HBumblebee wrote:

Mokinokaro wrote:

Yeah there's only 2 factions left for release, the Unfallen and an unknown.

If I understood it correctly there will be one more faction with the official update 2. So 3 more, but I might have gotten it wrong.

Very strange, they often said about total 8 factions... In the stream they talked a little about new faction of update 3.

Mokinokaro wrote:

I actually wouldn't be surprised if Amplitude adds the ecologist trait to the Unfallen even if it wasn't part of the original contest.

Me too, but it's too trivial... Better hope for new cool mechanic with ecology for the unknown faction.

And question for devs! Sorry if I missed that in stream but I need to know: new Horatios have different genders like in ES1 or what? List of heroes didn't help me...

I like the potential idea behind the horatio a lot.  Their population bonus of +2 approval is obviously very good as in all amp games since approvla ='s more expansion ='s more everything else, but wha'ts more interesting is gene hunter.

It implies to me that they can strip the genes/abilities out of other species to give it to their own population, which should allow for what's likely a meh early game (weak population for FIDSI i bet but extra approval) with a super strong  late game (lots of starting pop/empire population bonuses mixed with the ability to maybe get voydani like FIDSI?)

That gene splicing was pretty good way to make them unique. You can see the same with the Vodany leaching and United Empire influence usage.

They have it under control and I love them because they are open to new ideas. This is a great game developer company. I expect great things of them

Question, how many people have Amplitude studio? I doubt is only the 3 dudes on the coach and the dude in the computer.

Can the last faction be the Automatons? They are named TimeLords in the game files and the Automatons are Clockwork creatures :) It was also hinted that the third faction will be robots. They are also fit perfectly as an Ecologist major faction. Maybe they were redesigned extensively, so this is the reason for the new name. They could explain this as Automatons upgrading themselves. They are robots so could evolve quickly.

ProTech wrote:

Can the last faction be the Automatons? They are named TimeLords in the game files and the Automatons are Clockwork creatures :) It was also hinted that the third faction will be robots. They are also fit perfectly as an Ecologist major faction. Maybe they were redesigned extensively, so this is the reason for the new name. They could explain this as Automatons upgrading themselves. They are robots so could evolve quickly.

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you thins but the Automatons were datamined as a Minor Faction a while back. The Timelords will be a completely new faction, most likely Ecologists.

I really do hope they make the Minor Factions more prominent or involved in Galactic Affairs or the Story line. God ...what I wouldn't give to play as the Amoeba or Harmony in ES2.

The only hope I'm hanging on to right now is that the devs allow all art assets and game mechanics so that we can at least make our own custom factions.

It's the only way to recreate the ES1 factions that aren't playable at the moment.

Eji1700 wrote:

I like the potential idea behind the horatio a lot.  Their population bonus of +2 approval is obviously very good as in all amp games since approvla ='s more expansion ='s more everything else, but wha'ts more interesting is gene hunter.

It implies to me that they can strip the genes/abilities out of other species to give it to their own population, which should allow for what's likely a meh early game (weak population for FIDSI i bet but extra approval) with a super strong  late game (lots of starting pop/empire population bonuses mixed with the ability to maybe get voydani like FIDSI?)

I've played Horatio a bit now, so this is what I've seen from their ability:

Horatio population start at +2 approval, which is useful but somewhat weak. They can splice the genes of other populations into the main Horatio population, thus transferring some of the bonuses, but to do so costs population of the faction you're splicing from, and I think it also increases the food upkeep of Horatio (who are really good at getting high food output). This is a really fun trait to use because you get to constantly improve and customize your main population.

The Horatio start with a Z'vali population on Horatio Prime, which when spliced add +1 approval and +1 science to Horatio populations - a very good bonus. However I've found that it isn't worth splicing new genes in until you already have a strong population base in your empire; early game planetary yields from two population (which is what the first splice costs) are much higher than a +2 yield bonus to your main population.

Other factions that I've spliced: Mavros (+1 production), Hissho (+10 max manpower on system), Tikanen (+5 manpower per turn on system).

Splicing costs 2 population, then 3, then 4. I'm not entirely sure how it goes from there.

One other thing I noticed: there are two new minor faction culture types, Primitive and Technologist. I don't know if they have their own hero skill tree yet - I haven't seen any heroes of those types yet. This brings the total to four: Scavenger, Eusocial, Primitive, and Technologist. This is a good way to diversify minor factions, IMO, and I'm happy to see more of them.

TheTakenKing wrote:

EDIT: On the Horatio faction wiki page, the sidebar shows that there are 4 unrevealed major factions. But looking at the page listing major factions, there are only two unrevealed. I'm guessing that these 'extra' factions are a bug of some kind?

