New 4x game on the horizon - Endless Space - not an advertisment thread :)

[Malachi256]

Originally Posted by Maniacal

It all sounded great up this part, then it fell off a cliff. That sounds like a terrible system, I was hoping the combat would be more like Sword of the Stars :/

I'm not sure it sounds terrible, but it's definitely different. Can't think of any other 4X games that have used such a system.

I'm intrigued - really depends on how they pull it off.

[Benefactor]

I like it personally, it's more involved than most TBS battles without requiring me to sit up and really pay attention like Sword of the Stars.
Although it would be nice if I could tell some of my ships to hang back for instance rather than everyone rushing in. I don't want my barely armoured missile boats getting into a knife fight.

[TLF]

I watched some Youtube videos and the game just looks empty.

The combat system may sound intriguing but there isn't really much to it and the star map uses node lines for travel from planet to planet, but there are very few at any time and usually just one, so the game basically tells you where you have to go.

It's not like, say, Sword of the Stars where Humans use Node lines for travel but there are many that you can choose from.

It strikes me as just another of the new games where the developers assume, maybe rightly so, that many players don't want to think or make decisions.

[PjotrS]

The combat is over in less than 30 seconds (or instantly if you choose auto instead of manual), this is because it's a turn based 4x game. It's not a RTS but more like an old school 4x and the card system gives that extra bit of depth to the combat to make it stand out. The cards you can choose from also depend on certain unlocked techs. And the modules you have also depend if a card is useful to you to play (if a card gives +damage to beam weapons but your ships don't fit any then it become kinda useless). So if you really know your enemy and what ships they have this could be to your advantage, especially in multi player.

[Maniacal]

The combat is over in less than 30 seconds (or instantly if you choose auto instead of manual), this is because it's a turn based 4x game.

Whoah, only 30 seconds? That is barely long enough to blow stuff up. Sword of the Stars is also turn-based but, like the Total War games, has real time battles which are a tonne of fun and really provide a lot of meat in the game (although unlike the Total War games, SotS also has meat in the turn-based part of it too). I am really not interested in extremely brief battles that rely upon magic cards. None of the screenshots and video I've seen of it show the cards and they made the battles look like they were real time:/

Thanks for saving me $25.

[Boygor]

Originally Posted by TLF

I watched some Youtube videos and the game just looks empty.

The combat system may sound intriguing but there isn't really much to it and the star map uses node lines for travel from planet to planet, but there are very few at any time and usually just one, so the game basically tells you where you have to go.

It's not like, say, Sword of the Stars where Humans use Node lines for travel but there are many that you can choose from.

It strikes me as just another of the new games where the developers assume, maybe rightly so, that many players don't want to think or make decisions.

I'm playing the alpha at the moment and although travel is initially restricted between nodes at the start of the game technology can be unlocked to travel directly between stars.

The card system represents ongoing tactics during a battle. The combat is more reminiscent of naval warfare with both sides approaching and unleashing salvoes at the enemy fleets. Forward thinking will be a must in multiplayer as the use of different tactics (or cards if you like) has a major impact on the effectiveness of your fleets.

Leaders attached to your ships can also use special abilities.

I love the game (although I like Civ more) but the diplomacy is currently broken (where have I seen this before) and without all the bells and whistles it can sometimes feel a little sterile. I think though that given time this could have the potential to eclipse Moo2 (once an equivalent BTS expansion is released).

[Ondskan]

Originally Posted by Heretic_Cata

Thank god. I got superexcited about some indie game a while ago and got disappointed later when i found out it was multiplayer only.

Which one?!



Ontopic: Nice find there. Like the graphics alot!

[Heretic_Cata]

Don't remember. I follow a lot of indie games' development.

[Ondskan]

Ah I thought it was perhaps a 4x game?

[Heretic_Cata]

Nope, it was an RPG.

[Sub]

I feel like unrestricted travel on the map is detrimental to gameplay. You could pretty much go wherever you wanted in Galactic Civilization II and I think the game suffered because of that. In Civilization you have terrain like water, mountains, culture borders, and roadway infrastructure that can dictate where you go. Where do you put your defense if the enemy can hit you at any place in your empire? The system they have in place works great, I think, because it allows for a few chokepoints on the map that you can focus on. Getting your empire to a point where you have only a few chokepoints to lock down territory and defensive positions is, I think, a pretty interesting thing to work towards.

