So I played a good bit of Endless Space before, and have been absolutely loving Endless Legend so far since the latest Steam Sale. However, while I've won my first 2 games against the AI, oddly it feels like I was pigeon-holed into using the same strategy both times?



Both games with all setting default, first game as Vaulters on Normal, second with Forgotten on whatever the next difficulty up is called. Here's the overall breakdown of what happens:

• I put most research priority on Industry/Food techs.
• With the Vaulters I expanded only enough to where I could still keep all my cities in the Happy approval; with Forgotten I went slower and kept all cities Fervent.
• The majority of population in most cities were set to Industry, with a city or two set aside for Dust or Science.
• I try to have at least one military hero and one city hero, and more city heroes as I can afford them.
• However, until turn 100-ish, even my best Industry city would take around a dozen turns to produce one of even my cheapest units. My other cities would take even longer. Since most buildings would only require 2~4 turns to produce, that's what I ended up building in most cities. It seemed like a poor bargain to take ~30 turns to be able to put together one little army, while not progressing my cities in the meantime.
• Since I would very few units, any sort of military / combat interaction before turn 100-ish was absolute suicide, so I tried to avoid it. As a result I had to make lots of diplomatic plays to keep everyone else from coming in and steamrolling me.
• By turn ~115 I'm finally able to have a city with enough Industry to produce average units with Iron gear in only a half-dozen or so turns each, and have one city start pumping them out.
• Meanwhile, by this time my diplomatic turtling-up pays off I guess because I mysteriously start to lead the chart for "Overall Score" and I guess suddenly have the edge in tech / FIDSI for some reason. In another dozen turns or so, I'm in a position where I can have my way with the world and win however I want, it's just a matter of going through and mopping up.
  
  

My question is how do you field at least one army of any competence before turn 100 or so? I assume it is possible since the AI always seems to have multiple 6/6 or 8/8 armies roaming around much earlier than that, or is that only due to the AI "cheating" with its bonus FIDSI? My goal is to have exciting military career earlier in the game. At the moment if I try before turn ~115 I get completely curb-stomped, and when I try after that, I completely curb-stomp the AI. Perhaps these two charts of my relative Military Strength in each game illustrate this issue; I'm Xenonex in both. I'm looking more for some mutual fisticuffs action, in a sense.



tl;dr:

I'm stuck in a rut where I feel forced to use diplomacy to stave off other angry nations due to my utter lack of military presence, until turn ~115 or so when suddenly my empire is better at everything than everyone else and I can crush everything easily. I'd like more of a middle ground where balanced fighting can happen throughout. What am I doing wrong?

As far as I know the AI doesn't really cheat in a significant way on Normal (though I think it doesn't get approval penalties for Boroughs since it doesn't know how to place them...on the flip side, I'm guessing they don't get the approval bonus for placing them correctly), though it starts to cheat a little above Above (and cheats massively on Endless).



When you said "a dozen turns to produce a military unit" I originally thought you were on Endless speed, but apparently not. The short version is you are doing something incredibly wrong but I have no idea what could be going THAT wrong, frankly, with the possible exception of "majority of population on Industry" rather than "all of population on Industry." Remember that Dust from ANY city and Science from ANY city benefits EVERY city, but if you want to be producing units then you want to concentrate Industry where those units are being made. Having a city with the Center for Mineralogy and all citizens on Science in that city is perfectly fine and often a good idea, but that's not the issue here it sounds like.



What city did you build the Canal Locks in? Or perhaps a better question might be: do you even have the expansions?



I'd be happy to make a video using a faction of your choice and showing early game military aggression if you'd like, with a difficulty of your choice (though keep in mind the higher the difficulty the harder it is to do early game aggression for most factions, since a lot of the AI advantages wind up mattering much less later in the game).

Thanks for the reply!



I do have all the expansions, but had Shadows disabled on my first game as I heard the mechanics can be a bit much for new players to deal with right away. For my Industry city I guess I did often had one population on Food, and then would move a couple more population off of Industry if it didn't increase how many turns the next 4~5 queued items would take. As far as Canal Locks, I think in my second game I had them built in my "Industry" city by around turn 100 or so. Come to think of it, it was around when everything really started picking up, but it took quite a while to build.



I'm wondering if perhaps I'm buying too many non-military techs / building too many buildings in my city instead of just one or two industry buildings then starting in for units? Since everything is still new I may be doing too much of "wanting to try everything out." Is it typical to just queue up several 10+ turn units in a few cities so that in 20 turns you'll have 6~8 units all together?



Thanks a ton for the video offer, but I feel like I couldn't ask for a whole video when I'm still feeling out the game / difficulty settings, and could figure out what I'm doing wrong at any moment. All this was on Normal/Hard and I'll try Serious next so the situation could be very different there.



