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

[Riel]

100 GIGABYTES?? That can't be true, is it?

 

[Bubbles]

Star Citizen models 10+ million planetary bodies, each with a unique high-res texture. 100GB is very reasonable for that.

 

[SCO]

I've long suspected that one of the unstated reasons (besides non-existent virtual file system standards to make diff patching much more efficient) for file size ballooning for modern games is a kind of 'discouragement' for piracy.

Fortunately, steam is pushing things in other directions (though i won't buy a game in steam either).

 

[Berekän]

Weird thing given that nowadays most pirated games have a repack version hugely reduced in filesize

 

[tuluse]

Steam implemented compression as well. You typically download 1/2 the full size now.

 

[RK47]

Hey faggot, this is not the star shitizen thread.

Sob sob...

Maybe not, but someone complained of DLC size somewhere in this thread and still backed that monolithic achievement of gaming star church.

 

[Trash]

So, the AI fixed already? Game looks brilliant and I love the level of support these guys are giving. However, the AI at launch was a disaster and that keeps me from actually buying this.

 

[Hobo Elf]

It's getting there, one tweak at a time. Last time I checked the AI was capable of intelligent town placement based on what faction they were playing and that was quite a few months ago.

 

[Riel]

Amplitude Studios have basically trashed in the mud all 4x developers of the last decade or so. From the soulless ultra buggy Orion III to the gigantic mess of Civ 5 passing by the childish Galactic Civilizations and all he other shit no one ever recalls any more, And yet while nothing is perfect these guys fail at some of the most important things of a 4x game:

1: Diplomatic AI sucks, enemy empires are simply unreliable, now don't take me wrong I like it when the AI can back stab you but it's only a back stab if you don't see it coming, in both endless games you know it's going to do so as soon as you outscore it, which is simply put lame and disgusting(*).
2: Late Game is stupid because late economic technology is OP, seriously I am at a loss of words, after such magnificent example of out of the box design in such a great way they again make late economic tech so much OP, seriously +3s to production all around, you don't even need to assign workers in many cases, many of them are completely unconditional and stack with each other.... in like 20 turns my very interesting pacifist wild walkers game went to shit because my plans finally came together and my cities went from about 200-300 food and industry to a few thousands ... also suddenly my empire was swimming in so much dust you'd think it was endless (pun entirely intended) and I had been scraping the barrel bottom the whole game, seriously I was in negatives half of the time and had to resort to selling stuff to get a few 10s of dust to go by another few turns during winters but I finished the game with +8K dust/turn. If everything stacks it must be small, you only give BIG bonuses if it replaces the old thing.
3: Tactical combat is uninteresting in ES it was wholly automated and in EL it's simply unballanced, also AI can't cope with it and any player can abuse it to win a game regardless of economy and other stuff. This isn't special in EL but actually of all games with very complex battle rules and that is the reason why I preferred ES battle system approach, only in that game the way it worked out wasn't exactly brilliant (**).

Let me stress this again: I really love Amplitude studios, they are the best in nowadays 4x games industry but they really need to rethink AI diplomacy, combat systems and late game economic tech.

Final Notes:
(*) One guy responsible for one of the civilization games's AI (I think 3) once said "when designing an AI you have to chose between "good" and fun", keep it in mind, the AI isn't there just to prevent players from wining it is there to provide a challenging and interesting gaming experience, don't take me wrong if the player plays poorly AI should rape him but not simply dislike the player because it is winning the game, a lot of other stuff should be taken into account: AI personality, historic past (did player help me), racial relationships, trade, convenience of military alliance.... in no other game AI's anture is so blatantly and soullessly unbelievable.
(**) For one great battle system involving little but meaningful player intervention look at a completely opposite game to ES, where ES is a great game all around except a few glaring faults Reach for the Stars prety much sucks everywhere but the battle system: it was hard to abuse the AI, it depicted space battles between huge fleets and it allowed players an small but significant battle input with decision making the AI can cope with.

 

[Norfleet]

(**) For one great battle system involving little but meaningful player intervention look at a completely opposite game to ES, where ES is a great game all around except a few glaring faults Reach for the Stars prety much sucks everywhere but the battle system: it was hard to abuse the AI, it depicted space battles between huge fleets and it allowed players an small but significant battle input with decision making the AI can cope with.

But those battle systems were relatively similar: In both, you have very little actual input, picking from a set of pre-canned movements and maneuvers (RFTS: range, formation, ES: battle card tactic), and then the round plays out with no further input on your part. In both, you have weapons that work better or worse at certain ranges. In fact, the only key difference is that RFTS battles didn't force you to fight at every range, and if you had the right things, you could maintain your desired range. But in nature, these battle systems are fundamentally the same: Highly abstract with a limited pool of singular actions that you pick from.

 

[Riel]

Yes of course they are somewhat similar since both involve "little player intervention" but where ES battle system is a soulless uninteresting clusterfeast with actions as varied and unrelated as Nano Repair and Offence in RFTS actions are better organized, make more sense and are better intertwined with battle statistics.

