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Both Stellaris and Humankind give you millions of combinations. But you only care if they're aggressive or not and if they're stronger than you or not. Stellaris has (mostly DLC-gated) exceptions like maybe you care if someone is a mega corporation but that's still it. If I break into your house and set up a mod that turns of random species generator and instead chooses on of 10 pre-mades with random name and skin you won't notice for hundreds of hours. With Humankind I find it that you care much more about ruler personality and their geography (or rather which resources can they sell you) but the whole idea of a million combinations of cultures is moot because even the game UI doesn't care about these combinations.
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Jan 21, 2023 08:56
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ED is up for preorder and the final opendev is open.
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Jan 23, 2023 07:39
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For anyone who's played the ED opendev. What're your thoughts on "the doors". Hearing mixed things about it. I've put about 16 hours into it and I'm finding the pacing to be just right. Not missing the turn based nature of the original at all. I'm surprised tbh. I've gone blind over the last couple of years so I tend to prefer slower paced games.
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Jan 24, 2023 00:54
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I'd be happy to ignore the Dungeon of the Endless remake, except they updated all the steam mini-icons and now EL is all ugly and stuff  Anyways, has anyone gone to the effort of making an ELCP type thing for Endless Space 2? I fired up a game recently and was reminded why ES2 never had any legs; at some point you build a big ship, and even endless AIs are baffled by your impossible fleet of... a single medium cruiser. Sigh. A rework would do wonders, as it's been shown that EL can have real teeth if the opponents actually build good armies.
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Apr 14, 2023 23:54
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I've like to know that myself. There is Enhanced Space but it has red flags like proudly stating it has a lot of new content which is not something you expect from a balancing patch. Also EL vanilla never was as bad as ES2 - AI might have it's issues but on higher difficulty level it will throw huge armies at you and will advance on peaceful victories fast enough. ES2 AI is just impotent and I'm not sure patches can do anything with it
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Apr 15, 2023 07:40
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Endless Dungeon is out on Advanced Access and the regular launch comes out in about 32hrs or so. Did anyone else get this?
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Oct 17, 2023 21:55
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Flipswitch posted:Endless Dungeon is out on Advanced Access and the regular launch comes out in about 32hrs or so. Did anyone else get this? Came in here to ask. IGN liked it. I'm deffo gonna pick up but getting my friend group interested might be a hard sell, 30 buckos is actually a lot when the main thing these days is 'hey this thing is free on game pass / epic let's try it'... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9KlWrWioWc Hoping some streamers give it a shot. Thread title change time? NmareBfly fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Oct 18, 2023 |
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Oct 18, 2023 17:52
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I've played it for a few hours today and it's quite fun, my only real nitpick is the weapon sound effects are absolutely weak but I think it's because my comparison is Synthetik 2 which is bonkers loud. Otherwise it's very fun!
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Oct 18, 2023 17:58
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I played the endless dungeon beta and did multiplayer with two friends, which made it hard mode, which I don't recommend to start with. I'm playing it single player now, it's easier with my knowledge from the beta. I'm enjoying it! It seems about the same now as the beta, with more characters available and more areas. I played it for about ten hours during the beta period and "beat" it, the last few levels weren't implemented and one of about three paths weren't available. Endless dungeon and dungeon of the endless are the only good endless games imo.
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Oct 20, 2023 04:28
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redreader posted:I played the endless dungeon beta and did multiplayer with two friends, which made it hard mode, which I don't recommend to start with. I'm playing it single player now, it's easier with my knowledge from the beta. I like endless space 1 and 2 but it is insanely hosed up there is some merit to your statement in that the dungeon games are the only games in the endless universe I would call wholly good and not just carried by amplitude's legitimately outstanding skill at aesthetics
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Oct 20, 2023 07:02
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redreader posted:I played the endless dungeon beta and did multiplayer with two friends, which made it hard mode, which I don't recommend to start with. I'm playing it single player now, it's easier with my knowledge from the beta. I was going to pick it up for the Co-Op, but the absolutely bone-headed decision that the host only gets to progress killed all desire to buy it.
