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[Endless] Legend and Space - Endless Space 2 is out! Freebies on Games2gether. See page 16
Jragghen
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From the team that brought us thousands of hours of goodness in the form of Endless Space (more on this later) and Dungeon of the Endless, AMPLITUDE Studios has officially released their new 4X game to the masses out of Early Access, and it's got a ton of greatness to offer: Endless Legend. Endless Legend will look a whole lot more familiar in format to strategy fans than Endless Space's interface, as it has a much more traditional layout - HEX GRIDS.
It is, admittedly, a little busy, but it's absolutely gorgeous looking, especially in motion. The world features a number of factions (8 right now, but if it follows the trend of Endless Space, that will grow in future updates) each of which has a wide spectrum of abilities/features to differentiate them. Given the interface and layout and genre, tons of comparisons to Civ V (and soon Beyond Earth) will inevitably be drawn, but the more I play, the more I can see the direct lineage from Endless Space in pretty much every aspect of the game.
There are four primary currencies in the game, collectively called FIDS: Food, Industry, Dust, and Science - each of these is relatively self-explanatory other than Dust, which is the Endless form of currency (just think of it as gold). Food increases your population, Industry increases your build, Dust allows you to buy things directly, and Science increases your research rate. As you get more population, you can devote them directly to production of one of these resources, or to a slightly more abstract resource called "Command." More on this later.
The world map is divided into "provinces," of which there can be only one city at a time - they can exploit any resource within a province, but where the city is actually located determines how much FIDS you get. As your cities grow, you can expand them (which decreases happiness), and actually level up the squares (which increases happiness) to get a much more robust looking city and different benefits.
In addition to your major cities which you and competing factions can control, there are minor factions which can have a number of villages within a province. Think of these as a cross between City-States and Barbarians in Civ V. You can buy them off, you can attack them and raze their town, or you can complete a quest which they ask of you in order to befriend and "pacify" them, which will give you access to their unit type for recruitment. This is one of a couple ways that you'll be assigned quests as you expand, giving you periodic goals along your way to conquest which gives you an edge.
Speaking of conquest, combat in this game is top-notch. Your armies can hold multiple units (up to 4 at the start, and 1 hero, but I expect that'll expand later in the game) which move around as a single unit, but when you go into combat, you'll go through a series of screens - first, comparing your armies, then the armies effectively split up into their individual units, fill out the land surrounding them, and it goes into a turn-based tactical combat mode where you have six rounds to attack the opposing army.
Terrain actually matters (you can't ascend or descend those cliffs), ranged attacks are effective (some units can fire up to 3 or 4 tiles), and units have varying stats depending on what you equip them with. That's right, you craft and equip your own units based off of what technologies are available to you. Want to give your heavies some ranged weapons? Totally doable, provided you've got the resources.
I'll probably edit in some further description of factions/information on the tech tree/etc as I get further into the game and learn more, but rather than fill up the Steam thread with conversation about this, I felt it deserved its own place for discussion. It's slow, and may take a little to get used to/understand if you're not familiar with Endless Space, but well worth playing and owning. The game is only $35, so go and pick it up. Just take a look at some of the gorgeous screenshots that players have been taking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTt1c9IIoRIGo and play!
Jragghen on
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So there was a fair amount of talk about Endless Space up there, but why not get into a bit more detail as well?
AMPLITUDE Studio's first game, Endless Space, is a 4X game taking place in...you guessed it. Space.
The main map of the game takes place at the galaxy level, where specific stars will have systems inside of them. You colonize individual star systems, and can settle on multiple planets within those systems. Buildings/upgrades are applied at the system level, and can impact different planets differently. Just like Endless Legend, you utilize FIDS to build your units and improvements, get science, and do pretty much everything. Planets will have maximum population depending on size/type (not to mention what improvements are present), and output will be heavily dependent upon that population.
The tech tree in Endless Space is much more traditional, with branches and prerequisites out the wazoo. However, it branches in four different directions depending on what TYPE of research you're doing, with different sections for military, commerce, exploration, and applied/materials research. This results in a massive amount of variety in what you want to prioritize to tailor to your play style/victory of choice.