In RFTS you pick:
Desired battle distance which gives tactical importance to engines (completely irrelevant in ES)
Battle formation which affects the effectivity of different weapons systems and defence systems (ES's unorganized battle card collection plays this role as you said but it does so uninspiringly)
Lets a huge fleet take on another fleet (In comparisson ES battles look like border skirmishes)

So yes, both battle systems are obviously related but in execution RFTS kicks ES in all aspects. Not saying it should be simply copy pasted, but certainly ES2 could learn a lot from RFTS in this regard, A LOT.

Of course if amplitude studios poll their players again in relation to a (potential) ES2 sequel I'm 100% sure people will ask first and foremost "TACTICAL COMBAT OH YEAH" so we'll probably get a system the AI can't cope with that turns into a click feast by game end as did for example Orion II.

 

[Destroid]

You just reminded me of the time I spent grinding away at 10+ fleets in a single system because ES's shitty combat system would only allow you to kill a few ships at a time, truly that was a awful system, achieving neither tactical satisfaction nor brevity.

 

[covr]

So...that new DLC/expansion is out. Anybody played it already?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i don't know. i read the changelog and it feels underwhelming.
i paid the full game 10 bucks, i doubt a patch is worth as much.

 

[LilSassy]

So...that new DLC/expansion is out. Anybody played it already?

I've been enjoying it so far. I've gotten my $10 worth out of it but if you don't play Endless Legend often I'd say it's not really worth the price and you should just wait for a discount.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I've played this for a while, it's definitely more of a "DLC" than a full-fledged expansion, unfortunately.

There are wonders now, both civ- and world-exclusive. The former are OK, but I don't seem to get the point of the latter so far. At the start they take like 50-70 turns to complete and by the time you can get this down to 20-30 (which still is too long imo) the AI finishes them and that's on Normal.

The other thing I noticed are legendary deeds or sth, whoever does certain stuff first gets some reward. Like be the first to activate 3 resource boosters and you get 150 units of some luxury resource, be the first to destroy 8 monster stacks and all your units get +15% initiative and so on. It's OK I guess, but they seem far too easy to obtain and the rewards are really good so might be a bit imba in the long run.

Some new art, quests and a minor race I never saw before.

No new factions, still no magic and I didn't play enough to comment on the AI.

I didn't see the "guardians" themselves, guess that's a pretty late game stuff.

 

[Metro]

Game seemed promising when I played for a couple of hours during the free weekend. I'm sure the AI can't be as bad as it is in Warlock 1/2.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

EL sure has some flaws, but it still blows other recent 4x games out of the water, it's also one of the very few recent strategy games that manage to make the whole aaawesome 3d shtick look decent and functional instead of pointless and irritating.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

I cant see the difference

 

[kris]

I cant see the difference

Shadows from buildings and rocks.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Is this the only difference?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it's pretty "big" (still something for graphics whores) when seasons change and sun's position does too.
i appreciated it very much but could have survived anyway without.

 

[Jaedar]

This game is very good.

Played 3 games at this point. First was mages. I had no idea what I was doing, so the AI wound up winning by score after 300 turns. Great sudoku followed. Second game I played as cult and wiped the floor with AI. So many free armies.

I decided I'd try and check out diplomacy by playing drakken. I don't really get it. Seems you just try to keep ally/peace status up with as many civs per turn, while waiting for the victory counter to tick up. Not very engaging. Still, pretty novel diplomacy wincon. Seems like it'd be impossible for anyone but the drakkon tho.

The global wonders and quests don't feel like that add a lot.

 

[ArchAngel]

I played on second hardest difficulty. I almost never autoresolve combat because once you figure it out, you can kill stronger armies or beat equal armies with no loses.

Biggest boost is good starting position. You want to settle your first city near some of the special tiles (or within reach of one borough). Get your settler ready before turn 20 and find a good position (province with good special tiles and at least 2 minor race villages). Make a new city as soon as you pick your Empire Plan at turn 20 (cost of plan rises with each city). Get another settler ready for turn 40 and make a third city after Empire Plan.

Skip weapon and armor tech at first tier and got for second tier one and then start building armies and find closest weaker AI and take his cities. If possible use diplomacy to make sure other AI don't attack you in that time.

Also at start split your hero and starting troops and equip both with move boots. Go around and pick up as many goody huts as you can. I also like to research the tech for better goody hut gain first and even take that skill on hero. If you can avoid roaming monsters and enemy units you can collect lots of goody huts all around and at same time find good spots for city #2 and city #3.

If possible do minor race quests, you don't need to fight and you get all their villages built in your city as soon as they join, it is usually a huge boost in a smaller city.

Only factions I have not tried this opening are Roving Clans (have not played them yet) and Cultists (cannot have more then one city ).

 

[ArchAngel]

The amount of Dust you get from goody huts early is enough to buy buildings and speed up everything (also your hero gets 10 xp per each hut) and also you can buy tier 2 iron equipment for your troops if you were not lucky enough to get enough other resources. It is a gamble but one that if it pays off, it pays off big. Playing on bigger maps with less AI than recommended is making the game easier not harder as you can freely expand without danger from AI. On normal size maps where you got 2/3 AI close, they will come after you and beat you on harder difficulty if you try to be greedy. Also Hard difficulty is more like Normal difficulty in this game or even weaker. I played my first game on Hard and won easily without knowing anything. After that I kept raising difficulty for each next game.