With all the positive impressions I jumped in. Early first impressions: Awesome!
For Civ 5 and other games, there is a clear winner, which is why if you can't even fend off an enemy force you will lose, no matter what victory condition you are going for. Not entirely sure about ES, but if you want open-ended victory conditions you can try the EU games.Meh, in the end like Civ5, you have to go with military, no matter what carrer do you choose, the others are always against you trying to crush you.
One wonders if there will be any time that an AI tries to co-op with you or gain something instead of just hating on you. Meh.
Played something like 80 turns yesterday and had a lot of fun, even though I didn't know what I was doing for much of the game. Some things that bothered/confused me:
-Despite you owning a distinct "territory" based on the systems you control, ships seem to be able to pop up in your space and mess with your planets at will. Perhaps this was due to something on the tech tree I don't have myself--warp drive or cloaking?--but enemy ships would get into my territory without seeming to come from the direction of their own systems. And pirates just seem to spawn in randomly. I tried to strategically place defensive ships, but it didn't do much good.
-Most of the tech tree confuses the shit out of me because even reading the description of something doesn't really translate to what its in-game effect is. I guess this is something you just have to learn, but it made me unsure of how I should be upgrading things.
-I'm not sure how much I'll ultimately like combat. Maybe Sins of a Solar Empire is more my thing. It looks cool, I'm down with the three phases and all that, but having no combat control or the ability to target engines/bridge/life support or whatever makes it feel shallow. I understand the strategy is really in building your ships, but it would be nice if fleet arrangement and tactics played a part. In other words, put missile ships at an extreme distance in combat and bombard, use heavy cruisers to soak up close-range damage, shit like that.
I've played Civ5, and I thought there were different ways to win? Cultural, space race, and so forth?
Really getting my arse kicked by the AI. Has anyone managed to negotiate a ceasefire yet??
Endless Space is the MoO3 we deserved.
I think the diplomacy needs some work here. I can gift competing empires dust and tech, but it doesn't seem to be raising their opinion of me. Trying to play peacefully and explore/expand. I'm cranking out dust like it's nothing, so money is not an issue. I'm happy to buy into peace treaties and open borders with the other empires, but my rate of expansion and "weak military" (confusing in game term) always seems to piss them off and they come and declare war.
Also, if I can manage a cease fire, enemies are still able to sieze my colonies! Whats up with that?
Does the game itself go beyond the brief descriptions of the races found on the official website, and provide a bit more backstory and detail? For example, from reading the website, the Cravers sound like the Geth or Necron, the Hissho sound like Klingons or Turians, and the United Empire sound very vaguely like the Imperium (due to the religious overtones) -- how well does the game fill in the backstory and make it feel like a living breathing universe with a rich history?
Outposts can be seized at any time as they are not officially part of your empire. It's not an overt act of war. Not until the have a visible border around it.
Expansion always seems to piss off your neighbours. As an aggressive expansionist it's the number one reason every race I've encountered declares war on me. Populate many systems and the moment you grow borders that clash, it's war.
Ah, thanks for clearing that up. How can I rapidly grow a boarder around an outpost, or make it an official colony?
In some ways the A.I. in Endless Space really does feel like Civ V's, even on normal. Not just because it can be just as aggressive but also because the A.I.'s getting advantages in the tech and production.
Because of my inability to save I've had to play through five different games now. In every one of those games someone has declared war one me. Although if I create a game with The Cravers, I kind of expect that from them.
You can quickly see a list of all ships with unused movement points in the fleet menu, and a list of all galactic productions in the solar system/production menu, too. But I did find myself often checking each ship/galaxy manually. I didn't notice till near the end of my game that you can set AI to govern planetary systems and focus on specific resources.It would be nice if you could never leave system production or research undone. Sometimes with larger galaxies it can just happen, you quickly skip through one production list on a turn and you can have a system that isn't making any improvements and is becoming dissatisfied or isn't making an ships for a bunch of turns.
The same is true of your fleet, it would be nice if there a notification of inactive ships with movement left, just like system developement/production, it's sometimes easy to forget a fleet or two. The worst is forgetting a colony ship your fired off towards a system. It just sits there in orbit, waiting to be remember. The fact that there's no icon differentiation on the galaxy map does not help. The ship icons work on the highest level of the galaxy map, but it would be nice to have some granularity each level you zoom in. Even the ability to drag select multiple ships would be handy.
You can quickly see a list of all ships with unused movement points in the fleet menu, and a list of all galactic productions in the solar system/production menu, too. But I did find myself often checking each ship/galaxy manually. I didn't notice till near the end of my game that you can set AI to govern planetary systems and focus on specific resources.
Just "Summer 2012" on the Steam page, no clue if comments have been made that narrow it down at all.
Edit: Actually, I found this thread on the steam forums, where this individual claims it will be released on August 24th. Not sure how reliable that date is, as he didn't post a source.
Just bought this today after reading some of the posts in this thread. Kind of overwhelmed by the tech tree, not sure what I should be researching. Any tips?
Also whats a good beginner faction? Cravers seem pretty good beyond once you get into a war you cant get out of it. Im kind of partial to the Hissho, I like their culture and that theyre basically dinosaurs in space. Their negative to science seems like a big problem though.
Definitely will buy this, but not yet. (not interested in alphas or betas)
Just bought this today after reading some of the posts in this thread. Kind of overwhelmed by the tech tree, not sure what I should be researching. Any tips?
Quick Question...In one of my System my people are unhappy because apparently "Planet -30". Is this because I colonized on a lava planet? How can I reduce this?
This is definitely a far more advanced game than I would label as an alpha, don't let its classification confuse you.
Outside of no multiplayer, its basically a feature complete release candidate, with a few bugs.
If you mostly play 4X games singleplayer, it's definitely in enough of a feature complete and polished state to be worth playing.
I usually emphasise being able to fully utilise my systems first, then worry about improving my military and economy, so usually go in this order;
- techs that let me colonise uncolonisable planets / asteroid belts etc
- techs that improve happiness (so overcrowded systems stop bitching)
- techs to increase CP and fleet sizes (which IMO is the biggest differentiator in combat as long as your weapons and shields are mostly on par with the enemy)
- weapons / shields upgrades
- new resource availability techs (focussing on the ones I have in my empire)
Put some hero with +## approval(I think) or don't colonize planets that give negative approval or colonize them BUT they better have some anomaly or flora/fauna that will add +## to approval
This is definitely a far more advanced game than I would label as an alpha, don't let its classification confuse you.
Outside of no multiplayer, its basically a feature complete release candidate, with a few bugs.
If you mostly play 4X games singleplayer, it's definitely in enough of a feature complete and polished state to be worth playing.