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Oct 20, 2023 07:10
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Raged posted:I was going to pick it up for the Co-Op, but the absolutely bone-headed decision that the host only gets to progress killed all desire to buy it. Is that true? A quick Google seems to indicate most everything is shared in coop.
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Oct 20, 2023 07:38
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What genre even is it?
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Oct 20, 2023 07:46
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It isn't. Progress is shared but based off the host's unlocks. Other members take progress back with them. Clarste posted:What genre even is it? Tower defence roguelike escort mission. Flipswitch fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Oct 20, 2023 |
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Oct 20, 2023 07:47
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Playing co-op a bunch, basically the only unlocks that are co-op unfriendly for unlocks are some achievements, heroes(which are host only, though other players get the district keys to access the areas that can unlock those heroes so you kind of make progress?) and some hero quests don't play nicely(Shroom has a quest where you need to beat an area with Zed in your party, but having one player playing Shroom and one playing Zed doesn't count apparently).Clarste posted:What genre even is it? Twin stick style shooter with some tower defense and roguelite mechanics. Your goal is to defend a little robot while exploring floors to find resources and eventually the exit of each floor, at which point you escort the robot to the exit and move on to the next floor. There's a fair amount of thought that goes into how and where to spend resources on turrets, what order to open rooms in, what turrets/support buildings to upgrade, what weapons to buy for your dudes, etc. Kanos fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Oct 20, 2023 |
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Oct 20, 2023 07:58
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The Zed/Shroom quest seems to be bugged as the first time I tried it, it didn't fire but it did the second time in coop.
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Oct 20, 2023 08:04
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toasterwarrior posted:I like endless space 1 and 2 but it is insanely hosed up there is some merit to your statement in that the dungeon games are the only games in the endless universe I would call wholly good and not just carried by amplitude's legitimately outstanding skill at aesthetics Very true. DotE still has a lot of amateur stuff IIRC, like the humour is hit-or-miss and there's too much of it. Like Normal and Hard difficulties are renamed as Too Easy and Easy. Also there's Team Fortress 2 crew in there for some reason. But other Endless games (and even Humankind) are technically strategy games but really more of an experience rather than a strategy game, they're unbalanced in a fun way. ilitarist fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Oct 20, 2023 |
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Oct 20, 2023 08:26
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My take on Endless Dungeon after ~7 hours: It's Dungeon of the Endless, except this time you directly control your characters. Like, under the hood, that is the only change to the minute to minute gameplay. While it's cool how that enables this to be a co-op game, I don't think it's a particularly beneficial change from a gameplay perspective. It's not actively harmful to the game, but it feels pretty unengaging for two main reasons 1) Most of the time, you're just standing in one spot holding down the shoot button anyway, occasionally moving around to punch towers to repair them. 2) To interact with points of interest like build spots, shops, doors, etc. you now have to manually move your character over to them, instead of just clicking. Sometimes you need to run back across the entire dungeon to upgrade a turret at the start, for example. Those don't make it bad and the game is still about as fun as Dungeon of the Endless was, but playing it solo feels like Dungeon of the Endless with extra steps. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Oct 20, 2023 |
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Oct 20, 2023 08:37
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The existence of hero skills and ultimates means that character placement is honestly even more important than DotE.
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Oct 20, 2023 09:43
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it's a twin stick shooter, and if you expect that to mean it's helldivers, you'll be disappointed. The game is also very tactical: you have to place both of your people correctly before each wave. I like that the AI is not very likely to die before you: it's happened once or twice but generally since I'm playing the one character who's doing all of the opening and leaving the AI character at a choke point, I'm taking more of the risks myself. You need to be keeping an eye on the wave timer, when it says danger with high spikes you need to figure out what you need to protect: your crystal bot at all times, but until the end of the level you also need to protect your generators. So you need to decide where everyone goes and make sure they're in the right place for each wave, and THEN yes sometimes you just hold down shoot but other times you need to be doing stuff like escorting the bot as it goes from one spot to another. All that to say that shooting is some of the gameplay but not all! I've opened up most of the areas at this point and not managed to get to the core. one time I think I could have gone but I tried getting a bot upgrade instead and died in that wave. I've managed to get (I think?) 2 of the 'core decryption keys' or something, but I'm not really sure what that's all about. It should be easy once I've earned a bunch of gun and character upgrades, my crystal bot is maxed out now with some of the best available upgrades, and my 2 mains zed and bunker are both on 2 or 3 chips too. I just need to upgrade a bunch of guns, not there yet.