Anyway, the beta came out on Monday. They released the final 3 races. I think my favorite race is the Sowers, they're a robotic race who can settle any world, but 50% of your food income is subtracted from your planets and replaced with 50% of your production power. It basically reinforces the idea that these are robots who reproduce in factories, thus giving you incentive to get high production on every planet.

[Zilkin]

Originally Posted by Maniacal

Whoah, only 30 seconds? That is barely long enough to blow stuff up. Sword of the Stars is also turn-based but, like the Total War games, has real time battles which are a tonne of fun and really provide a lot of meat in the game (although unlike the Total War games, SotS also has meat in the turn-based part of it too). I am really not interested in extremely brief battles that rely upon magic cards. None of the screenshots and video I've seen of it show the cards and they made the battles look like they were real time:/

Thanks for saving me $25.

Your loss since this is already probably the best space 4x game since MoO2(for me at least) and it's still in beta.

[Esckey]

The combat is really outta place in the game, I do not like it at all.
Everything else is spot on though I would like a larger tech tree with more items and a larger galaxy. The diplomacy needs some tweaking but that's to be expected. Its the combat that leaves a bad taste in my mouth

[TLF]

When in the system screen that shows the planets, the planets jump forward as the mouse moves over them.

Is there a way to turn that off so that the planets stay still instead of jumping forward and the others moving back when you click on them or mouse over them.

I really dislike the over animated gui's.

[Pfeffersack]

Originally Posted by Maniacal

It all sounded great up this part, then it fell off a cliff. That sounds like a terrible system, I was hoping the combat would be more like Sword of the Stars :/

Though I usually don't jugde before having seen something in action - I'm a bit sceptical about the card thing and the 30s battlesas well . Also because I most enjoyed that close battles of huge armadas in MoO2, which last half of an our or so. I sometimes wonder why all 4x space games attempting to be "the" sucessor for MoO2 finally change so much about it, especially about the battles - 3D, real-time, cards or whatever. Why is there never an attempt to build on what was fun in 1995 - adding on it by bug fixing, balancing and creating a better AI. And if that isn't enough - do the same for ground combat. And allow to customize planetary defense systems. Again, not to say that the card idea is bad - but it sounds a bit like adding new stuff unnecessarily, where you could easily go ahead and refine the existing concepts.

[codepoet]

Originally Posted by Pfeffersack

Though I usually don't jugde before having seen something in action - I'm a bit sceptical about the card thing and the 30s battlesas well . Also because I most enjoyed that close battles of huge armadas in MoO2, which last half of an our or so. I sometimes wonder why all 4x space games attempting to be "the" sucessor for MoO2 finally change so much about it, especially about the battles - 3D, real-time, cards or whatever. Why is there never an attempt to build on what was fun in 1995 - adding on it by bug fixing, balancing and creating a better AI. And if that isn't enough - do the same for ground combat. And allow to customize planetary defense systems. Again, not to say that the card idea is bad - but it sounds a bit like adding new stuff unnecessarily, where you could easily go ahead and refine the existing concepts.

I do agree about preferring moo1/2 battles... but I've been playing the beta for this and here's my thoughts:
1. This is not MOO, so I try to keep that in mind... but they have nailed the feel in the main starmap screens IMO.
2. The glaring difference is the combat. It's different. I do think this card system has potential though. It needs to be a lot more complex for it to work though IMO. As it stands, it feels way too random... like I don't really impact a battle's outcome in a real significant way. Partly because I don't yet understand what all the cards are really doing, but I've essentially just been picking them randomly on mood. I know I should be using info about the enemy fleet to try to counter their strengths, but I have not felt like it mattered. Only two things seem to really matter for combat: Tech levels and ship design. And by ship design I don't mean having more rockets or lasers or whatever... I mean if you have a flotilla of missile cruisers and their ships are decked out with jammers... that's what matters.
3. I like the way they start you in an arm of a galaxy, then to get to the center and meet other species you have to have the tech to jump into hyperspace or whatever. Gives you some initial alone time to build things up first. I might eventually find this limiting because it pretty much lays out the first target in the tech tree for you. If you're the first into the middle and colonizing the planets there... you're set.

So in short: I think the card system has potential, but it needs to be more complex and it needs to be more obvious what impacts my choices are having.

