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?