One of the questions we see discussed often in our community is “Which Endless Legend Faction do you want to see in Endless Space 2?” Of course, many of you have favorite factions they would love to see make the jump to space. The Cultists, the Broken Lords, the Necrophages, and the Allayi all come up a lot in this context. And of course, the Vaulters did make the jump, whoever won the quest victory in Legend almost did, and then there was that one mysterious hero in Endless Space 1…
Luckily for all of you, community member CaptainCobbs has taken it upon himself to bring the Endless Legend factions into Endless Space 2 with his mod Endless Legend Populations. While the factions are implemented as Minor Factions for you to discover rather than as major factions (they are after all the last survivors of a great cataclysm, not a mighty empire), this mod nonetheless offers plenty of interesting content to play around with.
The mod includes all of the major factions from Endless Legend (except the Vaulters, of course), giving you 12 new Minor Factions to assimilate into your growing empire. For each of these factions, CaptainCobbs integrated two different images for the popup and the detail screen, as well as a brief description, to bring their unique flavors to ES2.
But these factions are more than just skins. Each of them has a full set of political traits, and comes with one of two different assimilation traits, many (if not all) of them implemented from scratch, and often with effects not common to assimilation traits. These traits are even available for you to use in custom factions! Each Faction also comes with their own series of appropriate Population collection bonuses, many of them new to the mod. The mod also includes three additional population types, the mighty Urkans, as well as some special effects for certain population like the Broken Lords.
Enough of me rambling about the features, though! Let’s have a chat with the modder:
Interview with CaptainCobbs
Introduce Yourself, Please
Hello there! I'm Captain Cobbs, and no that's not my name and nor am I a captain. I'm known as the guy who clogs the front page of the Endless Space 2 workshop with balance mods. I'm a Computer Science student from the US, and am known on the forums/discord server as the boring guy who responds every time someone needs technical support. I also stalk the subreddit looking for mod requests.
How long have you been part of the Amplitude community? Which of our games did you play, and which is your favorite?
I joined the community almost exactly a year ago, February 2019 sometime, though I've been eyeing the forums for quite some time. I mainly play Endless Legend, which I started playing in late 2018, but have since found that ES2 is really fun to mod. I'd say Endless Legend is my favorite (Kapaku are the best race fight me).
What inspired you to create the Endless Legend Factions mod for ES2?
In all honesty, the inspiration was from a youtube comment on the Kapaku Theme song, some guy was complaining how the Kapaku were not in ES2 , and I thought that was a great idea.
Did you have any prior modding experience before you tackled this?
No, though I do have some experience in XML, I've never really done anything like this before. The pain and suffering inflicted by XML has all been mostly new to me, but it's been really fun to meet new people and get ideas.
What was the biggest problem you faced working on this mod, and what are you most proud of?
I had quite a few big problems, though my main two were lack of source material and acquiring the Endless Legend assets. There's one example mod out there, but it didn't go into as much detail as I needed (though it helped me get a solid start on the mod, so thanks for your work, Numerlor). I eventually figured it out, but it probably took a month or two just to get a working version of the mod. What I'm most proud of is the organization behind the mod, there were around ten people total involved in some way with this mod, and getting to work with and know each of them was a blast.
Do you have any future plans for this or other ES2 mods?
Oh yes, so many. I have a planning board with around 40 ideas, and my actual modding "schedule" has 8 projects on it currently. Some notable projects that may excite people are a sequel to ELP, bringing the total minor factions to something over 40, a planet/terraforming overhaul with a good friend of mine (doubling the amount of types of planets), and a massive project looking to add 4-5 additional major factions. No promises that any of this will ever get finished, but there's a lot coming out! If you have an idea for a small mod, feel free to approach me on the Amplitude Discord or something. I'm happy to listen.
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