Looks awesome, let us know how it plays. I'd be interested in knowing how it compares to Clash of Cultures, Eclipse, etc.
I ran a test game vs. the Automa cards (brown stack to the right bof the board, solitaire variant) and it's 'k.
There's a lot less fighting than I expected from a game with giant mechs in it. It adopts the Dune combat mechanic, where you use a spinner (near the edge of table) and optionally tuck "combat cards" to decide how much power you are going to spend, with the one that spends most being the winner. You also lose popularity if you take over a hex with enemy workers on it. (Track on the right side of the board in the picture in the previous post). Popularity acts as a VP multiplier at the end of the game, and is also spent to take some types of action.
Since the agressor is pretty much garanteed to lose resources, you only really attack opponents if they have a very tasty hex.
Resources are generated by placng workers on hexes, and the resources stay on the hex they were made in. (Unless you spend an action to move a worker/mech away from the hex - they can transport resources with them. Either way, resources stay on the board). You spend resources from territories you control, and if an opponent takes one of your hexes, they also gain whatever resources are present.
Upgrades are tracked on the top board, which also lists the actions you can take.
It's a bit hard to see, but some of the squares are indented. You have upgrade cubes that start in the green squares (stuff you gain). Upgrade actions lets you move an upgrade cube from a green indent to a red one - simultaneously making one action give an additional thing and making another action cost one thing less. The action boards have the same actions, but the top/bottom rows are ordered differently in each. You can opt to take either the top action, the bottom action or both in sequence, so each payer will have slightly different abilities each turn. You can't take the same action twice in a row, unless you're playing Soviet. (Each faction has a special ability that breaks one of the rules. EG: Polant gets to pick 2/3 options from event cards instead of just 1). Building each of their 4 mechs (they start on te circles) also unlocks a different ability. +speed and riverwalk are available to all factons (although riverwalk is slightly different for each). The 2 middle abilities are unique for all factions.
You have 6 "victory stars". The track (lower right in previous post picture) lists various victory conditions. (win a fight, max out popularity, max out power, deploy all mechs, get 6 upgrades etc). Once a player places their 6th star, the game ends immediately. Winner is whoever has the most money at the end. On top of mone in hand, you gain money for every hex you control, every VP star you've placed, every 2 trade goods you control and a special VP condition (grey tile below the popularity track, random one is selected from a stack at the start of the game). The number of coins you gain from goods/hexes/vp stars is listed in the columns next to the popularity track. Higher popularity = stuff is worth more coins.
First game vs "ai" took just short of 2 hours because I was learning the rules. It was ok vs the "ai cards", but I'll have to play it vs. people to know how it holds up. I imagine there may be more fighting with 5 (or 7 with the expansion that comes out in 3-4 months) people crowding the map.