Initial Thoughts
First thought - I like it a lot.
Second thought - kudos to Brad and the team for coming in on Sunday to get a pre-day 0 version out early in response to the street date being broken. Colossal pain in the neck for the dev team - very much appreciated.
I went through some of the forums and blogs this morning. I agree with many of the polishing comments. There are still a fair number of small glitches to be fixed and polish points that would be helpful to incorporate. Having said that, this version is light years ahead of the last beta version and is quite enjoyable to play. I love that I have multiple feasible development routes - magic, tech, adventuring, diplomacy. I'm trying to do them all to start with to get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses, which I expect will lead to me getting crushed a few times.
Rather than post anything specific now about bugs or UI, I'll wait until after spending a week or so with the day 0 version.
For the moment, thanks to the entire dev team. It's been a long haul and I am delighted to have the game in my hands at last. Thank you!