|
Demiurge4 posted:(hence why invasions are gated behind and era 2 tech). They aren't though. Wars can be fought and systems lost before tier 2. I hear this was changed from an earlier version of the game?
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 13:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 21:35 |
|
|
You can invade in era one though? Your ship has innate manpower that they can use for invasion purpose.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 13:52
|
|
|
Looks like in the future, the Marketplace could be used to buy/sell ships. Of course the marketplace isn't in the game at all yet, and they haven't even put out a Game Design Document about the marketplace. But they are going to have fighters/bombers, different hulls are going to have bonuses, there aren't more 'plays' for the different attacks you can do. It will be amazing to have a empire that focuses solely on making money and buying ships to field their entire warfleet.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 19:46
|
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:It's a design choice. Endless legend does it too. I think the rationale is to make the early game feel like the exploration phase and era 2 is the beginning of the space history where borders have been established and conflict erupts (hence why invasions are gated behind and era 2 tech). I think it does this to a greater extent than EL does. Part of me kind of likes it because yeah it really nails the feel of the setting, but it makes for a rough early game even on "Normal" (or what appears to be normal, there are two different places where it sets the difficulty and only one of them even appears to work so I don't know what's going on there). It took me three tries to even get Sophons off the ground, and then on the third try my empire imploded due to happiness penalties tanking my economy after WINNING a war because I took territory trying to weaken my Lumeris neighbour when really I just wanted to bomb the planets in question flat so they couldn't have them - hopefully they add a way to do that. There are way more "must research" technologies than in EL, since not only do you have to unlock crucial gameplay mechanics alongside all the FIDSI upgrades, you also have to unlock colonizable planet types (one by one). Further, various upgrades are more important here than they were in EL, particularly: -Approval upgrades so you can grow tall or expand wide without immediately tanking your economy due to overpopulation or overcolonization penalties (or both at once!) killing FIDSI generation -Influence generation so some neighbour AI doesn't overwhelm your influence sphere and lock you out of your own planets with a Close Borders -Dust generation because improvement upkeep seems a lot more expensive. Maybe this is because instead of allocating workers like you did in EL, you're supposed to specialise systems/planets via your choice of improvements, but of course that means that you can't do the "everybody on X" laser-focus as quickly as you could in EL. And the AI will DOW you very quickly after meeting, especially if they're Cravers, so you ALSO need to tech up weapons and build enough ships so they don't roll over you when they do (or at least so you can hold out long enough for the forced truce - how or when does that even work anyway, the game never explains it?) So, at least in Era 1, you'll never get away with only researching the ten techs you need to upgrade, which means you'll be overpaying on the escalating research costs from the beginning. Sophons being able to era-jump may help with this for them, but a) it depends on the Scientists staying in power past turn 20 and they NEVER DO, and b) a lot of Era I techs aren't obsoleted by this because they unlock crucial gameplay features or colonizable planet types, or stuff you'll simply need to be able to access early as part of your expansion push. Meanwhile, you only have one tech queue EVER, and only one improvement queue per system (and the high expansion penalties put a brake on adding more systems). So that means a lot of plate juggling and prioritization problems, which yeah, does make a good challenge, but I'm not sure they've nailed the sweet spot between challenge and frustration, especially for people who are new to ES or Amplitude 4Xes in general (it doesn't help that there are a lot of mechanics present the game does not yet adequately explain, but that's Early Access for you and I'm sure they'll work on that). I should dust off my Games2Gether account and go post this there, honestly, though surely someone has already made these points. Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Oct 10, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 20:46
|
|
|
Dallan Invictus posted:-Influence generation so some neighbour AI doesn't overwhelm your influence sphere and lock you out of your own planets with a Close Borders Took me far too long to realise it was influence doing this, a lumeris system was threatening to take over the entire galaxy this way towards the end of my first game. Dallan Invictus posted:And the AI will DOW you very quickly after meeting, especially if they're Cravers, so you ALSO need to tech up weapons and build enough ships so they don't roll over you when they do (or at least so you can hold out long enough for the forced truce - how or when does that even work anyway, the game never explains it?) I think this (the quick DOW and forced truces) are a feature of early access only, to make sure people get to experience war but not be able to just dominate the ai straight away.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 21:12
