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4X Endless Space 2
- Thread starter covr
- Start date
Well at least you can't say they've spent half their resources on battle cinematics. That's the second most expensive feature. The first is the full render race intro movies.
The combat system is an utter crap right now. You can select your fleet, attack your opponent and choose one of the 3 tactics. That's all. Probably later some extra tactics could be gained. The three combat phrases (short, medium, long) are artificial now as you cannot choose what to do at each phase. What is more, with dumbed down ship creation you are limited in terms of customizing your vessels. Therefore no more creating powerful long range rocket snipers - ships are firing their weapons at every phrase of the combat, just some of them are better at long/medium/short range. Obviously it was done, because some players were creating ultra expensive and useless ships in ES1 and than complaining at steam forums that 'gaem is toooo hard, friggin priates are too stronk'.
Apart from that game is fucking great.
Apart from that game is fucking great.
orcinator
Liturgist
Played the alpha for a bit, quit around turn 50 since the normal AI doesn't seem to do much of anything.
Some things have been improved, like not having to wait 8 turns before you can capture a planet, but it seems like most of the flaws from ES1 will persist since I doubt they'll make the combat not shit nor make an AI that can move across the space lanes without crashing into your doomstack every other turn.
As for the new features, having different populations in your empire seems interesting but there doesn't seem to be any way to purge them or move them around between systems, which is especially annoying as the cravers since depletion speed scales with the craver population and I didn't notice any techs to slow it down, besides a final tier hero ability.
Some things have been improved, like not having to wait 8 turns before you can capture a planet, but it seems like most of the flaws from ES1 will persist since I doubt they'll make the combat not shit nor make an AI that can move across the space lanes without crashing into your doomstack every other turn.
As for the new features, having different populations in your empire seems interesting but there doesn't seem to be any way to purge them or move them around between systems, which is especially annoying as the cravers since depletion speed scales with the craver population and I didn't notice any techs to slow it down, besides a final tier hero ability.
Juggie
Augur
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2010
- Messages
- 105
I would rather not have any tactical combat at all than the rock paper scissors silliness from ES1. I autoresolved it anyway. Combat in ES2 is basically forced autoresolve with optional cinematics.
As for ship customization - some weapons can fire at multiple ranges. This is dumbed down how? That it's no longer gimmicky 3 weapon types and 3 hard counters bullshit?
The game has several shortcomings right now but I hope they fix at least some. The AI seems to be the worst. It's especially poor at managing units and based on my observation plays with the map revealed.
Another issue is lack of things to build unless you have very low production, high science output and research mostly techs that unlock buildings. Otherwise usefulness of building many well designed ships is limited by fleet CP cap and resource cost of the ship designs. Spamming production only ships in huge quantities is quite silly strategy and doesn't give you much advantage anyway.
As for ship customization - some weapons can fire at multiple ranges. This is dumbed down how? That it's no longer gimmicky 3 weapon types and 3 hard counters bullshit?
The game has several shortcomings right now but I hope they fix at least some. The AI seems to be the worst. It's especially poor at managing units and based on my observation plays with the map revealed.
Another issue is lack of things to build unless you have very low production, high science output and research mostly techs that unlock buildings. Otherwise usefulness of building many well designed ships is limited by fleet CP cap and resource cost of the ship designs. Spamming production only ships in huge quantities is quite silly strategy and doesn't give you much advantage anyway.
Drakron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 19, 2005
- Messages
- 6,326
Too soon, it takes a while to learn and people hat jump this soon are just looking for views and dont necessary understand the game.
I saw one were he endited the ship and taken out the engine module for more auto-repair modules ... then later he tried to move them, take a wild guess how many extra turns it would take to get to the next system?
Juggie
Augur
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2010
- Messages
- 105
I like the idea of political parties and elections. It's basically an empire wide specialization system. What's interesting about it is that instead of choosing the specialization through a menu the game assigns some "ideology" affinity to every action and the election outcome reflects the actions you take since the last election. This means the game organically adapts to what you do. I find it more interesting than systems like Civ5's policy upgrade unlocking.
It's not perfect but it seems nicely tied in with other systems. There's also more to it than just simply reflecting players actions. The "ideology" points are generated differently by different populations and the player can affect the outcome of elections. Plus there are different government types, which I haven't tested yet, but they could provide additional twists on how the political system works.
The population system on the other hand isn't designed very well. The type of population you get is mostly random and you can't do anything about it. So some systems will get minor race population producing extra food which is useless at max population and you can't replace them or send them to new colonies to help with growth.
