Had somehow missed this all this while. It's obvious straightaway that the writing in the game is of a high calibre, and the setup is intriguing. The infiltration quests are quite ingenious, and tie well into the overarcing story. I like that despite being a comeback story, it doesn't spend several episodes rubbing your face in the dirt before letting you pick yourself back up. Some other games could learn a trick there. It's one thing doing it in a fully completed game where the player can at least power through those parts. But with this episodic format, we usually have to wait several months for protagonists to stop scraping the bottom of the barrel, and that's no fun.
But while the writing, the story and the setting all get high marks, I'm not really sold on the mechanics. Currently, my favourite system of the lot is probably the oldschool grid-based movement to map out an area and navigate the most optimal route through it. At least that requires that you use your spatial sense a bit and make a couple of crucial decisions.
Advanced Rock-Paper-Scissors for a combat system just means that everything is randomised. There's no incentive to get better at tactics because you're better off save-scumming and trying aggressive attacks each turn to speed up the encounter. And if you want to subdue your opponent, that just means doing the same thing at a quarter of the speed.
The conquest map has a little more flex and nuance, but still isn't as satisfying as it could be. As far as I can tell, the very first action you have to do when you get access to it is to spam the 'end turn' button several times just so you accumulate enough gold to build the spy school, which isn't optimal design. Basically, it leans more towards tedium than engaging strategic decisions.
It's a shame, because gameplay comprised of strategic expansion, tactical combat, adventure-based exploration, and choice-based relationships with the women in the game sounds like an ideal combination. It's just a little let down by some of the implementation at the moment. Will be trying the story mode when it comes out, but also hoping the mechanics get tweaked and refined down the road so that I can get into Conquest mode without reservations. All the best to the dev.