My own 2 cents review

[nosavynada]

Millennia at first looks like any other 4x game that is similar. It has the standard hexes of terrain (maybe not as graphically detailed as say Humankind but for many who enjoy 4x strategy games they are more interested in other factors for their immersion.
If you prefer or weigh graphics heavily then it may not be for you. It is I feel sufficient and more than basic.
For cultures I feel it is a weak point in the game. Their bonus can be a big factor in choosing your strategy to play to their strength. They mostly just define the city and town names, all else is basic and the nation spirit is where things like Spartans and immortals are referenced but are a class of unit not germane to the actual culture. So work could be done to actually add cultural distinctions (if they chose to do this but i think at this point it is more likely just to be aware of) I would just mark it as a minus and move on.
Rather than fully describe the game for any who have not taken the time to play the demo i will just skip to my take on it. NOTE- if you have not played the demo - i recommend it. I recommend playing it several time as just a handful of times does not allow you to find the nuances unless you are a one strategy type person and will focus totally on it to see if it fits your play style.

Overall - i find it has several new or combined with other aspects interesting features or wrinkles to the game. It is a game that seems to focus on what i will call "playalism" a balance of realism vs play-ability. It has features that bow to play-ability rather than more detailed involvement such as city management for example. Where some games with more detailed graphics will have you place certain buildings or will represent them in the city on the map, this does not do so for each building or feature. It adds its effects, may or may not update the way your city looks but it does alter / improve its stated improvements. You do not have districts and other mechanics to delve into if you are one to enjoy those things. If you prefer the barbarian method of let the peons handle all that so i can conquer end explore then you can appreciate the choice of design.
Some new things i have noted.

Zerging your opponent can happen but it will not happen quickly or spur of the moment early on. For example in many 4x type games you show up, if the town/city is open / unprotected you walk in. Thus in those sending units out quickly to your surrounding opponents can be fun and profitable. In Millennia however even an uprotected town will have units inside and may or may not have a palisade. If it has a palisade then you must do damage to the walls first. Thus you may spend one extra turn or more doing damage to the wall first. If you have ranged units the MAY but not always attack the units inside instead of damaging the walls. This additional combat wrinkle is for me at least a welcome addition and presents a challenge to zerg strategies. You must also declare war before you can attack and you must wait a turn after the declaration before you can attack them. you may not enter their territory without either open borders or war status.
So it takes some planning for zerg but can be done still and you can if on pangea style map still take out your opponents even in a 60 turn limit depending on the size of the map.
Ages - I do like the ages concept and to some extent its length (for the demo at least) I do think them lasting slightly longer at least would be preferable but they are not as quick as say some civ games had to me at least.
The implication of some national spirits not being available having been chosen by those reaching the age already remains to be seen as a pro or con. After all if you are in an area without scrub land and the one with elephants is all that is left to you.........
It also remains to be seen how some of them will play out as an overall choice. God king for example.... does not seem to begin to come into play until near the end of 60 turns at least when i tried it a couple of times.
I do appreciate the alternate ages (of those in the demo at least) there are some differences. For example between Heroes and Iron it shares 5 of the 7 technology choices and as mentioned in other discussions it can be cheaper. But i have not made an in depth comparison yet.
On the topic of one nation choosing for everyone it is only those alternate ages that force your choice. When this happens it is a bonus for whomever met that alternate goal. other wise you will get Iron Age in my experience and as i mentioned most of the Iron Age choices are available in the Alternate choice for example.

Vassals Towns and Outposts,
Most of the 4x games implement settlers (as does Millennia) for expansion and Vassalize neutral and enemy cities.
Millennia has additional wrinkles to how it handles cities and territory expansion.
This is through the use of culture points. I will not go into all the uses of culture points but one of them is used for expansion such as you may create a new town one hex outside your existing border. Its immediate affect is to begin a town in that one hex but it soon grows to the surrounding hexes adjacent and as your main city grows it may expand from there and it brings in the adjacent resources as well.
Settlers do not add "homeland" or direct controlled cities. They add a city and its surrounding hexes and it grows in population like any other game. However it begins as a vassal where you do not have direct control of what it is building. Which does not have much of an effect overall as its resources are factored into your culture / kingdom. You will need to spend culture points to absorb it into your homeland if you will.
Outposts are a different way as well. They are created by Pioneer units and create what i will call a roman camp looking building in the hex and claim the surrounding 1 ring around it. Again you must spend culture points to absorb it and convert to a town.

