GrendelHime wrote:
Hmmm - the ships in the first artwork kind of remind me of the blurry image of the next unrevealed race on the wiki - with their angular metallic look and blue highlights. The hooded individual in the second picture does a bit too, although he seems to have four eyes rather than six (I'm not entirely certain the picture is of a face though). Perhaps we're looking at the next faction here - maybe one with some kind of bonus to invasions (wither defensive or offensive)?



I might be overthinking it though. I am kind of desperate to find out more about the remaining factions so maybe I'm just seeing things...

I thought the ships in the artwork belonged to the Cravers... unless I'm somehow wrong.

Can anyone confirm it?

Looks really great. Invasions were kinda lacking in Endless Space 1, and Disharmonies Ground Troops made Invasions even more awkward. A manpower resource mechanic with different troop types to have battles really does sound great. That being said, it sounds like raising troops will only be based on manpower, but it should, especially for the mechanized troop types, require some degree of industry too. Also, how will troop type countering work?

Any chance we'll hear more about what Tanks and Planes do differently than Troops? Is there an advantage in circumstances? Or is it just a stats thing?

Why would I need to make costly empire-wide generation, when i could manually press every system's local generation button?

So, blockading is essentially a besieging, but without a manpower in orbit?

Is this some kind of new resource? I don't recall it in previous GDDs.

P.S. It's good to have another fresh GDD after more then month without new information, but... is this the last one? When will there be smth new on the wiki?

now that we finally got a troop system what about space marines and in connection to that a new weapon for pirates to make them even more of a nuisance Harpoons and boarding parties so that a lost battle against pirates doesn’t only mean less ships for you but actually more pirates to go against? I would definitely like this more than pirates randomly spawning in everywhere around the galaxy

Hmmm - the ships in the first artwork kind of remind me of the blurry image of the next unrevealed race on the wiki - with their angular metallic look and blue highlights. The hooded individual in the second picture does a bit too, although he seems to have four eyes rather than six (I'm not entirely certain the picture is of a face though). Perhaps we're looking at the next faction here - maybe one with some kind of bonus to invasions (wither defensive or offensive)?

I may not want to reduce my population. I would like to be able to consume only the difference between my current population level X and the next level (X+1). It would reset my population growth to point 0 progress until the next point, but wouldn't upset my economy.

I don't like the troops/mechanized/airborne division in terms of tech levels. I'd rather have a rock/paper/scissors mechanics where one system overshadows the other in efficiency.

I do think control of the system should vary depending on your invasion choices though. If you slaughter almost all the population and burn down the buildings, why wouldn't you have 100% ownership?

So will races with bonuses to food have a distinct advantage? I imagine a science based race will have upgrades to help ground battles. Industry based races will be like the sowers and increase manpower based off of production. How will it work for dust based races? Can you buy manpower through the black market? I think a way to level the playing field would be to base manpower on happiness as well instead of purely on population. It works quite well thematically. In fact, warlike race traits could alleviate the happiness fallout, while peaceful traits could make it stronger.

This Manpower system looks good.

It is easily understand for the system, but can you explain something more about the attacker manpower?

- Is it loss when attacking?

- Can ships with modules regenerate its manpower each turn? Or need to go back to a friendly system?

Personally I think the biggest question we should be asking is this: Will we be getting cinematic visuals for the battles? Or something weaker. After reading the post I can say it looks like ground battles with cinematic visuals but it is not clearly stated that this is the case, and therefore cannot be totally confirmed. Also you reference troop types, does this mean we will get to design our own ground units ala Endless Legend? Or will they be based off of presets equipped with the latest tech that you choose off of a list. Other than those two things I love this idea, especially the manpower mechanic since it will limit ship production and hopefully help mitigate the large ship spam we see in the original Endless Space.

Forward, unto the breach.

I don't really understand how manpower is different from ?

A war should wear a country's industry capacities ?

