Jojo_Fr wrote:
Natev,



The problem it's you, or I, and several others, play as competitive aggressive players, although some casual players play as they play in solo, peacefully. It's the civilization clash.



There is no real debat about "Is EL a military game or not ?" "Are you a fascist to play rude as you play ?"

I disagree, Natev is not the issue.



The real problem is : Have you any real choice to gain power beside expanding and being an ass with your neighboors ? Is there anything interresting in the game to do if you make a peaceful gameplay ?



My personal answer is a huge NOPE. You cant really manage your Empire : you cant pass laws, reforms or anything else interresting, you cant plot, you cant make politic at all. You cant make ecology, you cant really manage your population, you cant interact with the minor factions, you cant speak to your councillors/interact with them, you cant make archeology, you cant care about religions and believes...



There would be much to do to make this game even playable without war...

Natev,



The problem it's you, or I, and several others, play as competitive aggressive players, although some casual players play as they play in solo, peacefully. It's the civilization clash.



There is no real debat about "Is EL a military game or not ?" "Are you a fascist to play rude as you play ?"

Endless Legend is probably the best game design for skirmishes I´ve played since early warcraft 3 and its tower rushes. If there was only auto, every single game between good players would be extremely fast and pleasant. I don´t think there´s any comparison between EL´s speed and any other turn-based strategy game I´ve played.



It is a war game, it doesn´t penalize people for going to war in the slightest. It´s just not a better war game because it´s not fair by design - I never really know, in the games I´ve beaten good players, if I´ve done so because I played better or because the game gave me much more things than it gave my competitors.



Perhaps this lack of fairness helps the wrong perception that you´re supposed to build an economy first in EL (like you are supposed to in Civ or Total War). Since some people come into the game with their economy ready, because they have like two anomalies, those who don´t get a good start feel like they can´t fight early in the same terms (because they can´t). So it´s entirely up to the lucky player to decide to turn this into a military rush, and he just won´t certainly win if he doesn´t choose to do so.



As good a game as it is, EL´s inconsistencies are quite tiring. It´s much more a total war than any game in the Total War series, yet it doesn´t provide every player with the same opportunities of mobilizing resources towards war. Starting without an anomaly when your competitor has one, in term of Civ5, is like starting on a blank plains when your competitor has wheat and stones around him. It doesn´t happen in Civ5.

Even in single player, while non-military victories are possible, it still feels like one is deliberately picking the harder, or at least longer, path to win. In addition, at least on higher difficulties (serious and above), one had no choice but to invest *heavily* in the military, because the AI will declare war even if it has no reason to. In other (rare) games, one could afford keeping military investments at a minimum because a lot of options on how to handle potential aggression were present.



The game is not optimized to make these other victory conditions as fun as they could be, imo. Diplomatic victory is perhaps the biggest example, as diplomacy in general lacks the dynamism and basic AI competence to make it fun.

I think this thread needs a major distinction between single player and multiplayer. In single player in most if not all 4x games(many of the games mentioned by natev aren't 4x) there are peaceful ways to win. Usually there's a cultural victory or an equivalent(though oddly enough Endless Legend doesn't), a scientific victory(of various sorts, some like Civilization also requires production of spaceship parts others just require a certain amount of techs), a diplomatic victory or an equivalent and of course the fallback of a score based victory if the timer runs out. Endless Legend doesn't have the cultural victory archetype but it has economic, wonder and quest instead. Due to the limitations of the AI, it's always possible to optimize a player's strategy towards any of these victory conditions while minimizing military conflict to the bare minimum while pursuing your peaceful goal.



Multiplayer on the other hand is an entirely different beast. In multiplayer you have no AI to exploit(pun intended) and your actions become quasi real time as opposed to turn based(army movements, combat, etc, depending on the specific game). Thus it's impossible to minimize military confrontations as other players can look at score charts and know to go after the leader(s) before they run away with the game. Therefore military action must be prepared for, and since you're already preparing for it might as well use it yourself if nobody uses it against you. Thus multiplayer games tend to be significantly more militaristic in nature than single player games. Thus going after peaceful victories in multiplayer is significantly harder and only possible with extremely specialized strategies such as Wild Walker wonder victory in Endless Legend thanks to their gross building production reduction bonuses that can surpass 100% which in turn makes the wonder building itself minimal(just 1 turn).