|
|
|
Dallan Invictus posted:And the AI will DOW you very quickly after meeting, especially if they're Cravers, so you ALSO need to tech up weapons and build enough ships so they don't roll over you when they do (or at least so you can hold out long enough for the forced truce - how or when does that even work anyway, the game never explains it?) I think they've stated somewhere that the AI will be less agressive in later builds - right now the only victory conditions are score and military so presumably they're testing those? I agree with the rest of your post though. Hopefully they'll take the pressure off a little in future builds. My main gripe is that Minor Factions loving suck to interact with right now. They're a sink of Influence/Money to bribe and will constantly get madder over time so they keep making GBS threads angry ships out to annoy you. They don't even give quests like in Endless Legend, they just sort of sit there.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 21:17
|
|
|
Thyrork posted:It wouldn't bother me if Humanity ended up a minor faction of "abundant people but no central empire following the collapse of <BLANK>." I get the impression that The Human United Empire has fallen at the start of the game and humanity is being kicked around, hence being food for the Cravers and clients for the Sophons.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 22:11
|
|
|
Dallan Invictus posted:It took me three tries to even get Sophons off the ground, and then on the third try my empire imploded due to happiness penalties tanking my economy after WINNING a war because I took territory trying to weaken my Lumeris neighbour when really I just wanted to bomb the planets in question flat so they couldn't have them - hopefully they add a way to do that. Razing planets is on the List.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 22:20
|
|
|
Clarste posted:Razing planets is on the List. Thank the Infidel, having to occupy them sucks. One more point in favor of the vampires.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 22:36
|
|
|
An tier 1 (or starting) tech should let you put production into research, food or something. You very quickly run out of things to build. If the marketplace was implemented into the game, just sell crippled as hell ships to the market to keep your economy running. Every one of my planets has all improvements built on it. I don't have the money to keep making ships. Can't afford the upkeep. Every turn the game keeps on telling me that there is no production on every single planet. I know, game. I just have nothing I can do.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 22:44
|
|
|
Remember how long it took them to implement razing in Endless Space 1? They learned their lesson.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 22:44
|
|
|
I just lost an hour to this game and it isn't even finished yet. Cravers are some good poo poo.IAmTheRad posted:An tier 1 (or starting) tech should let you put production into research, food or something. You very quickly run out of things to build. If the marketplace was implemented into the game, just sell crippled as hell ships to the market to keep your economy running. Every one of my planets has all improvements built on it. I don't have the money to keep making ships. Can't afford the upkeep. Every turn the game keeps on telling me that there is no production on every single planet. There's an Era 2 tech that converts production to money, if that helps. EL put production into Stockpiles, which was a neat idea, but the straight conversion is a lot less fuss imo. I think the production/science balance might need a look at - Civ games tend to research faster than you build so you're always asking "what do I need to build next" on your cities, and I think the non-Sophon races might need a kick in this area to get this feeling back. Also can we talk about Dungeon of the Endless 'cause I'm regularly getting to floor 7-9 there and then everybody dies horribly. What's the HOT TIPS? I like to start with Joleri 'cause she's fun, and then an Operator like OpBot or ice dragon who is definitely not called Krang 'cause his ice skill is also great for when Joleri's running with the crystal.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 22:54
|
|
|
Era 1 just takes too long to get out of and is missing too many mechanics. They just easily move the production-> dust tech down to Tier one.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 22:58
|
|
|
Well, one can always build more ships as a production sink. I also feels research is a bit slow for how much stuff you need to research. Granted, I haven't play Sophon yet or try to grab all the research tech in era 1 because I can never find enough cold planet as other races to make the +cold pop bonus seem worthwhile.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 23:58
|
|
|
Dallan Invictus posted:
Do it, the more it comes up the more visible it is the more likely they are to act on it. I think you make good points, and if you link it I'll corroborate. Demiurge4 posted:It's a design choice. Endless legend does it too. I think the rationale is to make the early game feel like the exploration phase and era 2 is the beginning of the space history where borders have been established and conflict erupts (hence why invasions are gated behind and era 2 tech). Yeah this is a big problem to me as well. The flavor texts for the eras they've implemented so far are Era I: Ad Astra! posted:As intelligent beings who once looked up to the stars to learn to travel between them, an age of endless discovery begins Era II: First Contact posted:No longer content with cataloging the wonders of planets, stars, and systems, the empires of the galaxy seek to understand them -- and each other -- in detail. Era III: Wealth of Worlds posted:As borders solidify and competition increases, empires start to look within themselves for growth and opportunity In my experience, you're fighting a war somewhere in the middle of Era I, and I've figured out what the diplomacy of the galaxy is going to generally look like by Era II. Somethings are, I think, well placed, but colonization techs are too spread out and there's too many 'must have' techs: in Era I, it feels like the entire econ and influence sectors are needed, which is 8/10 before you're even considering colonizing or military, not to mention that skips out on Non-Baryonic Particles, which seems pretty goddamn important. The pacing in general seems off - the first era seems like it should be about exploring your near cluster and meeting a minor or two, when, again, I'm fighting wars and exploring 50%+ of the galaxy. If that's the case, the first era should probably be like 20 turns. Maybe it will be better on Fast. In other words: Clarste posted:Era 1 just takes too long to get out of and is missing too many mechanics. Speaking of minors: I think EL has a good balance for minors. There's multiple per major, and there's a variety of ways to interact with them, and sooner or later they're a significant strategic concern. And they're always fast to work with. ES2 minors take a lot of time and resources, and there's not enough of them. Part of the reason I'm fighting Era I wars so much is that Cravers pretty much exist off of war expansion. If there's not enough minors, that means fighting majors. I think minors deserve a major rethink.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 01:43
|
|
|
I wish there was a list of modifiers or history as for why AI diplomatic values were as they were. When the AI hates me, it would be nice to know why.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 02:06
|
|
|
pedro0930 posted:Well, one can always build more ships as a production sink. Well, not really because the basic ships cost like 8 dust per turn as maintenance. You really don't want a huge fleet you're not immediately using in this game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 02:24
|
|
|
I guess it's just a matter of strategy to time your discoveries and production allocations so that you can always be doing something useful with them.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 02:28
|
|
|
From the official forums:quote:BREAKING NEWS:
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 03:08
|
|
|
Fangz posted:I guess it's just a matter of strategy to time your discoveries and production allocations so that you can always be doing something useful with them. This is a critical piece of strategy in EL, yeah. I think what most of us are feeling here is that it's not really possible with the current gear : atom ratio in ES2, especially not when you want lots of colonization techs that give 0 things to do with your gears. I'd personally most like them to compress the tech up time, ESPECIALLY in Era I where you seem to need almost everything just to get your feet off the ground. Clarste posted:From the official forums: That's pretty cool, so we've got 6 near-definite factions, plus at least one human faction, leaving us with one true mystery major left. It's good to have a Concrete artifact as a faction. e: For those who don't want to look for it, here's their "to do" list." It lists 2 Major Factions as a high priority item, so I guess that means they feel pretty confident about Sowers. Tulip fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Oct 11, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 07:34
|
|
|
Tulip posted:Do it, the more it comes up the more visible it is the more likely they are to act on it. I think you make good points, and if you link it I'll corroborate. I did end up doing that. quote:The pacing in general seems off - the first era seems like it should be about exploring your near cluster and meeting a minor or two, when, again, I'm fighting wars and exploring 50%+ of the galaxy. If that's the case, the first era should probably be like 20 turns. It feels like the game is paced for bigger galaxies/more factions/more minors being available than is currently the case, yeah. Maybe that's just my personal preference talking.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 08:49
|
|
|