Roads - there is no workers represented in building roads in Millennia - they are created when a town or outpost or vassel is created and connect to your existing nearby cities, town, outposts and nearby neutral or enemy cities, outposts, and towns.

I will say that a wrinkle, some of which are in other games in one form, is the idea of different points to spend on units or improvements etc.
These are
Culture points (spend on things like Settlers, converting Vassels and Outposts, Eureka which is a big add to knowledge/tech research (each additional Eureka in an age gets you less), Cutting Edge which add to an Innovation track which can get your things like improved movement for units etc., and others.
Government points - which can buy additional units, for example
Exploration - which can spawn explorers or if your National Spirit is Explorer based then items unique to that.
Military which can spawn military units, reinforce them (regain health) and others.
Or again If your National spirit is military based then items unique to that.
Innovation / Engineering which has similar use and or national spirit uses.
Improvement points - are used to build farms. plantations, and other improvements. They can be used to build some buildings you would from the city menu but the are a very expensive way to build them.

There are some interesting wrinkles to this game, and i would say to some extent remembering to track and use the above different points can make a difference to how quick you grow and expand and how it shapes your strategy. It took me at least way more than a few games to figure the differing nuances. and that is only with the beginning 3 age basic ages. let alone the few extra during blood and heroes ages.

In closing i think unless you are just ......trolling or have certain loyalties to other games .... Millennia requires more than just a few play through games to get a good feel for the game. Again if you are strongly influenced by look and feel then this is not at least in the demo going to be good for you. If you are irritated by the seemingly simple breakout combat scenes (or if not an ability to skip them in the release) it may be a factor. It is a more interesting perhaps than (CK or Stellaris) spreadsheet wars however.

I am very interested in Millennia and hope it comes out in a full format sooner rather than later personally.

[akivida]

Thanks for taking the time to post a really thoughtful and helpful demo-review. I'm not sold on the game, but your comments will keep me watching how it develops.

[TerraCom Limited]

Thank you for your comments - I have ordered and give it a try

[TehJumpingJawa]

- National spirits are not denied to your civ when they're taken by another civ. You simply do not receive the (small) bonus of applicable domain XP that is granted to the first civ to take it.
In the demo this is 5 domain XP; presumably it increases with later National Spirit choices.

- Roads connect to any city of any allegiance, that lies within 5 hexes of another city. Roads also connect outposts to their selected beneficiary city.

Yes, this means you can orchestrate the creation of roads into hostile cities by settling within 5 hexes of their city. Also, in the demo at least, you can use the roads of your enemies. I sincerely hope this design flaw is addressed.

[universecreep]

Publicado originalmente por nosavynada:

In closing i think unless you are just ......trolling or have certain loyalties to other games .... Millennia requires more than just a few play through games to get a good feel for the game.

100% agree.

I wasn't sure about the game in my first 2 playthroughs of the demo. I did some reading on the forums to get some ideas about what I was doing wrong and to explain the game a bit more. Once I did that, I enjoyed the game much more.

It is definitely different from CIv which is good but still has a lot of elements that are familiar too which is nice as well.

[folgra]

Publicado originalmente por TehJumpingJawa:

-

Yes, this means you can orchestrate the creation of roads into hostile cities by settling within 5 hexes of their city. Also, in the demo at least, you can use the roads of your enemies. I sincerely hope this design flaw is addressed.

I don't see this as a flaw. In war, if there are roads, they will be used.

