Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

4X Endless Space 2

Grotesque

±¼ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 16, 2012
Messages
8,986
Divinity: Original Sin Divinity: Original Sin 2
 

Silva

Arcane
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
Messages
4,778
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Is it only me or the new game factions feel more fantasy then scientific ? The first game ones felt a little more on the hard-sci part to me, while this (treemen? green-skin men? x-ray men?) do not.

Though their mechanics feel more differentiated like in Legends, and this is a good thing.
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,104
I tend to worry when RPS favors a game these days, but Endless Space 2 really does look damn amazing. God knows we could always go for more good space 4X titles.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/05/18/endless-space-2-review/

Wot I Think: Endless Space 2

es2recommends.jpg


I can imagine the intervention now, family and friends sitting around me in a circle. “Fraser, we all care about you. You’re in a safe space. But you’ve got to stop falling in love with 4X games. It’s bad for your health.” I’d walk straight out of the room, of course. My new beau is Endless Space 2 [official site], and its got its hooks in me deep. Like its predecessor – definitely Endless Legend and not the first Endless Space – it’s a bold attack on the more staid elements of the 4X multiverse, full of character, weirdness and ambition.

Amplitude have crafted a game that oozes character and charm out of every pore. With its faction-specific soundtrack, lavish art and light RPG-like quests, it’s hard not to fall for it. Character doesn’t just mean flavour, either. Sure, Endless Space 2 is full of that, but what’s most compelling is the way in which it intersects with the mechanics, elevating them both.

es2-1.jpg


Take the factions, for instance. The business-savvy Lumeris colonise worlds by paying private companies to do all the work. No colony ships needed. The arboreal Unfallen, on the other hand, link star systems together with cosmic tendrils, instantly colonising a world once the vines take root. Each of the Xs is informed by the history and abilities of the factions. Even on the same type of map, with the same opponents, playing as the the extradimensional Riftborn or the ravenous Cravers feels like a fundamentally different experience.

Factions aren’t just defined by their unique techs and fancy powers, however. They set the tone and inspire certain types of playstyles, but the politics system has just as big an impact. It’s perhaps the biggest hook that sets Endless Space 2 apart from Endless Legend, and its influence permeates throughout the entire game.

Each empire contains six potential political parties vying for power. How much control they have, and indeed if they they exist at all, is determined by the species living under your yoke. All of them have a political ideology they are most closely affiliated with, and over time they’ll help parties that espouse the ideals they dig. Political events, wars, building projects and other actions can also drum up more support for them.

es2-2.jpg


And that’s why, playing as the largely pacifist Lumeris, I found myself dealing with a government run by the militarists. Through migration and swallowing up minor civilisations, I had a fair number of aliens who were a wee bit militant living in my empire, and I’d gotten myself into a nasty war, forcing me to construct lots of ships and military buildings, which in turn bolstered the party. Come the election, they dominated and the laws changed. Now I could declare war without any cost, get more manpower and buy cheaper ships. My people loved it. Who doesn’t love a warmonger?

With the end of the war and another election, things went back to normal, but the militarists remained a powerful party, allowing me to continue to pass aggressive laws even though my empire had reverted back to a pacifist government. These laws provide huge bonuses, though they cost a great deal of the influence resource to maintain. It’s a risk to rely too heavily on them, but it’s also possible to construct your empire in such a way that it churns out influence through buildings and governors. This is also another way for you to expand, assimilating other species and thrusting out your borders.

It’s a great example of how everything feels interconnected. Migration, expansion, war, politics and construction aren’t these discrete systems – they’re part of a single, huge machine. And via the elegant UI that’s equal parts a work of art and a legible interface, consuming all of this data is easier than expected. In 4X games, aesthetics are often flung aside in the hyperspeed wake of practical concerns, but not so in Endless Space 2.

es2-3.jpg


Things become a bit more complicated when dealing with opponents, though. See, every faction is playing by different rules. This was a problem in Endless Legend, too, but it’s exacerbated here by the politics system. It’s incredibly hard to understand what the capabilities of another empire actually are.

I realised how little I knew what was going on outside my borders when the nomadic Vodyani started invading one of my systems during a cold war. Normally that’s not possible unless war has been formally declared, but there they were, slaughtering my peaceful citizens. I’m pretty sure it’s not a Vodyani-specific trait, so maybe it’s a special militarist law? I don’t know! But it made our diplomatic status meaningless and left me wondering how I could really plan for an event like that. I’ve never wanted an espionage system so much.