I completely agree, the AI's decision making really needs to be worked on when it comes to war declarations (and everything else really). As it stand's now the only way to stay out of war is to not meet the AI. In my current game I met the Drakken on turn 1 (obviously) and then promptly ignored them. Around turn 50 or 60 I had finished exploring my continent, found out I was completely alone and promptly got declared on by the Drakken. I didn't see their first unit until about turn 110. In other words, they had NO reason to declare on me - no shared borders (not even on the same continent), I had not even bothered looking for them so it wasn't like I was walking around in their territory pillaging anything. It was quite literally a case of, well - we know you, so we are declaring war.

Darkscis wrote:
The only one I disagree with on your list is CKII. The others I would definitely agree are all war games, incl EL. The thing I have noticed that many people seem to believe is that if you are choosing to pursue a different kind of victory - science, economy, culture (Civ series), diplomacy etc - then you shouldn't need an army and should be able to focus 100% on that victory. That, in my opinion, is just plain wrong. Why should you choosing to focus on a different victory condition automatically protect you from 2 of the other victory conditions, namely Supremacy and Elimination. Just like a war monger needs science for upgraded troops and dust to fund them, so too does a science victory pursuer require a standing army to protect it. They don't need to be aggressive with it, but by no means should they be allowed to just ignore it.

I agree that completely ignoring military factors should not be a viable option. The problem is however that "military factors" are extremely narrow in most of these games, including EL, with them often translating to simply having an army and a large mass of it (I am not convinced that the AI in El takes technological gaps seriously in its calculations. It seems to value numbers a lot more).



In Galactic Civilization 2 however, while having a basic fleet was recommended (potentially circumventable by using a building that created illusionary ships), being part of an alliance was an actual effective deterrent, and the AI understood the balance of power enough to have coalitions form against expansionist and aggressive powers. Furthermore, diplomatic options were much more advanced, allowing a peaceful player to manipulate the geo-strategic realities using diplomacy (brokering peace there, provoking wars there...etc). Finally, one could sell weapons and tech to minor factions (and other factions) to apply pressure on major empires.



All this made a peaceful run with a very small military possible even on the highest of difficulties.



Now EL has potential non-military means of thwarting enemies, for instance through a much better espionage system than most 4x games I've played. Nonetheless, I am not even sure these acts even impact the AI's decision (one would think having morale reduced for 10 turns should figure in the AI's decision to declare war or not). In addition, diplomacy and the AI are still too simple to actually be deterred in ways more sophisticated than number of troops.

The only one I disagree with on your list is CKII. The others I would definitely agree are all war games, incl EL. The thing I have noticed that many people seem to believe is that if you are choosing to pursue a different kind of victory - science, economy, culture (Civ series), diplomacy etc - then you shouldn't need an army and should be able to focus 100% on that victory. That, in my opinion, is just plain wrong. Why should you choosing to focus on a different victory condition automatically protect you from 2 of the other victory conditions, namely Supremacy and Elimination. Just like a war monger needs science for upgraded troops and dust to fund them, so too does a science victory pursuer require a standing army to protect it. They don't need to be aggressive with it, but by no means should they be allowed to just ignore it.



The only thing I don't like about EL's war conditions is the giant snowball you can get going. Once you crush an enemies army once it is game over for them, you can take all of their cities pretty much at your leisure. In games like CKII you had attrition to slow you down, in the total war series you had to either siege - slowing you down A LOT or you had to risk assaulting and the heavy casualties that incurred. In Civ you had slavery and all other manner of ways to scrape together a defensive army after losing your stack. In EL there is just nothing at the moment to slow you down, you don't need to siege because once you have crushed the army the militia don't stand a chance even with the fortification bonus. Obviously, if they have completely neglected their own army then this should happen, but if you are relatively on-par but get a good fight and manage to defeat them - it shouldn't mean game over for them.

Yes, the easiest way to win (by far) is to capture all the capitals.



Yes, diplomacy is ridiculously simple.



But research, exploring, and expansion are all important.

Yes, EL is primarily a wargame as are most 4x games (though I would say that Gal Civ 2 actually had a lot of advanced non-violent means to win, that were not only possible, but feasible. The amount of ways one could play that game were significant).



That doesn't mean that fans are not allowed to promote the addition or enhancement of non-military means, especially when the lore and factions themselves strive to be as diverse as to create alternate means than just warfare, at least in theory. EL will always remain a wargame first and foremost, but it is my opinion that it will become a better 4x game and a better game in general, if non-military methods are refined and expanded upon (especially diplomacy).