Ugh, this thread is the latest in a lot of evidence for me that most players become fans of increasingly more specific and limited gaming conventions.
EL is a great game that should appeal to 4X players who have a wider taste than only Civ. Many of the features being moaned about here are in fact good and implemented well when taken in their context, its just they're different from Civ and so therefore "Wrong".
Sorry for being a bit late with my response (I assume your comment is also pointed at me), haven't been very active on CivFanatics recently.
When it comes to EL, I don't mind that they do things different. In fact I am very HAPPY that they did it, because CIV5 has a lot of issues. Even with BNW there are several mechanics like 1UPT, Trade Route plundering, Tech Tree balance, Research Agreements, City State Worker Stealing, Tall vs. Wide pacing - stuff that never really got fixed. And don't get me started on CIV5 vanilla. Dear god, that game was a mess on release. Blech.
What I do mind, though, is that many of their new ideas are only half-baked and don't work very well. I have played a lot of Endless Space (and still like that game, even if it is flawed), and it is pretty obvious that a lot of problems in Endless Legend are design decisions that they carried over from ES to EL.
As a counter point I want to present Star Ruler 2. It is a game that has a significantly different approach to many themes of the 4x genre (e.g. diplomacy, budget, artifacts, tech system, stellar interaction). Yes, it has significant balance problems as well, but unlike EL the underyling mechanics feel a lot better. I would rank that game as one of the best I have ever played (in the 4x genre), despite (or because?) it significantly deviating from established standards.
What I will give to Iceberg/Aplitude is that they know how to make awesome aesthetics that draw you into their world. In Endless Space I can sit for minutes in the system view, watching my planets rotate, wishing I could visit them with my Kerbal Space Program rockets one day. In Endless Legend the Era and resource pictures breathe life into their world to a point where I wish I could walk around in these weird looking cities or where I try to imagine astrange landscape filled with Glass Silk.
But in terms of gameplay and basic mechanics their games are bad. Really bad actually when it comes to balance. But that doesn't have to be a "WON'T BUY" for you. SMAC never had really great gameplay either (and certainly doesn't have it by today's standards), but it is still one of the best 4x games out there. I enjoy playing OCC with my custom Cultist faction in EL. You might too. I just wanted to make sure that people are aware of the flaws.
