Update 1.1.0 -- Galactic Statecraft
Hey everyone! We've recently discussed the big changes coming to Endless Space 2 with Galactic Statecraft, and three days of blog posts weren't even enough to all showcase the good stuff! In case you missed them, we invite you to take a look at them: improved alliances, coordination tool, diplomatic requests, pressure retake, constellation control, pirate lairs, heretic's quest rewards, hall of fame.
In short: we've added many quality of life features, and revamped a bunch of existing ones, to make the game a richer, more rewarding experience. Interactions with the AI in particular will benefit immensely from the update, along with players who enjoy throttling their enemies through non-military means.
We have a whole bunch of cool things coming up tonight to celebrate the release of Galactic Statecraft, so whatever plans you had for the week-end, it's never too late to cancel. The full update notes are below, but we know some of you don't like reading, so we even made a video to introduce the update. Check it out!
Galactic Statecraft update notes:
Diplomacy
Denounce Alliance Decision: players can now decide to leave an alliance after one of its members declared a war. They go back to Cold War with all involved parties
Coordination Tool: players in an alliance can now place “pings” directly on the galactic map to display their intentions (attack here, defend here). The AI is sensitive to these pings and also places its own pings
Co-operative Protocol: players in an alliance can now sign this pact. It will provide a faction-specific bonus that scales over time at the cost of an Influence upkeep
Chat:
Added an “Alliance” specific tab in the chat window
Whisper Improvement. The players can directly send whispers by clicking on the colored button representing a player near the end turn button
Diplomatic Requests: players can now request the AI (and vice-versa) to do actions relating to a certain game context (“remove your trespassing fleets!”). The sending player will be able to react (choose a diplomatic option) in case the recipient refuses the request
Pressure
Pressure inputs have been made explicit in the “leader card” tooltip (in main diplomacy screen)
A term to generate pressure directly has been added (“Bureaucratic Imbroglio”)
Demands now only have 2 levels (reduced from 3)
“Demand terms” have been added; exotic actions available only for a level 2 Demand
“Refusal Penalties” have been added: refusing a Demand will now apply the selected penalty to the recipient
War pressure:
War Pressure is now different from Pressure graphically
War Pressure trend impact is now feedbacked in battle notifications
Constellation Control
A player who owns the most systems in a fully discovered constellation will now claim a FIDSI bonus for their empire
Empire Chronicles
Hall of fame to record all completed games, allowing to view the final scoreboard along with the victory cutscene
Space Battle
Space battle weapons, defenses and other variables have been tweaked in various ways following player feedback (see “Space Battle” section below for details)
Pirates
Pirate Lairs: Pirates are no longer spawned by Minor Factions, but by Pirate Lairs which are occupying some neutral systems. Players can destroy these bases by ground battles (and have a chance to get some loot!)
Minor Factions will now spawn their own fleets to protect their systems. These fleets are static and stay on the Minor Faction’s home system
Academy & the Heretic
Orbiting the Lost Graves after completion of the Heretic's quest will now yield dust gain per turn if the Lost have won, and manpower per turn if they have lost
Rewards have been increased for the winning camp's podium of participants
Only the winning camp will be able to recruit Heroes after winning, through either the Academy or the Marketplace, depending on the outcome
Visuals will change on Lost Graves depending on the outcome
Visuals
Added new visuals: Orbiting space stations as a planet fills up and a system develops
New icons for Privateers & Pirates
Added destroyed planet visual in discovery cinematic
Fixed planet colonization cutscene being displayed and frozen when a ground battle is viewed during the colonization cutscene
Fixed anomalies remaining on screen when entering galaxy scanview
Added new image for finished auto explore notification
Changed the flow of the space battle cutscenes launch to fix an issue that appeared when trying to visualize a battle around a node affected by the Rip singularity
All Minor Factions now have an image artwork in the "Select A Target Empire to Attack" screen
Bailiff
The bailiff system will now first scrap ships before improvements
Improved Influence bailiff system to take into account Co-operative Protocols (will not make players lose the game)
Space Battle
Feedback Improvements:
Added new feedback elements (Flak DPS on Kinetics & Missile Health on Missiles)
Weapon Balancing:
Complete rebalancing of weapons to create more interesting play:
Kinetics now have an accuracy of 10% / 50% / 85%, playing a role of missile counter and strong short range damage
Missiles now have an accuracy of 100% / 50% / 25%, strong long range damage that can take out most Energy ship designs
Lasers now have an accuracy of 50% / 100% / 50%, with good damage. They will tend to defeat Beams and Kinetics, but will have a problem against Missiles
Beams now have an accuracy of 100% / 100% / 100%, with standard damage overall. They are sure to hit and will counter Kinetics. Their accuracy makes them perfect to use with counter tactics, and their critical hits can turn the tide of battle in your favor
Buffed "Advanced MAGGIE Laser": Now has +100% Damage against Shields
Buffed "Advanced HELL Array Laser": Now has +100% Damage against Shields
Defense Balancing:
Buffed: Medium Ships, Large Ships and Motherships have increased Health
Buffed: Doubled shields' absorption, Tripled shields' life
Military Power Balancing:
Defensive Military Power is now computed according to modules' values and should be more consistent
Manpower damage is now used to compute Offensive Military Power
Critical Hit Chance is now used to compute Offensive Military Power
Squadrons:
Squadron life updates correctly when hit
Fixed squadrons not damaging each other
Fixed Wing Coordination not working
Squadrons now target Arks
