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I sense I'm missing something very basic with the Vodyani. Every single time I roll them, I seem to get left so far back in the Dust that I have no chance of recovery. Am I supposed to just give up on being nice to any minor factions whatsoever (and potentially gently caress over my faction quest, no less) and just park Leechers over 'em to get the Essence train rolling to get Ark 3 (or even 2!) out in a sane timeframe?
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Mar 18, 2017 23:56
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Cythereal posted:There is a Broken Lord hero in ES1. He was added with Endless Day after Legend was released, wasn't he?
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Mar 18, 2017 23:57
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Serpentis posted:I sense I'm missing something very basic with the Vodyani. Every single time I roll them, I seem to get left so far back in the Dust that I have no chance of recovery. Am I supposed to just give up on being nice to any minor factions whatsoever (and potentially gently caress over my faction quest, no less) and just park Leechers over 'em to get the Essence train rolling to get Ark 3 (or even 2!) out in a sane timeframe? Basically, yes. Your goal as Vodyani is to be a constant dick to everybody by plundering their systems for essence. This will piss them off, but you don't care. Since you instantly "colonise" every planet you can once you have the tech for it, you will eventually leverage the superior FIDSI production of your population to build a big fleet and roll over the people who dared get angry at you.
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Mar 19, 2017 00:28
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The Deleter posted:Basically, yes. Your goal as Vodyani is to be a constant dick to everybody by plundering their systems for essence. This will piss them off, but you don't care. Since you instantly "colonise" every planet you can once you have the tech for it, you will eventually leverage the superior FIDSI production of your population to build a big fleet and roll over the people who dared get angry at you. Hm. Well, good to know, but that's going to need a restart (picked the stage option where you have to brainwash a minor faction to join you. Ah well.) Actually, while I'm here; if, by food or by Essence, I get a Vod pop in a system, does it follow the ES1 model where you earned a single non-system pop that had to be shuttled around planets in a system, or is it a "system" pop that is on all planets because it's on the Ark? If it's the latter, at least I've not got to worry about pushing for the expansion techs.
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Mar 19, 2017 00:34
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Serpentis posted:Hm. Well, good to know, but that's going to need a restart (picked the stage option where you have to brainwash a minor faction to join you. Ah well.) Actually, while I'm here; if, by food or by Essence, I get a Vod pop in a system, does it follow the ES1 model where you earned a single non-system pop that had to be shuttled around planets in a system, or is it a "system" pop that is on all planets because it's on the Ark? Vodyani pops always end up on the Ark, so there's no shuttling around. You should push for one or two colonisation techs just so you're exploiting multiple planets and getting a good industrial base going, but it's definitely behind other early-game concerns like getting the initial fleet and the standard stuff.
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Mar 19, 2017 00:54
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Lichtenstein posted:How different do the factions feel? From watching it from afar it seems like mostly differently coloured +numbers and vodyani that do stand out EL-style. So I haven't really played Sophons or Horatio, and you already know Vodyani, so for the other three... So United Empire's gimmick is that they can spend influence to buy techs, improvements, and resources, and that when they build an improvement they get influence. This leads to a positive reinforcement cycle where you can build up systems really fast, even if they're relatively industry poor. I also found that, depending on what choices you make in their quest, you can get a pretty big difference in what your empire looks like. I also found the bonus influence great for 'buying' out minor factions. Lumeris expand insanely fast - they just use dust to establish an outpost remotely, rather than sending in a colony ship. They can trade outposts to other factions, so you can really influence the shape of the galaxy. Cravers get huge FIDS production bonuses on planets, but slowly deplete the resources of those planets over time. This means that you're in a constant expand-or-die, and you get a huge bonus for enslaving other factions, encouraging you to go to war early and often, particularly against minors. I've found them all pretty exciting so far, though I mostly played during a much earlier build and only recently picked it back up again.
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Mar 19, 2017 01:04
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Aren't the Vodyani basically Broken Lords In Space?
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Mar 19, 2017 01:53
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Sorta. The Vodyani believe lesser races deserve to be eaten. Also for the Vodders I found that upgrading your ark on turn 1-4 really helps jetboost your start
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Mar 19, 2017 04:04
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Hey, I ended up never using these codes. Sega strategy games. Free for a goon home.  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3zgWdK9rXr0RmNIX1ctZUk2c3c
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Mar 20, 2017 16:13
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Bogart posted:Hey, I ended up never using these codes. Sega strategy games. Free for a goon home. I took the Ultramarines DLC - Thanks! I bought DoW for linux long after it was cool, so I'm actually getting good mileage out of it (even if the single player is.. bleh)
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Mar 20, 2017 16:25
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Bogart posted:Hey, I ended up never using these codes. Sega strategy games. Free for a goon home. Grabbed Echoes of Auriga, tyvm!