If it matters, by coincidence my random opponents in both games were Necrophages, Broken Lords, Ardent Mages, Cultists, and either Wind Walkers / Vaulters.

Xen0n wrote:
For my Industry city I guess I did often had one population on Food, and then would move a couple more population off of Industry if it didn't increase how many turns the next 4~5 queued items would take.

Why? I think you might be laboring under a misperception -- extra Industry isn't on a project isn't wasted. If I have a city with 100 Industry and have a project worth 70 Industry followed by a project worth 130 Industry, both will be done in two turns (because there will be 30 Industry left over after the first project finishes). Food/growth is also a lot less important, especially compared to Civ V if you're used to that.

Xen0n wrote:
As far as Canal Locks, I think in my second game I had them built in my "Industry" city by around turn 100 or so. Come to think of it, it was around when everything really started picking up, but it took quite a while to build.

Yes, well, assuming you're on Normal speed, most people would probably try to have that done by like turn 30-40 on Normal speed unless it's delayed in favor of an early wonder or super early aggression.

Xen0n wrote:
I'm wondering if perhaps I'm buying too many non-military techs / building too many buildings in my city instead of just one or two industry buildings then starting in for units? Since everything is still new I may be doing too much of "wanting to try everything out." Is it typical to just queue up several 10+ turn units in a few cities so that in 20 turns you'll have 6~8 units all together?

No, because in 20 turns you should basically be in the next Era so you're likely just getting a bunch of obsolete or nearly obsolete troops. Basically, you should never be building troops that take 10+ turns to build (unless it's a Guardian, possibly). Either you need cities that can crank them out in more like a 3-4 turn time-frame (preferably less, and keep in mind this does not mean every city of yours should be able to do that, just some) or you focus on Dust production (using things like the Empire plan that adds 3 Dust per worker and the Dust Depository in Era III) and buy out troops (which is less efficient overall but you can "focus" the Dust when and where you need it -- better to get 2 troops a turn from Dust than 25 troops in 10 turns from Industry or whatever).

Xen0n wrote:
Thanks a ton for the video offer, but I feel like I couldn't ask for a whole video when I'm still feeling out the game / difficulty settings, and could figure out what I'm doing wrong at any moment. All this was on Normal/Hard and I'll try Serious next so the situation could be very different there.



If it matters, by coincidence my random opponents in both games were Necrophages, Broken Lords, Ardent Mages, Cultists, and either Wind Walkers / Vaulters.

If anything I'd argue this would be the best time for a video -- easier to learn good habits than to try to break bad ones. If you figure out what you're doing wrong by the next time you see this, great, otherwise pick a faction (though I would not suggest Forgotten until you get more experience with the game -- less to do with their spying and tricks and more to do with balancing their economy) and difficulty and I'll make a video. It's seriously less of a time commitment than you probably think, especially if I'm going for an early military victory (most of the time commitment is the video processing while I'm not at my computer or doing other stuff on the computer anyway). I would probably suggest Mezari (or Vaulters if you don't have Mezari, thought Mezari are both cooler and slightly better), Wild Walkers, or Drakken as their basic economy is...more normal and has less oddities, though any would work (but would require more effort initially as they all have a handicap of some sort). Cultists aren't too bad, but the whole "one city" part means you don't really learn to juggle a multi-city economy/military.



And no, that doesn't matter about the opponents.



Also, final thought -- you could attach a turn 0 save file and we could both "play" the same game and compare notes with the same terrain/opponents.



P.S. While my experience thus far had led me to believe I'm significantly above the average player skill-wise, I'm also still fairly new to the game myself. So making a video might lead to someone pointing out something *I'm* missing and help me improve, especially if it's a race I'm less used to (like, being frank, I'm not really sure how to play Ardent Mages so for my Endless difficulty win with the faction I just decided to do a straightforward Economic Victory that would work with any faction).

Thanks for the detailed reply! Yeah for moving some pop off of Industry, I remembered about how the 'spillover' Industry works like in Endless Space, I guess I was just figuring since if with 12 pop on Industry my queue will have a unit done in 3 turns, then next units in 5 turns, then next unit in 8 turns, then next unit in 10 turns, and I move 2 off of Industry into Food and none of the items in the queue change their completion date, but I get a population growth 1~2 turns earlier it might be a good deal. I guess I see that keeping them all in Industry could get me a few units done 1 turn earlier every 10 turns or so, might try doing that then.



Oh wow, I may not have even had Canal Locks researched by turn 30, and when I did have it I think it took maybe a dozen turns to produce. I guess that should be a beeline goal for the earlygame?



Thanks again for the offer, alright I guess I'll bite I had thought the Mezari were identical to Vaulters in terms of gameplay? Either way, since I already played a game with Vaulters I feel I could kinda understand a video about them, so I suppose you could do a game with Mezari on Serious difficulty, since I'll be trying that one next myself. Thanks in advance!

