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Endless Space

DakaSha

Arcane
Joined
Dec 4, 2010
Messages
4,792
Thanks. Fuck this game then :P
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
6/ turn till cancel but there is like a 10 turn minimum or diplomatic penalty for early canceling.
Oh, weird. You'd think they could be clearer on that. So do I keep the technology or do I just get limited access to it while the treaty is running?

And another question is, why 6 a turn for 10 turns instead of just 60 lump sum? I guess this adds the wrinkle of the player might forget to cancel the treaty so the AI might get some extra money out of it, but damn. That's kind of a pain. Thanks for the assistance on this though!
 

Zewp

Arcane
Joined
Sep 30, 2012
Messages
3,566
Codex 2013
I dunno, I thought it was pretty clear. It says "the specified quantity of dust is transferred every turn, until the deal is cancelled." Can't really get much clearer than that.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
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Messages
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Location
Poland
6/ turn till cancel but there is like a 10 turn minimum or diplomatic penalty for early canceling.
Oh, weird. You'd think they could be clearer on that. So do I keep the technology or do I just get limited access to it while the treaty is running?

And another question is, why 6 a turn for 10 turns instead of just 60 lump sum? I guess this adds the wrinkle of the player might forget to cancel the treaty so the AI might get some extra money out of it, but damn. That's kind of a pain. Thanks for the assistance on this though!

Maybe he doesnt have 60 and wants to give 6 a turn instead since he has a positive income.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
6/ turn till cancel but there is like a 10 turn minimum or diplomatic penalty for early canceling.
Oh, weird. You'd think they could be clearer on that. So do I keep the technology or do I just get limited access to it while the treaty is running?

And another question is, why 6 a turn for 10 turns instead of just 60 lump sum? I guess this adds the wrinkle of the player might forget to cancel the treaty so the AI might get some extra money out of it, but damn. That's kind of a pain. Thanks for the assistance on this though!

Maybe he doesnt have 60 and wants to give 6 a turn instead since he has a positive income.
Except that's what he's asking me to pay, and I'm rolling around in 500 spacebucks.

Early (Very early, a few hours played isn't much even in a simple 4X) impressions are mostly good. Graphics, music, sound and interface are all excellent. Gameplay's simple and seems relatively low on micromanagement, reminds me a bit of MoO1 in that regard. Combat's weird and I'm not sure how I feel about it, will take some more battling to get a better sense of it. I like the card system that lets you ogle the ships and battle in theory but the execution seems a bit off. Not only is the card system odd, but the eyecandy of the ships battling seems to always play out basically the same way. Also a noticeable lack of voice acting in the game which is a shame, I liked Sword of the Stars 1's cheesy and abundant voice acting since it gave the different races some extra flavor, and the battle chatter was great.

Gut feeling is this was pretty alright for $8 but won't usurp Sword of the Stars 1 for my favorite modern (Or dare I say favorite period?) space 4X. Of course by the time I played SotS it was loaded with expansions and patches so maybe this'll get far better down the line. There's definitely room in my heart for a simple space 4X but I'm still not sure this'll hold on to me.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
Apparently this is getting a free to play weekend on Steam going from November 29th to December 3rd, as well as a 50% off sale, and they just released a hefty patch with some new content.

ECHOES OF THE ENDLESS (1.0.38)
CHANGES AND ADDITIONS
- The galaxy generation seed is displayed with the pause menu.
- Added a sentry mode to the available fleet actions.
- Added an auto-cycle button to enable the review of all fleets without orders.
- The battle timer (when choosing a participating mode: auto/manual) is now a game option. By default, the battle timer is disabled for a single player session, and it is enabled for a multiplayer session. [G2G vote]
- Added a new state for the "end turn button" that notifies the player he has pending encounters.
- Refactored the heroes' ability trees.
- If a system improvement will never be relevant for a system, hide it from the improvement picklist (credits: by grubnik)
- Added a victory/defeat picture and extra information to the 'Continue' panel.
- Added a ‘Game Introduction’ option in game options (to introduce the new content of an add-on).
- Updated the tutorial with the new features.
- Added 5 new musics.

