Hello all,

I have sunk about 80 hours, and here is my thoughts so far. (Came in after shadows was released)
Here are some of the things I have noticed in Endless legend that stick out to me, and if fixed up or added would really help the game in my opinion.

1. Faction unique villages - Yes, I realize amplitude know about this. I still think it is of utmost importance. Why?
a. It hurts immersion. Yep that's right, when a variety of factions all live in "generic housing 1" i don't actually am able to immerse myself in the world as well, and it completely breaks my immersion for a bit.
b. It comes off as lazy design, and hurts the overall game. So much beautiful artwork in the game, why let this lazy design choice lower the game quality? A game can only shine as brightly as it's lowest point, and this unfortuntely holds it back.
c. It slows down gameplay. Yep, if I have to hover over each burough every time I want to see which type of creature lives there, I spend time first hovering over the village. Then Reading the text, then recognizing which nation it is, then associated with the unit. Those are all the steps i have to take everytime I want to check a village. That becomes quite tedious, especially if you have an empire of 10+ provinces. If your strategy starts being tedious, it stops being fun.

2. Make the tundra less ugly. The tundra is just ugly, and colorless. Now I understand, it's tundra, of course it isn't going to look amazing. But guess what, I still have to stare at ugly colors for hours on end if I am setting on or near it. Auriga is magical world, find a way to add some color to that tundra, make it less colorless and hard to look at. From a gameplay perspective, it just isn't fun to look at ugly color pallettes for hours.

3. The music. Alright, so the music is...ok. It kind of just hangs out in the background, it but it needs a serious overhaul. The other thing is, it isn't specific to any one nation. Want to help your nations standout, give them each their own soundstrack. That would really help immersion. In fantasy titles, immersion IS nearly everything. Of course you could just go the route of making your generic soundtrack more fleshed out, which is ok as well. Why not add some amazing winter tracks as well? Currently the music doesn't impress, and it gets repetitive very quickly.

All of that said. This is an amazing title, but if this title is going to compete with others coming up in the future, it's needs to shine as much as possible. I don't mind paying for more small DLC to keep this game getting incredibly better. I love what they have done with this title, but i really believe it can shine far brighter than it already does.

Yours Truly,

ZT

Also, I stream from time to time. EL and Civ.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXYyrWoq3fNKuurmbpbEUPw

1.  I also think each minor faction should have their own unique village design (for both aesthetic and quick-reference purposes).  I also feel that each major faction should have a more unique design to their winter tech boroughs and legendary buildings, but this may cause issues with new players failing to identify structures in cities they may be "coveting" (though this may not be a bad thing ... immediate identification of a foreign building is not realistic).  Excellent suggestion.

2.  I kind of like the dull, barren look.  I also enjoyed the visuals of the Tundra, Arctic and Barren planets in Endless Space for the same reason.  My chief complaint about the biomes in general is the lack of visual variety for boroughs built in different biomes.  While forests can be differentiated if you look hard enough, it is generally hard to differentiate tile types without using the hover tooltip or reading FIDSI output (only effective in summer with little to no +FIDSI improvements).

3.  O.o ... I love the music in Endless Legend and Endless Space.  I play the soundtracks when I sleep.  I am still waiting for the FlyByNo VEVO.  Well, maybe not that far, but the music is great imho.  And I am pretty sure there are tracks that all factions share, and tracks that are faction unique.  At least that's how it appears to be based on the soundtrack titles.  I would have to memorize the names of tracks and listen for them to play with a variety of factions to know for sure, but, if already not implemented, your suggestion gets a thumbs up from me.

Also, musical tracks could also play based on environmental factors:

- more upbeat tempos and heavy percussion during times of war or external military pressure

- more relaxing string music for times of peace and prosperity

- more suspenseful tracks for those periods where you may struggle score-wise or struggle with FIDSI output

These could not only set the mood based on current events, but could also serve as a strong audio indicator of what is going on in your game.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I like the suggestion on 2, and yeah, it seems like what you are mentioning is a similar issue to the 1st suggestion I had. These kinds of things really slow down, and make the experience tedious at times when it shouldn't be. The game already suffers from being difficult to be play quickly, that unfortunately doesn't help.

In regards to #3, I honestly don't notice the difference between tracks. All I tend to really notice is that background chorus or whatnot going on, but apart from that it really doesn't do much to immerse me. I would love to see tracks that really stand out for each race, especially early on in the game. I really like you suggestion of music changing, kind of like in total war titles. As long as they have more than one track. I remember playing Heroes of Might and Magic 3, and getting pretty tired of the same song coming on for every battle.

They could even consider playing tracks for major world events, or perhaps as you progress through your faction quest line. Although that could be lame since you would only hear it if you do quests. Perhaps these faction specific songs could just be played at certain points in the game. As in 1 track at turn 1, another at turn 75, 150, 225, 300 ect... Just to remind you of the faction you are playing. Either that or they could randomly be mixed in with the regular music.

(Sorry for the bad english, it not my first language)

I like to come whit a couple of suggestion also, perhaps a little radical.

- Minor faction: Whit the new patch, the Sister of Mercy have a very classy questline and a hero, why not give to all minor faction at the minimum a hero who can be win in a quest after asimilate the faction?

- Independant city-state: Minor faction city-state, act like a normal city, not bound by a empire but can be pacify by a more bigger quest than a small village. The mechanic can be discuss, but the idea is in the air.

- Bigger map: Have the option of generatig a map for 12 player/computer for be able to place all the civilisation on Aurigia, afther all, it is not a little bit counter-lore to have a planet, where all race are present but whit no empire? if not, the City-State held by Major faction but neutral and not control by player can be a good idea.

- Religion: Religion is the core of most of the ancien civilisation, why not a game feature?