Endless Space's one area of lacking is its combat. While you need to design and create your different ship types - starting with certain classes which can carry a specific amount of payload, which you then outfit with defensive materials, weapons, and other auxiliary types which alter the cost of the ships, when you actually enter combat you simply choose different stances for three separate phases (offensive, defensive, engineering, stealth, etc) which have different impacts and can "beat" other types, which turns the entire thing into a massive game of rock/paper/scissors. The game is still quite enjoyable, but it often seems to be in spite of the combat mechanics, not thanks to them.
In addition to normal Endless Space, there's an expansion pack: Endless Space: Disharmony.
Disharmony includes a complete reworking of the combat system to make it so that builds are much more balanced, and introduces a new faction (Harmony) which is seeking to eliminate Dust from the Galaxy - they're interesting to play as, if nothing else. Additionally, it introduces new siege mechanics, bombardment, land invasions, and a variety of other stuff. Well worth owning.
At any rate, feel free to bring discussion of Endless Space up, as well!
e:
And now, Endless Space 2! Thanks to @Foefaller for the OP
Thread of the Endless is clearly the correct title. Both Legend and Dungeon are pretty decent games!
Generally I've found it really the most useful to research the Extractors/Weapons/Armor for Titanium and Glassteel first, to give your armies a leg up on the roving natives.
Also, Dust is important. You want to make sure you have a good supply because the game starts selling off your stuff if you go into debt. Including active armies. When winter comes your production of Dust and other resources can drop dramatically so you need a good buffer.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
And, as they say, Winter is Coming in 7-14 turns.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
So, what's your question?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
There don't seem to be a lot of basic faction designs to make different units though, at least in early game?
EDIT: Hah, ninja'd asking for me :P
At the start of the game, you'll only have 1 (or so) basic unit chassis. For the Vaulters, that's a ranged unit.
You'll need to research the others - again, for the Vaulters, the first chassis they can research is a guy in partial power armor, which means he counts as a Cavalry unit. You don't get to research a standard infantry unit until your reach the second era of research (which requires researching 9 techs) - and the Vaulter infantry unit is a single large robot with a sword arm.
You can get access to other unit types earlier by assimilating a minor race; if you assimilate the Bos centaurs, for instance, you get a cavalry unit. Doing this requires pacifying a Bos village in a region in which you have a city and then spending some influence points (it costs 30 to assimilate the first minor race, IIRC). Assimilating a minor race lets you build their units and adds a small bonus to your empire per pacified village (e.g., assimilating the Sisters of Mercy improves your unit regen by 5% per pacified SoM village anywhere in your empire, in addition to being able to build ... whatever they call their support units).
There are two things you might mean by city level - one is the population of the city, and one is the level of an individual city tile.
Each unit of population can be assigned to work towards one of the FISDIs, and for every 2 points of population you get you can build an additional Borough Streets improvement, which expands the size of your city. Population growth is based on food production.
Each district in a city - the City Center where you founded the city, and each tile with a District improvement like Borough Streets or Cargo Dock - also has a level. They start at level 1, and if you build a district such that it is surrounded by 4 other districts, it levels up to level 2. Level 2 districts provide additional resources and, importantly, happiness (adding a district costs 10 happiness; a level 2 district provides +15 happiness). Some improvements also make level 2 districts provide more stuff - like +2 Science per level 2 district, etc.
Building Borough Streets reduces the food production of a tile by 1; so, if your tile was originally producing 5 food, building a district there means it will only produce 4 food.
I think the Cultists are the faction that can't actually build settlers; I haven't played as them yet, so I'm not sure how they actually expand.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I've only played as the Drakken so far. My first attempt was a bust due to a bad starting location and sluggish expansion, but game 2 is going smoothly enough. I think I hit a bug with the diplomacy AI. I asked some people for peace, and they all considered the proposal to be so valuable that I got them each to give me a minor technology for free. A few turns later, one of them broke the peace and returned to a state of cold war (for some reason). Fearing an impending attack, I went to see how much reinstating the peace treaty would cost me and...they still considered it just as valuable, and I milked even more tech off them.
Also, I find that sometimes, when my melee units are in pitched melee combat, if I tell them to reposition or switch targets, they completely ignore my orders. To the point that they skip their turn entirely unless I give them no orders and leave them to their own devices. Is there some sort of undocumented zone of control mechanic that I should know about?
