

i liked it enough to finish it, but it was kind of a hate-finish.

the thing that irritates me the most about open world stuff at this point is locking interesting abilities behind skill trees and plot gates.

cutscenes felt interminable so i skipped 'em, then i felt a sense of dread about the next mission i had to go on, then i felt dread about the combat encounters (and i was on easy) and i realized this game was just not for me at all.

there was some cool stuff playing around with the ghostly interactions between worlds during plot sequences i guess.