INTERACTIVE RANDOM EVENTS [G2G vote]
- Refactored the game events system:
o The pre 1.0.30 events are compatible
o Added new event effects
o Added interactive random events
o Added a new panel to the Empire Factors panel, which summarizes all the effects of the current random events
o Added an advanced game option to activate/deactivate the random events generation
- Added descriptions and pictures to the new random events.

EXPLORATION EVENTS [G2G vote]
- Added exploration rewards: small random bonuses for the first player to explore a system.
- Some exploration events are now interactive.
- Added a GUI feedback in the galaxy view to identify systems with an exploration reward. The Amoeba players have a slightly different feedback.
- The effects of the exploration events are now displayed in the Empire Factors panel.

WONDERS [G2G vote]
- Added natural and endless wonders. The endless wonders can be restored.
- Lowered number of wonders depending on the different size.
- Added GFX for natural and endless wonders.
- Added a GUI feedback in the galaxy view to identify explored systems with a wonder.

AMBIENCE - GALAXY MAP [G2G vote]
- Added more life to the galaxy with the random addition of comets, black holes, pulsars, ...

DIPLOMACY
- Removed the waiting period for the cold war status.
- Added diplomatic answers when the player trades with an AI and when an AI is offering a proposal.
- With the previous diplomatic behavior we could have deadlock involving a permanent cold war state between all the factions.

HEROES
- Added a new Pilgrim hero.
- Added 4 heroes of new factions (Sheredyn and minor factions).

MULTIPLAYER
- Set the Steam regional parameter to ‘Worldwide’ for the multiplayer sessions.
- The game disconnections related to the Steam servers should be less frequent.
- All the multiplayer sessions of a given version are now displayed. You can join a game only if you have the same files/mod as the session's host.

AI
- Removed growth and fleet upkeep bonus for the AI.
- AI for newbie is less aggressive and less militarized.
- Lowered normal Pirates difficulty.
- During a deal, the AI values a resource depending on the number he already owns.


BALANCING
- Reduced the science trade route multiplier from 2 to 0.5.

FIXES
- Fixed the way AI manages its ship's production so it doesn't fall into bankruptcy anymore.
- Fixed a potential desync in MP when unlocking a technology by a random event.
- Fixed an issue where the random events frequency is not tied to the game speed.
- Fixed an issue where entering planet view after scraping a population improvement causes an assert.
- Fixed an issue where desert planet does not display all life simulation effects.
- Fixed an issue where life simulation effects are not properly displayed on high population planets.
- Fixed an issue where the ships created by events don't have the good amount of HP.
- Fixed an issue where an assert occurred for a same random event for two empires.
- Fixed an issue with the anomaly reduction of the hell gourds.
- Fixed an issue where an exploration event causes a desync in a multiplayer session.
- Fixed an issue where the constructibles were overridden by the modding.
- Fixed an issue where the warning events "no current technology" & "bankrupt next turn" made the battle notifications disappear.
- Fixed an issue where the wrong ship design was queued after an advanced defender exploration event was encountered.
- Fixed an issue where the advanced defender exploration event used the designs based on affinity.
- Fixed some issues of GUI and localization.
 

Misconnected

Savant
Joined
Jan 18, 2012
Messages
587
Until I see some ES patch notes with a "rebuild the tech tree from the ground up to facilitate diverse and mutually exclusive match-length strategies and incorporate multiple 20-100 turn tech chains of both hard and soft counters" bullet point, I have every confidence that nothing can save ES.

Um ok so Dom has superthugs, special summons, communion, dominion based conquest, sea and land domination etc etc . But what about civ4 and Calciv2 (and why not twilight?) ? I mean give a few examples.

Kind of late, but... The kind of answer you seem to be asking for would get obscenely long and boring, so... Not happening. Sorry. Still...

