So far, this is shaping up to be a more-than-worthy successor to EL1. I've had a fantasy 4X hole in my heart that Age of Wonders' more combat-centric gameplay wasn't able to fill. I am loving the empire development gameplay in EL2. A few notes after playing 100 turns...



Places where improvement is needed:


1. Not super clear what anomalies are, which makes choosing a settlement location tricky. More information in the tile yield tooltip would be appreciated. Being unable to build on certain tiles without knowing why feels bad. 


2. Some missing ?/[item_name] tags made completing quests difficult, especially when I didn't know what build conditions the quest needed me to fulfil. I'm sure this will get ironed out before release, but I still think it is an area deserving of special attention. 


3. A way to look at a list of all available buildings without having to select the tile improvements menu or dig through the research menu would be useful. I was playing Last Lords, and at one point I was tasked with building a Soul Repository, but had no way of knowing what that was, or how to unlock the improvement. 


4. Some quests would pop up asking me to build things I'd already built. In the future, I am hopeful that quests will acknowledge prior builds before issuing new orders. 


5. It could've been a bug, but I couldn't seem to back out of any of the tower sieges I engaged in. Even if, after entering the siege menu, I realized I was woefully outnumbered, I had no choice but to proceed with the siege and watch my units be slaughtered.


 6. Yield icon readability is an issue. Especially for the production and Influence icons, some of the ground textures make them hard to read. 



Things I really enjoyed:


1. The camp mechanic. This feels like an extension of the towns from Humankind, or Civ 7. I like being able to claim a resource, even if I don't have the tech to start using it yet. 


2. The faction design is second to none. I had high expectations, considering the previous creativity displayed in the other Endless games, but man, these are some really neat factions so far. 


3. The audiovisual component is an absolute treat. The music hits all the right notes—eerie and mysterious, bold and adventurous, tense and fearful—and the UI feels like a natural evolution from EL1. I know a lot of people lauded it for its simplicity, but to me, EL1's UI felt lacking in personality in a lot of ways. The UI here takes that readability and ease of informational access, and dresses it up in a simple, elegant package that feels unique and timeless. 



So far, I think EL2 is off to a great start. Frankly, I'm surprised just how far along the game actually is. A few bugs, and the limited faction roster aside, this feels almost like a launched product. Can't wait to put way too many hours into this!