Let me start off by saying that as grandfather’s chosen I was immediately drawn to kir’ko-xenoplague. I struggled my first 100 hours mastering their food economy and their actual combat tactics involve just the right amount of “ride the lightning” to keep me interested.

I’ve conquered a few worlds via doomsday victory a few times but just did my first domination and the rewards blew my mind. First off tech adept more than makes replaying worthwhile; before the rewards were so paltry it made me despise the game. Now I actually see the point beyond just increasing hero levels. Now that I’ve learned how the kir’ko can turn food into anything the game is less daunting and much more entertaining bc now I know that there’s gotta be a million kir’ko memes about food and baby making. I can also imagine the nightmare some of you must go through in multiplayer.

• is there a more reliable means of gaining cosmite other than sectors that have deposits? Auto-exploring tends to be ok, but it often results in unwanted diplomatic contact and space racism.

• how can I get more reliable infections in the early-mid game? Waiting for plague lords just isn’t viable given that the AI don’t have to slow down and modding the boys seems to do nothing more than give them a slight damage boost

I think if I can address these two main issues, the game will be a lot smoother going forward until I learn another race. I want to like this game, it has cool things, I want to git gud.