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Oct 20, 2023 18:54
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Double post: anyone who wants to play on steam this evening, add me and send a steam message too. https://steamcommunity.com/id/qqqaaazzz/
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Oct 20, 2023 21:31
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I got to the Core once and there were some rude penalties down there. I'm having fun but I'm also afraid to go anywhere without Shrooms for healing I don't have to buy with food.
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Oct 21, 2023 13:15
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I got to the core today and on that run undid the final core security measure (-4 industry power door) for next time. Who are your top heroes? I liked bunker in the beta but now I don't: low support, low attack, high toughness? I want to be able to kill monsters, not survive their hits. On the other hand, the bunker super ability could have been very helpful many times: attracts all monsters and becomes invulnerable? Use that then switch to another character as a last ditch measure. Zed is top tier, I'm also enjoying the turret guy and the cleaner. I have a hard time remembering to use the special abilities. For the turret guy, at one point the turrets he deployed were destroyed and they didn't repair at the end of the wave, does anyone know what's up with that? Turret guy can repair generators by hitting them, nobody else can so that makes him great. The best thing to do with your chips at the start is to use them on the crystal bot, buy the cheapest chips for your guys (stick to Zed and another character at the start until you've unlocked all three chips for both), then concentrate on the weapons and remember which ones you've upgraded and use those. Upgrade the default weapons for the characters that you use first, the elemental weapons aren't always better. Keep your default weapon on you too because the best weapons are upgraded ones, and the default weapon has no element type so will work equally well on all monsters, so since it's upgraded it will work very well, and equally on all monster types. I'm loving this, it's a top game for me this year.
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Oct 21, 2023 22:46
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The AI in this game is frustratingly bad  First is the way it chooses which weapon to use. If it has a gun that provides an elemental advantage against one of the spawning enemies, it will exclusively use that gun even if it's a terrible weapon for the situation. They'll use e.g. a short-ranged fire weapon against a wave that has one bug spawner and 4 bot spawners. So I've been finding it most effective to make sure their default neutral weapons are the only thing they're holding because they're the only guns that they can't make a poor decision with. Then there's the actual combat AI where they run up until they're close enough to hit an enemy, then they stand in one spot fighting the rest, or pushing further forward. This is particularly pronounced when they use a short-ranged weapon like the Campfire. They'll run up to meet the very first enemy that shows up, then after killing it they will stand there getting annihilated by all of the remaining enemies while making no attempt to back off. This is a weapon where you want the enemies to come to you, not to rush headfirst into them. Again, not so bad if you never equip alternate weapons on them, but if you do, make sure they're not short range. Okay then there's the way they use charge weapons. They seem to always aim at the closest enemy, so if they're using a charged weapon with a slow fire rate they'll waste all of their shots on single individual weak enemies while the rest of the wave overwhelms them. And again, okay - just never pick up new weapons on them. But then you run into things like how they don't actually stay where you tell them to when you tell them to hold their position. They don't even stay in the room you tell them to. So okay the most efficient way to play this game is to have enemies run through your turrets first so that your turrets gain as much experience as possible and then use your heroes as a backup to kill anything that makes it past the turrets. Except you can't do that with the AI here because as soon as enemies start spawning they will run two rooms over and start pushing against the enemy wave, ensuring that they get every kill and your turrets don't get a chance to fire, so they never gain experience. e.g. this screenshot where as soon as a wave starts, those two AI companions run along the yellow lines, past the turrets:  Plus things like how they never repair or upgrade turrets, having no way to tell them to follow the crystal bot or ask them to hold their fire or switch weapons, etc  It didn't bother me too much at first but by the time you start hitting the core they become pretty goddamn useless. Actually, not just useless - they're actively detrimental to you by depriving your turrets of experience. The game itself is still pretty cool but I think I'll need to play co-op to keep having fun with it. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Oct 21, 2023 |
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Oct 21, 2023 22:52
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redreader posted:I got to the core today and on that run undid the final core security measure (-4 industry power door) for next time. Who are your top heroes? I liked bunker in the beta but now I don't: low support, low attack, high toughness? I want to be able to kill monsters, not survive their hits. On the other hand, the bunker super ability could have been very helpful many times: attracts all monsters and becomes invulnerable? Use that then switch to another character as a last ditch measure. Based on about 15 hours of play and several normal difficulty clears, my experience so far is: Top Tier:
Mid Tier:
Needs a Rework Tier:
Kanos fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Oct 22, 2023 |
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Oct 22, 2023 01:18
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Agreed on the last two, but I rate Blaze higher. I feel like heroes had much stronger identities in DOTE. I actually really miss melee.
