KnightofPhoenix wrote:
Did it really give that much more freedom, though?



The nature of the tech tree forced one to research in all of them. For instance, if one wanted to specialize in warfare, we still had to research heavily from the Exploration and Expansion branch to unlock ships, from the Diplomacy and Trading to increase cap size, from the Applied Science to get support modules as well as strategic resources that advanced military modules need, and finally of course Galactic Warfare. Obtaining a scientific victory was easier if reached the last tech of each branch...etc.



It didn't really feel like one could specialize in one branch without heavily investing in the others.



Which is not to say that Endless Legend's tech offered that much freedom either. However, at the very least one could specialize in either dust tech or industry tech, which wasn't really viable in ES unless you are the Sheredyn.



So I hope that ES2's tech tree offers more freedom than both ES and EL.

I see your point. Maybe it doesn't give you much freedom but can military go forward without researches on other branches of science? I mean you should first discover the element to be able to make a weapon out of it. Maybe this is not extreme freedom but I think the web design is "convenient".

"Food

Used to compute population growth, it’s localized to a specific system."



"Industry

Consumed to build ships and all the improvements, it’s localized to a system."



What is a specific system ? Does it mean that there are systems wich don´t support food or does it mean that i can other things with food like it move to other systms ?

Brazilian_Joe wrote:
...

"no one would use this mechanic" - Please don' t judge what others would like by your own opinion.

Double thumbs up.



It's exactly like what you said.



Your idea is interesting, by the way.



There's always those who like to impose his/her own opinion to others, whether it's offline or online.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Taking a miniaturized copy of EL and adding one hundred times - No. If you play EL you will see that I am picking a single region and wrapping it in a buckyball. In EL though, the number of hexes is not fixed at 32. Usually a single region in EL has more than that.



"no one would use this mechanic" - Please don' t judge what others would like by your own opinion.



What I am proposing is not too far off what EL already has. The other notable proposed change would be that every city->system improvement would be like a borough in ES2, unlike EL.



It's wrong to look at the 32 tiles number and feel like you have to occupy every single tile in a planet. That' s not true.



On which EL game you build a borough in every hex? you may even do a megalopolis for kicks in a game. But the city grows and there is still plenty of space to grow more. It's very likely to have 30 or more hexes in the region. Usually you occupy less than a quarter. AND IT'S OK. But the variety gives the player plenty of choices, and that's good.



And going back to EL, every single borough is hand placed, and it' s still not overwhelming. So it's not going to be in ES2 as well.

I very much like what you are doing with trade. In all the 4x I've played, trade tends to be a very simplified afterthought and not an actual core mechanic. I am very happy to see that the devs are putting more thought into it and making it into a fun and interesting gameplay mechanic.



Will companies be in any way involved in elections (like lobbying or supporting a party)? In addition, is there something a player can do to sabotage companies of other empires (like espionage)? I assume trade routes can be cut via blockading hubs, but will we be able to raid trade routes?

Brazilian_Joe wrote:
@xfstef: Yes, I totally imagine the system governor auto-managing this kind of management. But it's not really a 'new game in itself', I am just drawing mechanics from EL, adapting and expanding them for ES2.



According to the governor AI selected, it would select which of the 32 available tiles to use whenever a structure is built. As a rule of thumb, it would look for the slab where there is the best tradeoff between the minuses and pluses. If it is maxing a specific FIDSI, it will only consider the best bonus for the desired resource.



It can be tied in the interface with 0 overhead even, for players which don't want to micromanage.



On a new turn, the game gives a report with all the finished buildings. The player would be able to 'OK' each item individually, or just click the global 'OK' and accept all at once. This way the AI auto-places the buildings. If the player wants to micromanage, he/she may click on a 'place' button to the right side of each building in the report, and select which tile to place the building.



This at the same time preserves the current granularity, but also allows microing the buildings.

That's the thing. You're basically taking a minturzed version of EL and putting it into ES2 one hundred times. Having 32 tiles to micromanage(And even more on invasions, even though 32 really is not that little if you think about it) on one planet would be kind of a lot if you already have the rest of the game. Now that for a whole system would be barely managable, but the planets would be filled out at some point. Now if you expand that to a whole empire, even a relatively small one, it'd become unbearable. People already often turn on governors to manage their systems as it is, now imagine they had to manage building improvements on every single tile on every single planet. Even the few people that bothered with it to begin with would probably stop after turn 10. My point is, no one would really use this mechanic, hell, no one could really use this mechanic with a larger empire and turns under 30 minutes, without just turning on the governor. And if there's really no point to do it manually, why have it at all?