Something I liked about HoI 4 was the manpower mechanic as it relates to the resources you held in reserve. Manpower fueled your war engine, but it was offset by the need to equip your troops with Equipment - tanks, guns, whatever.  So, for example, China and Russia have very heavy manpower reserves but a low industry or technology level to produce enough equipment.  It was an interesting balancing act between burning through your manpower to quickly defeat your enemy (a la blitzkreig Poland) or save your industry for heavier/better equipment and win the war via attrition.

I'd love to see something similar in Endless Space 2 when it comes to wars.  Making the resources you use to fuel your war machine as important as the size of your fleets during wartime would go a long way towards spicing up the military game.  The manpower mechanic looks like a great step in this direction.

Question, though:  Is manpower growth based on how many pops are present on a planet and your tech level? Or is there more to it?

I like the concept of manpower, I think its an interesting way to add more economic components to warfare. That is something that is often lacking in 4x games, warring is a very very expensive business.

That said, I am always loathe to have ground battles in a space 4x game. Ultimately, its always about the ships....always. So having to have manpower for invasions is fine, but I say stop it there. No unit types, no tactics. Forcing to invest a resource to invading a planet is fine, but then let me move on and get back to space.

@Stalker0:. Why not have the ground component help the space component?  In the Pacific theater of ww2, islands with airstrips were often compared to carriers without the downside of being sinkable by US admirals.  Why not draw parallels to space?  Yes, manpower fuels the ground garrison and crews fleets.  Why not spend manpower to crew space-fighter hybrids? Or a dark matter gun (an actual one I can see this time, Amplitude :D)?  

Mered4 wrote:

@Stalker0:. Why not have the ground component help the space component?  In the Pacific theater of ww2, islands with airstrips were often compared to carriers without the downside of being sinkable by US admirals.  Why not draw parallels to space?  Yes, manpower fuels the ground garrison and crews fleets.  Why not spend manpower to crew space-fighter hybrids? Or a dark matter gun (an actual one I can see this time, Amplitude :D)?  

Fixed defenses on the grund that could fire at fleets in space would be perfect.

Adventurer_Blitz wrote:

Mered4 wrote:

@Stalker0:. Why not have the ground component help the space component?  In the Pacific theater of ww2, islands with airstrips were often compared to carriers without the downside of being sinkable by US admirals.  Why not draw parallels to space?  Yes, manpower fuels the ground garrison and crews fleets.  Why not spend manpower to crew space-fighter hybrids? Or a dark matter gun (an actual one I can see this time, Amplitude :D)?  

Fixed defenses on the grund that could fire at fleets in space would be perfect.

Space station defense platforms would be fine too.

Will the battles be "cinematic" or shown with in games models? Or just be a pop up like in ES? If they are in game will all the factions have unique models and will they change/update as technology advances?

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:
If non military ships requires no Manpower, then the best name is indeed soldiers :)

Is that the only Gamescom 2016 footage of the game so far?

UndeadPuppy wrote:

Is that the only Gamescom 2016 footage of the game so far?

Unfortunately, yes. These two guys have entirely the wrong style of hosting to present a 4x game.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

UndeadPuppy wrote:

Is that the only Gamescom 2016 footage of the game so far?

Unfortunately, yes. These two guys have entirely the wrong style of hosting to present a 4x game.

They asked nothing of any relevance and used up interview time chatting rubbish. Cutting off the fleet battle at the end just summed it all up. The Gamescom's organisers are an absolute joke.

Coverage this bad makes me wish I could say more. Hopefully, next week will bring better coverage as actual journalists get back to their work.

I was analyzing whatever images I have been able to get my hands on when I discovered something curious. I used MS Paint to make comparisons:

Does this mean that manpower will pull from all types of population in your empire, including population of a different species? If so does this mean that different races will have different combat capabilities on the ground? If so that would be amazing! Imagine Sophon and Mavros armor marching alongside pilgrim (if they are going to be a thing) infantry and aircraft! I will be immensly pleased if this is actually a thing.

Will planetary based defences have an impact on invasion rate, or the options as mentioned?