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ES2's combat as an example doesn't really help Amplitude's case here. Maybe they've learned from it, but in ES2's case, the AI just... Doesn't do combat. Even on Endless, they barely build fleets, the fleets they do build are completely useless and are constantly retreating, and any defenses they have on planets can be utterly overwhelmed by fleet armies in a turn or two. Some examples in a game I'm playing:  There was actually a larger fleet in-system, but it bolted before I could attack it. This one just tried to retreat and died en-mass.  This is actually the most heavily defended system I've seen from the AI. Results were, well...  Pretty much what I expected. Hell, this game has Hissho in it, who I've been at war with for about 20 turns, with no ships attacking me at all. Civ V certainly had problems, but at least the AI fought you, and was something of a challenge on Deity (even if it had to cheat massively to do it). I'd honestly place ES2's Endless difficulty at King difficulty, or perhaps even lower, especially in terms of combat.
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Feb 8, 2021 14:01
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Yep. Big problem with difficulty. No matter how much stuff AI has they don't use it. The game basically has no challenge after you learn the basics.
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Feb 8, 2021 14:29
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To be fair, it's much easier to get impossibly huge dropship fleets lategame than it is to scavenge manpower deployment on defense. I have no idea what the highest theoretical defense even is (in vanilla). Like 3-4k? But yes the AI does not know how to War, and that is a Problem.
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Feb 8, 2021 15:00
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Even in early to mid-game ground combat, defense can usually be crushed fairly easily. Any of the "Gear" upgrades in the military section of the tech tree can increase your deployment limit, and enough of them in a fleet can mean you're putting double or triple the amount of soldiers on the ground. For example, my small attackers are set up with two of these, and that's generally more than enough to take out a system in a turn or two, even if it's a smaller fleet of, say, 8 ships during early-mid-game. Part of the reason this works though is that the AI really loves using infantry, which is just fodder for tanks to destroy. If you had a system on defense with just tanks fighting invading tanks, it would take longer and require more manpower. In a MP game this tactic probably wouldn't work as well, but would still be the superior option to sieging, personally.
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Feb 8, 2021 15:25
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yeah i usually make a colony ship with 3 invasion modules and use a fleet of that as an invasion fleet and they just flatten even well defended planets in 1-2 turns until late-game where i get lazy and just put a couple on my carriers. planet combat is (correctly) a thing you can super easily do after you established space superiority, it's just AI doesn't do it so well 4X games thread has the correct thread title tbh. AI wasn't such a glaring issue with early 4X games, and it's not that AI wasn't bad in early 4x/civ games it's that it only had to interact with the three basic game mechanics (cities, military, science), so you had a decent chance of at least one opponent doing well into late game by pure chance. but now 4x games have so many systems and variables, and if the AI falls too far behind in any single one of them it cripples them beyond salvation. difficulty levels try to combat this by just giving them flat more resources, but the problem is they don't know how to use the resources in the first place. the lack of resources they have is a symptom, so just adding more doesn't do a lot to solve the real issue, so once you solve the first 30-50 turns, the game is usually won even on highest difficulty because by then every AI will gently caress up in at least one game system and fail to snowball
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Feb 10, 2021 06:56
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All of the games and DLC's are part of the Lunar New Year Steam sale right now. Picked up a bunch of the DLC I'd be holding out on.
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Feb 11, 2021 20:52
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dy. posted:All of the games and DLC's are part of the Lunar New Year Steam sale right now. Picked up a bunch of the DLC I'd be holding out on. not sure if this is endless space 2 specific or not, but I recommend disabling the DLC unless you're playing as the faction that was also released as part of that DLC, except vaulters, you can leave that one on. Also, if this will be your first time playing in a while, avoid the Nakalim for a few games as they can be incredibly overwhelming to start with.