It would kinda make sense for invasions though, but even then, it should be automatable, and would probably end up being auto-resolvable, so it would still be kinda questionable.

Are you sticking with the Hero skill system from ESI where the heroes could have a governor skill and a fleet skill which would mean one of them would be wasted (for example an administrator/pilot governor would never use the pilot stuff).



Are you sticking with the random events from ESI? Some of them were brutal.



I like the look of the trade system. Are the companies going to be named?

@xfstef: Yes, I totally imagine the system governor auto-managing this kind of management. But it's not really a 'new game in itself', I am just drawing mechanics from EL, adapting and expanding them for ES2.



According to the governor AI selected, it would select which of the 32 available tiles to use whenever a structure is built. As a rule of thumb, it would look for the slab where there is the best tradeoff between the minuses and pluses. If it is maxing a specific FIDSI, it will only consider the best bonus for the desired resource.



It can be tied in the interface with 0 overhead even, for players which don't want to micromanage.



On a new turn, the game gives a report with all the finished buildings. The player would be able to 'OK' each item individually, or just click the global 'OK' and accept all at once. This way the AI auto-places the buildings. If the player wants to micromanage, he/she may click on a 'place' button to the right side of each building in the report, and select which tile to place the building.



This at the same time preserves the current granularity, but also allows microing the buildings.

Trading just looks a bit fiddly to me.Why not just have the Civ5 system which added a lot of strategy to the map.External and internal growth options along with possible piracy.In Endless games it all seems too abstract.



The outpost and influence systems are going to add some fun.

@Brazzilian_Joe: Your ideas would make a whole management game in of itself. I'm not saying that they're bad or uninspired but I think the only way that this system would work is if they would limit the amount of colonize-able planets in a star system from 6 to maybe 3 at most.

Another method would be to somehow set governors that handle these things on their own once the game progresses so much that the number of planets gets too micro intensive (I would love a good AI in that regard in most 4X games).



As a side story: when I first started playing ES I remember being disappointed that I couldn't micromanage each planet but that feeling quickly changed once my empire spanned over 20+ systems and each turn sometimes took even 5 minutes. If you would like to imagine what managing each planet would feel like, try playing Pax Imperia: Imminent Domain. You'll immediately regret having to handle so many planets one by one, especially if you'll play a race like the Shreki who just colonize everything they set their sights on.

pixelfreak wrote:
"Food

Used to compute population growth, it’s localized to a specific system."



"Industry

Consumed to build ships and all the improvements, it’s localized to a system."



What is a specific system ? Does it mean that there are systems wich don´t support food or does it mean that i can other things with food like it move to other systms ?

I'm pretty sure it's just that food is generally produced and consumed locally.

I looked at your Original Post again, and, while it's really not actually usually 32 tiles to micromanage, it's still a lot, and too much for anyone to use, long-term, anyway. It also doesn't really make sense the way you suggest it, planets shouldn't be locked at 32 tiles, it should be less on a medium planet, and even less on tiny and small ones, and a little less on bigger ones.

ScifiFan wrote:
Double thumbs up.



It's exactly like what you said.



Your idea is interesting, by the way.



There's always those who like to impose his/her own opinion to others, whether it's offline or online.

And I thought you were going to say something constructive...

Although I'm liking the changes on influence radius and possible "culture flipping", I dread the moments when someone steals my system from me. Only violent repatriation awaits.



On a side note, I'm really happy that the Eras are back! I didn't like the tech tree in ES1 since it was just... idk. It was all there. Lacked story, a sense of progression. I'm also loving the dependency technology bit, although the completionist in me is dreading the exclusionary technologies.



Now I'm just waiting/dreading the official faction list for ES2. *crosses fingers for Broken Lords and the Harmony to get in*

Varadhon wrote:
I don't see how this differs from Civ4's culture flipping mechanic. It's much too artificial a mechanic and really shouldn't be included. "Converting" a system through cultural influence should, at a bare minimum, carry an overwhelming diplomatic malus between the faction losing territory and one gaining the same. Any notion that a faction would just happily sit by while its territory bleeds away is plainly ridiculous.