Vaulters and Mezari are identical.

Xen0n wrote:
Oh wow, I may not have even had Canal Locks researched by turn 30, and when I did have it I think it took maybe a dozen turns to produce. I guess that should be a beeline goal for the earlygame?

More or less, it's one of the biggest production boosts in the game.

Xen0n wrote:
I had thought the Mezari were identical to Vaulters in terms of gameplay?

The difference is that the Vaulters start with a hero who has Science Efficiency 2, which adds 2 Science per worker. Mezari start with a hero who has Science Boost 2, which adds 8 Science per hero level. Since you don't have workers on Science at the start (and even if you did you wouldn't have that many workers)...Mezari is a much better starting governor.

Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLJp3lUXgNg



Really not thrilled with it overall for reasons I cover in the video, but hopefully it still shows some basic concepts and helps.

Excellent video Balkoth, it's helpful for not just the individual that asked but has general advice in it as well.

Wow, that was fast, thanks! Definitely lots to learn from! Keeping just one city past turn 20 is definitely something I will need to try. So I'm guessing you kept the starting 2 Marines garrisoned instead of exploring so that they boost the XP for the governor? Or mainly just to save Dust upkeep? I never considered that. Also didn't realize it was possible to stay so competitive militarily without using strategic resources much. Was definitely very surprised how much those stockpiles helped; it basically quintupled the Industry output of that city!Will definitely be trying things a bit different on my next run, thanks!

Avilyss wrote:
Excellent video Balkoth, it's helpful for not just the individual that asked but has general advice in it as well.

Glad you liked it! Open to making more if you think they'd be useful, would help if you could suggest specific topics/factions (though, fair warning, there are definitely topics in Endless Legend I'm not confident about, willing to take a swing at them anyway and update/redo the video when I get corrected).

Xen0n wrote:
Wow, that was fast, thanks! Definitely lots to learn from! Keeping just one city past turn 20 is definitely something I will need to try.

The thing about more cities is that...having more cities is good. But founding more cities is a major investment, especially early game. You're spending Industry on the Settler, delaying the benefits of every other building, and losing a worker. And even though that new city might improve the overall Food/Industry of your Empire it still has to build the basic buildings and, like I mentioned in the previous sentence, you've set your capital back as well. Influence will be less proportional to the Empire Plan and even Dust is probably not improved all that much since the new city has upkeep too. It's really Science that has an immediate benefit (since, especially early game, it can be hard to raise that outside of assigning Workers once you have Public Library and (depending on terrain) Geomic Labs up). Hence, one of the major benefits of founding more cities early game (especially for an Industry heavy faction like the Wild Walkers) is to get more Science.



On the flip side, as Mezari your Industry won't catch up to your Science for a long time and your Food/Industry are weaker overall, meaning new cities (self-founded) are even more of an investment. Keep in mind that the number of anomalies has a high impact on this consideration -- if you have 0 to 1 anomalies then it's even more true, but if each of your cities are getting 3+ anomalies then it's probably worth settling new ones anyway because they're getting 18+ extra yield per turn. That video features Normal anomalies...I just had awful luck. But I personally usually play on Few anomalies so starts get skewed less (player A gets 3 Dust anomalies while player B gets 3 Industry anomalies...player B is at a little bit of a massive advantage).



Stuff like Canal Locks/Dust Transmuter are also once per empire anyway so extra cities doesn't mean more of those, so they're significantly weaker than the capital for that reason too. But you can CAPTURE cities with those built and get two...



Luxury costs also go up per city, so unless you have good sources you can use more of those on one city (since the supply on the market is often limited, it's not even a matter of raw Dust at times but rather the raw amount available). Ditto strategic resource costs (granted, you might not be "fully" developing every city but you'd definitely need regions with the right strategics (or favorable trading partners who have them) vs being able to mostly supply one city just through the market).



Finally, the higher you go on difficulty the more early game advantage the AI gets...but the AI stalls out late game. Which means surviving the first 50ish turns and being in a good position is the most important part -- and extra cities are often detrimental to that goal (pisses off AI who wants that region you settled, less troops early game if you need them, etc).

Xen0n wrote:
So I'm guessing you kept the starting 2 Marines garrisoned instead of exploring so that they boost the XP for the governor? Or mainly just to save Dust upkeep? I never considered that.

Both, actually (meaning XP and Dust...and it guarantees I have those Marines around rather than potentially losing them to minor factions or the AI). However, a question to consider: how important IS early exploration anyway? Searching ruins later gives more Dust, more strategics/luxuries, and/or better strategics/luxuries. And what info am I *really* trying to find out? If I was planning on settling more cities I'd scout the immediate surrounding regions, sure, but beyond that? Meeting the AI just gives them a reason to start hating you and even the friendlier ones won't have the peace tech yet. And seeing the map 6 regions away...doesn't really do anything for me early game when I'm focused on my own stuff for a while. Later on I can either do a map exchange or go to war.

Xen0n wrote:
Also didn't realize it was possible to stay so competitive militarily without using strategic resources much.

Strategic resource gear is good...but ultimately just boosts the base stats, stats from leveling, and base gear stats. And unless you're overflowing with them, it means you're having to spend more Dust on the market (which means less units or less luxuries) or give up economy boosting buildings. You'll note that I was also picking heroes fairly carefully and giving those heroes specific boosting trinkets. And, until/unless I knew I had a massive military advantage, made sure I had 2-3 full armies reinforcing each other. Had a multi-player game a few days ago where the other "relevant" player realized I was in danger of winning an economic victory and assembled two "Elite" armies of high Initiative Ranged Slayer Cavalry with some of the best strategic stuff to counter my Predatore legions (was Forgotten)...but there were two major problems (three if you count the "time limit" of economic victory).



1, I had Serum of Iteru and he was only partway through Era V. 100% HP and damage boost (note that it's actually less than a full 100% boost because there are other trinkets/capacities/etc that buff those stats) which meant my generic Predatores could nearly go toe to toe with a unit specifically equipped with strategics to counter them. While Serum is pretty extreme, the first 2-3 Eras progressed are still significant power boosts as your units start a level higher and get a new tier of gear with significant stat increases. So being equalish or ahead on tech can render strategics less devastating (Era II army with strategics vs your Era II army? Ouch. Era II army with strategics vs your Era III army? Much less ouch).



2, he had 16 cavalry to my 32 Predatores in my border armies. Plus another 24 Predatores split between my three cities. Plus the ability to literally buy out 24 more Predatores a turn (could have done more with more than three cities, amusingly enough). So even if his strategic units designed to counter mine could kill my units at a 5:1 ratio (meaning five of mine killed per one of his), one turn after he declared war I'd have enough generic units to just overwhelm his strategic elite force. I'm assuming he used up most of his strategic reserves to outfit those armies, but even if not there's no way he could keep up with my raw economy at that point. To quote Stalin, "Quantity has a quality all its own"...and that idea goes double for ranged troops since they can mass focus fire.



So yeah. That other player is one of the best players overall in this game and knew how to outfit his armies properly with ideal heroes and those ideal heroes using the right trinkets. While the AI won't be using 2-3 armies in concert to support each other and will outfit their units terribly. Concentrate your forces and use synergy and basic gear is far more than enough.

Xen0n wrote:
Was definitely very surprised how much those stockpiles helped; it basically quintupled the Industry output of that city!Will definitely be trying things a bit different on my next run, thanks!

Keep in mind that Stockpiles are only so amazing when you buy them with dust (because buying out an 875 Industry unit would probably cost like 1800 Dust even with the right technologies/governor). Technically speaking, if you somehow had a massive amount of surplus Industry in Era III, you could use the first tech to build a stockpile for 1200 and then unpack it for 875 in Era IV for rushing stuff...but you're still losing Industry overall or trading Industry for Food/Science at a less than ideal ratio (unless you have the Canal Locks in that city but no bonuses for Food/Science workers maybe?). And even that assumes you don't need to build units which you likely will want to be doing.



I will take a second to point out that on Fast speed the "weak" stockpiles cost 600 to make and get 875 on unpacking so THAT can actually yield a bonus overall.



But, in general, unless you can get a bunch cheaply on the market it's not worth getting the tech. As a result, the total value is limited instead of a new building that could benefit every city in your empire every turn. Still, in some cases it could be viewed as something along the lines of "Research this tech and sacrifice 3000 dust, receive 3000 Food, 3000 Industry, and 3000 Science in return"...and that's assuming a "mere" four stockpiles of each kind. It gets even better (since the Dust to Food/Industry/Science ratio is already amazing, the part that sucks is needing to "sacrifice" the tech to get them) with more Stockpiles available.

Just a quick update, my try as Broken Lords on Serious difficulty was definitely an improvement trying to follow some of these goals! I won again in around the same time-frame, but this time managed to initiate and win a war against some neighbor cultists fairly early on, which was nice. It ended up dragging on longer than I expected, and I got set pretty far behind in Research for a good bit, but managed to catch up in the late-game. Anyway, thanks again! Now trying my hand at Wild Walkers on Impossible

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

Heh, just finished it up minutes ago with a turn ~175ish Wonder Victory. Funnily, once I unlocked the wonder, it took 1 turn to build in my capital. I was actually trying to be peaceful this time, but late-game had to attack the Roving Clans as they were nearing an Economic, Expansion, Science, AND quest victory :P It helped being able to ally with all the other factions and tell them to go to war with Roving Clans first, to soften them up a bit.



I guess up next is Endless difficulty with... maybe the Drakken?