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Mar 20, 2017 17:32
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So I'm on track to winning my 2nd game as UE, so I feel like I've got a handle for them at some level, but every time I play Sophons, I faceplant. Hard. I feel like the UE can do in 20 turns what the Sophons do in 60. It doesn't inspire confidence that in the UE game, I punched up against a Sophon ~30% higher score than me and walked all over them compared to fighting a Vodyani that was 20% lower than me. Any Sophon specific suggestions? I had a similar problem with Vaulters in EL - I don't see the value in having the choice to build 50 things but not the ability to build them.
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Mar 20, 2017 18:17
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I can't help you with anything on EL2, but I feel that a huge chunk of what makes Vaulters good is the ability to teleport any and all of their armies across the entire goddamn map instantly at almost no cost. It's very hard to lose with with an edge like that. The other stuff is just nice.
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Mar 20, 2017 18:26
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See, the problem I have with Vaulters is that I can't get off more than like 2 expansions before I get murdered. The teleportation and holy resource bonuses don't matter if you just fail in the early game and die immediately. I really don't entirely understand it, it's not like Drakken have significant production bonuses but I have no trouble with them. I'm actually having a worse problem with the Sophons. I've had 3 games in a row where I either lost 2 colony ships or went bankrupt before I got both basic industry buildings built in my home system. I know they have a slow start but this is ridiculous. It feels like I'm playing 2-3 difficulties higher than when playing UE or Vodyani.
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Mar 20, 2017 20:43
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In ES1 I had good results slamming out a military-oriented technology or two early on when I was playing Vaulters (I always rush the tech that unlocks the first strategic resource and lets you build the first production-enhancing upgrade before anything else, though). Having advanced armaments really helps you hold the line against numerically and industrially superior enemies, especially when you can teleport your dudes around to use that smaller but more advanced armada to its fullest.
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Mar 20, 2017 21:41
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The Craver storyline is pretty cool, I went with the capture option on the first path but how does it split further down the line?
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Mar 21, 2017 07:22
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Tulip posted:So I'm on track to winning my 2nd game as UE, so I feel like I've got a handle for them at some level, but every time I play Sophons, I faceplant. Hard. I feel like the UE can do in 20 turns what the Sophons do in 60. It doesn't inspire confidence that in the UE game, I punched up against a Sophon ~30% higher score than me and walked all over them compared to fighting a Vodyani that was 20% lower than me. Any Sophon specific suggestions? There hasn't been anything resembling a balance pass yet, so it's pretty likely that the Sophons are just weaker. That said, the basic strategy with them is to snipe game-changing technologies as early as possible. Prior to the tech tree revamp, this generally meant going after colony development ASAP, since being able to get +50 per turn of anything within the first dozen turns of the game is pretty miraculous, and doesn't require extra production to take advantage of. It's possible that the tech tree revamp made this less powerful though, since it's easier for anyone to shoot for that. Clarste fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Mar 21, 2017 |
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Mar 21, 2017 14:05
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Clarste posted:There hasn't been anything resembling a balance pass yet, so it's pretty likely that the Sophons are just weaker. That said, the basic strategy with them is to snipe game-changing technologies as early as possible. Prior to the tech tree revamp, this generally meant going after colony development ASAP, since being able to get +50 per turn of anything within the first dozen turns of the game is pretty miraculous, and doesn't require extra production to take advantage of. It's possible that the tech tree revamp made this less powerful though, since it's easier for anyone to shoot for that. One thing I just noticed that is kind of funny is that Public-Private Partnerships is +10 on Temperate, not Cold, so Sophons aren't even guaranteed to get the max bonus for their starting tech on their starting system because their starting planet is always Cold. So yeah it's possible that Sophons need a tune up. I wouldn't take my experiences as gospel though, I'm just kind of bad at science focused strats. I think there's a slight bug, they're supposed to start with Basic System Development but still need to research two stage 2 techs to get it on their economy screen. That said, I'm trying it out right now, we'll see what happens.
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Mar 21, 2017 16:55
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Bogart posted:Hey, I ended up never using these codes. Sega strategy games. Free for a goon home. I grabbed shining force...thank you!!!