Fixed auto ship design not working for Unfallen Explorer and Colonizer Hulls
Second level of "Non-Liquid Assets" now applies its Hull Absorption bonus correctly
Battle theater effects are now listed in the Special Node Discovery notification
Ground Battle
Unlocked Bhagaba special ground battle play ("White flag": slower ownership recovery for invader)
Reduced Tikanan "Swarming Infantry" assimilation trait from -0.5% to -0.15% manpower Infantry cost
Reduced "Monstrous Opponents" assimilation trait from +75% infantry health to +15% infantry health and +15% infantry damage
Rebalanced troop stats:
Infantry: Reduced damage from 20-40 to 12-22
Armor: Reduced damage from 40-60 to 25-60
Plane: Reduced damage from 140-180 to 95-115
Plane: Reduced health from 300 to 200
Plane: Reduced manpower cost from 30 to 20
Lowered manpower generated from "Conscription" from 200 to 175
You now need at least 2 pops to select "Conscription" when defending in a ground battle
Quests and events
The "Acquire" objective of the Riftborn quest "A Plague on Coroz" cannot be completed by custom Riftborn factions using the "Shipbound" trait so this choice is no longer available in that case
Added a Quest Marker on the pirate fleet of the Exploration Quest Dust to Dust: part 3
The Good Life quest will now work if Horatio’s ship is docked to an outpost which has just turned into a Colony
Players now need to participate in a multiplayer quest to obtain a reward
Academy Quest 01 now has a new ending: if a player finds the Academy before the quest ends, then the quest doesn't fail but success and display a new ending outcome
The Cravers Quest "then we cracked the nuts inside” now completes only after the system is captured
The event Riled Researchers now starts from turn 60 instead of 20 to avoid the AI from making choices harmful to its economy
A Swarm of Locusts now informs the users how many fleets they have to destroy in order to receive a reward
New rewards have been added for Deeds
The church triumphant Part 2 now displays the right building in the objective
Fixed Horatio Quest Improvements not working for Custom Factions
Unfallen Quest chapter 2 is now more Vodyani-friendly
Ripple effect now fails only if another Empire destroys the Lesser Empire Fleet
Chapter 3 of the UE Quest: the Mezari Objective now scales with the current science production
Tweaked Quest appearance rhythm overall
Dust to Dust now fails when another Empire or the Lesser Empire attacks and destroys the fleet
The quest no longer fails in "The Good Life" Exploration Quest if the player disbands the Lost Horatio
Use of similar Dust icons for the effects of "A Two-way Street" (Dust gain and Upkeep increased) event could be confusing that's why we now use the same icon (Dust gain and Dust loss)
The Battlestations reward of the "Collaboration or Cataclysm" quest doesn't display a placeholder icon and category anymore
First two parts of the "Fighters and Bombers" quest now display correctly their outcome text upon completion
If the player used to play a custom Faction Horatio, the Horatio faction quest could be endless. It now checks if the original Horatio are in the Empire. If they aren't, then the Quest will end
It's now the same for all the Population Quests: we check if the player has the original population instead of the Custom ones
Lowered Minor Faction relation threshold to ask for a quest from 75 to 50
Changed the cost of asking for a quest from an Influence cost to a Dust cost
To validate the quest Riftborn Chapter 1 part 1: the player has to possess only 9 buildings, and the feedback now reflects it
If the player discovered the galaxy thanks to a shared map in the Sophons Quest Chapter 1 (alternative version) Science choice, the quest wasn't completed. Now the quest can be completed even if the player is helped by someone
In the Lumeris Quest Chapter 1 Science choice, if the player discovered the galaxy thanks to a shared map, the quest wasn't completed. Now if the player is helped by someone, the quest can be completed
"Dominance" and "Acceleration" rewards of the "Collaboration or Cataclysm" quest have now have temporary tooltips, we'll had more descriptive tooltips later
The correct choice is now selected upon confirming a multiple choice quest after the notification was minimized
Technologies
Added a "Continuum Sculptors" faction-specific tag on "Climate Engineering" tech
Increased “Free Move Sophon” movement points from 2 to 4
Added "All must Tithe II" to the unique alternative technology in case of unique constellation setting
Fixed Lumeris being able to have 5 Trading Companies
Added new Stage 4 Engine
Moved Luxury Lottery unlock to the Atmospheric Filtration technology (previously Neural Robotics)
Fixed issues with Horatio ash and lava colonization unlocks
The technology which allows to unlock Heroes on Marketplace is now displayed in the Tutorial
Fixed the AI being able to trade quest technologies
Arks will now need to unlock additional slots by unlocking stages in the tech tree
Victory Wonder no longer appears in the construction queue before you unlock the stage
Fixed bug where a custom faction with Riftborn pop and Horatio affinity didn't have access to Adamantian mining
The Systems Illumination or Radiance are no longer given to players with Ship Bound or Unfallen Affinity
The deeds are now greyed out when the technology stage is unlocked by the Oracle of Science law
Fixed an issue where "Technology stage unlocked" notifications of Economy and Trade and Military quadrants displayed misleading information
Laws & Politics
Reduced "Deadly Intent Bill" from 50% to 33% damage bonus (75% to 40% for Republics)
Increased effect from "Trusted Broker" law from 2% to 3.5% per turn, up to 50% (from 30%)
Added a passive bonus on Outpost growth (+10%/+15% in Republic) for the "New Colony Rule" law
Updated the effect of the Republic version of the base militarist law for consistency
Removed default bonus pressure to Religious politic
The Attends resolution tooltip has been corrected
"Jingoist Joy Bill" Law does not allow for free war declaration in truce anymore
Changed/Fixed the way the tech to change government, Autocracy and the Cravers visual affinity interact: Autocracy is not linked to the Cravers affinity anymore
Fixed Custom Factions with the Cravers visual affinity being unable to change their government type
Diploma
