Hello.



I played several games and here is the observations and proposition I make :





- Vaulters are the strongest faction because they can instant teleport units from city to city, even a new conquered city. A vaulter player can be at war in a zone and don't fear any attack from anywhere...



- Nearly no strong player tend to play necrophages. They are the weakest faction it seems. I don't really know why. Maybe they have not enough special feature, or buff.



- Proliferator tend to useless in multiplayer, because they got very slow health and can be killed easily. Another argument : in multiplayer, the battles are crucials, so you will not bring into battle a useless unit. So no one use these big slugs.



- Scientific/Diplomatic/Economic victory are pretty fast compared to war victories. It's ok but there should be warning to the others players that each kind of victory have reiched an important moment (as we can see messages of domination warning).





- The full view of the scores and military power give crucial informations on all ennemies. First, there should be an option to hide it. Another option to reveal informations only 10 to 10 turns (would be much better to allow surprise attack). Or another option, which give all informations, but 5 turns later. These options may increase the immersion and kind of games (full invisiblity of scores would create interesting secret games huhu).



- Anonymise what faction take what player could be an option too. No one could know who is who.





It is not much observations. I am sure others people have much to say, and others have already say some things in others topic. But if not, it would be good to writte them here.

Vaulters are nice, but their advantages come later in the game when the resources start pouring in. I think as you play more with better opponents you'll find that factions with a stronger early game (such as Wild Walkers) are much better. Cultists and Ardent Mages are also strong if you play them aggressively.



As for Necrophages, if you think Proliferators are useless you are not playing them right. They are meant to create free Foragers that you can sell on the Marketplace or use to swarm opponents. They should not be used alone or as a damage dealer. Necrodrones are a decent unit that you get without research. You need to be aggressive with Necrophages and if you sit around building in ages 1 -2 you will be behind. Necrophages certainly aren't the best, but they are playable.



Agree that the status screen gives too much information (i.e. Military). There has to be an indication on scores or else know one will know who is winning and the end shouldn't be a surprise.

Foragers gained after battle via proliferater can stack past the army limit. So, get 2 from this fight, another 1 here.. keep it going and you'll have a 12 - 15 army. Those new foragers are mainly meat shields ( spreading disease like crazy), they'll die, be replaced, and so on.. but if you get it going, you've got a monstrous force on your side.



And sell them in a pinch, obviously. ^

- I say again that proliferators suck.

You cannot overwhelm anything with a mass army level 1 without equipement. They will be rape and they will occupe space for your strong units.

Each forager is sold 110 gold, it is not enough (and not feat to the background of the faction).





I got new critics, and thinked about the current conception of the games :



- Others reasons than multiplayer tend to be boring and repetitive, it's the absence of strategic ressources, of choice of region (as I explained, all regions are interesting). There should be really bad land, uncolonisable (except for special civs with feature, like Broken lords). We should too choose to construct a city, out of the region system (influence in a city should slowly take the unclaimed land AND create a region like that).



No strategic ressource = no early war & region control



- The absence of strategic ressources or pillage feature block any interest about the map, except the attack of the city. Civ IV and strategic ressources are a good working system. When I say about Civ IV, I don't want that Endless Legend be as Civ. I think if these feature (as strategic ressources needed for some units) are implanted in this game and if this game has been very long time played in multi (and its still), it is surely because their system of interest in MP are excellents.



Overfast units = overfast offensive & easier military strategy



- Another big problem in multiplayer (and solo but its less exploited by A.I) it's the super speed of units on land. At the beginning, it is ok. Flying units are really fast, and able to reach really fast an ennemy city and took it. It becames overpowered.



But then you got new equipement which give +2, +3 movement, you can use on fast units (or not), and attack city in one turn, without time for defensor for reaction. In my point of view, the world is vast. No army reach a point in one action. And, it is a very bad thing strategically because it gives a huge advantage on offensive action.



Road accelerate again this problem. Roads should only be usable by defensor.



I think too that there should not been faster than 4 squaures by turn. See Civ IV : no units are faster than 2 movement per turn, even the modern tank (except the flying units, but they cannot take city).



No choke points on natural land or forteress supress any harassing units tactics



- Civ IV has no combat system as in Endless Legend. But the combat tactics was by positionning units to attack, defend and cripple the economic developpement. For exemple an archer units on forested hill won +50 % and +25% defense bonus. The unit could spy the ennemy city a long time before the ennemy could destroy it with the rights units.



