Endless Space did a great job of making what is usually a really difficult genre to play in online multiplayer playable.



I'm wondering if the following features (some were in Endless Space, but don't want to assume) will be present in Endless Legend...



Drop In/Out Play

Re-connection

AI Takeover

Multiplayer Saves/Restart

Turn Timer (to keep the game moving - ES has a great system)

Simultaneous Turns

Simultaneous Tactical Battles

Variable Pacing Options

Overall Turn Limit (force interaction and play times manageable, falling back to score victory)

Replays/Game Logs





Thanks in advance for your attention.

tactical battles are turn based so im sure they will be simultaneous.

Most of these were in Endless Space if I'm not mistaken so I'm sure they will carry over. Pretty sure turns are simultaneous, seeing as they were in endless space and it just seems like the obvious choice for most TBS games these days.

we go for the same as endless space, but the battles being in the same world as everyone else's and not in an instance, should be a welcome improvement to the genre in term of MP, in my opinion (well I am totally biased). We also worked a lot on making the MP a lot more robust in term of desyncs and there is some hope to have, if we are lucky, better handling of host disconnects.



ST

Thank you for the information and great news!



One thing you may want to look at is the turn limit/pacing options. In Endless Space the "normal" speed turn limit is 300 turns ("fast" was 150). Even 150 turns makes for a very long multiplayer game. Assuming 3 minutes a turn average (faster at start, but slower later), the game would take 7.5 hours which is REALLY long for a MP game and difficult to play without a pre-arranged group of dedicated players. Of course, a lot of the play time depends on when victory conditions are obtainable, so a game could be played in 100 turns (only hitting the 150 if the players turtle up and don't aggressively pursue victory) but that's still 5 hours. It would be great to have a pacing option that would let the game finish in ~3 hours or less (~60-75 turns).



If speeding up the pace messes up the experience, another idea would be a "battle mode" option with advanced starts (maybe 25%, 33% into the game) on a tight map. Something like:



- Era = 3 with an optimal set of faction-desirable items pre-researched

- Developed City/Region(s), but allow a bit of competitive expansion

- Some level of exploration (full?) of the map. Other player's locations should be known.

- A significant army of era 1/2 units, but not enough to rush down another player.

- A couple stages of victory quest already completed



Thanks again, looking forward to the game.

If they had some advanced options like in some of the civ games, then all of this could be easily achieved.

SpaceTroll wrote:
we go for the same as endless space, but the battles being in the same world as everyone else's and not in an instance, should be a welcome improvement to the genre in term of MP, in my opinion (well I am totally biased). We also worked a lot on making the MP a lot more robust in term of desyncs and there is some hope to have, if we are lucky, better handling of host disconnects.



ST

Indeed agree with you the battle system will be very welcomed for MP games in this genre.

SpaceTroll wrote:
we go for the same as endless space, but the battles being in the same world as everyone else's and not in an instance, should be a welcome improvement to the genre in term of MP, in my opinion (well I am totally biased). We also worked a lot on making the MP a lot more robust in term of desyncs and there is some hope to have, if we are lucky, better handling of host disconnects.



ST

Has there been any information on how the battle works in multiplayer yet? Did I miss it? Couldn't find it in the Dev Blogs. Heard talk that others could join the battle, but nothing more specific then that.

No information specifically about multiplayer but I would imagine it being a lot like in single player. Players giving units targeting priorities and other orders and then having the battle commence. So likely simultaneously though it has yet to be seen.

Any chance for a dedicated server?

I know in ES one of the unfortunate parts of MP was the lack of shared victory conditions, and pre-established teams before the game started. In ES the teams reasoning was justified by everyone starting in their own little pocket of the universe and having to meet each other. However, I don't recall ever hearing a reason for the lack of shared victory conditions (especially when it comes to the military conquest ones) Will this carry over into EL too or is the intention to allow that this time around?

The devs have already talked about a few unique end game victory conditions, one of those is a cooperative enterprise in which factions form an alliance and try to survive on Auriga together.

SpaceTroll wrote:
we go for the same as endless space, but the battles being in the same world as everyone else's and not in an instance, should be a welcome improvement to the genre in term of MP, in my opinion (well I am totally biased). We also worked a lot on making the MP a lot more robust in term of desyncs and there is some hope to have, if we are lucky, better handling of host disconnects.



ST

I know that this might become annoying but there are no chances of hot-seat huh?

CyDoN wrote:
I know that this might become annoying but there are no chances of hot-seat huh?

I know there must be a simple workaround to make hot-seat happen, both on ES and EL, I just hope they try to implement it.

arguser wrote:
I know there must be a simple workaround to make hot-seat happen, both on ES and EL, I just hope they try to implement it.

For hot-seat style to work you would need to go from simultaneous turns to ordered turns. It's not something that would be "Easy" by any means to do when you build your game around the idea of simultaneous turns. As such it's possible there might be a very slim chance someone might do something, but I'd severely doubt it.