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Oct 22, 2023 12:18
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Blaze definitely isn't bad, but if I were just trying to win, I struggle to figure out why I would ever take him instead of Zed. They're both utility-free murder engines, but Blaze needs good elemental weapons to really start doing work, and unfortunately for him I think the fire big guns are the worst elemental big guns there are. DotE did have a much better sense of hero identity. The skills in that game felt extremely powerful when leveled and leveraged, and the combat power difference between a level 1 hero and a level 8 hero was astronomical. One of ED's biggest weaknesses is that the in-run progression feels so shallow. The only big, impactful upgrades are finding a good gun or a couple of very specific chips. A lot of the level up choices are forgettable poo poo like +10% defense, and the bonuses per level on a several of the heroes are set to worthless crap like shove distance. Kanos fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Oct 22, 2023 |
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Oct 22, 2023 12:25
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Yeah - the devs are being very receptive to feedback in the discord an for the record I am actually really enjoying the game, but the heroes themselves feel very one note which is kind of disappointing. The game also works way better co-op than solo.
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Oct 22, 2023 20:53
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I figured out after dying in the core once or twice that the main thing that really matters is offensive power. To that end I pick all of the +science/food crystal bot upgrades, and any time a hero gets the insane level up option of something like: "+10% attack and defense to all heroes and crystal bot" (not sure exactly what it is, but something similar), I pick that. I also pick any hero skill that's +attack or rate of fire, especially for the heroes who are supposed to be doing damage. I also try to get the long distance light turret, and the acid sniper turret fully levelled or at least to l2. That way any time there's a slot that's out of range, I just put one of those in. I found out that in the beta, having 2 characters was 'normal mode' and 3 was 'hard mode' so I didn't want to use 3 characters. I was getting to the core with 2. When I unlocked the 3rd slot and decided to just go with it, I noticed that they'd ditched that difficulty bump and it seems to be just as hard/easy with 3 characters, except now you have an extra guy. I got to the core with 340 industry and just put turrets EVERYWHERE (on normal). The only 'disadvantage' of 3 characters is that you have to split the food among them. Here's what I did to get that much: 1: if you have the turret guy (comrade?), the first room you find with monsters, stick his turrets down and leave him there. only move him if you have to 2: always choose industry first. In the first map I choose industry and something else. all other maps after that one I choose industry, then industry, then some other generator. 3: for the first floor, just use 2 turrets per spawner. Have someone in the room with the crystal bot or at least a turret next to the bot. 4: comrade can heal any generators that get damaged so you need to be ok with generators getting damaged! you also need to worry about them less as the floor goes on: if a generator gets destroyed when 15 doors are left to open, you lost 4x15 of the resource. if it is destroyed when there are no doors left, who cares! 5: if there are two monster spawners far from any generators or crystal bot, put the turrets down in a chokepoint where they can be used against both hordes, and definitely put a support hero there. I didn't even play optimally. I'm sure it's possible to get to the core with 500 or so industry on normal. I will say 350 is probably overkill, I entered the final room and put turrets everywhere, and had about 150 industry left. redreader fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Oct 22, 2023 |
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Oct 22, 2023 21:09
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Is there a true ending or anything like that?
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Oct 26, 2023 17:40
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I don't have the game, is the dungeon located anywhere we know?
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Oct 26, 2023 17:52
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Torrannor posted:I don't have the game, is the dungeon located anywhere we know? No. It's a new location made for the game with plot attached. I haven't gone back to the game after finishing it but I did play 15 hours on beta and about 15 more on release, so I liked it.