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Feb 12, 2021 19:23
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While browsing trying to see what the more popular factions were, I found this interesting. The percentage of people who own the game and have won with each faction....pre:Win with the United Empire 4.9% Win with the Sophons 2.9% Win with the Unfallen 2.2% Win with the Riftborn 2.2% Win with the Vaulters 2.1% Win with the Lumeris 2.0% Win with a Custom Faction 1.9% Win with Horatio 1.8% Win with the Vodyani 1.6% Win with the Cravers 1.2% Win as the Umbral choir 0.8% Win as the Hisshos 0.8% Win as Nakalim 0.2%
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Feb 12, 2021 21:28
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I decided to check the faction quest completion rates too United Empire 6.4% Sophons 4.7% Unfallen 4.1% Vaulters 3.2% Riftborn 2.9% Lumeris 2.3% Cravers 2.2% Horatio 2.1% Umbral Choir 1.3% Vodyani 1.2% Hissho 0.9% Nakalim 0.3% Looks like Vodyani are the only faction with a higher win rate than quest completion rate.
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Feb 12, 2021 21:45
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while we're at it, lets look at by victory condition...pre:Win an Economic Victory 4.6% Win a Conquest Victory 3.9% Win a Science Victory 3.8% Win a Supremacy Victory 3.5% Win a Score Victory 3.0% Win a Wonder Victory 2.5%
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Feb 12, 2021 22:12
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Tulip posted:I decided to check the faction quest completion rates too I wonder if that's because Vodyani snowball so hard that its easier to just win than complete the quest.
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Feb 12, 2021 22:14
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Econ victory is the easiest one definitely, I always disable it.
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Feb 13, 2021 00:15
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Mjolnerd posted:I wonder if that's because Vodyani snowball so hard that its easier to just win than complete the quest. And from memory, the Vodyani quest has some weird stuff in it- blowing up planets or something?- which makes it trickier to accidentally trigger in the course of building up your empire.
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Feb 13, 2021 05:10
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Tree Bucket posted:And from memory, the Vodyani quest has some weird stuff in it- blowing up planets or something?- which makes it trickier to accidentally trigger in the course of building up your empire. Yeah, you have to so far out of your way to complete their quest that I'm usually sick of it by then and just win.
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Feb 13, 2021 05:30
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Time for my annual ES2 binge. Tell me your most rad and/or hilariously broken custom factions!
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Feb 18, 2021 05:39
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Ship Builders/Extreme Foremen/Ecologist/Republic is extravagantly broken: back before Amplitude patched science victories to be harder, I used that combo to get one very early (perhaps turn 47?). There's no need to worry about depletion points if you only deplete a single planet before you win the game.
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Feb 18, 2021 17:22
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Tree Bucket posted:Time for my annual ES2 binge. I'm currently on the same binge, but I've yet to attempt any custom factions, I'm just going through at least once with each race and trying to actually finish each playthrough. Supremacy victory as vaulters was my last and it's just so much fun... your Capitol is now mine, and now it has a teleporter and everything is connected.
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Feb 18, 2021 20:22
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Y'all talking about your annual binge while I'm over here, happy to have finished my first full game. I did the tutorial as the human empire, but made a bunch of mistakes and didn't like where it was going. Started a new game, this one as a random empire. Got Umbral Choir. That was...different. Got me a Wonder victory on turn 170 though. The AI never really felt like it had a chance in the back half of the game. Also I probably could have shaved off 30-40 turns if I knew what I was doing starting out.
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Feb 18, 2021 21:17
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ConfusedUs posted:Y'all talking about your annual binge while I'm over here, happy to have finished my first full game. United Empire are a great first playthrough and even more fun to go back to after you're tried everyone else. They are just a great faction. I strongly recommend turning the last 3 expansions off and only turning them on if you want to play as the faction introduced in that DLC. (Hissho, Umbral Choir and Nakalim) Vaulters are great and the expansion mechanics integrate well. Behemoth, Hacking and the Academy are all very polarizing additional mechanics.
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Feb 19, 2021 21:54
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The Academy are jerks in the fiction and the expansion really drills down into what pesky jerks these dust addicts are.
