Endless Space - new Moo2 style game

[Martok]

You know, I did end up purchasing ES a while back, but I never was able to really get into it. It just didn't grab me for some reason.

I have somewhat higher hopes for the sequel, although (as with the original game) I have concerns about the AI and the combat system.

[Flocke]

I find ES mostly interesting for the different game mechanics. It's more of a casual game from my first play but for that it is some nice fun.
ES2 I can't tell much about. I checked the screens and videos and they changed alot on the visuals, added some politic options and changed the combat to allow for different maneuvers instead of cards. The general gameplay however looks to be the same.

[KrazeeXXL]

I usually don't but to those still interested to have a look like me, till april the 17th there is a promotion on steam to grab the Endless Space Collection including the Disharmony DLC for just 1€
I guess for other regions it's similar, they probably dropped price so drastically to promote it's successor Endless Space 2.
Not sure if the successor is any worth, but not to the price point to me given my limited time...

I missed the 1€ deal by one day. I've seen in steam that you got it and went there and oops: too late ^^
Anyway, I checked out Endless Space 2 and got the Early Access version of the game. I'm utterly impressed by it. So far the best 4x game for me in a while and I went through a mile of 4x games which all found their way to my dumpster at the end.

ES2 was released last friday (May 19th). The EA version had a couple of rough edges but nothing game breaking. When you're a 4x fan go get this game! I'm totally serious. It is amazing. There's even a huge official tool (ENFER) to read out AI decisions.

What makes this game different is that the races play differently. It's not just a different UI as in BotF and different ships with races which offer marginal differences in playstyle.

Following text may contain spoilers. So read carefully.

F.e. you've the Cravers which are a militarist race who deplete planets and get a huge production bonus early on. They eat population and are a bit played like locusts. Once a system is depleted, you move on to the next.

Then you got the traditional human empire. Which is an amazing alrounder and can buy things not just with credits (dust) but also by influence. The political party system is amazing, too. Your actions strengthen or weaken political parties and affect the laws you can enact. (they give bonuses)

The new race are the Unfallen. They're happy, pacifists trees They get huge bonuses by making peace and alliances. My game at the moment is Unfallen and it's so refreshing and different to everything before. You have to create vines (kinda roots) to star systems to be able to colonize them.

Also every race has their quests and backstory.

Horatio are a clone race with the ability to split genes. So you can get benefits from foreign population to make your main race pop better. They can also colonize pretty much everything from the beginning with a minus. Once colonizing techs are researched the minus vanishes.

Sophons are the classical MoO2 science race. They utterly fun to meet and to make diplomacy with as they're goofy and have a "high-five-mentality".

A really tough race to play are the Vodyani. They don't live on planets but on huge ships called Arks. They look like giant pizza slices. You build buildings on the ark and can de-anchor it and fly to another system, anchor the ark and just stay there. Everything's on the ark. They're a bit like vampires as they feed off other races. And the arks are for the first 30-50 turns the most powerful ships in the game which can't really be beaten by anything.

You've different government types, a market place with over a dozen different luxury ressources. The ships have slots where you can put in different weapons, support modules - all to your liking. The possibilities are literally endless.

This game is so worth it. Galactic Civ, SoaSe, Stellaris and whatnot fade in the light of this amazing game. It's not perfect but runs stable (not a single crash) and utilizes most of my cores. Finally a game which isn't tormenting core 1 only (Stellaris, I'm looking at you). Turn times are nice as it computes a bit during turns. This might give a bit of a sluggish start in late game but I rarely notice it as I've to read all of the notifications first. Some people say they've corrupted saves but in a dozen games but this never occured to me.

Galaxy Maps are amazing, too. I just say double disc galaxy.

It's such a cool and amazing game. Devs stay in touch with the fans (the Unfallen race was inspired by fans) and they update regularly. There's nothing really bad to say about the game.

Don't miss out on this one!

[Martok]

Thanks for the review, Krazee. ES2 is starting to look pretty good (even though I hear the combat is still rather meh).

[KrazeeXXL]

The game still needs some work and polish here and there. Not that much imo, though. The release came a bit early for my taste but might be because SEGA is the publisher. However, it's nothing compared to the bugfest which was Total War Rome 2 or similiar SEGA published games.

Combat is different. It's a bit movie-like. You set up tactics and flotillas beforehand and then you can watch the battles. What I like is the different approach. BotF combat is big blob vs bigger blob. However, you can set up your blobs and single ships, which is nice but also prone to crashing. Never had a crash in ES2, though.

Compared to ES1 I like it a lot more. ES2 in general is way better than ES1 in my opinion. I played ES1 for perhaps 10 hours or so. Didn't like it that much. Almost a hundred hours in ES2 in the 3 weeks or so that I got it. The replayability is amazing due to the different playstyles of the races.

The price tag might be a bit hefty atm. EA version was 25% cheaper. But as I've heard we can expect some discounts in the future. The playerbase of the game is small but steadily growing. Once it doesn't grow anymore it should get cheaper. A realistic price would be 20-25 $/€. Perhaps get it on the steam summer sale which shouldn't be that far away. I could also give you guys a holler when it's on sale.

From what I read it doesn't run that well on older, slower computers in the endgame. Esp. big maps with many majors played by the AI. So, playing smaller maps on older systems should be the way to go. Also deactivating pirates and so on. However, what's always helping is to beat AIs Exaclty the same way it makes BotF games faster in the end game. ^^

[KrazeeXXL]

With the latest update, Endless Space 2 is 25% off at the moment. I'm looking forward trying out the new Fighter/Bomber mechanic @planetary assaults

lots of changes. Great game guys. Seriously one of the best 4x games at the moment. Get it!