The Vodyani invasion is something I wanted to mention because war in general has been a mixed bag thanks to a rather serious bug. I’ve been mucking around in some of the chillest galaxies in the universe, where wars only kick off when I’m the aggressor. The latest pre-release patch does, thankfully, fix this rather major issue, along with enhancing the game’s diplomacy. Now the various empires make logical – if not entirely reasonable – demands, and when they don’t get their way, war becomes increasingly likely. It might be out of fear over aggressive expansion, jealously over a wealth disparity, or simply due to border conflicts. So the galaxy is now a more lively, reactive place.

es2-4.jpg


I’m still not all that enthusiastic about getting into fights, however. It’s not all bad, mind. Amplitude have hit the sweet spot between convenience and letting you customise your ships, and there’s zero faff when it comes to invasions, which are traditionally rich in faff, but actual combat is just a bit dull. You pick a battle plan and then everything else is automated. It seems like a huge waste, given how much effort has clearly gone into rendering the space scraps. Maybe I’m being a bit hard on it? Automated battles are pretty common in 4X games, but we’ve already seen Amplitude buck this trend twice with the card-based system of Endless Space and the turn-based tactical brawls of Endless Legend. This is a step backwards.

Even though wars now kick off with greater frequency, I still find myself drawn towards more subtle conflicts, travelling down less destructive paths of conquest. Economic domination is historically one of the duller victory paths, but the trade and market mechanics in Endless Space 2 are unexpectedly engaging and elaborate.

es2-5.jpg


First off, you’ve got a two-part trade system. You can set up trading companies and then subsidiaries in another system, and ships will chart a course along that hyperspace route, trading and bartering, racking up cash and luxury items. The longer the route, the more you get. And these companies can be invested in, at a high cost, enhancing them further. The danger is that other factions just need to set up a blockade in any part of the chain, and all that cash is gone.

The second part is the market where you can buy and sell goods directly, and this is where things get interesting because there’s a proper economic sim working under the hood. The value of goods change not just because of a surplus or more demand, but due to outside forces. This even goes beyond the market, affecting the price of ships. During an extended period of galactic peace, ships are cheaper, for instance. I have some balance concerns, however, because right now it’s a little too easy to get incredibly rich, though the re-emergence of war creates an additional wrinkle that makes it a little harder to maintain Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth.

Endless Space 2 also effortlessly solves one of my biggest 4X pet peeves, something that Firaxis took years to figure out with Civilization. At no point does it feel like you’re locked into a victory path. Or any path, really.

es2-6.jpg


During my attempt at economic conquest as the Riftborn (admittedly not the coolest of victory paths for a race of geometric, extradimensional aliens who can drop singularities on worlds and manipulate time), I realised that I was having a lot more fun working my way through the gargantuan tech tree. It was a late-game realisation and I’d resigned myself to never living out my nerdy dreams. But, as it turns out, overhauling an empire isn’t all that difficult. Planetary specialisations, new laws, buildings that gobble up currency and spew out research points – if you can’t use one of them, you can probably use something else.

The risk is that this makes specialisation meaningless because you can just switch. But it takes time and effort, and there’s a good chance you’ll be playing catch up with other empires who have stuck with their focus throughout the game. There are ways to close the gap though, and simply having the option to make massive late-game changes is incredibly welcome. Endless Space 2 is full of stuff like this, elements big and small that tackle problems 4X games have been grappling with for a long time.

es2-8.jpg


There’s an abundance of map modes and filters, a search bar for research, even a notification that pops up suggesting what tech you should go for when you’ve just finished a project. ‘How can managing a sprawling, complex space empire be a bit less of a pain in the arse?’ seems to be a question the developers have asked themselves a lot, and the result is a user-friendly experience.

I’m relieved that Amplitude have managed to do some last-minute fixes. It saves me from having to tell you to give it a miss for the time being, even though I’m besotted with it. Instead I get to happily recommend it. From the interface to economics, it sports some of the best systems I’ve seen in a 4X game, and like Endless Legend, it’s simultaneously confident and experimental, finding new ways to spice up a genre that can too often be bland.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,499
I looked at ElichTV playing early access, and it felt stale, so I'd probably collect it, but wait until rainy days, or an expansion.
 

