VieuxChat wrote:
Civilization (the really ancient one).

Funny you mentioned that because the tech system reminded me of the one in the newer Civilization game. There's no set tree and 2 lower level techs allow you to buy 1 in the higher level (like a pyramid).

A cool idea would be the ability to mix Luxury resources (understand that "Strategic" resources are tied to production) together into "spells". Something like 50 units of resource X + 50 units of resource Y let you teleport an army to a friendly region. Different combinations would have different unique effects (some could be production boosts).

Propbuddha wrote:
A cool idea would be the ability to mix Luxury resources (understand that "Strategic" resources are tied to production) together into "spells". Something like 50 units of resource X + 50 units of resource Y let you teleport an army to a friendly region. Different combinations would have different unique effects (some could be production boosts).

I'm lobbying actively with the devs so they implement such a thing

So I think I agree with you

Propbuddha wrote:
A cool idea would be the ability to mix Luxury resources (understand that "Strategic" resources are tied to production) together into "spells". Something like 50 units of resource X + 50 units of resource Y let you teleport an army to a friendly region. Different combinations would have different unique effects (some could be production boosts).

Though EL is set in kind of a "fantasy" world I hope there won't be any magic or spells. One of the game's biggest appeals to me is that it doesn't get ridiculous and most of the features retain some sembalence of reality - ie, no teleporting, terraforming, etc. Too many games go crazy with this stuff and as a result the world sort of loses meaning because it doesn't even follow it's own rules. I think 4X games appeals to many because it's about dealing with what you are given at the beginning of the game and the potential therein.



Hope this makes sense.:/

Seek wrote:
Though EL is set in kind of a "fantasy" world I hope there won't be any magic or spells. One of the game's biggest appeals to me is that it doesn't get ridiculous and most of the features retain some sembalence of reality - ie, no teleporting, terraforming, etc. Too many games go crazy with this stuff and as a result the world sort of loses meaning because it doesn't even follow it's own rules. I think 4X games appeals to many because it's about dealing with what you are given at the beginning of the game and the potential therein.



Hope this makes sense.:/

It does, although this is a fantasy-themes game, you can't claim life force sucking Vampires are OK, but fireballs are not.



I used the term "spells" but you call them what ever you want ("perks", "buffs", "potions", whatever fits). Maybe instead of "teleport" you get fancy horseshoes that make your armies move faster until they wear out. I'm suggesting rare and unique effects that make collecting and harvesting Luxuries worth it, not AoW3-style god powers that are being cast multiple times a turn. The idea is to make these Luxury resources more interesting than "+50% food for 10 turns". I'm sure there's already buildings, hero skills, etc. have these effects.



PS - I don't know all of the effects, just discussing based on the example provided. The may be awesome. In Endless Space, the luxuries were "nice to have" and were never valuable enough to fight over or to prioritize exploitation.

Yep, I'd like to see those "spells" but without such a name. It could always be tied to Dust as it is the main resource for special abilities.

Dust may be thought of as "mana" in a classic fantasy setting.

Propbuddha wrote:
It does, although this is a fantasy-themes game, you can't claim life force sucking Vampires are OK, but fireballs are not.

Haha, yeah, that occurred to me while I was writing (thus the "hope it makes sense" bit), but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I really like that the fantasy aspects of EL are more "mystical" than "magical". The extraordinary features are treated by the game as actual *mysteries* (re: anomaly flavor texts for example) and aren't overused high-fantasy tropes.

I'm suggesting rare and unique effects that make collecting and harvesting Luxuries worth it, not AoW3-style god powers that are being cast multiple times a turn. The idea is to make these Luxury resources more interesting than "+50% food for 10 turns". I'm sure there's already buildings, hero skills, etc. have these effects.



PS - I don't know all of the effects, just discussing based on the example provided. The may be awesome. In Endless Space, the luxuries were "nice to have" and were never valuable enough to fight over or to prioritize exploitation.

Excellent, then we're on the same page. Fully agreed - I always thought ES's luxes were lacking in importance and effect, too.

Seek wrote:
Though EL is set in kind of a "fantasy" world I hope there won't be any magic or spells. One of the game's biggest appeals to me is that it doesn't get ridiculous and most of the features retain some sembalence of reality - ie, no teleporting, terraforming, etc. Too many games go crazy with this stuff and as a result the world sort of loses meaning because it doesn't even follow it's own rules. I think 4X games appeals to many because it's about dealing with what you are given at the beginning of the game and the potential therein.



Hope this makes sense.:/

Well yeah it is an interesting debate since Terraforming has been a very strong core of most 4x games - but it has been in limited forms like building a farm, making a hamlet (civ4) etc. Alpha Centuari took it quite far but in a realistic way. For me it comes down to this - do I want to have 100 terraformers doing tedious tasks for me every turn? (answer is obviously no) the other thing is that if you change the terrain or rules too much it becomes a game in itself - unless your going for a "god" game where this could be a point then I think too much changes is not good. But exploration and "mastering" the terrain you have in my opinion is core of the 4x experience.