I guess the frenchmen wanted to emulate multicult society with useless races that you can do nothing about only learn to tolerate them.
It's not perfect but it seems nicely tied in with other systems. There's also more to it than just simply reflecting players actions. The "ideology" points are generated differently by different populations and the player can affect the outcome of elections. Plus there are different government types, which I haven't tested yet, but they could provide additional twists on how the political system works.
The population system on the other hand isn't designed very well. The type of population you get is mostly random and you can't do anything about it. So some systems will get minor race population producing extra food which is useless at max population and you can't replace them or send them to new colonies to help with growth.
I guess the frenchmen wanted to emulate multicult society with useless races that you can do nothing about only learn to tolerate them.
Drakron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 19, 2005
- Messages
- 6,326
I recall seeing a Racial Purity Act on the laws in the Cybertits faction that I think was to prevent population growth from non-Cybertits so it appears to be some control depending of what acts can you pass.
Also considering minor factions its not a bad idea per say since I seen they can get bonus on what planet type they are, the real problem it seems being the lack of control over who gets shoved where as from the videos I seen you cannot move populations across systems, so if you get some with a science bonus in cold planets and none are in the system you are out of luck.
Also considering minor factions its not a bad idea per say since I seen they can get bonus on what planet type they are, the real problem it seems being the lack of control over who gets shoved where as from the videos I seen you cannot move populations across systems, so if you get some with a science bonus in cold planets and none are in the system you are out of luck.
circ
Arcane
So is this a playable game unlike the first one? Or more of the same?
Please explain what made 1st one unplayable to you?
circ
Arcane
RNG usually placed me in a sector where I just got fucked over early before having a chance to expand. Maybe this got patched away, I lost patience so don't care. A lot of tech trees seemed to consist mostly of flavor text perks with actually useful ones mixed in but no way to tell because it was all explained with gibberish.
You must have bad luck regarding placing you at some shitty sector, never had such problem. Important thing is to arm yourself with strong fleet, no matter which rase do you play. My strategy is that during peace for every 3 things I've build one is conected to military stuff. When the fleet maintaince is getting too expensive...well, you know what to do.
Pope Amole II
Nerd Commando Game Studios
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2012
- Messages
- 2,052
Played it a bit on the Impossible. Endless is also doable, but it depends on the race - some, like Vodyani, can perform there without much issues, some, like Lumeri, require a ton of luck to succeed. Well, tbh, Lumeri require a ton of luck to succeed even on impossible, but what you can do - atm, the only good thing that they have going is having huge tits. And huge tits, unfortunately, don't win wars. Stupid wars.
At this point I like it. Yeah, the balance is kinda iffy (smth like Vodyani > Cravers > Sophons > Lumeri), but each has a really distinct start and, though it somewhat evens out through the course of the game, the racial differences still stay relevant. The tech tree, while simplistic, has some really tough choices and every new discovery should be subject to careful consideration (though there's some disbalance there too, mostly in Era 1). The random factor is sorta tolerable. There is an element of luck, but it mostly comes in the form of lucky/unlucky spawns than some quests, random events or whatnot. And, tbh, even the great ones (like SMAC) had the same thing with starts - some (most) are just doomed from the very beginning.
Combat is minimalistic, but that's ok. It's just the nature of this games - they can do either micro or macro well, not both. You're generally winning on timing and efficient economy, just drowning your enemies in sheer military power - under such conditions, more intricate combat would've been wasted. And the trick is learning the proper strategy and managing your resources in a way so you actually accumulate that sheer military power.
Out of races, I like Vodyani the most. They favor vertical development (i.e., not as much empy management) and can or, rather, should do some rather nasty rushes. Their vampirism trade is gracefully done - you need to play around it, but it doesn't dominate your playstyle as much as it seemingly threatens to. Custom ark design also give them a good bit of flexibility, you can, potentially, focus your empire on a number of different things. Though, ofc, it depends on the difficulty - higher ones force you into being really active so you don't have as much choice.
Sophons, despite their scientific background, are more of a generic vanilla race. Sort ok at fighting, but not that bad economically. Can do a number of things and actually should do them - focusing too much on the science is suicidal as its rewards are only as good as your industry is. If you can't build them (and high era techs are expensive), they're not worth much.
Lumeri have a very specific start, but generally they suck because they just don't have the production. They can assimilate minor races cheaply and, in order to win, it's an absolute must - otherwise, they just have no early military might and no early industry, the AI will just outproduce you. As usual, the AI is really dumb but has tons of free economy. Anyways, assimilating stuff is not easy - AI with its nigh-endless resources can do it much faster than you so you have to be really lucky to get them spawned somewhere afar from the enemy empire. You also should scout aggressively but that's a part of Lumeri playstyle - they're the best explorers in the game (atm).