I mean it makes sense that you would gain control of everything within your border more or less and I think it goes without saying that taking over their systems pisses your neighbors off.

Moreover, a conversion countdown is triggered: each turn the difference between the influence generated by the influent system and the influenced system is added to a gauge.

When the gauge reaches a certain positive threshold, the system is converted;

When the gauge reaches a certain negative threshold, the system is saved from conversion;

I don't see how this differs from Civ4's culture flipping mechanic. It's much too artificial a mechanic and really shouldn't be included. "Converting" a system through cultural influence should, at a bare minimum, carry an overwhelming diplomatic malus between the faction losing territory and one gaining the same. Any notion that a faction would just happily sit by while its territory bleeds away is plainly ridiculous.

Love the idea of the trade companies, as well as the added focus on making peaceful gameplay just as rewarding and involved as war.

Not a fan of the era system for the tech tree. I am, however, intrigued by the different types of links between technologies.

Also, I hope that the tech tree in ES2 will be just as large, complex, and interesting as the original Endless Space's tech tree. Wasn't a fan of the Endless Legend tech tree... it felt like it was smaller and didn't have as much depth, as opposed to the Endless Space tech tree, which was full of depth.

1) On planet surface, and EL boroughs



I like the way EL plays in that we can expand the boroughs and automatically increase our city's output.



How I envisage this working on ES2?



Every planet, surface-wise should be "divided" as a buckyball (buckminsterfullerene) like a football (soccer).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminsterfullerene





Unfolded:



These would be "political regions" and be upgradable individually, similar to how the boroughs are created in EL, boosting the planet's output.

The "political geometry" then would be comprised of 32 regions, regardless of planet size: 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons.



Each territory would have a distinct terrain. Rather, 5 of the triangles on each territory will have one single bonus - so each territory have equal properties and are equally desirable to be built upon.



Planet sizes would influence production values with a % modifier for FIDSI and militia replenishment, rebellion time which would apply to the final planet production.



This fits nicely with the 'system level up' mechanic. An outpost can have up to 4 territories occupied: the outpost foundation and 3 'boroughs'. This leaves 28 territories, and every time a policy is enacted, 4 additional expansions are possible, except the last upgrade, when the whole planet becomes "improvable" (is that a word?).

This does not limit specific regions from being enhanced; rather, it is a cap on max number of enhanced regions.



The system's improvements would no longer be a generic construction which you queue up. Rather, every system improvement would also act as a 'borough', improving one tile on one planet. Each building will also have pluses and minuses which will change the output of that specific territory as well. A mega-factory would reduce food by 100% but increase industry by 200% for that tile only, in addition to the 'system effects'. So the player will be keen to choose wisely where to expand.



The initial outpost would be a jack-of-all-trades and unlock only a few population slots.

As for generic city expansion ( the "borough" improvement), initially a generic 'megalopolis' improvement is available, which just adds up the undelying tile production to the city. Later, other improvements are unlocked via technology.

Before or alongside terraforming there should be 'biospheres' to unlock slots to even make population growth possible on planets which as inhospitable for the player's race. Biospheres on planets with friendly environments would reduce expansion/overpopulation penalties, so the effort is not lost if the planet is terraformed later.



In a space system, the outpost->planet surface expansion would not be restricted to building in adjacent tiles, like the city expansion in EL. The player can build the improvement in any tile.







SURFACE COMBAT, ORBITAL COMBAT



I am going to ingress in the combat territory because it ties in the 32 tiles I am proposing above.



The 32 tiles might be handy for the planet domination combat arena too. 32 tiles are a little bit too little though, it's half of chessboard. So my proposal is: For combat, each of the 32 tiles will be split in triangles, and the units would move from triangle to triangle. Obviously, the pentagons would be split in 5 triangles, and the hexagons in 6.

This gives us 180 different tiles to position units in the surface.

Fleets in orbit will give assistance from another layer of 180 triangle tiles.

The battle can happen on both layers and go up and down.

It's great that the difference between pentagons and hexagons becomes immaterial, since each triangle necessarily only has 3 neighbors anyway.

On a space game, it's unlikely that any unit will be purely melee, attacking only adjacent tiles, almost all of them probably will have at least 2 tiles range.