The scale is diffrent too from ES : terraforming in ES could take a lot of turns. But a whole game of EL would merely be a turn or two of ES. So terraformation wouldn't be coherent with the fact the faction are trying to survive. They are not faction at the peak of their power, mastering the planet like humans are trying to do nowadays.

Many board games are really insperational for good mp design. Glad to see more players with a boardgame bacķground give feedback. (Imho it gives good design understanding.) Compared with vieux im a board game noob

It reminds me I should try it one day or another. But I fear it will be less interesting than Clash of Culture.

VieuxChat wrote:
It reminds me I should try it one day or another. But I fear it will be less interesting than Clash of Culture.

I own it and it's a good game, but has and will likely always be passed over by my group in favor of other stuff. It needs to be played a few times to see through the abstractions and get into the strategy. Unfortunately, the boardgame group time is precious and Eclipse is our current favorite.



Hope to try Clash of Cultures some day...



Back to EL...



How do you guys feel about the tech system so far?

I love it.

The tech system is very flexible. You don't have to learn a whole tech tree. You know what you'll have at each era (roughly, some tech are race-specific ans others are earned through quests), so you don't pass too much time asking to yourself "When will I be able to do this or that ?"

How do the later era techs compare to the earlier ones? I assume they are more powerful, but are they generally unique or better versions of the low-era stuff? I ask because Endless Space had a lot of "Armor Level 1"/"Armor Level 2" or "Improvement That gives you +1 Resource"/"Improvement that gives you +2 Resource" type stuff vs. unique techs like "Warp Drives"

Accessories, weapons and armor level up that way, at the moment, at least til age III when you get those out of alltogether different materials that were previously unavailable.

Most other techs don't improve like let's say industry building I and II. Rather you do get a manufacture in age I, a building improving industry on forests in age II and a percentual increase building in age II, for example.

It's a bit like this, but on fact it's through the use of different new resources.

You start with glassteel and titanium. Then you gain access to more advanced resources. You gain new access for the market (at start you only have heroes, then you can have access to units and resources). Same for diplomacy. So it feels a lot less tech 1/2/3/4/5.

Are all the resources on the map from the beginning? For example the resources that require you to be in age 3, do they first appear on the map when you enter into age 3 or are they there the whole time? for future planning on what regions to settle in

TrystanCT wrote:
Are all the resources on the map from the beginning? For example the resources that require you to be in age 3, do they first appear on the map when you enter into age 3 or are they there the whole time? for future planning on what regions to settle in

The mean thing is: You see the age III resources only once age III is reached, not before.

I can add I have so far tried my best to offer feedback to make EL a viable mp game.(and all of the other vips offer feedback as well.) Stuff like a good scoring system. Quick but interesting turns and while random balanced enough. Finally stuff like making the game fun even if your not nr 1. Again I cannot speak for the developers but my impression is they really care. The combat system is already tweaked and I am sure Alpha will allow the developers to tweak it more.

Hello,



Thanks for posting this!



One question - a common thread across the faction strategy threads is "Focus on food (Dust for Broken Lords) and grow as fast as possible", which is generally the default strategy for 4X games. Is there any other viable early game strategies at this point?

Good observation. I think questing early can prove a valuable gameplay as well. At the same time one have to realize one of the x in 4x is eXpand and its at the core of the game. Yet while I cannot speak for the developers it is my impression they are trying to make several strategies viable in different situations. I think when we get more victory conditions tied to the planet auriga this will hopefully be the case. Keep in mind me who wrote this is an old civ4 veteran who used to play competitative so my mindset is on expansion quickly.

Propbuddha wrote:
Hello,



Thanks for posting this!



One question - a common thread across the faction strategy threads is "Focus on food (Dust for Broken Lords) and grow as fast as possible", which is generally the default strategy for 4X games. Is there any other viable early game strategies at this point?

The cities aren't the only "main" resource of th egame, the quests and thus heros are too.

But expanding is a matter of food... so...

Anyway the game isn't balanced at all right now, so we can't really answer.

Thanks for your reply,



Yes, the competitive angle is how I'm looking at this too. I'm really hoping that Endless Legend will be a 4X game that you can actually play in multiplayer. I prefer to play on smaller maps where there's a little room to grow but soon you'll be rubbing elbows with your neighbors. The map in the PANCZASU's video seemed enormous!



Early Expansion (a.k.a "the land grab") is always a good idea as space is not endless (pun intended). However, early city development (increasing production) in the regions you control may or not be the best choice if Science, military, economy or questing early will get you a jump on victory.



