Endless Legend, fantasyland trying to fix Endless Space's flaws

[MrBuzzKill]

That's not a 4x game.

Why? It meets all the criteria.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i need MOAR major and minor races, but i see no workshop support and the official forum has almost no mod at all. even nexus lists only 5.
why? how?
when?
i need mods!
where?

 

[AngryEddy]

So I like ES and EL, but one thing that's been bugging me, is why don't they have a spy/sabotage element?

 

[tuluse]

Why? It meets all the criteria.

You don't build your own cities.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

You don't build your own cities.

EXplore, EXpand, EXploit and EXterminate

Oops I can't see the criteria in there. Try again later

 

[tuluse]

EXplore, EXpand, EXploit and EXterminate

Oops I can't see the criteria in there. Try again later

You can't eXpand your own civilization. You just take over other ones. It's just TBS, not 4x. Same reason no one calls Heroes of Might and Magic a 4x game.

Anyways done with autism discussion. Eador isn't a 4x game deal with it.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

It's not autism, you're perfectly right.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

You just take over other ones.

So you eXpand by taking over other ones ?

Eador isn't a 4x game deal with it.

 

[Norfleet]

You don't build your own cities.

That isn't actually a disqualifier. You don't build your own cities in Anacreon, either, it's still considered 4x. No city building in Dominions, either, I would still consider it part of the genre. Taking over existing neutral territories still qualifies as expansion.

Same reason no one calls Heroes of Might and Magic a 4x game.

Random map HOMM certainly does qualify, though. But the reason HOMM isn't normally considered is because the single player experience is normally a campaign map, for which there is no exploration because the map is static and never changes in any significant fashion between plays.

 

[SuicideBunny]

You don't build your own cities.

semantics, tbh. you don't build your own systems (or for most of them even planets) in space 4x games either.

 

[tuluse]

semantics, tbh. you don't build your own systems (or for most of them even planets) in space 4x games either.

When you colonize a planet in a space 4x game, that colony has your people in it, builds your civ's buildings, and builds your civ's units. You are expanding your civ, not taking control of something else.

 

[SuicideBunny]

expand doesn't come with a "civ" qualifier. expanding your dominion/influence via subjugation of other races is still expansion.

 

[tuluse]

Anyways done with autism discussion. Eador isn't a 4x game deal with it.

shit tricked myself

 

[Phage]

Anyway, as for the actual game at hand...

After spending more time gitting gudder and generally learning what works, I think I've stumbled upon the ultimate flaw of EL - everything devolves into following at least a moderate warmonger path in order to succeed. Seriously - go on a forum like Amplitude's very own, perhaps the only place to 'seriously' discuss EL strategy, and you'll find that time and time again the advice for achieving any certain victory is essentially the same - follow what you would do for an elimination victory. The only real difference is if you strictly follow the wonder victory, but only a couple races actually have good questlines (Wild Walkers come to mind as the best suited for wonder) - the questlines for a lot of other factions will have you perform strange tasks like conquering a random city from a rival civ, or founding an inordinate number of cities mid/late game (which can end up being suicidal in practice)

I'm sure that on Newbie/Easy you could get away with a pacifist strategy, but the AI has a tendency to amass shittons of military, and will always declare war on you if it perceives you as an easy enough target. On Hard+ the AI receives such an assrapingly large advantage over you that you /need/ to bust its balls to keep it in check. Yes, this was somewhat true in Civilization as well, but you could circumvent this by simply paying the AI to go to war with somebody else to keep them placated, then focus hardcore on science/culture - in fact Science Deity was often considered the easiest in BNW. In EL, science victory on Endless is impossible without flat out destroying all but 1-2 AI cities.

Finally, the actual battles themselves could use a lot of work. They feel like a placeholder/beta. Sure, they are functional, but the insanely slow pace and clunky interface makes pretty much every manual battle a chore. There's also a lot of ways to exploit the AI in the battles, especially if they are using ranged units (Roving Clans mounted archers in particular are easy to mess with in manual battle)

Ultimately I have to admit I'm kind of salty because I really like the game. I love the distinct feel of each civ, the setting/lore, and even the audiovisual aesthetic is mostly sublime. Anyway, here's to hoping that a 'free expansion'/content patch down the line fleshes out the other modes of play. I am skeptical though. As of writing this, only 2.8% of players have won a game on Hard or higher, so I really have to wonder if the devs will bother balancing the higher difficulties.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

on serious and anything below you can conquer your most immediately threatening neighbor as soon as you have alchemical equipment, then shell up and pursue whatever peaceful VC you want

only on impossible and endless do you have to fight multiple wars of aggression

 

[Phage]

on serious and anything below you can conquer your most immediately threatening neighbor as soon as you have alchemical equipment, then shell up and pursue whatever peaceful VC you want

only on impossible and endless do you have to fight multiple wars of aggression

That summarizes the problem quite nicely actually. That you need to conquer a neighbor ASAP. This goes against the design philosophy of the game - you shouldn't need to warmonger beyond defense.

Also, even on hard/normal, Necropage, Broken Lords and Ardent Mages will almost always inevitably declare war on you. I've had Necrophages declare suicidal war when I had literally 3x their military might.

 

[made]

Doge meme in quest text. I'm done with this game.

 

[Branm]

I just bought Dominions 4 on the steam 75% off sale and loving it....How does this game compare? Is it half as deep as Dominions?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I just bought Dominions 4 on the steam 75% off sale and loving it....How does this game compare? Is it half as deep as Dominions?

dominions has way way way way way more units, and a deeper customization system for them

EL has much more that you can do with your land

 

[Norfleet]

Also, even on hard/normal, Necropage, Broken Lords and Ardent Mages will almost always inevitably declare war on you. I've had Necrophages declare suicidal war when I had literally 3x their military might.

I've had guys declare war on me for absolutely no reason at all: They have no means of getting to me and I'm on the far side of the map. The fighting never actually happens because of this.

 

[mondblut]

That isn't actually a disqualifier. You don't build your own cities in Anacreon, either, it's still considered 4x. No city building in Dominions, either, I would still consider it part of the genre. Taking over existing neutral territories still qualifies as expansion.

In that case, every strategy game is "4x", which renders the term meaningless.

Let's get over the silly XXXX semantics, "4x" is nothing but politically correct umbrella term for "Civilization/MoM/MoO clone". Eador is not such, nor is Dominions.

 

[Norfleet]

In that case, every strategy game is "4x", which renders the term meaningless.

That's not necessarily true. For it to be a 4x, there has to be an element of exploration and expansion. Any number of WW2 strategy games fall flat on this point because you don't explore anything and everything is already taken up by a side from the start of the game and you just fight it out, so there is no expansion aspect. Anything set on a fixed, known map has no exploration and therefore is not a 4x. Dominions basically squeaks by because the map, while known topographically, still has to be explored because its contents are significantly random.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Uh, guys, can we stop the retardation? Expanding your realm not only through conquest, but also settling new regions and said settling phase being a very important part of the gameplay is, and always was, an absolutely basic and mandatory requirement for a game to be 4X. In other words, yeah, "Civilization/MoM/MoO clone".

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Doge meme in quest text. I'm done with this game.

Anyone praising the writing has failed to realize the only reason it looked good until this point is because it's a Dying Earth setting.

 

[covr]

I've played this game 50+ hours, beat in on hard, playing now on serious difficulty. And it's funny how many flaws EL have, and it is still the best strategy game we've had in years.