Cultists can't settle cities and auto-raze captured ones, but they can forge alliances with minor factions that go beyond simple pacification, even in distant provinces. I don't understand the exact mechanism yet, though.
Yeah - Endless Legend will do that.
1. Peace has a natural expiration after, I think, 10 turns, or you can pay influence to break it sooner. It's possible either happened?
2. The Drakken's special ability is to basically demand and get peace treaties; I wonder if they coded that as just making the Drakken peace offers super valuable?
Did they go first? Units get 1 action in combat, and if they are attacked by the enemies first, they'll spend their action on counterattacking.
Glad I remembered that one!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Does peace really auto-expire? Why would they let you make trade treaties that take 20 turns to kick in, if that were the case? I'm not talking about a truce, mind you. I mean going from Cold War to Peace.
I thought units got one attack and one counterattack? My infantry is indeed very slow, so this would explain it, but I don't recall seeing enemies behave the same way. Although I guess since I only have one melee fighter with passable init, I might have been confusing those counterattacks with enemy turns somehow.
Oh - sorry, I might have mixed that up, then. Truces auto-expire and turn into cold wars when they're done; peaces can be canceled early by paying an influence cost.
Nope - 1 action (though some units get bonus counterattacks). So, if your unit gets attacked before it does its normal turn, then it'll just hunker in place when it comes up on the initiative slider.
Another thing to check is its default order - if your unit decides that it can't reach its target this round, and its default order is "Hold Position," it'll just hang out instead of moving and attacking.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
If we're going to incorporate Endless Space here, can this just be an Amplitude Studios thread? I'd be good to have a space to chirp on about DotE developments and how it plays
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
As the Vaulters, I start out with a ranged unit and a ranged hero, and it seems to give me a bit of an edge in early battles - but cavalry enemies tend to have higher initiative and Ranged Slayer, which means that they can really eff me up if I'm not careful.
Late game, I use mixed forces (ranged, cavalry, infantry) in all my armies, so ... ? Maybe?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Well, there's still an active DotE thread, so I didn't really want to step on any toes. Doesn't bother me, although I wouldn't be able to contribute anything - I don't own that game.
In other news, I have a super stupid question. I can't seem to figure out how to build ships. I've got the tech, I've got some cities which border ocean, but can't seem to find how to make them. I'm guessing I have to have city territory over water?
If you've got the tech for boats, all you have to do is move an army into the water* and they'll embark, just like CiV. This takes all of their movement for the round.
There's a higher-tier research thing which lets you build cargo ports (+5 Industry on every water tile in a city, counts as a district) which only cost 1 movement square to enter and embark your army, allowing for some pretty epic maneuverability.
* Note that this requires them being on a beach; you can't embark from some cliffsides. Which is kinda awesome.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
The races are much more varied than CiV or Fallen Enchantress, and the tech tree is one of my favorite implementations I've seen in a 4X. The quest model is, also, better than FE's so far (it includes things like, "You have 11 turns to explore as many secret places as you can, in the order we give them to you, for ever-increasing rewards; go!" along with standard "Defeat X enemies" or "Bring some stuff to these people" quests (usually strategic or luxury resources)).
The number of races is small compared to CiV or FE, though - there are ... 6? ... at the moment, and a 7th that's a reskin of one of the others for people who have Dungeons of the Endless. My personal feeling is that this is much more than made up for by the fact that the races play so differently, but YMMV. In beta, I spent most of the time playing as the Fallen Lords, who are spirits inhabiting powered armor that do not eat food. Like, at all. They live entirely off of Dust (which is kinda like gold, but magical). I'm currently playing as the Vaulters, who get the ability to largely ignore a lot of bad effects from winter and having their cities under siege - but who otherwise play pretty normally, I guess. My next game will probably be as cultists who are, I guess, kinda similar to Venice from CiV, in that they are locked to a single city with a lot of allies from the minor players. Unless I play as the group who gets cities that get up and move?
I like FE combat a bit better, especially with the latest DLC, because it's got more fine-grained control of your units, but I like EL better than CiV's 1UPT system.
Upgrading your hero's equipment has much more sensible costs in EL vs. FE, so you can usually kit out your heroes long before you could do the equivalent in FE.