180 tile is also much more than the "combat theatre" of EL, which I always felt a bit cramped. The buckyball shape also allows the player to wrap around the planet chasing enemies.

Terrain-wise, each triangle will have its own terrain type, with height, mobility, visibility modifiers, as it would impact combat.



Each city 'borough' has militia units for surface and orbit.

Instead of having 'build once and forget' military improvements, or the plain tile improvements above, the player has access to military improvements which can be built multiple times:

Barracks for additional militia

Surface-to-orbit weapons

Tesla continental coils to secure territory/attack invading troops

Exploit natural phenomena such as 'cave systems' for additional defense

Ships may be able to deploy bombers to give air to ground support

Or fighters for air superiority

Or have other orbit-to-surface weapons with varying radiuses around the ship tile

Even have a massive scorcher beam which attacks only the tile directly below but does massive damage

And more (which I can't think up right now).

Everything is great but shame that beautiful technology tree from ES1 is lost forever. Era's style is good and nice, but I really love old tree.

Make the luxury and strategic resources run out. It will give the game a sense of urgency and make players think more about their current situation rather than just apply the l33t build that they'll read online.



The conversion system sounds promising but you guys will have to make it faster than it sounds. I wouldn't want to play 100 turns of slugging it out with other empires with endless conversion wars.



Tech tree eras are, I think, gimmicky. It can severely handicap players who may want to go for a conquest win in case their warfare tech will be under powered compared to that of their enemies which went a more balanced build. This could be limiting in the long turn in terms of viable management builds. I also didn't like the Era mechanic in Endless Legend since it meant that I always had to leave some technologies behind in order to be on top of my game. You could make those old techs worth our while by buffing them once you unlock the next Era.



You start your explanation of the trade system by saying that you want to limit micromanagement yet it sounds like A LOT of busy work for the player. In addition to fights, research, infrastructure and exploration, trade would take another considerable amount of gameplay time from us. I think it would turn your 4X into a 5X to be honest, not that it's bad you guys want to expand on this branch of the game but I'm just saying that you need to limit the amount of clicks that the player would be required to make.

Another problem that I have with grand strategy games and trade in them is the fact that the AI almost never agrees to trade routes that don't mathematically benefit them. Which is not realistic and very frustrating. Make the AI bargain for a strategic resource if they desperately need it. It would definitely improve the single player experience.



Influence should also be generated by army strength or tech level. Give a bonus to the empire that is nr.1 in any of these main fields.



Here's an idea regarding Upkeep. Make corporations expensive to expand. Corruption is an universal constant. I'm sure that it would make sense for the empire with the most corporations and trade income to also have the most corruption and thus highest upkeep in this regard.



Another general idea for this game is to allow multicultural planets towards the end of the game. It would make for a realistic universe where individuals more often than not migrate towards the better places to live their lives rather than keep themselves slaves to the nationalistic lifestyle. This feature would allow for improved FIDSI on the systems that are more culturally diverse and maybe even count towards a cultural win.

In line with this feature you could allow for culturally / influence beaten players to remain in the game and play as vassals towards achieving the goals of their conquerors. It sounds mechanically complex to implement but you could just force them to become allies and the conquerors could force a change in policies or such. The rest of the empire management would still be done by the beaten player. This could be an alternate game mode.



Anyway. It looks ok. There are still lots of points to fix and address but I have confidence in you guys.

Sounds pretty great, mostly. The new colonial system sounds like a good evolution from how establishing colonies from outposts worked before. The propaganda for growth seems interesting, though I feel like it should also be possible for an outpost to become a colony without outside influence, but, given that you won't be able to build anything except ships which would probalby unviable, makes sense.

Not sure what I think about Sci from Diplo. I like cravers getting crippled, and I guess I like Diplomacy. Though this may also slow down tech progress for multiplayer games.

I also do like the new tech tree links, but I'm still really no big fan of eras. With links, in addition to the ones already existing between techs as part of the basic tree structure, I feel like it really wouldn't add much.

Territory Influence makes sense like this, I'm a big fan of big space blobs, so it'll be fun to also take over systems through making big blobs. Will probalby lead to me being slaughtered even more in multiplayer, but, whatever.

Trade Companies also sound like a great evolution of the old system.