Tulip posted:This is a critical piece of strategy in EL, yeah. I think what most of us are feeling here is that it's not really possible with the current gear : atom ratio in ES2, especially not when you want lots of colonization techs that give 0 things to do with your gears. I'd personally most like them to compress the tech up time, ESPECIALLY in Era I where you seem to need almost everything just to get your feet off the ground. Another thing is that in EL, I spent a lot of time as Necrophage building Boroughs for my gigantic hive-cities, something that is obviously missing here. Between the boroughs, watchtowers, and minor faction villages, there were a lot of things you could build multiple of in any given province.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 09:13
|
|
|
You can upgrade your system levEl (in era 2  )Honestly I think a lot of the pacing problems are down to the game being content light. I think they should stack some colonisation techs together and put the improvements elsewhere. A lot of system improvements in era 1 are super situational for example. The tech that unlocks titanium gives you a building that produces a whopping 5 industry per turn and 10 for every forest planet, but in my experience forests are incredible rare. It's the same with drone networks and virtualization, they give a pittance at best. The science tech is good for sophons because they begin with a veldt planet but I think it should be science per pop instead. I also encountered a weird bug when I researched AI assisted production. Suddenly every planet was coloniseable. Gonna have to see if I can replicate that.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 09:20
|
|
|
Era I just feels slow. There's not much to do. Of course, the game being in early access and all makes it seem slower than usual. A large galaxy with eight different circulations, all the minor factions, a greatly expanded tech tree, more to discover will expand the game and give more stuff to do in Era I. One thing they should do for colonization is have techs that allow more of a range of planets rather than just one. There probably isn't much of a difference between tundra and arctic, for example. I do hope that the current faction bonuses aren't final. Add a couple that won't be used so that when we make our own custom races that we can make more varied types of factions. Even if the United Empire is in the game, I might want to make a united empire look alike that is all about peace and harmony with the galaxy. Or just make the extremely broken Lords as you could do in EL.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 11:05
|
|
|
IAmTheRad posted:Era I just feels slow. There's not much to do. Of course, the game being in early access and all makes it seem slower than usual. A large galaxy with eight different circulations, all the minor factions, a greatly expanded tech tree, more to discover will expand the game and give more stuff to do in Era I. Yeah a lot of the faction traits are very underwhelming outside of the racial affinity. 'Great Soldiers II' woop di loving doo. A larger list of unique traits with no scaling would be aces. Also to go back to the invasion thing. I think that they are supposed to be gated behind survival suits but invasions are just super buggy right now, what with the AI being able to bypass fleets entirely and the Vodyani mechanic being completely broken when it comes to that facet of the game (you can invade a system with an ark ship (which has almost no manpower) and when they lose they lose the arkship. Demiurge4 fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Oct 11, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 11:38
|
|
|
Do people really think fleet bypassing is a bug though? Maybe it's a new way of doing things they are trying out - so that you have to keep defenses one system out.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 11:45
|
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:Yeah a lot of the faction traits are very underwhelming outside of the racial affinity. 'Great Soldiers II' woop di loving doo. A larger list of unique traits with no scaling would be aces. Part of it is that a lot of things that were previously faction traits have been shunted off into being racial traits that exist regardless of how you acquire that population. IE: My population is good/bad at FIDS in some way. And frankly they're more powerful than ever, such as Sophons producing +4 science per pop on Cold planets. I'm not entirely sure what they could replace those with, I guess some sort of species editor could exist too, but I wouldn't really count on it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 11:49
|
|
|
The FIDSI bonuses were a little hard to read for me at first. Sophons just show +1 Science +3 on cold which at first I thought meant they produced nothing else. But of course pops on planets produce the entire output of the planet and then whatever bonus they have on top which is just shown as exploitation. The racial traits are fine, I have no problem with the new system, I'd just like them to do away with the levels on them to make them stand out more. The affinity is what really matters anyway, which for Sophons is the percentage bonus on science output for certain techs and the ability to research any Era 2 tech from the start of the game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 11:57
|
|
|
Oh, I misunderstood what you said. What kinds of unique, non-scaling traits have existed in previous games?
