Good game, just needs co-op/multiplayer for a little more fun

This a game for those who like to pull on each string of fate to see what happens. It is not for casual gamers; I have happily played 4X games for years, but the game play is too slow to enjoy and it quickly becomes a grind.
...although I did promptly resolve the Russia/Ukraine war so perhaps this can be my job interview for DJ Trump's cabinet .

For a Grand Strategy fan, the game is great. But I cannot recommend the game in this state.

TLDR; slow performance, poor feedback, poor instructions, feeling of cheating to increase difficulty. Not a rewarding game, just one to get mad at...

Is almost impossible to get through the game without community help. There are too few hints (in game) about how to beat it. A few instances:

1. What are the benefits and disadvantages of each type of technology to build a ship?
2. How can an alien get 100% chance of instaflip a big economy country after I research all pherocytes tech?
3. How can I counter the bumps I encounter over time?

I like to play a hard game, but I think I should get some feedback about what the hell I'm doing wrong, so I can improve my playthrough over time. Or, may be, just give some tips of what I should do to when the game throw some rocks. For example, on a playthrough the aliens destroyed every single base, ship and asset I had. What should I do in this case? Is there any escape or should I restart?

The objetives instructed me very clearly I have to shoot down an UFO to progress in the game. In the other hand, if I shoot an UFO, aliens will punish me as hard as they can in a way it is impossible to continue the game.

Sometimes I also have the feeling the game just cheat to artificially increase the dificulty. Besides that, I have the feeling you should do a strict recipe to beat the game or else. Quite different from Crusader Kings or Galactic Civilizations where you have multiple ways to cross the finish line.

In top of that, I have a decent machine and, man, loading a save game takes abount 60-120 seconds. Get rid of that json save game, probably that's the culprit to that poor performance.

Running a turn, then, take ages, even without any incident.

Well, to sum up, get youself a favor and dig Steam a little bit more.