[Rub'Rum]

I'm not a huge fan of TBS games where battles take me to a RTS screen. I'm usually in the mood to play either or. It's why I have such a strange relationship with Total War. I love these games to bits, yet I almost never play them, because when I get invested in a RTS battle then the TBS map is jarring, and when I get invested in the campaign stuff, TBS battles are jarring.

In general, for 4X games, I like battles to tend towards the "abstract" side of things. The most detail I like would be something like Heroes of Might and Magic, of the good old MoO 2D thing that is rather simple and quickly played, or in Civ or Europa Universalis, where battles are seemless with the campaign.

[Son of Erdrick]

Originally Posted by Zilkin

Your loss since this is already probably the best space 4x game since MoO2(for me at least) and it's still in beta.

For real. Endless Space has rekindled my hopes for the future of 4x games considering the recent flops (SOTSII) and the general... poopiness, for a lack of a better word, of most 4x games in the past few years.

[waytofailself]

I've been playing in the beta, and I have to say that Endless Space fills the 4X gap for me better than any other space based game I have played in years. There is great attention to detail as well -- hard to believe this is just the "beta" especially in a day and age where beta is the new alpha.

I was looking to post some regarding the actual game play itself, but I figure this thread is as good as any for it. So for those who may be unfamiliar with the game, I'm going to take some time to make a post with some screenshots from my first game on normal difficulty.

Yes, there is the youtubes and plenty of Lets Plays out there, but his is more for quicker consumption in case you don't want to sit through those videos.

[waytofailself]

Pilgrims in Space Gobble Gobble
or a quick look at the Endless Space early game for the rest of you

Settings and screenies are below the spoiler. I enjoy this game quite a bit. If you want to know more about how the game plays out, I encourage you to look at the spoiler tag below.

FYI: my laptop is (relatively) old. So the graphic settings are not fantastic. They still look good/clean in my eyes.

Spoiler:

Here are the difficulty settings:


And the next two shots are of my opening system, of which I want to highlight some information in particular:



First off, if you look at the top picture you will see that my homeworld has some paths to other systems shooting out of it. Some are straight lines, some are frayed/swirly. The former I can traverse, the latter requires a specific tech to jump between wormholes.

Second, my home system sucks for the early game. Not worst ever, but a lot of the planets in the system require multiple tiers of tech before I can colonize the lava and gas planets or the asteroid belt. Hopefully I can get some good production out of this place in the future. Pilgrims seem to always start on a jungle planet. Nothing super special about Jungle that I can think of off the top of my head.

Here is what my home world looks like zoomed in (as far as you can go in game) after a few turns:



As for what the tech tree looks like:



There's a zoomed out view of it. Techs progress in a linear fashion. As long as you have one of the linked techs in the prior tier, you can research the next tech. It allows for a lot of freedom to move around the tree, although the four branches of it are separate and distinct.



And here is the zoomed in look at the first tech I'm researching. Mainly because alien grafting is very useful and I want to use it on my jungle planet.



And for those of you who would like to know, yes you can queue up your techs.



Unless you choose a random layout, each type of star determines the likelihood of what types of planets are orbiting it. So you're not shooting entirely in the dark when choosing where to explore next. Of course, with only one direction to go I do not have much of a choice.

Here is place in the Galaxy.



And here is the next system I explored:



This is another less than ideal early game system. I won't be able to colonize barren planets until the same level of tech as lava planets. But I also want to highlight that some planets, not all (unlike this picture), have anomalies affiliated with them. Some are positive, some are negative, and some are a bit of both. With the right tech you can remove the negative anomaly's effects.

Note here that the good anomalies in this picture are mutated flora, strange fossils, and rich atmosphere, while the bad anomalies are meteor strikes and mineral poor. Not a lot of surprises there (though I did find an earth like planet that suffered from meteor strikes once and thought that was a little funny).



Yes, I would like to live on a planet that gives me one big vision quest. Here's a good example of a good/bad anomaly.

There are also heroes in the game, which play an important role. Especially for Pilgrims, since one perk is heroes start lv 3.



More on this guy later.

I explored the whole arm of the galaxy and found no one else. Was hoping for some early contact but alas.



Time to back-fill my spiral and research tech to find everyone else.

Baby crying so have to cut it short. More to come!

Link to album with screenies: http://imgur.com/a/okcEB#Kt0JL