In GalCiv2 population explosion is often a great way to turn an iffy match strategy into a winner. It's how population explosion is generally used, and what the game presents its use as. But rather than using it to reinforce parts of a match strategy, you can also use it as the match strategy itself, for example by using it to cripple the other empires through relentless buyouts that might leave them wealthy, but will also drastically slow down their development and leave them hopelessly vulnerable to hostile action - that you can then not only manufacture politically, but actually supply ready-made armies for. Single minded population explosion with minimal military teching is a highly effective match strategy for a conquest victory.
ToTA almost entirely murdered GalCiv2's AI. To the point you have conquest-based races that can't research military tech. However, Altarn's AI mod has since reached the point where ToTA actually works fairly well. So I'd now suggest using it.
Assuming you do so, you might find that despite the fact that mobility (and by extension the traditional blitz strategies) have been nerfed and re-nerfed almost out of existence, it's now possible to pull a sort of reverse-blitz where mobility is still the focus of your strategy, but where the pay-off is the ability to nearly stall out everyone in the late game, while you yourself can be as much as 6 times more mobile than your rivals.

Like I said, I'm not going to write you a 300p Dominions manual. But I trust the above gives you some idea of what I was talking about. And hey, it really isn't all that different from Dom3 in principle. Just try to think about a Civ-like's tech tree like you would a Dom3 build.
 

ohWOW

Sucking on dicks and being proud of it
Dumbfuck Queued
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Nov 15, 2011
Messages
2,449
To think I was going to actually buy that.

It's shallow as fuck, worse than Master of Orion 3. The galaxy maps are small, races are dumb, gameplay is boring as fuck. Technology tree is the worst.
 

Kane

I have many names
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Vatnik
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The biggest problem with this game are actually the technical issues with multiplayer. Desyncs that force you to rehost the game every 30 turns make it quite literally unplayable. For a game that has been build with primarily MP in mind (the reason behind the combat system and tech tree) this is kinda sad.
 

Dim

Not sure if advertising plant?
Joined
Feb 24, 2012
Messages
562
Location
Syndi Vegit notanatzi
Until I see some ES patch notes with a "rebuild the tech tree from the ground up to facilitate diverse and mutually exclusive match-length strategies and incorporate multiple 20-100 turn tech chains of both hard and soft counters" bullet point, I have every confidence that nothing can save ES.
Mods. Especially the one called Endless Dream which has no-one playing it in multiplayer. Same to ohWOW for the most part. http://www.moddb.com/games/endless-space/mods?sort=ranktoday-asc The mechanics, especially for combat, are very weak but that just means if other 4x games had multiplayabel mods they would be better.

Mods and multiplayer don't really work; you don't know what mods the greyed games are using and you have to restart the game completely for each mod (set?). Very few drops (raw is wrong or steam version is better) and plenty of people but 5/6 of them are nooobs who only play for the free time.
 

Kane

I have many names
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
Until I see some ES patch notes with a "rebuild the tech tree from the ground up to facilitate diverse and mutually exclusive match-length strategies and incorporate multiple 20-100 turn tech chains of both hard and soft counters" bullet point, I have every confidence that nothing can save ES.
Mods. Especially the one called Endless Dream which has no-one playing it in multiplayer. Same to ohWOW for the most part. http://www.moddb.com/games/endless-space/mods?sort=ranktoday-asc The mechanics, especially for combat, are very weak but that just means if other 4x games had multiplayabel mods they would be better.

Mods and multiplayer don't really work; you don't know what mods the greyed games are using and you have to restart the game completely for each mod (set?). Very few drops (raw is wrong or steam version is better) and plenty of people but 5/6 of them are nooobs who only play for the free time.

I have the steam version and i have yet to finish a game that didn't desync.
 

ohWOW

Sucking on dicks and being proud of it
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Thanks for the links Dim, good to know that it's at least modable.

Maybe I will get this game on -90% sale.
 

Dim

Not sure if advertising plant?
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Feb 24, 2012
Messages
562
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Syndi Vegit notanatzi
Ok, so I'm wrong the game crashes. That's what auto-save is for. To be more specific, a multiplayer session can be loaded just like singleplayer by the host. Playing a multiplayer game as if it was single player and letting people join when they want has been moderately successful. Best part about saving is making a scenario for multiplayer and skipping the often replayed early game.

I'm also wrong about Dream mod which always crashes on start-up. The community mod addresses some problems but not the biggest one where its impossible to really take over an enemy system without spending a huge amount of gold in fleet upkeep.

