I've been playing for a while and have been really pleasantly surprised by Endless Space and moreso now by Endless Legend, however I have a few issues with the game design/balance.



Production balance is kind of broken, it is a very similar problem CiV has, but it has no reason to since you can stack units there are few things to do to improve your empire.

What do I mean by that?

Well, most of the time I'm waiting for my cities to produce something with one stack of units running around and exploring or fighting, which results in a rather boring experience.

There is little to fight, both wildlife and enemy faction wise, since production of units is discouraged, especially early on.

It is very comparable to CiV, but even there you have multiple units running around in different directions, since you can't stack them, its a step better, otherwise its extremely similar.



If we actually look to a really good game, like Alpha Centauri, the time to produce units is significantly lower compared to EL, it rewards exploring with multiple stacks and fighting enemy cities with large stacks, which you don't have to focus on with all your cities, since unit production isn't nearly as expensive, that includes new settlers.

Skirmishes happen constantly since the wildlife itself constantly attacks and early aggression between factions is encouraged and profitable, even if its not the primary strategy of whatever faction you're playing.

Also there is more to improve your empire with, secret projects, base facilities and terraforming, which keeps the player occupied and allows for more in-depth decision-making and strategy, which seems to be lacking in EL.





The bare foundations and mechanics are extremely solid and can make an almost perfect game if the balance is experimented with and 'fixed', the only thing that possibly needs to be added is more stuff to improve your empire with whenever you aren't producing units.



Overall though, I'm very impressed of EL, even though I think the balance in that regard is rather poor, so I thought I'd post my thoughts and ask if there is a mod that fixes my complaints or at least alleviates them?

Not going to comment on combat since I feel I do not have a good enough grasp on it since there is so much going on in that.





Also another thing, which is just personal opinion, assimilating minor factions doesn't feel like a big thing, since its super easy and has extremely minor bonuses like 5% movement, it should be a semi-difficult thing that actively changes how your units or faction even works, as a large bonus, I'd feel that would make things more interesting.

To clarify, minor factions can provide very large bonuses. The bonus you see is an amount added per that type of pacified village on your entire empire, the game rewards you for pacifying many villages of the same minor faction.

It's not THAT powerful: the bonus is capped at 6 villages of the same type. So, say, 6 or 9 pacified Geldirus villages would in both situations give you +30% damage. It's rare to have that many villages though.



The problem with the above is that you cannot reliably target certain minor faction villages. In theory, you could explore the whole map, and colonise the regions that have the right minor faction villages, but considering how random it is, you would have one hell of a patchwork empire.



So you get lucky (and you have the right minor factions within reach), or you don't. You can't really plan for it. I'm still not how you would change that mechanic, but anyway... (I also think minor factions need to be more interesting generally.)



That same issue applies to capturing regions with the right strategic or luxury resources. Here, the only time you make trade-offs is when you're colonising regions - but, because of the mid-game scarcity of regions, you lose that decision very quickly. There's also a fairly big investment required there.



I find that cities don't specialise much, either. Every city you possess becomes an industry, food, dust, science AND influence powerhouse, given enough time to grow. Perhaps the solution is: limit the number of city improvements to the number of districts so you have to choose between city improvements (say, 2 city improvements for your capital, plus 2 city improvements on any city centre, plus 1 city improvement per district), and have many more specialised once-per-empire buildings.



I also agree that unit costs should be lower, especially early game. Actually, I would also say that unit costs should be higher late game. (Or dust and industry income should be higher early-game and lower late-game)



On combat, I believe it has potential but it leaves a lot to be desired. The main problem with combat is that initiative is king, and combat is not reactive at all.



One other issue I have with the game is the requirement to research every thing that you do and these are also limited by tech era. Peace and Alliance diplomatic options must be researched. Talking to minor factions must be researched. Building stockpiles (so as to use idle industry) must be researched (and is not the greatest implementation IMO). Using the mercenary/hero market must be researched. Using the resources/stockpiles market must be researched.



All that said, I really enjoy Endless Legend and I think it's a good game. But it does have a lot of room for improvement - and in a way that's a good thing.