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[EuchreJack]

argh, anything text based? I hate youtube guides

That was why I've never watched them either.  The manual has a basic tutorial that should help getting started.  If you want a new counsel, go to the leader screen and call your secretary (make sure you have some PP saved).  I've flipped through their forums a bit, and this topic has a lot of info.

[E. Albright]

Even if you don't like watching videos, watching DasTactic's "what to do on turn 1" is incredibly helpful for getting a general idea of how to muck about, figuring out what you don't know, etc.

[EuchreJack]

Even if you don't like watching videos, watching DasTactic's "what to do on turn 1" is incredibly helpful for getting a general idea of how to muck about, figuring out what you don't know, etc.

Kinda douche that "I have to watch the video", as opposed to anyone actually giving the information in the video. 
Does DasTactic say in the video "Don't tell anyone this super secret info, make them watch the video"?

Granted, I'm sure it is more of a "it is hard to summarize everything as well as he does", but I've still found it really annoying that everyone keeps saying that.

[E. Albright]

It's more "a picture is worth a thousand words" and it'd take any of us probably at least a half-hour if not an hour to take all the screenshots and notes it'd be necessary to provide the same level of detail the video already has. Showing you how to do something with static images is more time-consuming than showing you with a video, and it's made all the worse by the fact that the hypothetical shower would like as not miss stuff that the video would show unless we were cribbing directly from the video... and at that point we're watching the video for you and transcribing it. Which is not exactly what I'd call a particularly charitable thing to ask of us.

It's one thing to ask for specific answers to concise questions. It's quite another to ask "explain everything to me"... particularly when other people have already done that work.

[ChairmanPoo]

its more asking if there is not a written guide somewhere dude (and if there isn't, there isn't). Obviously I dont expect you to do a frigging transcript of hours long youtube videos. I'm surprised enough you had the stamina to sit through them in the first place. Gah, I hate let's plays

[Dostoevsky]

Helps to watch them at 1.25 or 1.5 speed. I'm not a fan of video tutorials either over written, but the DacTactic stuff does have some useful information I wasn't able to find elsewhere in easy form.

That said, I think one can get by without it. Just read the manual - ideally starting from section 3.3, or even 3.1 if you want to fiddle with planet gen, all the way through the end. Or just skim starting from section 4.1, and be ready to refer to the manual a lot. And get familiar with the '6' key (it shows operational logistics at a glance).

And then, as you play, keep referring to the manual a lot via text searches and the like. There's a heck of a lot of info in there, and hard to digest all at once, but repeated exposure will help.

Edit: I should add that the manual has a lot of helpful pictures as well. Arguably DasTactic's video showing some of the concepts in motion is a little better, but certainly eats up more time than looking at the manual.

[E. Albright]

Here's a slightly... odd... question. What does everyone think of the level of abstraction presented by the combat in the game? Would this level of abstraction feel "right" for e.g. a game along the lines of Chapter Master if the granularity was increased by an order of magnitude? I.e., rather than company-sized elements of 100 infantry, squad-sized elements of 10 infantry?

[EuchreJack]

I feel the actual battle screen with its hits and kills works, but the abstractions that lead to it are poorly-presented.  I see a screen that means nothing, like its funneling a ton of barely-documented stats into a formula with hidden variables and applying it without telling me.

It should work fine overall, since vehicles are currently represented in units of 5 vehicles.  5 Tanks or 10 Astartes seems about right to me.  And that system is the one that would make the most sense, comparing armor to weapon penetration.  The unit feats system could be a good base for attachment of special units like Techmarines, Apothecaries, or Champions.

[E. Albright]

If you want more info about all the calculations that are happening in combat, turn off autocombat under general preferences.

[Dostoevsky]

Yeah, I would think that arbitrary units of 10 actually works better than 100. Somehow 100 feels a little too big and small at the same time?

As to battle outcomes, I kind of wish all the meat wasn't hidden behind several layers of UI. Takes a while to get a sense of how to figure out what a particular unit died to, and can lead to 'hunt for the death' situations among the various turns and remembering which unit is which.

[Ekaton]

Here's a slightly... odd... question. What does everyone think of the level of abstraction presented by the combat in the game? Would this level of abstraction feel "right" for e.g. a game along the lines of Chapter Master if the granularity was increased by an order of magnitude? I.e., rather than company-sized elements of 100 infantry, squad-sized elements of 10 infantry?

The game would definitely benefit from smaller units. Groups of 100 are used for both military and population changes, and it feels too abstract.

[Il Palazzo]

So, what's a blather anyway?

[E. Albright]

My working assumption is that it's the archaic sense of the word that means the same thing as "bladder", so a living - possibly at least somewhat flaccid - sack of fluid/gas/teeth/hatred/whatever.

It would be nice if the icons reflected general shapes, and not just so we'd know for certain WTH a blather is - I feel a bit ripped off that my current game's 21-48-meter carnivorous dicephaloids, multi-squids, and unioctoposes look like grainy dinosaurs rather than the unimaginably horrific writhing masses of tentacles they should be.

[ChairmanPoo]

Bladder: Old English blǣdre, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch blaar and German Blatter, also to blow1.

Blather:late Middle English (as a verb; originally Scots and northern English dialect): from Old Norse blathra ‘talk nonsense’, from blathr ‘nonsense’.

FATALITY!

[E. Albright]

I feel my hunch is basically confirmed; while rolling a bunch of planets to try to get something cute like fully edible sulphuric-acid-based-plants, I saw a pile of blather analogs with names like Foo Sack or Foo Ball.