Executr

Cipher
Joined
Sep 24, 2014
Messages
303
What stands the most in these 4X trailer series is the soundtrack. The rest not so much. I'm not really a fan of starlanes and the battle system, which looks similar to the first game. Oh well, I'll pass on this one.
 

flyingjohn

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2012
Messages
2,944
[KNOWN ISSUES]
  • Final Reward of the Rifborn has no effect yet
  • Known issue: the AI is a bit reluctant to fight against Arks in early/mid game
  • FPS drops drastically during the planet destruction cutscene for a few seconds
  • Game session can remain stuck during the End Turn sequence while in a Pending state
  • The user does not receive the reward after “The cult of the strongman” United Empire faction quest is completed
  • Unfallen users cannot use the spaceport
  • Several factions traits on custom factions are not functional yet
  • AI factions do not build carriers/large sized ships during gameplay
  • ENFER ship cannot be dragged into the hangar
  • Title staggers during gameplay in the later turns of a session
  • The cutscene for gas planet destruction is missing
  • Several bits of texts are still in English in some languages
  • Saves will be broken if you are saving your game during the quest "Preserve the Academy"
  • Narrator and faction voice over during the beginner tutorial is missing
  • Tutorials about battle results and blockade are not triggered
  • Vodyani Quest Chapter 1 new objective is to exterminate pirates which are not necessarily on their own constellation: the translation keeps the old objective hint.
  • Vodyani Quest Chapter 1 Part 2 Second choice will not work with custom faction
  • Never show the planet scanview keys when in ground battle
  • Planet scan view is incomplete
  • [MAC] The minor and major factions influence area can be seen through the fog of war
:what:
 

Zboj Lamignat

Arcane
Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Messages
5,520
It was released already. From what I've seen the UI of this game is a real mess and the strategic map somehow manages to be really simplistic and unclear at the same time.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,499
It was released already. From what I've seen the UI of this game is a real mess and the strategic map somehow manages to be really simplistic and unclear at the same time.
Simplistic often means unclear, that's common knowledge from game development. You seen Endless Legend, you seen what they normally do. I wouldn't expect anything less than they released. The main problem is beta state they released the game. Instead of using early access to release it relatively bug free, they managed to release it with save game corruption, unfinished quests, and AI is avoiding certain ships for some reason.
 

Zboj Lamignat

Arcane
Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Messages
5,520
Yes, it's a "common knowledge from game development" that simplistic strategic maps in strategic games "often means unclear" compared to some unnecessarily fancy mess, see pretty much every strategy series that transitioned from 2d to 3d ever for some examples :retarded:
 

Jimmious

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 18, 2015
Messages
5,132
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I dont mind the "auto" combat as long as everything else works fine. I actually like 4X games that you feel like an emperor and you don't have to micromanage every ship in combat. If it's done right of course.
 
Last edited:

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,123
I dont mind the "auto" combat as long as everything else works fine. I actually 4X games that you feel like an emperor and you don't have to micromanage every ship in combat. If it's done right of course.

Pretty much, I don't know why people whine about combat when obviously it's not an important part of the genre. Most 4x games that attempted having complex combat end up as boring slogs.
 

flyingjohn

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2012
Messages
2,944
Automatic combat does eliminate the problem of weak ai considering no ai will ever able to even match even a call of duty player in turn based manual combat.
So even if the ai does everything right and is supposed to win you can just declare war and stomp him easily.
Of course what this means is that any game utilizing automatic combat needs to have a pretty good empire building game play element to compensate,and also needs to have varied factions.
Endless space 2 and legend cover the interesting factions part while the empire management is debatable.
But they just can't seem to make a functioning empire ai in all their games,making the game a joke in terms of difficulty and replay ability and nullifying any point in having automatic combat.
I mean machines are good optimizing and crunching numbers and that is all the empire ai is.
How they fuck it up is mind boggling.
 