Another question - How good are the luxury resources? Are they worth fighting over or more "nice to have"?

Luxury resources will let you have "boosts" once you have enough of them. They are a nice addition. The real resources you'll fight for are Glassteel and Titanium.

Maybe the devs will change that later. Maybe not. They are focusing right now on other thing of the game.

Currently luxury resources can be huge. We are talking like 50% bonus in a city etc. The way it works is you expend resource on empire screen and it costs more the more cities you have. In late game i could pay more than 200 resources for a 10 turn food bonus of 50% in one pre alpha game. I am sure there will be more balancing to be done in the game if we give feedback on that to the developers. Btw nice to see you considering mp. Perhaps one day in the future we will have a match

Also (thanks again for answering my many questions)...



How does the score system work? What sort of things do you get points for?

Propbuddha wrote:
Also (thanks again for answering my many questions)...



How does the score system work? What sort of things do you get points for?

Don't honestly know.

Number of pop, cities, battles, maybe even how many main quest steps were done ? How many Dust/resources too ?

DID a check : you don't see the calculation, but there's 5 end-rankings : Global score, military, expansion, population, research. Remind me that quests should be in

Here are some tidbits from playing a few games of what seems to work. Keep in mind these are only my opinions and your own strategy might differ. If anyone else have any comments to add feel free.



General:

- You should think careful about every empire plan cycle of 20 turns. It might actually be worth it to delay expanding into a 2nd city until turn 20 to avoid a 100% increase in prestige cost for each bonus in empire plan you select for the next 20 turns. This goes against the "expand at all cost" theory but math will easily show this can be superior. For example your base city has 3 population doing 4 dust per turn and adding 3 dust per turn gives them 75% more dust per turn. Your 2nd city will in most scenarios not be able to catch up this advantage. I think I would be very careful to make a city on turn 19 for example.

- Forest are industry powerhouses, Rivers are in general very powerful for science and dust. A good balance of both can get your empire a long way towards glory and riches.

- For units two designs that can currently be considered is an all out boost to defense (rocks), and the other is a very high damage and initiative boost. (glass cannons.) These are just examples - feel free to make up an even more powerful design and use the minor faction units to the maximum of they're abilities. (They have unique abilities so definitively check them out.)

- Accessories are nothing to scoff of! There are some serious economical bonuses to them as well later in the game - they are not just for military show off!

- Buyout can be powerful - especially if you try to reduce the buyout cost - remember the cost goes up exponentially so try to buy out as late as possible for the best dust efficiency.

- Quests are powerful - without revealing the faction quest lines I can say they add a lot of bonuses to each faction so consider them carefully.



Wind walker:

- If you are playing wind walker it could be worth it to add the early industry bonus to boost a city - try to plan this ahead and level up your hero as a boost in industry early means a boost in everything since buildings can give you flat bonus to dust, science, food prestige and even more industry. Sometimes it is even worth it to cycle your hero from city to city after the 5 turn delay to boost each city quickly.



Vaulters:

- Starting with 3 army units (currently - might change) is powerful and you should quickly use this to your advantage as it may not last forever before other empires add more military. Good early uses are to get a village pacified early, take risks on quests since you have a better chance surviving (especially if you spawn monsters on quest) and finally even considering war if you have a neighbor.

- Since you get a lot of science early I would try to focus on forest with industry as well as you need industry to build all those new buildings and units you are going to research faster than your opponent in the beginning.

- If you see winter is coming now is the time to use the hero ability to add movement. This makes you able to roam around even in winter time as vaulters. Not a bad ability at all. Consider adding your settler to your army if you expand during winter to use the movement bonus of the hero to its full advantage and save a lot of turns on your settler expansion.



Necrophage:

- Your race has a lot of bonuses after combat, especially pacifying villages nets you a powerful food bonus that is sorely needed as you have a negative food terrain bonus. For this reason consider a military start with an unit or two to pacify a village and boost your starting city.



Broken Lords:

- Dust is your friend and that most of the time means rivers and waters. You live and breath dust so make sure you have a high income of this. Also you can do more early aggressiveness with your hero as you can heal with dust.

- Strongly consider buyout bonus for empire plan.



Some things that also is nice to know:

- Drag the empire plan option is the way to set your empire plan.

- When you get quest items you do not get the item itself, you get the ability to build this type of item.

- Be careful when clicking FIDS overlay or Grid overlay or you might just hit end turn Also note the wheel of time..ehm wheel of legends also shows you when winter is coming and estimate turns for this so you can plan ahead.



Finally I have one tip: Enjoy the game! Marvel at the great art and lore - and those strange region names you are considering conquering or settling down peacefully. Go on a quest and get that powerful sword and make sure every hero has a copy of it And do keep in mind this is not yet a finished game so hopefully we the fans can give our opinion to make a game we gamers together can be happy about.