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Mar 21, 2017 17:25
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I don't think that's a bug, it's just a weird quirk of the way the temporary tech tier levels from the Scientist Force Law work. Anyway, I just played a quick game and I seemed to do okay with the Sophons. Beelined for system development and explored as fast as possible for a good luxury resource. I actually got pretty unlucky and the first two resources I found were both totally useless, but then I found a cluster of Eden Essence or whatever it's called that gave me +50 Influence per turn for each system. Then I just bought up every single minor faction on the turn I met them and snowballed. The main thing to remember about science is that it doesn't give you extra production, at least not quickly. Having a billion buildings and ship hulls that you can't use is completely pointless, so you want to aim for techs with passive effects that you can put into use almost immediately. Other than system development, good candidates would be things like colonization techs and planetary exploitation (because they don't cost any more to build as they upgrade). Probably in that order too: colony ships are cheap, but exploitations are kinda worthless until you have a larger population.
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Mar 21, 2017 17:32
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Some sweet visual updates for es2 aiming to improve immersion with the galaxy and systems; https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/blog/514-riftborn-update-focus-on-immersion
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Mar 21, 2017 18:17
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Flipswitch posted:Some sweet visual updates for es2 aiming to improve immersion with the galaxy and systems; https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/blog/514-riftborn-update-focus-on-immersion 
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Mar 22, 2017 20:01
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Gameplay vid is out. Not a lot new, Riftborn ships are really pretty though! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJl254O6do4 Can't wait for modeing support in the next patch (release?).
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Mar 23, 2017 15:20
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Looks like we may be able to have larger galaxies. On a side note I always thought the Horatio in ES1 were kinda boring but the ES2 quest fluff is kinda neat. A neurotic semipsychotic race of clones
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Mar 24, 2017 01:36
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*cracks knuckles* First Riftborn game, here we go!
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Mar 24, 2017 02:09
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Okay, so the main gimmick of the Riftborn is that they don't grow with food at all. You have to manually build each population (and also troops). The cost increases each time, so it can take forever to fill up a system with bots, time that you're not building anything else. That said, they get +5 to everything but food and don't care about food so it's kind of worth it. A particularly annoying part of playing them though is that other species on their planets can grow with food, and often you'll be racing with them to fill up your planets. Your homeworld starts with another species too, like everyone else. They're Industrialists by default.
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Mar 24, 2017 04:44
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How do
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Mar 24, 2017 10:10
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Lichtenstein posted:How do You build them in systems, taking less than 1 turn each. As in, they don't interrupt your production at all, but you still need to wait a turn to use them. They also cost dust and strategic resources, depending on exactly which one you're making. Once you have them (up to 3 at a time), they appear in a stockpile in the upper left corner and you just click on them to deploy them on any system you want. It doesn't matter which system you build them in, they're always go to the same global stock. The basic ones are just plus or minus FIDS, but the more advanced ones (you research them in the science/exploration tree) do bizarre things, like allow you to have the benefits of a building that's currently under construction, or teleport any ship that leaves the system back to the system and replay battles you lost. The most advanced one is a complete time stop: no production, and any ship that enters the system can't leave until it's over. Honestly though, I always felt that +25% FIDS was just too good to pass up for any of the weirder, more tactical ones. It's easier to leverage a bigger fleet than it is to make good strategic use of offensive time bubbles, imo. The higher level ones also got pretty expensive. Like, 15k dust and 15 of each resource a pop. Maybe I was just using them wrong, but eventually they just felt like busywork, since he +FIDS ones would keep expiring and I'd have to renew them. Clarste fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 10:19
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Small annoyance: now when you're in the start game menu, you can't see all the faction traits at once for your selected faction.Clarste posted:You build them in systems, taking less than 1 turn each. As in, they don't interrupt your production at all, but you still need to wait a turn to use them. They also cost dust and strategic resources, depending on exactly which one you're making. Once you have them (up to 3 at a time), they appear in a stockpile in the upper left corner and you just click on them to deploy them on any system you want. It doesn't matter which system you build them in, they're always go to the same global stock. This seems like a really hackish solution to getting to Ardent Mages-style spells, so hopefully that'll be addressed. Clarste posted:Anyway, I just played a quick game and I seemed to do okay with the Sophons. Beelined for system development and explored as fast as possible for a good luxury resource. I actually got pretty unlucky and the first two resources I found were both totally useless, but then I found a cluster of Eden Essence or whatever it's called that gave me +50 Influence per turn for each system. Then I just bought up every single minor faction on the turn I met them and snowballed. Yeah this advice helped quite a bit, thought I got Jadonyx. I still felt like I was massively behind the power curve compared to, well, any other faction. And it seems a bit RNG dependent - you pretty much have to find a habitable planet with Jadonyx, Dustciduous Trees, or I guess Eden Incense. Maybe Superspuds would work too? It just feels really dicey compared to what you can do with other factions. I think something that would help would be starting with a minor that isn't Pilgrims. Epistis (+industry) would be the simplest, but Bhagaba, Amoeba, Mavros (lol), or Haroshem would help them. Again it's possible that I'm just a bad.
