Last night. Imperium [foo], first try as the Martians. Oh boy they’re a bit fiddly.
Start as an empire. Nation cards are powerful but mostly worth negative points (unless in history, and many of them let you exile them when played). When your Nation deck runs out, you get a .Reactor Explosion, which gives you two Unrest per Solstice, one of which goes straight into History
Can you avoid this? Yes: get rid of your initial 20-25 Progress (plus any more you may have had to pick up) via various means, and Go Native, which dumps your entire Nation deck including the Reactor Explosion and turns you Barbarian. Which I managed, just, but we hadn’t done much else.
But we did develop both Triremes and Tyranny (“we have imitated the elements of Earth culture you value most highly, as seen in this ‘encyclopaedia volume T’. Are we doing it right?”),