Hello everyone,
Welcome back to our Dev Diaries.
Last time we told you about cities and how to manage your whole empire, but this week it is time to get our hands dirty and face our enemies on the field of battle. Let’s talk about combat in ENDLESS™ Legend 2, and how it has changed from our previous games.
Preparing for Battle
In Endless Legend 2, you move your units across the map grouped into armies to explore and perform various actions like claiming territory. If you encounter an enemy army and come to blows with it, a small section of the map is marked as the battlefield. Any other of your armies in that area can join the battle as reinforcements, but only one of them. The units in these two armies are then placed individually within the deployment zones marked for each side of the battle.
Taking Charge
Once the battle properly begins, players take turns commanding their armies. Starting with the attacker, each player acts with all of their units in any order before handing control over to the other player, and a battle can have up to 8 of these rounds before it ends, all contained within a single game turn.
Positioning your units carefully is often crucial in battle, as the terrain will affect them, such as forest providing cover and high ground improving your attacks. Once the enemy closes rank with you, however, repositioning can become quite dangerous, as moving away from enemies will trigger attacks of opportunity. Choose your engagements wisely!
Tools of the (Deadly) Trade
Picking the right position and target for each unit becomes even more important when you take the various unit abilities into account.
Every Major Faction has a battle affinity that grants their units a special effect in combat. For example, the Kin of Sheredyn gain a shield that absorbs damage for standing in tight formation, whereas units in Aspect armies grant a damage bonus to their allies when they defend.
All units also have abilities that can affect them positively or negatively in combat. Some of these are granted by their unit type, such as infantry units gaining better defense in formation or ranged units taking a damage penalty when engaged in melee. Other abilities are specific to each unit, such as the Aspect Sentries being particularly deadly if they hold position whereas the Kin Archers are better at attacking enemies engaged in melee. Most units will also gain new abilities or improve their existing ones as you upgrade them.
Your heroes are perhaps the most deadly and versatile combatants on the field, as they can gain powerful active abilities by spending skill points or equipping certain gear. Whether they are attacks that hit multiple enemies or apply penalties to them, or skills that grant healing, shields, or other bonuses to their allies, these active abilities can have a massive impact on the battle in a single round.
Building an Endless Legacy
Long time Amplitude fans will know that in Endless Legend 1 we tried a rather unusual system for our combat: After a section of the map was marked as the battlefield, you would give all your orders at once at the start of the turn, then your units would try to carry them out in initiative order, automatically picking new orders if the ones you had given were impossible.
This was meant to help maintain a balance between the time spent fighting battles and the time spent managing your empire. In practice, the system was difficult to understand and master, and often frustrating for our players when their units made bad decisions and got themselves killed. Many players did not find the system quick, either, as they took time to carefully consider how the AI-controlled units might act if their plans went wrong.
So, in Humankind we gave players direct control of their units. While some players missed aspects of the Endless Legend combat system, many others saw this as a move in the right direction. A lot of players really enjoyed the battles in Humankind, and for some it was even their favorite part of the game.
With Endless Legend 2’s combat, we want to evolve this system further and push it into a more fantasy-themed direction. Almost every unit has special abilities that define how you use it in combat, and your heroes can intervene much more actively in your battles than merely attacking with their weapon.
We hope you like the direction we are taking for the combat in Endless Legend 2. Let us know what you think in the comments, and stay tuned for a look at the Necrophages soon!
📡 INSIDERS PROGRAM 📡
We are including more and more people from the community to get early feedback and improve the game based on your feedback. If it is something you're interested in, please sign up for the program (you will require an Amplifier's account + Steam Link).