Sranchammer

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
20,399
Location
Former Confederate States of America
1.0.1



[GENERAL]
  • Added Unfallen Games2Gether Faction
  • Modding implemented
  • New Scanview system management implemented
  • Added planet scanview
  • Auto ship design / upgrade implemented
  • Cloud saves are now available
  • Game can now have 12 competitors!
  • Academy/metaplot quests have been added
  • Beginner Tutorial implemented
  • Custom Factions implemented
  • Added colonization videos
  • Auto-ship design implemented
  • Added technology Helper to suggest technologies to the player
[CONTENT]
  • Added faction-specific technologies
  • Added 2 new minor factions, Remnant and Pulsos
  • Added Events quest Political
  • Added new random events
  • Added new market events
  • Added 23 new space battle tactics
  • Added “exotic” effects on strategic weapons and defenses
  • Added planet destruction module
  • Added a specific star type for the academy
  • Added founder heroes and the 5th Sophon hero
  • Added new content to curiosities (Modules / Space battle tactics / Star system improvements...)
  • Added final rewards of all Main Quests (Chapter 4)
  • Added population swap in United Empire Main Quest
[TECHNICAL]
  • Saves are now in a binary format
  • Several optimizations have been made for different parts of the game (GUI, Computation...)
  • Refined some behaviors in the galaxy generator
[AI]
  • Pirates now wait fleets that are coming to their systems before moving to another system (depending on their mission)
  • Added: Planet destruction mission
  • Added: AI is now able to activate laws (knowing that it costs Influence points)
  • Added: AI is now able to cancel laws to retrieve the empire points
  • Added: AI is now able to trade technologies by diplomacy
  • Added: AI now research military modules technologies
  • Added: AI now play elections
  • Added: AI is now able to attack enemies it finds on its mission path
  • Added: AI is now able to propose alliances, map and vision sharing (if it has the tech)
  • Added: AI now feedbacks more game events and takes into account more player actions (leeching, time bubbles, blockades, attacking civilians, Unfallen actions etc.)
  • Changed: Globally improved the military attack, defense and invasion
  • Changed: Improved the way AI uses support modules
  • Changed: Increased AI desire for trade (in particularly for mercantile AIs)
  • Changed: Improved map and vision sharing evaluation and open borders
  • Changed: Improved main enemy selection
  • Improved invasion behaviour
  • Improved behaviour and technology choice for colonization
  • Improved node strategic score heuristic
  • Fixed: Issue where AI fleets were staying in hangar forever in some specific cases
  • Fixed: AI colonization behavior
  • Fixed: AI now doesn't cancel missions without any reasons.
  • Fixed: Ark generation and leecher use are now working correctly
  • Fixed: Issues for hull and affinities
  • Fixed: AI now researches new military modules
[IMPROVEMENTS]
  • Put back the Surveyed support at the end of the Election process
  • Stat buttons on the Advanced Battle Setup Screen are "togglable"
  • Added a timer for the auto battle start
  • Screen/button tooltips display information about their keyboard shortcuts
  • Automated ships are no longer sent to besieged outposts
  • Refund value is now displayed in "Deed failed" notification when relevant
  • Neutral propaganda is no longer queued when colonizing a system
  • Motherships now start the game with 1 action point
  • Fleets that cannot fight cannot be used as reinforcements in space battle
  • The game should automatically choose the compatibility mode
  • Key binding has been improved (detect if the key is used, …)
  • Added localized subtitles for all the introductions
  • Updated the look of outgame screens
  • Probes are now allowed on Hero ships
  • Improved module icons: larger on the ships, improved progression details, redone support module, removed kinetic trail, changed category module orientation
  • Ship modules category icons are now colored based on their strategic resource in the tech tree
  • Added module computation formulas in the ship design stat tooltips
  • Mezari or Sheredyn populations are now effective at the end of the United Empire Chapter 3
  • AI behavior has been improved, notably with regards to its aggressiveness
  • Polished end turn timers & added "out of time" animations
  • Improved notification flow: click on a button which open a menu no longer displays the next notification
  • Improved Ground Battle: there is now a maximum manpower that can be deployed per turn. The limit can be increased with technologies and temporary modified by ground battle tactics.
[BALANCE]
  • Population collection bonuses for Riftborns: movement points are only halved when going through wormholes (temporary - will change for release)
  • Brainwashed factions can no longer start a new assimilation quest
  • Use of Crew Modules on hero ships is now forbidden