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 12:12
|
|
|
Clarste posted:Oh, I misunderstood what you said. What kinds of unique, non-scaling traits have existed in previous games? I know the vaulters one! They could build a portal in any system they controlled that let them travel to any other system that they built a portal in. Only vaulters could use it. You could have a system that was amazing at building ships in the middle of your empire. It would take a while to get to the fringes of your empire, or perhaps you made an outpost in the middle of nowhere basically. It would take a while to travel there normally. But as the vaulters, you could travel there instantly as long as you built the portal in the two systems.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 12:45
|
|
|
That was their affinity. I meant more the customizable traits that you could use to design a custom faction. Although you'd still need to pick an existing affinity of course. Incidentally, I'm sure that's also why they're scalable when possible. Because the whole point of those traits is to make custom factions out of them.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 12:47
|
|
|
I'm not really seeing the difference between traits and affinity here. Like in MOO 2 lithovore and creative were both traits and you could potentially have both.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 12:50
|
|
|
Here's a list of the traits that were in the original Endless Space http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/Custom_factions
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 12:53
|
|
|
Basically, Affinities affect what unique technologies and faction questlines you'll get. If you didn't have an Affinity, there would simply be blank spots in the game, and for the same reason it doesn't make much sense to have more than one Affinity at once. They're also the huge, asymmetrical gameplay changing features of each faction that everyone always praises about the series. Like, the Broken Lords not using food and growing with dust. Or the Cultists only having one city and converting neutral villages instead of expanding. Those are Affinities, while traits are more like +20% science production or +2 control cap.
Clarste fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Oct 11, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 12:55
|
|
|
Because Endless Legend and Endless Space 2 have asymmetrical gameplay for their factions, affinities are the component that determines that. Like the one city restriction and conversion for cultists in EL or the Lumeris ability to buy planets in ES2. Traits encompass the other bonuses and perks the factions get that are not tied to their core gameplay mechanic. In Endless Legend it also determined the appearance of your faction and I assume Endless Space 2 works the same.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 12:55
|
|
|
Fangz posted:Do people really think fleet bypassing is a bug though? Maybe it's a new way of doing things they are trying out - so that you have to keep defenses one system out. Also, there's that Guard button that fleets in orbit can use - changes the colour of the circle around a friendly system, says that it "stops enemy fleets for one turn when they arrive". Not sure if that ALSO stops them from invading, and it should probably be the default stance either way, but have people that have been having fleet bypass problems tried that?
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 13:54
|
|
|
Dallan Invictus posted:Also, there's that Guard button that fleets in orbit can use - changes the colour of the circle around a friendly system, says that it "stops enemy fleets for one turn when they arrive". Not sure if that ALSO stops them from invading, and it should probably be the default stance either way, but have people that have been having fleet bypass problems tried that? I think it is stops them from arriving in the system for a turn. Like they stop just outside.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 14:10
|
|
|
I kept on having this one enemy fleet fly through one of my systems even when I had a fleet sitting there. When I put guard on, the fleet had to stop so I could shoot em. One thing I think they should do for colonization techs is make the techs in T1 be close to what you actually start on. If you start on a desert planet, it should be easier to settle on an Arid or Grasslands planet rather than an Ocean faring species settling in a Desert in the first tier of technology. Obviously some of the more unique planets like Auriga should be harder to settle on requiring special events. Even if you come from an Arctic type of planet, the outrageously harsh endless winter on Auriga would be a problem to deal with. IAmTheRad fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Oct 11, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 16:51
|
|
|
Beta patch is out https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/blog/474-beta-patch-on-the-way-turn-limit-removed-influence-anarchy-fixes-and-morequote:Removed the turn limit
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 18:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 21:35 |
|
|
Overminty posted:Beta patch is out https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/blog/474-beta-patch-on-the-way-turn-limit-removed-influence-anarchy-fixes-and-more Can there really be a beta patch for an alpha of a game?
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2016 18:50
|
|