Read the instructions but started skimming towards the end. I don't think the instructions were poorly written, I think that there's just a lot of information to convey. I understood that I'm spawning units and controlling them to attack the enemy donut while defending my own.
First playthrough notes: I started out summoning some warriors in the node in front of my donut. The controls clicked very quickly -- I right clicked to set a rally point and sent my warriors to attack. Ahah, take that evil blue donut minions! This bold strategy did not pan out unfortunately as the enemy opted to build defenders in front of their main donut -- a strategy I learned to adopt in my second playthrough.
Once there were more than one of my unit type on the field I started to get very confused about the rally points. I understood that clicking sent my units forward but (and maybe this was because I just played an RTS before trying your game) I didn't know how to direct a certain group of units to a location. Is the rally point global, like all units go there? Is there some way to select groups of them that I missed? Was the rally point local to the current selected node? (After playing three times I understand now it's this last one)
Second playthrough notes: * Started out with what turned out to be the opening strategy of the AI -- build defenders, then workers to capture the first mana node. I then made warriors to attempt to control he middle. I usually play pretty aggressive in RTS's.
This strategy fell apart when I tried to move my workers to capture the other mana node near my donut. It was made clear to me they need to stay near the node in order to capture it, so I lost the node they had previously captured. This awkward long path was taken advantage of by the enemy and I started to be overwhelmed. Resigned this game gracefully as I knew I was hosed, but now I had a better idea of how to proceed.
Second go around I figured out that clicking on a node you can right click to set a rally point. I think this wasn't clear, even though this is a pretty obvious mechanic in hindsight, because it was the missing usual indicators. Having the selected node + rally point be a different color would have made it more obvious. Having a dashed line point the rally point, though adding visual noise to an otherwise nicely minimalistc art style, would have also made it obvious it's only for that node.
Not sure how I feel about the waiting around at the beginning with the defenders. Maybe the game should start with the node in front of the donut as defenders? I can't imagine NOT wanting defenders right in front of my donut. Lets me make more interesting decisions earlier on -- though maybe that messes with the balancing. It would also protect against bone headed moves like my first game where I made warriors instead of defenders.
Found what I think is a bug. I was touching my scroll wheel and it was counting as right clicking! So I kept accidentally moving the rally point when I touched the scroll wheel.
Also once I pressed worker when I meant to press warrior -- I think in the heat of battle it's too easy to mix up the "w" words. Maybe rename it to fighter?
Third playthrough:
I tried to be more balanced with my strategy, but I was overwhelmed! This game is hard! Going to have to end my time here as there's other games but I really like this one! I think the difficulty may need to be tuned to be easier.
Focused a lot on the gameplay here because it's complex and the main focus. I liked the minimalistic art style -- it helped me stay focused on the gameplay. Music seemed fine, didn't really notice much other noise.