What does it mean if mp games are greyed out?
 

ohWOW

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The glorious empire of man.

An interplanetary epidemic had happened, so I took all infected and threw them all into the planets of my enemies, causing a massive plague spread across stupid automaton empire.

Serves them good for destroying my very first battle fleet.
:flamesaw:
 

ohWOW

Sucking on dicks and being proud of it
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While we are at it, can someone recommend me some Moo3 mods? Preferably working with potato.
 

Dim

Not sure if advertising plant?
Joined
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Messages
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Syndi Vegit notanatzi
that you are not playing the same game (version, mods, etc.) unfortunately there is no way to tell WHAT is different.
I kindof said that. I guess i wished to know why so many were gray even when i found out all the mods were not the problem. I will buy this game at 15$ when i know for sure the game does not crash and supports mods properly.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
Played 6 hours of this and I think I've cracked the Endless Space code. The combat, ship design, and diplomacy aspects are almost entirely awful. Diplomacy seems to have no personality to it at all and the AI seems questionable at best, the combat's weird card system doesn't make a damn bit of sense in this game, and ship design is hampered by a lack of interesting components and fairly size-limited fleets. The good (Gameplay) aspects of Endless Space which keep you (Or me at least) going are the research and system/planet management. There are often multiple significant things you want to get at any given time on the research tree, and system management is satisfying by trying to snap the correct system improvements, planet exploitations, and colonizing additional planets in a system at the right time. I find myself wanting to ignore combat just so I can keep listening to the laid back music and improve my systems like some incredibly simple city builder.
 

Absalom

Guest
Then again, how many times have you seen a diplomacy model done right? That said, if they can't make ship design any good, my interest in the game has
waned quite a bit. Maybe I'll try it for the research tho; I've always liked it when it's done right.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
Then again, how many times have you seen a diplomacy model done right?
Almost never, honestly. I thought Civilization 4's diplomacy was pretty well done for the most part and... That's about it I guess. I guess Crusader Kings 2 tolerable for it too.
Been long enough I don't remember MoO2's diplomacy particularly well but I don't remember it being anything that special. Still, even a basic written blurb and a little animated alien is better than Endless Space's text boxes.

And I know I've harped on it in a few threads already, but you might wanna check out Sword of the Stars if research trees are your thing. A unique feature of that series is the partially randomized tech tree for each race in each game. Each race has a unique percentage of being able to research the various tech during each game. Here's a picture of it. http://sots.rorschach.net/images/9/90/SotS_ANY_TechTree.png
So for example you can see the Zuul only have a 20% chance of being able to research Shields 1, but the Morrigi have a 100% chance. Adds an extra wrinkle to the game I really enjoy, where you have to base your strategy around what options you have available to you in that particular game. There are other differences between the races too, like each race has a unique FTL drive which changes how movement works for them. On top of THAT, the different weapon types behave differently in combat unlike in, say, Endless Space where they're basically just packets of damage points. Kinetic weapons will knock ships around in combat depending on the mass of the weapon and the ship being hit, and different armor and shields react to weapons differently.

God damn I really need to start a SotS1 game here. Been trying other space 4X and it's been giving me a swordboner.
 

Absalom

Guest
Then again, how many times have you seen a diplomacy model done right?
Almost never, honestly. I thought Civilization 4's diplomacy was pretty well done for the most part and... That's about it I guess. I guess Crusader Kings 2 tolerable for it too.
Been long enough I don't remember MoO2's diplomacy particularly well but I don't remember it being anything that special. Still, even a basic written blurb and a little animated alien is better than Endless Space's text boxes..

God damn I really need to start a SotS1 game here. Been trying other space 4X and it's been giving me a swordboner.

It could have been done right in Emperor of the Fading Suns... but then again; half the fucking game wasn't coded right anyway. You start a SotS1 game here and I'll watch it dude I always wanted to get into that game. (Just never got around to it
 

ohWOW

Sucking on dicks and being proud of it
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After a short adventure with Moo3 lately I fucking lust for Endless Space.
 

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