Endless Space 2

[Unorthodox]

So.  Background.

I've fiddled with the Endless series a bit.  Got the collection on a sale a while back.  Never really lost myself in any of them.   

With the free weekend and sale of Endless Space 2, I figured why not take a look?

My goal wasn't to win or test myself, just to get a feel of what's different and if there was any fuss, so I played one level above "normal".  This is where I always played Civ games when I was just testing mechanics of a particular Civ. 

The good: 

The game appears a lot more "Approachable" than previous endless games.  Most everything is rather intuitive, and it's fairly slick in most of the presentation. 

It is PRETTY.  And doesn't seem too demanding as my laptop didn't strain at max settings. 

Each civ has it's own quest to follow with branching narratives, each with unique rewards.  Yay for replayability. 
There are also galaxy wide quests and competitions. 

Politics!  This was a pleasant surprise.  I damn near upended my whole empire when a party I'd been leaning heavily on was suddenly voted out of office and I lost access to the laws I was using.  Made me pay a lot more close attention to the political ramifications of some things. 

The bad: 

Ship design feels REALLY hemmed in compaired to Endless Space 1.  It's there.  It matters, though more for some empires than others, but the total freedom is missing. 

Combat as well is a little more streamlined...when it wasn't that deep in 1. 

Through my 4 games, heroes felt like just ticking boxes rather than unique characters. 

The Ugly: 

The tutorial is next to worthless. 

Some things are rather hidden.  I had a quest to build several "Level 2" systems.  Could I find HOW to do that?  Hell no.  I'd go to the systems, see the level one sitting there, and no amount of clicking could help me open up how to upgrade it.  Later I stumbled on the option on how to customize the upgrade you want in the empire finance screen (if you've played demogames with me, you know how fond of that screen I am as a general rule), only then can you go build it in the system. 

Same with building armor for your ground troops.  It's a hidden little corner on the military screen that suddenly opens up a whole upgrade system. 

4 games.  4 different nations.  I'd play till victory was certain. AI never invaded.  Barely resisted. 

Pirates were a pain in the ass.  Maybe that was the AI's problem as well, come to think of it. 


Bottom line:

This could be really fun with some people to play with.  The AI, either I'm unlucky or it's awful.  I did watch it totally trash my son. 

Balance may be off.  Some nations seem a little OP.  At least to my general aggressive expansion.  Craver's quest can net them an overpowered ship early, for instance, and it's easy to go eat the galaxy ASAP with it, properly supported.  And retrofitting a Vodyani ark for war seems a no-brainer (though they have to keep an eye on a few other things too). 

[Plunks]

It seems I've benefited from Leanbean and gotten as far as downloading ES2.  Not as far as playing it.  Did I even install it?  Now for some reason I find myself downloading Endless Legend.  I will be perusing the archives to see if anyone talked about it and whether it's any good.  Yes, fantasy instead of sci-fi.  I haven't done that very often but I believe I tried one of the Age of Wonders titles.  Generally I've been trying to expand my reach to shill my massive AAR.  I think I found all the SMAC forums.  So then I started looking more generally at "4X TBS", and I've run into Endless Whatever.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I want to try Endless Space 2 as well. Hopefully it's still on sale.

[bvanevery]

It seems I've gotten as far as downloading ES2.  Not as far as playing it.  Did I even install it?  Now for some reason I find myself downloading Endless Legend.  I will be perusing the archives to see if anyone talked about it and whether it's any good.  Yes, fantasy instead of sci-fi.  I haven't done that very often but I believe I tried one of the Age of Wonders titles.  Generally I've been trying to expand my reach to shill my massive AAR.  I think I found all the SMAC forums.  So then I started looking more generally at "4X TBS", and I've run into Endless Whatever.

[Syn]

I hated Endless Legend, to be honest. I got it excitedly thinking it'd be a fantasy version of Endless Space and ended up very disappointed.

That being said, it uses a similar district system to Civilization 6. If you're used to that system before you try out Endless Legend, you might like it more. When I played EL, it was my first ever exposure to that concept and it was infuriating.

[bvanevery]

I don't even think very much of the advanced terraforming capabilities in SMAC.  Echelon Mirrors, when have they ever been more than a waste of mouseclicks to me?  They help some other square get a bonus.

[bvanevery]

I finally cranked up Endless Legend this morning with "serious intent" to try my "evaluation copy".  I didn't really want to go through a tutorial... and I had mixed feelings when I wasn't allowed to go through the tutorial.  Who makes a tutorial for a single player game that requires a connection to a server anyways?  Well I guess they do.

Moving right along, I got as far as trying to pick a faction to start a game.   Each one had piles of buffs and also some debuffs.  None of it meant anything to me.  I'm not attracted to all of that, it looks like gratuitous complication for the sake of selling more "content".  That's my prejudice after having seen "gewgaws!  gewgaws!" in many games.  If there is anything thematically interesting about these various factions, I'd rather see them all spun together in 1 narrative.  I have trouble believing in these societies where "everyone does 1 thing".  Why shouldn't there be 10 different kinds of circus freak in 1 society?

How many factions do you need to do Lord of the Rings?  Well in the biggest sense, 3.  You've got Sauron, Saruman, and the free peoples of Middle Earth.  Then the "good guys" are split into: Gondor, Rohan, Elves, and Hobbits.  Dwarves and Eagles play minor contributing outside roles.  Gandalf stewards everyone; I guess he's the Maiar faction.  Ok I guess there are some Ents too.

I'm put off by what seems like gratuitous complication, so I'll be moving along to GalCiv III.  In the "don't want a learning curve" dept., I have the possible advantage of having played GalCiv II to death.  Albeit, quite awhile ago, and with no long haul interest as with SMAC.  That game devolved into buying star systems wholesale.