Can't say much about cravers as I haven't played them yet. They seem to be as aggressive as the vodyani and less luck-dependent, but with a harsh timer attached. We'll see how to play around that.
At this point I like it. Yeah, the balance is kinda iffy (smth like Vodyani > Cravers > Sophons > Lumeri), but each has a really distinct start and, though it somewhat evens out through the course of the game, the racial differences still stay relevant. The tech tree, while simplistic, has some really tough choices and every new discovery should be subject to careful consideration (though there's some disbalance there too, mostly in Era 1). The random factor is sorta tolerable. There is an element of luck, but it mostly comes in the form of lucky/unlucky spawns than some quests, random events or whatnot. And, tbh, even the great ones (like SMAC) had the same thing with starts - some (most) are just doomed from the very beginning.
Combat is minimalistic, but that's ok. It's just the nature of this games - they can do either micro or macro well, not both. You're generally winning on timing and efficient economy, just drowning your enemies in sheer military power - under such conditions, more intricate combat would've been wasted. And the trick is learning the proper strategy and managing your resources in a way so you actually accumulate that sheer military power.
Out of races, I like Vodyani the most. They favor vertical development (i.e., not as much empy management) and can or, rather, should do some rather nasty rushes. Their vampirism trade is gracefully done - you need to play around it, but it doesn't dominate your playstyle as much as it seemingly threatens to. Custom ark design also give them a good bit of flexibility, you can, potentially, focus your empire on a number of different things. Though, ofc, it depends on the difficulty - higher ones force you into being really active so you don't have as much choice.
Sophons, despite their scientific background, are more of a generic vanilla race. Sort ok at fighting, but not that bad economically. Can do a number of things and actually should do them - focusing too much on the science is suicidal as its rewards are only as good as your industry is. If you can't build them (and high era techs are expensive), they're not worth much.
Lumeri have a very specific start, but generally they suck because they just don't have the production. They can assimilate minor races cheaply and, in order to win, it's an absolute must - otherwise, they just have no early military might and no early industry, the AI will just outproduce you. As usual, the AI is really dumb but has tons of free economy. Anyways, assimilating stuff is not easy - AI with its nigh-endless resources can do it much faster than you so you have to be really lucky to get them spawned somewhere afar from the enemy empire. You also should scout aggressively but that's a part of Lumeri playstyle - they're the best explorers in the game (atm).
Can't say much about cravers as I haven't played them yet. They seem to be as aggressive as the vodyani and less luck-dependent, but with a harsh timer attached. We'll see how to play around that.
Drakron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 19, 2005
- Messages
- 6,326
OK since I am a carebear and never played a Endless game before, I try it on easy and Lumeri AI always end up on a score winning so thats that.
The oddest thing is the Sophons AI seem to be oddly aggressive because in one game, they declared war and by the time their 3 ship attack fleet arrived it just moved out as some turns later, they were wiped so AI needs work because they are at least too dumb to live, I can understand Cravers but not them to act that way.
Tech needs work, there are some Tech you MUST grab period, the one that allows diplomacy with ninor factions, the creating trade companies and the one with Warp since eitherwise you are stuck on the constellation ... also there are oddities since without 3D printers if you dont want to build anything on the system then you cannot do anything with the system, I dont think thats a good idea since if we are done then we are done, I dont think Legends required tech to have cities to just produce Dust when you dont want to build anything there.
The oddest thing is the Sophons AI seem to be oddly aggressive because in one game, they declared war and by the time their 3 ship attack fleet arrived it just moved out as some turns later, they were wiped so AI needs work because they are at least too dumb to live, I can understand Cravers but not them to act that way.
Tech needs work, there are some Tech you MUST grab period, the one that allows diplomacy with ninor factions, the creating trade companies and the one with Warp since eitherwise you are stuck on the constellation ... also there are oddities since without 3D printers if you dont want to build anything on the system then you cannot do anything with the system, I dont think thats a good idea since if we are done then we are done, I dont think Legends required tech to have cities to just produce Dust when you dont want to build anything there.
Pope Amole II
Nerd Commando Game Studios
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2012
- Messages
- 2,052
Last edited:
People complaining about aggressive AI http://steamcommunity.com/app/392110/discussions/0/348293292499499400/
Big improvement comparing to EL/ES1
Big improvement comparing to EL/ES1
Well, that guy certainly found a solution for the "too many idiots on this planet" problem 
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