I think a system like that, again based on the idea of the augmentation of the interest of micro move and militarisation of the ennemy land (but not taking city, genneraly) would be a great way to create more interest in games, and multiplayer.







- To finish on this dark picture, I would like to say that despite his present lack of long term interest of the game in multiplayer, the game has still huge potential, but need big innovations and balance. I wanted to express my feeling about the game. It is not to destroy but to try give my feedback to the developpers.

- I think the biggest MP issue by far is that units can retreat and siege the same turn. Especially Broken Lords can make infinate sieges this way. You need house rules to prevent this, but it would be way better if siege took up action points to prevent this + that all sieging armies would have to end siege that turn if one of them retreated. It would also be a good thing for SP if the player couldn't exploit the AI this way of course.



- I disagree on Vaulters being too strong. Teleport is mostly a defensive trait, and being defensive and turtling is supposed to be the Vaulter strength. Can't see how it's too strong compared to the benefits other factions have.



- I also disagree on strategical ressources being a problem. I actually find them very nicely balanced, and a very good game mechanism. They are supposed to be hard to get enough of to use for all your armies and for buildings in all your cities. This way you get some very interesting and hard choices to deal with strategically. It's possible to choose abundant ressources for those who want this to be easier, if the player for some reason want less hard trade offs.



If u play on normal amount there is usually strategical ressources in every province. If not the province tend to have other good things like more anomolies clustered or lux ressources.



Strategical "balance" option like in Civ5 could be implemented, but I wouldn't play with it since it would remove much of the the strategy arround securing provinces based on ressource need, and also reduce the role of the market. In my opinion it makes for a less strategical and fun game if you reduce the importance of securing the ressources you want to have, and the very hard prioritation on what to use them on, and in what order. Strategical "balance" reduces the very purpose of a game mechanism based on ressources in the first place, in my opinion, and to me at least it would make the game alot less enjoyable.





NB! While we're at talking balance issues: I'd also like to see gold recieved for units sold reduced by alot, perhaps cut in two. To me it makes no sense (or good gameplay point) to get more dust (gold) when selling a unit then the production points I used to create it. In my opinion you should at a maximum be able to convert half of the invested production into dust. It actually makes techs and buildings for increased dust production all too little usefull to prioritize now, compared to investing in great industry to pump out units for sale. This is indeed creating a balance issue. Not to mention how especially the Wild Walkers can benefit tremendously from this with their usually superior production early on.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
No choke points on natural land or forteress supress any harassing units tactics



- Civ IV has no combat system as in Endless Legend. But the combat tactics was by positionning units to attack, defend and cripple the economic developpement. For exemple an archer units on forested hill won +50 % and +25% defense bonus. The unit could spy the ennemy city a long time before the ennemy could destroy it with the rights units.

This is false, there ARE choke points and natural land fortresses which severely limit spawn locations for units in the tactical combat (and when doing auto resolve)

And forest, hill, etc do all provided bonuses and penalties. there is a defensive bonus from forest, a high ground bonus, a city square bonus...

Hello.



I writted a big topic about the subjets of balance or new ideas where I thinked. It may interest the regulars multiplayer players : Link.



Off course feel free to comment, critic or give ideas on this topic.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
Hello.



I writted a big topic about the subjets of balance or new ideas where I thinked. It may interest the regulars multiplayer players : Link.



Off course feel free to comment, critic or give ideas on this topic.

I agree scores should be hidden in multiplayer.



I don't agree with anything else suggested here... after reading a ton of your posts I just want to say one simple thing, "this isn't Civ".

I enjoy this game because it's much deeper and more entertaining than Civ. I own both this and Civ V and in Civ V I have logged 111 hours after having it for about a year. I have had this maybe a month and have 131 hours into it. I'm sure you have more hours in than me but I don't ever feel the urge to play Civ, this game is delightful to me for a variety of reasons not the least of which is this newer studio producing a game that blows Civ out of the water. Civ has a tendency (if your a long time player) to be boring, iterative, and lacking heavily in innovation. This is not that type of 4X game and I'm thankful for that. I guess I could have just summed it up like this the difference between Civ V and Beyond Earth is ~none, just look at the difference in game mechanics between EL and ES. This is not just an iteration with a new skin, these are separate games in a linked universe and both are quite fun.