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Mar 24, 2017 13:31
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Clarste posted:Okay, so the main gimmick of the Riftborn is that they don't grow with food at all. You have to manually build each population (and also troops). The cost increases each time, so it can take forever to fill up a system with bots, time that you're not building anything else. That said, they get +5 to everything but food and don't care about food so it's kind of worth it. A particularly annoying part of playing them though is that other species on their planets can grow with food, and often you'll be racing with them to fill up your planets. Your homeworld starts with another species too, like everyone else. So, kinda like playing Broken Lords then? I can get behind that. Hows it all coming together with the new update? Solid enough to pick up yet or maybe just wait until final release still? I really like that they are adding ending vids for each of the factions in the final release, way too many 4x games just end with 0 fanfare other than a score screen.
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Mar 24, 2017 20:29
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Yeah, classic moo had a whole cutscene, moo2 had a few different endings. SMAC had great endings and a lot of great lore and storylines that go on through the entire game. Then 4x games started just popping up with a score screen and that's that.
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Mar 24, 2017 20:33
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Reminds me of Civ Beyond Earth where you get a jpeg and a polite gently caress off.
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Mar 25, 2017 04:24
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Flipswitch posted:Reminds me of Civ Beyond Earth where you get a jpeg and a polite gently caress off. To be fair that sums up the entire vibe of the game perfectly. Still waiting for a true spiritual successor to smac. It doesn't just need to be a good 4x, it has to get the vibe, the tone.
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Mar 25, 2017 05:53
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Yeah was a massive disappointment. Always feels like space games are a let down... Sots2, civ beyond earth, x rebirth  On a positive note I love the artwork Amplitude does of the races chilling out, there's one with a bunch of characters on a metro with a Craver just dwarfing over everyone everyone on a cramped carriage which was basically my experience in Hong Kong.
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Mar 25, 2017 07:17
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None of these endless games have ever gripped me, I've enjoyed them, but they never turn into hundreds of hours or games I ever come back to. The design and feel, the "worldbuilding" and art is always great though.
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Mar 25, 2017 07:45
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How is the endless thread, of all places, complaining of other 4X games just dumping you without fanfare to the score graph when you win? Endless legend is right there.
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Mar 25, 2017 12:06
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ES2 Horatio appear bugged. I can colonize every planet right off the bat. Edit: I am dumb. Never had ecologists laws before. Willfrey fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Mar 25, 2017 |
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Mar 25, 2017 13:24
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So I just found out about Starports, that makes Cravers a fair bit more optimizable. "Starport" is a system action in the bottom left of the system management screen. If you have a level 2 system, it has a 3 slot starport, +1 slot per level. You drag and drop pops from the system that has a starport, then select another system in the Starport window, and next turn a logistics ship will depart from system one to system two. With most factions this let you populate a food-poor system (such as gas giants) quickly. With Cravers this lets you optimize your slavery system quite a bit more than just hoping and praying the right pops spawn into the system. Gwyrgyn Blood posted:Hows it all coming together with the new update? Solid enough to pick up yet or maybe just wait until final release still? My understanding is that the game is on sale until release, so if you know you're going to buy it, may as well buy it as soon as you've got the money for it. It's still, y'know, pretty incomplete, and I think needs some balancing, but I'm finding it a lot more enjoyable and engaging than Civ6 and it's certainly got more interesting systems than ES1.
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Mar 25, 2017 13:53
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Willfrey posted:ES2 Horatio appear bugged. I can colonize every planet right off the bat. Oh, they start Ecologist now? Last patch they started Religious, which kind of makes sense for who they are but also makes no sense in the gameplay.
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Mar 25, 2017 14:49
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Serephina posted:How is the endless thread, of all places, complaining of other 4X games just dumping you without fanfare to the score graph when you win? Endless legend is right there. I'd personally give Endless Legend more of a pass. It may not have an ending cinematic, but if you're following the story quest victory you do get a lot of narrative building up to that screen. That's not the case for the other victories though for sure.
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Mar 25, 2017 15:32
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