I think the game's implementations of luxury resources and minor factions are inspired.
I don't know what to tell you about their pricing decisions, other than that this isn't a AAA game with a cast of hundreds behind it. You won't see an animated Catherine the Great speaking Russian when you exchange diplomatic notes with your rivals-cum-allies. Maybe they looked at CiV's price and adjusted accordingly? I dunno.
Does that help?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Seems like they just picked that price point. It feels like ano AAA game. There is about as much depth as you'd expect from a 4X game like Civ, or similar. Plenty more style and flavour than most 4X games have.
I think my concern with the price was that the price often tells you how much work went into a game especially when it comes to certain genres. I would expect something like Mark of the Ninja to be $15-25 as it is a platformer game, a very innovative one, but a platformer none the less. You only need a relatively small team to create it as there are only so many moving parts so to speak. Charging ~$20 will still allow you to make back your money. But something like a 4X game is going to be so much bigger in scope (many, many interconnected moving parts) that you would not be able to make it without a large team and a budget that would allow you to sell it for only $35. So my initial reaction to the price was "what did they leave out?"
So I guess I should then ask you don't feel like they left anything out? Does it have the breadth, or at least come close, to that of other 4X games?
Just my opinion though. It feels like a game that could've very well been 50 bucks at launch.
You should've seen how raggedy-assed it felt during Early Access, even when playing the Vaulters for the bonus tech.
I think my only substantial complaint at this point is that I love the Minor Race system but sort of hate its luck-of-the-draw component in the early game. They all help, but some are much more useful early than others.
I have had a bit of an issue with combat but it is probably something I'm missing. Seems sometimes units will make up orders and just walk to a spot where they can't attack anyone and then end there turn.
Really loving the overall design though, first game took some getting used to but in my 2nd game I'm crushing the person I started off next to (Playing Island map style).
Also the Ended units are just badass, specially when you have a hero that boosts all there stats. I like that lvls on units make a huge difference in how useful they are
When The Binding of Isaac came out, McMillen wasn't sure what he should charge. For a long time he assumed the game was so bizarre and niche and controversial that he'd have almost almost no customers. He considered just releasing it for free, but Steam wound up being interested and picked it up. They suggested a $10 price tag, but he still wasn't confident in the game's reception, so he went for $5, figuring that at that price at least a few people would buy it as a curiosity.
The Binding of Isaac goes on to sell over a million copies.
If the game had cost $10, would the fans have felt that it was worth the price? Yes, certainly. The biggest fans of that game are rabid and it has an enormous amount of content. SHOULD McMillen have charged $10? Who knows! Maybe he would have made more money. Or maybe a large percentage of those million+ customers really DID buy it as a curiosity, and a higher price would have reduced the audience by half or more. Maybe the YouTubers who were responsible for spreading word of mouth around would have overlooked the title and it never would have snowballed into popularity at all. Even in hindsight it's impossible to know for sure.
So don't treat price as a mark of quality. Selling Endless Legend for $5 would be a huge risk because 4X is a fairly niche genre and getting the right volume of sales to make a profit would be near-impossible. Selling it for $50 or $60 would also be a huge risk, because Amplitude's brand does not have the same draw as Firaxis or Ubisoft or whatever and they might struggle to draw an audience. Even if Endless Legend is as good as or better than Civ V it will never have the same hype and marketing engine.
So pricing it in the $30-$40 range is not some crazy or suspicious thing to do. It's pretty standard for a developer of their size. I'm pretty sure Europa Universalis 4 and Age of Wonders 3 both released in the same range, and Endless is a far lesser-known IP than either of those.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Randomly Generated. Decent enough variety too.
Also I really adore this game. Though to people asking at the top of the thread about the Cult: I personally wouldn't play your first game with them. I'm doing my second with them now on a smaller map and their playstyle takes a bit of getting used too.
I was on the fence about this game w/ CIv: BE on the horizon, so the free code made the decision for me. The more I've seen about it and keep reading about it, though, it's very possible I still would have chosen it over the latter.
XBL: InvaderJims
Bnet: Pudgestomp#11153
Minor factions, they said. Nom their heads, they said.
Though yeah, the games tech gives some crazy advantages to anything on a river/coast line so in general if you're cities not on that and it's available in the province you're doing it wrong.