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Feb 19, 2021 22:09
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Hacking seemed more like a chore to me than something fun. Behemoths were cool! Giant ships that do poo poo? Sign me up! I had like six of them plus a citadel.
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Feb 19, 2021 22:20
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ConfusedUs posted:Hacking seemed more like a chore to me than something fun. I wish I could keep stealth ships but remove hacking. Behemoths are cool, but I feel like its too similar to just giving everyone Arks.. and there is too much shared space between military behemoths and Carriers especially once you unlock juggernauts and obliterators. Even with the ESG mod that tones down the academy, I still don't like the Academy mechanic... but, these things can be enabled and disabled for a reason, everyone can play how they like!
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Feb 23, 2021 18:45
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Hello bookmark crew. The Endless Space 2 ost is kicken rad. A banger for the ages. The theme song and a bunch of tracks at the end have the production shots showing the instruments and choir. It's so good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP9n1CANQO0
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Mar 10, 2021 05:44
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Picked up ES2 from the humble monthly in March and just started playing it last night. I've played many space 4x games over the years including stellaris but there's something I can't figure out with respect to luxury goods and strategic resources: I've discovered planets with this stuff and I got loot from exploring. But, how do I actually start getting x resources per turn? In stellaris, I would send constructor ship over to build an outpost. That doesn't seem to be a thing here and the tutorial doesn't give me any additional information aside from congratulating me from finding a resource. The UI is pretty slick in this game though. If only this could be combined with stellaris. I really, really enjoyed the early and mid game in stellaris...
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Mar 28, 2021 22:37
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Vasler posted:Picked up ES2 from the humble monthly in March and just started playing it last night. You'll need to colonize the system and have the tech for extracting the resource, if I recall correctly.
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Mar 28, 2021 23:41
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Rhjamiz posted:You'll need to colonize the system and have the tech for extracting the resource, if I recall correctly. Yeah, and it's down to the planet. For strategics, if you have a colony but not the tech, it'll be grey. Luxuries will be collected if they've been discovered so you can ride others' coat tails if they spent the probe.
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Mar 29, 2021 00:31
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Vasler posted:Picked up ES2 from the humble monthly in March and just started playing it last night. Ok resources are a thing. Industrial extraction techs are on the rights side of the tree, the luxury extraction is on the left maybe. Before extraction tech they still provide FIDS bonuses. You gotta find a menu somewhere in your government to turn them on as boosters. But are also used to level up your cities. But are also just dust cash money on the market. Early game is where ES2 really shines. It is really rewarding to optimize and refine build orders, but the flow of this game doesn't require optimization, just participation... If that makes sense.
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Mar 29, 2021 00:36
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Bottom tech tree (science&exploration) has the unlocks for luxuries. You first have to be able to see them, which is done via common/uncommon/rare anomaly visibility and exploration [probes]. The techs are spread out; sometimes they're on the general sci-tech-teir unlock thing, other times they need particular techs. The right-handed tech tree (industry) has a similar but simpler thing for strategic resources. As mentioned above, you need to both own the system and have colonized the particular planet they're on and then extraction starts automatically. There are the occasional optional building that boosts output, fwiw. Advanced warning: You will run afoul of manpower issues the first time you go fighting, go look it up.
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Mar 29, 2021 01:37
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I've been playing some more and I have a few questions I'm having difficulties answering: 1. I saw in a tutorial message that when my empire expands over a certain point, people will be mad. Is the limit on planets colonized or on systems colonized? Where can I find what my limit on either is? 2. How the hell do I get rid of Cravers when I take over one of their systems? I stuck all the cravers on a planet and just figured I'd eat the cost of a depleted planet. I've also eaten the influence cost by razing some of their (former) systems. Is there a better way? 3. How is score calculated? I'm playing on easy, and somehow the Cravers, who I took like 7 systems from, haven't suffered much in score (and I haven't gained much). Okay so I have more questions (I guess more than a few): 4. Is the general strategy in this game like every other 4x game? Constantly churn out military, develop an unprecedented build up and blob towards a hapless victim, take over everything, brief peacetime, buildup, rinse repeat? 5. Is diplomacy useful at all? Everyone seems mad at me (Cravers and some wandering nomads so far) and the one group that's friendly to me (they keep sending me messages like, "who's awesome? You're awesome!") refuses every single trade deal I propose. 6. What DLCs are good to pick up?