  • Added a turn action on Time Bubbles, so they need to be in the first position to be completed
  • Reduced AI Prestige bonus in higher difficulties
  • Minor Factions with Cordial relation or better now don't block trade routes
  • Reduced hero experience from improvement built, increased from battle and nodes / curiosities discovered
  • Reduced crew given by crew modules
  • Added different Demand management on Marketplace prices
  • Balancing of Market events
  • Fixed issues of Singularity: FIDSI and depletion effects
  • Added political impact to Leech (Religious) and Planet Destruction (Military) entity actions
  • Removed description panels from Faction Trait tooltip
  • Infinite improvements are now compatible with Food to Industry
  • Fixed issue on exclusive technologies which were not exclusives
  • Increased free movement speed
  • Increased food consumption
  • Increased influence zone progression rate
  • Removed duplicate of exploration stage 1
  • Added negotiable truce (not managed by AI, missing negotiable terms)
  • Increased hull health and upkeeps (slightly increased medium ship cost and greatly the large ship cost)
  • Balanced support module effects
  • Balanced weapon module: reduced missile power, increased flack effect, increased beam power)
  • Balanced space battle tactics and changed unlock distribution
  • Improved ground battle tactics: balanced effect, removed round number modifiers (replaced with manpower deployment limit modifiers), added ownership malus for the surrender tactic
  • Balanced random events appearance rhythm
  • Balanced Trading Companies: improvement costs are now linked, and can either increase luxury or dust production. They take longer to level up, and Trading Companies unlocks are slower.
[FIXES]
  • Fix for non-repeating minor factions
  • Fix for abundance of strats and luxes
  • Fixed an issue where ships in flotilla without direct opponent could not shoot
  • Fixed space battle trajectories orientations
  • Fix error sometimes occurring when opening the advanced play screen directly after the start of the battle, causing the enemy play cards and ships to be broken. We now simulate the enemy play if needed so we can show the information correctly.
  • Fix for number of nodes was still affected by density
  • Fix for isolated nodes spawning too far away
  • Fixed slider settings flicking between 2 (or more) values if they are quickly changed by the host in multiplayer.
  • Fixed error in economy screen system tab related to Riftborn population construction
  • Fixed the issue where the cost of the "Praise" action (Minor faction interaction) was not influenced by the "We are equals" law
  • Fix Venetians T2/3 Turrets Orientation
  • Fixed an issue on United Empire Ground Battle assets
  • Fixed an issue on Tikanans Ground Battle assets
  • fixed an issue on Riftborn home planet where the strategic luxury were spawned on all the planets of the home system or no strategic deposit were spawned instead of having them only on the home planet
  • Fix vote redistribution feedback in Election last panel
  • Fix duplicate special nodes names
  • Fixed full screen portrait rendering with custom resolution.
  • removed Bailiff Quest which provokes unpredictable eliminations
  • Fixed the bug forbidding the Ecologist Forced Law to apply properly
  • Fixed Riftborn outpost progress not being fed back in orbital view
  • Fixed outpost FIDSI not being displayed in orbital view
  • Fixed a bug on the Horatio gene population display in the population screen
  • Fix incorrect unlocking of play tactics slots when passing a turn
  • Fix several Multiplayer desyncs
  • Fix Wonder cancellation process and Refund in notification
  • Lots of issues fixed, along with an improvement to the overall stability of the game
  • Balancing / global tweak of the game
  • Fixed: custom faction voice over now matches faction visuals
  • Fixed the Narrator Empire Introduction voice when launching the Beginner Tutorial
  • Fixed various causes of potential sync loss
  • Fixed notifications not being displayed in some game loading situations
  • Fixed missing icons in the tech tree
  • Fixed an issue with "Preserve the Academy" breaking saves
  • Fixed an issue with ground battle scan views
  • Fixed some sounds missing with ground battle
  • Fixed an issue with Horatio splicing
  • Fixed an issue with ground battle manpower that could be negative in some cases
  • Fixed the planet scan view, now complete
  • Fixed Game session remaining stuck during the End Turn sequence while in a Pending state
  • [MAC] Fixed: minor and major factions influence area can no longer be seen through the fog of war
[SOUND DESIGN]
  • Reworked United Empire Warp
  • Fixed Horatio faction missing audio elements
[KNOWN ISSUES]
  • Unfallen users cannot use the spaceport
  • Several factions traits on custom factions are not functional yet
  • ENFER ship cannot be dragged into the hangar (it can be done through the disband action)
  • Vodyani Quest Chapter 1 Part 2 Second choice will not work with custom factions

giphy.gif
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom