- Main topic about balances & suggestions for the game (or Endless Space / Legend ?) : https://www.games2gether.com/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/19479-list-of-suggestions-by-category-shifters-update

- I played a lot of games and a lot of hours to Endless Legend in multiplayer. I got a precise idea of what is not wrong about balance. For exemple, I writte a guide here : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=635764665

- Yesterday I heard that Phoenix, another veteran player, is planning to make a Balance mod for the game. This is why I post here my own suggestions to balance the game. I have focused on light and easy technical things to do, because we speak of a balance mod, not a new game DLC.

1. General balance

- Bad start : The most frustrating thing is to begin a game with a bad start. You begin with one anomaly, and others begins with 3 anomalies. You know they have a big FIDSI superiority which means faster growth faster settler, faster science...

Suggestion : Increase from 4 to 6 the movement speed of your settler for the turn 1 and 2. And increase his vision bonus range from zero to +3. 

- The syndrom of the absence of the Industrialist Governor : For an obivous reason for any person who know the game well, it's very important to grab a good industrialist hero early in the game, something between turn 10 and turn 20. But in some situation, you don't find one, althrought the others players have their Necro Slaver, or Exid the Chosen hero.

Suggestion : I don't know if it's techniquely possible. But let's say that : at each phase of hero pool refresh, the game propose one more hero, and it's an industrialist : Exid the Chosen, Feed the Bones or Ipsa Washa.

Suggestion 2 : Increasing a lot in the pool the probably of having industrialist hero at the place of all those crappy heros that no one never use and no one remember their name.

2. Factions balance

Necrophages :

- Buff the Demanding Gods Necrophages technology : This tech only give +30 happiness. The sewer system, at level 1, already give +20 happiness, for a minimal cost. And there are others tech than Demanding Gods which give interesting bonus.

So, it would be better if this tech could give a bonus related to the faction lore. This bonus could be a +30 happiness, plus a suppression of the expansion dissapproval (the happiness malus for each new district built). To reflect the fact that the necrophages are swarming, they don't build "triangle" district form. With this bonus, it could allow the necrophages to build district city of any form, but this bonus would not be too powerfull, I think.

- Buff the Necrophages food reserves gained by killing units : This tech is relatively usefull at the early game, but become very useless after. I think the food gained should increase with the eras. It should double at each era so era 2 : x2 era 3 x2 again etc.

Ardent Mages :

- Nerf the Stunspell of the Ardent Mages : This spell is very overpowered : price is near nothing and the effect is massive, 3 times per combat for 60 dust per spell. Combined with the very strong zealot units, ardent mages are the strongest faction, with no coast of production or strategic resources. Ideas to nerf this. Top priority problem.

Suggestion 1 : The stun spell can be used only one time per combat. After, player has to use any others spells.

Suggestion 2 (alternative) : The stun spell can only affect one unit, and not a group of units.

Allayis :

- Buff the Skyfin's Allyi as combat unit : Skyfin is superb as explorer, pearl collector and ressource gatherer, but very rarely used as combat units. Main reason is he is solitary (as guardian, he cannot be included army) so players rarely use them in armies.

As the Skyfin is expansive, and only good as support unit, I don't really see the real reason of this Solitary trait.

Suggestion : Suppress this Solitary trait.

- Buff the Allayi Hero as City Governor : The Allayi hero is weak as city governor. And not much strong as commander. He seems to be more feat as a solo pearl collector... anyway here the problem is to buff him as city commander, because no one never use him as city governor...

Suggestions :

- Integrate too all allayi hero a natural skill which could be named "Harmony with the Nature" : It reduce the expansion disaproval of -10 % per level of the Allayi hero. So at level 10, expansion disaproval penatly is of -100 %. Allayi governor has nearly no governor skill, so he does not buff the city, the it's not overpowered. And it opens to the Allayi the faculty to expand a bit more in the late game (which is actually nearly impossible).

- Garth cultivator : Integrate to all allayi hero a natural skill which do that : Each allayi district at level 2 produce one pearl per turn. It look mych but it's not so much for Allayis as they need some pearls. So, a full district triangle (which take a long time to build) will give to Allayi 3 pearls per turn if they have an allayi governor on it.

It's really important to buff this hero as city governor because he is very useseless now.

Roving Clans :

- Buff Roving Clans : This race can be fun but lack of power compared to others civ. The main problem come from their unaptitude to declare war. It's a big problem in multiplayer. But, that is the core of this civ, so it's ok.

Suggestion : To buff them, I propose that any Roving Clans city has automatiquely road built when you got the Imperial Highways tech. It will help them economiquely and it feat very much to their lroe.

Vaulters :

- Buff the Vaulters when Winter is coming : Vaulters are a dwarf like civ. They are specialist of living underground. This should be reflected more in the game. Moreover, Vaulters are actually underpowered compare to the strong races.

Suggestion : Vaulters are immunised to dust increasing upkeep in the winter for their cities (not their untis), as they are hardly trained to winter effects. Moreover, they dont loose -1 industry for each hexagone during the winter. As they work underground mostly. By mod, this effect is maybe hard to add. It could be done like that : a racial trait which give to Vaulters a natural +1 industry in the winter for their industrial hexagones ?

3. Items balance

- Supress the "Nwere" Item : This item give for 300 dust, stealth for a whole army. You can equip all your armies with it and you will have an immense advantage, gaining the entire racial bonus of the Forgottens (being stealth). It's just a broken item, purely based on luck. It's impossible to predict that in multiplayer a guy will use it. Just imagine a massive Cultist stealth army...

Suggestion : This item is suppressed or give Stealth only to the hero itself not the army.

- Buff the pearl equipement : No one use the pearl equipement because it's very expansive for what it does.

Suggestion :  Pearls equipement is very light and thus give high initiative (as glassteal of level 3). And in winter, all pearl equipement has twice more effect (so twice more healthpoints, attacks, defense etc.).

- Buff the winter grace special buildings : There are special buildings which are hard to use, and not so powerfull. For exemple, super extractors are interesting to use if you want to rush a ressource, but you cannot because it's a very late winter grace building.

Suggestion : It's an useless restriction. All winter buildings need high amount of pearls, you cannot abuse from this idea.

I agree with all the changes. Excellent, and thank you.

It need more play test to give a good feedback.  :)

I really like the suggestion to have level two Allayi Garths generate pearls per turn. Since the Oceans became a great deal more deadly in Tempest collecting enough pearls has become really tough, a small Allayi empire that wants to build tall is in a very difficult situation once all the other regions have been occupied.

If that's not workable, perhaps boosting the Allayi leader's pearl collecting skill would be nice?

I would like to see Forgotten's quest step 1 and step 2 to always be located in your first settled territory.  Right now, the opportunity cost of getting those two predators (which are badly needed for clearing camps) can be so great that it's generally best to start the quest well into era 2, at which point you no longer need those units.  Worse yet is if either step is located on an island or distant peninsula that due to some weird map logic is considered bordered to your home settlement. 

Hi !

I don't know what happen with your project, but I got an idea while watching starcraft streaming.

What could help is MAP.

So instead of a random map, create a tournament Map symetrical.

This map is a 2 player map only.

For being sure the players will spawn at the good place : The spawn location have to get more bonus on tile than others tiles of the map. So it's almost sure the players will spawn on these spots. It can be set also with the spawn options of WGFC for more security.

As I don't know how to make custom map, and I don't know if you can set regions into, i just launch the idea.

With a system like this : you can make small maps with a limited number of regions, then the game became a sort of "stracraft" game but turn by turn. And it can provide fast games.

2. Factions balance

Necrophages :

- Buff the Demanding Gods Necrophages technology : This tech only give +30 happiness. The sewer system, at level 1, already give +20 happiness, for a minimal cost. And there are others tech than Demanding Gods which give interesting bonus.

So, it would be better if this tech could give a bonus related to the faction lore. This bonus could be a +30 happiness, plus a suppression of the expansion dissapproval (the happiness malus for each new district built). To reflect the fact that the necrophages are swarming, they don't build "triangle" district form. With this bonus, it could allow the necrophages to build district city of any form, but this bonus would not be too powerfull, I think.

- Buff the Necrophages food reserves gained by killing units : This tech is relatively usefull at the early game, but become very useless after. I think the food gained should increase with the eras. It should double at each era so era 2 : x2 era 3 x2 again etc.

I agree Demanding Gods could use a rework. I almost think a smaller, but, permanent bonus might lead to more interesting decisions on the margins.

For food reserves the stacks gained could be improved. Enemies killed grant stacks = to their level / 3 rounded up.  So a level 7 enemy grants 3 stacks... kKeeping the 8 stack to make a food source. *shrug* Just a thought.