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Mar 31, 2021 02:42
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1. It's on your.. empire view (?) I think it's called. Top left corner of the main screen. Federation empire type can vastly expand this, if you're wanting to blob. 2. The game doesn't really allow for getting rid of your own pops apart from Horatio assimilation. After shuttling the Cravers them off to some corner, you could abandon the system and reclaim it once razed? There also a fiddly trick of keeping them stuck in shuttles trying to relocated onto full planets, but I'd avoid that. 3. No idea. Score's not relevant in any way. 4. Yup. Feel free to not go all murder if you don't want (or need) to, as the tech to wage war come with real opportunity costs. Be aware that the AI is terrible at total-war scenarios, it's the game's weakest point by far. 5. Waging war gets you yelled at, having allies means you don't have to blob as far to get your victory screen (and they draw some heat off of malcontents like Cravers) 6. DLCs are super optional, and the latter ones are unpopular. The small ones are all good fluff, the big ones that bring new factions can be hit-or miss. Vaulters are good, Supremacy and Penumbra mixed bag (fun races, broken mechanics), Awakening I don't own but everyone yells about.
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Mar 31, 2021 03:00
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On that note, if anyone has solutions for Craver removal, I'd love to hear them. My go-to option is "don't have Cravers in your game" which isn't ideal.
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Mar 31, 2021 03:22
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Just let them eat a few planets in some worthless system. If they try to grow, you can encourage other species to grow instead and every time cravers get selected on that system you just mash the 'eat pop for manpower' button, so they never grow past the planets you have. Or just shuttle more pops into that system so it's full and can't grow new ones. All workarounds, none great, but it can sorta be done.
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Mar 31, 2021 12:39
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Serephina posted:1. It's on your.. empire view (?) I think it's called. Top left corner of the main screen. Federation empire type can vastly expand this, if you're wanting to blob. Thanks for the help! It seems really strange to play a 4x game and not have my war machine constantly cranking out ships. I ended up finding the system cap, thank you! Apparently I'm at 10/11 and I've found a system with adamantium so that's good. I'm a bit unclear on what to do for teching up. I know that each tech costs more than the last and you can't get every one of them. I'm playing the imperials now but in general it seems like most of the science ones are super important (to get techs faster/mobility/terraforming) followed by a split between economy and empire but idk. Manpower as a mechanic makes little sense, despite the efforts of the tutorial. Sometimes its positive, sometimes its negative. I didn't know you can eat pops for manpower - is that a tech somewhere? And..how do you do that?
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Mar 31, 2021 14:32
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Vasler posted:Manpower as a mechanic makes little sense, despite the efforts of the tutorial. Sometimes its positive, sometimes its negative. I didn't know you can eat pops for manpower - is that a tech somewhere? And..how do you do that? Manpower's poorly explained, despite being fairly straightforward. A percentage slice of your food is taken off to fill up your global manpower pool, until it's filled. Manpower is gobbled up by building ships, where's its main use is to be dropped as landing armies. If you get "insufficient manpower" warnings, don't panic as the naval ships only get a tiny debuff (100% vs 120% dmg) when empty. Your starting manpower pool is very shallow and will get depleted the second you start making ships, its depth is increased with military (or ship) techs, same with getting better %food-cuts-to-manpower from similar techs. The "eat a dude for manpower" thing is a tier1 military tech, the left one iirc. Without buying any techs, you'll butt your head into never winning a ground invasion as the defender can reinforce faster than you kill the defenders off (you'll see, trust me). Mid level techs allow for carrying and dumping huge amounts of dudes at once, or alternatively sieging the defenders to 0 first. There's a button hidden in the ship designer screen that lets you customize your land dudes. It's not really complex, they just don't tell you any of that poo poo for some reason.