Eysteinh wrote:
I can add I have so far tried my best to offer feedback to make EL a viable mp game. Stuff like a good scoring system. Quick but interesting turns and while random balanced enough. Finally stuff like making the game fun even if your not nr 1. Again I cannot speak for the developers but my impression is they really care. The combat system is already tweaked and I am sure Alpha will allow the developers to tweak it more.

Yep. I confirm that Eysteinh tried a lot to render the game more MP friendly. His advices were always very interesting and thoughtful. I'm sure that, thanks to him and others VIPs that really want the game to be MP viable, the game will really be interesting in MP.

Moreover I spoke with the devs about modding, and "custom" winning conditions. It "may" be in the editor later. that would let us create victory based not on a score but on conditions like in Twilight Imperium 3 (the boardgame).

Eysteinh wrote:
Currently luxury resources can be huge. We are talking like 50% bonus in a city etc...

I'm seeing a lot of "production bonus" type perks. Is there anything that gives unique effects? The production boosts are great but can be a bit dull when there are a lot of other ways to boost food production...

Eysteinh wrote:
I can add I have so far tried my best to offer feedback to make EL a viable mp game. Stuff like a good scoring system. Quick but interesting turns and while random balanced enough. Finally stuff like making the game fun even if your not nr 1. Again I cannot speak for the developers but my impression is they really care. The combat system is already tweaked and I am sure Alpha will allow the developers to tweak it more.

Amplitude did a good job with Endless Space and it looks better here. The only issues (IMHO) with Endless Space Multiplayer were game length and mid-game pacing. Unless you had buddies willing to invest a lot of time in a multiplayer game it's difficult to finish a game. The game got a little bogged down mid-game (after the land grab) where it felt like I was either at war or tediously researching random things and building stuff.

Yeah as viux show we vips all try to pull in same direction and are varied personalities trying to give feedback on many aspects of the game. We got some good modder minded people as well. With that said we are a limited set of people so I look forward to more people giving feedback as well. For me it is a heavy responsability since I feel this game can become a true gem and the Amplitude guys are really awesome so I did stuff like hours and hours of video feedback to comment and so has many of the other vips as well. With all that said game is fun and playable but it is definitivly not done so needs more feedback from all of us gamers to help amplitude make it THE game in fantasy 4x.

Propbuddha wrote:
I'm seeing a lot of "production bonus" type perks. Is there anything that gives unique effects? The production boosts are great but can be a bit dull when there are a lot of other ways to boost food production...



Amplitude did a good job with Endless Space and it looks better here. The only issues (IMHO) with Endless Space Multiplayer were game length and mid-game pacing. Unless you had buddies willing to invest a lot of time in a multiplayer game it's difficult to finish a game. The game got a little bogged down mid-game (after the land grab) where it felt like I was either at war or tediously researching random things and building stuff.

When I learned about the "boosts" at the Beer2Gether I had the same reaction as you "What, even more "+% this or +% that ?". I hope they will let us create interesting effects (like shortening the dark season)

About MP pacing and finishing games : I think the real solution to this ois to follow boardgames and have winning conditions (like 10 ways to get 1 VP, and the one with the most at the end of 100 turns win). Hopefully the editor should let us create such thing.

VieuxChat wrote:
Moreover I spoke with the devs about modding, and "custom" winning conditions. It "may" be in the editor later. that would let us create victory based not on a score but on conditions like in Twilight Imperium 3 (the boardgame).

If you Like TI, you owe it to yourself to try Eclipse: A New Dawn for the Galaxy. It's a tight design that covers all of the Xes that is playable in 4 hours or less. There is a 9 turn limit that forces you to interact and focus on gathering victory points, rather than building up for a late game showdown. The iOS version has some AI and Multiplayer issues but the board game is superb...

There are not only base production bonuses yes. As have been mentioned glassteel and other resources tie into building items. But yeah I agree more cool ways to make players both use and fight over regional resources and not just cities would be great and something the VIPS gave feedback on as well. Anyhow I think the internal discussions of vips should stay internal but I can with my heart say we sure gave them a lot of things to consider. Now soon the next phase will let even more of us vouche in our oppinions as gamers so I am personally really happy about that.

Propbuddha wrote:
If you Like TI, you owe it to yourself to try Eclipse: A New Dawn for the Galaxy. It's a tight design that covers all of the Xes that is playable in 4 hours or less. There is a 9 turn limit that forces you to interact and focus on gathering victory points, rather than building up for a late game showdown. The iOS version has some AI and Multiplayer issues but the board game is superb...

Yep, I have it As with Clash of Culture. I also like Age of Renaissance and Civilization (the really ancient one).