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Nov 4, 2023 15:52
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I unlocked all the chip slots for the heroes, got a bunch of clears, and have put it down until they put more meat on the bones. I think my final verdict for now is that it's a pretty fun game for a couple dozen hours, but it's kind of a mile wide and an inch deep in its current form. I think DotE is the better game at this juncture, but ED isn't awful or anything.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:08
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Yeah I'm very much in the same line of thoughts.
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Nov 4, 2023 17:03
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So with the latest Beta patch for ES2, I decided to fire up a game to fool around with properly mixed fleet compositions. Targeting modules etc now have engines bolted onto them for free, so it makes good sense, at least on paper. Anyways, near the end of the game when I was mopping up with comically overkill fleets, I got a dud where the fleet didn't kill something 1/50th its warscore, and not due to being countered or anything; the beam modules with an ostensible 90% hit rate missed most of their shots. Puzzled, I looked at the replay and got a good chuckle: https://imgur.com/a/Bxl38mx  Basically, they all kept focus firing the same teensy single-CP ship, and beams fire infrequently in large damage bursts; hence huge overkill. Fair enough! The surprise came at the end of the fight: during phase3, the bottom enemy flotilla had waddled behind my dudes, and where totally outside of the firing arcs, making them invulnerable. Cheeky little sods! I swear to god ES2 has such an amazing in-depth naval combat system, and it's totally wasted with the weak computer players and aggressive obfuscation
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Jan 4, 2024 14:10
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Serephina posted:I swear to god ES2 has such an amazing in-depth naval combat system, and it's totally wasted with the weak computer players and aggressive obfuscation It was similar in Endless Legend: units had more stats and traits than you expect from a decent wargame as well as a WEGO system, but you never cared because in the late-game you just gave dust weapons to your dudes and outswarmed the enemy. ES2 is worse in that regard because you're probably the first person I saw making sense out of replay. Humankind combat is made very simple but it is also very clear, you can see strategic considerations like army composition and geography influencing the outcome, and AI shows some competence. The game deserves praise for being a rare 4X with tactical combat done right.
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Jan 4, 2024 14:35
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I just wish Humankind wasn't just... a slightly weaker Civ-like. Give me Endless Legend with Humankind's combat. Make EL2, drat you fuckers Serephina posted:So with the latest Beta patch for ES2, I decided to fire up a game to fool around with properly mixed fleet compositions. Targeting modules etc now have engines bolted onto them for free, so it makes good sense, at least on paper. Yeah I wish I had human opponents to go against more often, it's a shame these games are such a time investment (and niche besides)
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Jan 5, 2024 00:32
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Rhjamiz posted:I just wish Humankind wasn't just... a slightly weaker Civ-like. Give me Endless Legend with Humankind's combat. I could go on about how it's good, actually - mechanically. Great visuals and sound are given for Amplitude. AI right now is very good, especially after a poor aftertaste of ES2. But it's all moot cause it doesn't grab people for one reason or another. Culture switching and deliberate anti-Great People narrative are probably more repulsive than the devs expected. Plus if you want to play a historical 4X nowadays there's Old World. Plenty of people would argue it's the best empire-building game ever, but few will do so for Humankind.
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Jan 5, 2024 10:06
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What do you mean by anti great people narrative?
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Jan 5, 2024 10:12
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In short, it de-personalizes history. Player characters are the only named persons in the game and they're there to give some consistent face to AIs, they're not "real" historical people like the ones in Civ. There's also a narrator who is also not an in-world character, he's your buddy watching you play and wisecracking about it. Compare it to Civ more: even in the first game you had advisors pop up all the time, and there was civilopedia talking about people. Later Civ games got literal Great People like prophets and generals, quotes from historical people, and governors. And Civ is not the wildest in this regard, Paradox games and Old World are all about the actions of individuals. This looks like a very deliberate approach to me, nothing in the game is about any person, there are only other players who mirror you in not being a part of this world. The game has a unique feel because of it, but there are also few things for your mind to cling to, no names to remember, and there's no human touch in there, it's all about speaking unto nations.
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Jan 5, 2024 10:44
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