[TehJumpingJawa]

Publicado originalmente por folgra:

Publicado originalmente por TehJumpingJawa:

-

Yes, this means you can orchestrate the creation of roads into hostile cities by settling within 5 hexes of their city. Also, in the demo at least, you can use the roads of your enemies. I sincerely hope this design flaw is addressed.

I don't see this as a flaw. In war, if there are roads, they will be used.

You don't see a problem with instantaneously building a road through hostile territory, up to the front door of a city you're about to invade?!?

[nosavynada]

Publicado originalmente por TehJumpingJawa:

- National spirits are not denied to your civ when they're taken by another civ. You simply do not receive the (small) bonus of applicable domain XP that is granted to the first civ to take it.
In the demo this is 5 domain XP; presumably it increases with later National Spirit choices.

- Roads connect to any city of any allegiance, that lies within 5 hexes of another city. Roads also connect outposts to their selected beneficiary city.

Yes, this means you can orchestrate the creation of roads into hostile cities by settling within 5 hexes of their city. Also, in the demo at least, you can use the roads of your enemies. I sincerely hope this design flaw is addressed.

Thank you i was not aware of this. as to if it is a flaw or not.... the AI uses it too, though i am thinking so far the AI is not as challenging as it could be but then for those who enjoy longer games and expansion etc. then it seems to be a fixture. It is still and enjoyable game. For me the jury is out on if the building into neutral and enemy sites is a flaw or not. it is one of those playalism things..... will see in the released version if it is too OP.

[parent child bowl]

Publicado originalmente por TehJumpingJawa:

Publicado originalmente por folgra:

I don't see this as a flaw. In war, if there are roads, they will be used.

You don't see a problem with instantaneously building a road through hostile territory, up to the front door of a city you're about to invade?!?

That road already existed amd just gets connected to your road system. I don't see it as a flaw either. "hostile" roads are a drsign flaw if you ask me.

[vivas]

Publicado originalmente por TehJumpingJawa:

Publicado originalmente por folgra:

I don't see this as a flaw. In war, if there are roads, they will be used.

You don't see a problem with instantaneously building a road through hostile territory, up to the front door of a city you're about to invade?!?

See it as time passing by in years, building roads in your conquered lands is a important strategic choice since the romans started with their vast network. It is more then logical to implement that in conquering enemy lands, all in the great scope of things.

[Lord Funk]

A very comprehensive and nice review. Well done.

About one thing though.

Publicado originalmente por nosavynada:

Where some games with more detailed graphics will have you place certain buildings or will represent them in the city on the map, this does not do so for each building or feature. It adds its effects, may or may not update the way your city looks but it does alter / improve its stated improvements. You do not have districts and other mechanics to delve into if you are one to enjoy those things.

You say that it does not have "districts and other mechanics to delve into".

Not sure eactly what you refer to with that?

I saw setting up sawmills, wheat farms, plantations and claypits kind of like farms and such in Civ and Humankind. So kind of like districts taking up a hex, but even more so with setting up papermills and all the various industry which could turn raw materials into various other resources. They all take up a hex, just like a district would in another game and they improve the resorces extracted on other hexes/tiles. They can even work in relations with Towns which can boost the tiles/hexes next to it. So in my opinion it did take some delving into to maximize output and will probably taken even more delving into as the game progress. You are even able to set up internal trade route to send raw materials from one region/city to another which can have the various industry disctrics/tiles/hexes and that region/city will turn it into some other resource. It seemed to be a pretty deep system to me. They even require actual citizens placed on them to operate.

I saw the things you built in your city screen as infrastructure, just like in Humankind, then the things you placed and built on the hexes like districts which does hwo up on the map and take up a tile/hexagon.

Maybe you were not aware of all that? They all needed those "shovels" to be placed an built, which you saw at the bottom left of your Millennia game window. While infrastructure built inside your city screen needed production "hammers" (I think production was represtented as).

[evolena]

Maybe in the sense that in Civ, you have a distinction between the "districts" built by your city production inside which you can build further buildings, and the "tile improvements" built buy builders such as Farms and Mines.