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Mar 31, 2021 15:01
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The colonization cap is a soft cap - going over it applies a happiness penalty. You can go over if you have ways to make up for that, or just tolerate lower happiness until you get revolts I'm not you're dad. I find it less acute than in EL but basically: you decide what techs you don't need and just live with that. The obvious ones are that some military techs are exclusionary to each other, and colonization techs for planets you have little opportunity to use (i.e. a low percentage of the planets you have access to). There are some techs that are more obviously important than others - the first two econ techs are incredibly powerful, and the empire tech that gives you access to the first two dedicated warship chassis is effectively a slam-pick. Science improvements are not strictly the best thing - a lot of techs unlock buildings, and if you don't have the industry to build what you researched you basically didn't research it, and it is fairly common to be more bottlenecked by industry/dust than by science. A lot of it comes down to the strategy you're doing and the situation on the ground, as it were. Though basic rule is that the higher up you go the tech tree, the more situational the techs become. The convert pops into manpower tech is N-Way Fusion, a T1 military tech. The thing you build is "Chain Gang Program." 1 pop = 300 manpower. It's good, I very rarely if ever skip it. Usually when you have negative manpower growth that's because a bunch of people are hoppin aboard a ship in port - either a new ship or a ship that was at <100% manpower due to combat or something.
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Mar 31, 2021 15:02
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Thanks for the explanations! The game kept recommending me to research the N-way fusion but I never did because I couldn't figure out why I'd want it. Guess I have a goal now. Thanks!
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Mar 31, 2021 18:51
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I was hoping all these new posts were somethin to do with Humankind. I think the more I've played ES2, the less I like it. The braindead AI is just too much of a downer. Also I'm gettin real sick of seeing the same few random events/questchains every single game.
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Mar 31, 2021 20:39
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Yeah, lack of narrative events quickly reveals ES2 as a competitive board game first and foremost... And then it turns out the game is easy on max difficulty. On a more positive news, EL gets some changes from fan patches integrated into a main game. Expect better AI.
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Mar 31, 2021 20:45
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Vasler posted:5. Is diplomacy useful at all? Everyone seems mad at me (Cravers and some wandering nomads so far) and the one group that's friendly to me (they keep sending me messages like, "who's awesome? You're awesome!") refuses every single trade deal I propose. There isn't like any particular reason to go for diplomacy unless you want to, but it's honestly pretty easy to get like 75% of the galaxy on your side, to the point where you are getting invited into competing alliances all the time. Just give the AI deals that are heavily unbalanced in their favor (like, peace but also we're giving you a ton of titanium) and they will accept. And after they accept, they love you more and more for each turn that you have an agreement with them, so the love starts snowballing. This is especially easy with Pacifist factions because you can spend influence to force a peace and even though they'll complain, being at peace still makes them love you over time. That said, the remaining 25% of the galaxy will probably consider you a rival and declare war on you eventually. Ideally you will be in an alliance with everyone else by then though.
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Apr 1, 2021 11:12
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Eschatos posted:I was hoping all these new posts were somethin to do with Humankind. I think the more I've played ES2, the less I like it. The braindead AI is just too much of a downer. Also I'm gettin real sick of seeing the same few random events/questchains every single game. Last piece of news about Humankind is the release date is now August. I'm kind of of two minds about it. On the one hand, every thing I learn about the game just fills me with dread and disgust, it's like staring into an abyss. On the other, I like most of Amplitude's stuff quite a lot and I doubt they could really recover from a major release bombing completely, so a failure here could end the studio (unless Endless Dungeon is a wild success). I prefer to not think too much about it.
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Apr 1, 2021 13:48
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