Good catch, we passed it on to DarkHerumor for fixing.

Frogsquadron wrote:

 in Endless Space 2, all known clones appear to be male. 

Hmmm, OK  Thanks for an answer

Sooo, isn't anyone annoyed that we have so far 3 factions out of 8 whose "destiny" or goals imply replacing all others sapients with them ? I mean being expansionnist like the UE is one thing, you could consider them as our old empires, but Cravers, Vodyani and now Horatio are aiming to only make more of themselves... Diplomacy's going to be fun.

uriak wrote:

Sooo, isn't anyone annoyed that we have so far 3 factions out of 8 whose "destiny" or goals imply replacing all others sapients with them ? I mean being expansionnist like the UE is one thing, you could consider them as our old empires, but Cravers, Vodyani and now Horatio are aiming to only make more of themselves... Diplomacy's going to be fun.

It doesn't bother me personally, as I've always thought that different intelligent species encountering each other after achieving FTL travel might be a 50/50 mix of "let's get along" vs. "kill them before they kill us." 

You can still have diplomacy with expansionist factions, you just need your civilization to be strong enough that they don't see you as the easiest current target. Like the expansionist Kzinti civilization in the Niven novels. They preyed on weaker targets and didn't mess with the Puppeteers or Outsiders. You want to be like those guys; manipulating or making money off them from a stronger position of tech power. Diplomacy only breaks down when it gets down to just the two of you. 

TheTakenKing wrote:

Eji1700 wrote:

I like the potential idea behind the horatio a lot.  Their population bonus of +2 approval is obviously very good as in all amp games since approvla ='s more expansion ='s more everything else, but wha'ts more interesting is gene hunter.

It implies to me that they can strip the genes/abilities out of other species to give it to their own population, which should allow for what's likely a meh early game (weak population for FIDSI i bet but extra approval) with a super strong  late game (lots of starting pop/empire population bonuses mixed with the ability to maybe get voydani like FIDSI?)

I've played Horatio a bit now, so this is what I've seen from their ability:

Horatio population start at +2 approval, which is useful but somewhat weak. They can splice the genes of other populations into the main Horatio population, thus transferring some of the bonuses, but to do so costs population of the faction you're splicing from, and I think it also increases the food upkeep of Horatio (who are really good at getting high food output). This is a really fun trait to use because you get to constantly improve and customize your main population.

The Horatio start with a Z'vali population on Horatio Prime, which when spliced add +1 approval and +1 science to Horatio populations - a very good bonus. However I've found that it isn't worth splicing new genes in until you already have a strong population base in your empire; early game planetary yields from two population (which is what the first splice costs) are much higher than a +2 yield bonus to your main population.

Other factions that I've spliced: Mavros (+1 production), Hissho (+10 max manpower on system), Tikanen (+5 manpower per turn on system).

Splicing costs 2 population, then 3, then 4. I'm not entirely sure how it goes from there.

One other thing I noticed: there are two new minor faction culture types, Primitive and Technologist. I don't know if they have their own hero skill tree yet - I haven't seen any heroes of those types yet. This brings the total to four: Scavenger, Eusocial, Primitive, and Technologist. This is a good way to diversify minor factions, IMO, and I'm happy to see more of them.

I think it does too, my Horatio pop are dropping faster than flies I noticed. I now have more Lumeris than Horatio in my current game. I've spliced 7 factions so far and i'm afraid to splice the Kalgaros I have right now.

Leareu wrote:

I think it does too, my Horatio pop are dropping faster than flies I noticed. I now have more Lumeris than Horatio in my current game. I've spliced 7 factions so far and i'm afraid to splice the Kalgaros I have right now.

So I tried it again. The splicing isn't really noticeable until the 3rd or 4th time you do it, at which point populations can start starving, especially if the system is sending food to growing outposts. I've not gone above 4 spliced populations yet because of how extreme the last one was - I shudder to think at the food upkeep of a Horatio population with 7 spliced characteristics!

I've found that the Epistis are another very valuable population to splice, giving +1 food & +1 production.

Amoeba, Haroshem are +1 food. Kalgeros are +1 approval. The new primitive race (those benthic critters) give bonus damage on ground invasions. It feels like I'm playing pokemon here, trying to fill out the pokedex. Never thought I'd see something like this in an Amplitude game.

Honestly the populations that only grant +1 yield don't seem worth it to me, given how expensive splicing gets later on.

I'm really digging the Horatio right now, they're kind of like reverse Cravers in terms of gameplay and the story really fleshes them(him?) out as a faction. Plus in the later stages of the game you seem to have to the potential to really screw yourself over if you splice at an inopportune time or over splice without the proper infrastructure in place to handle the food output needed to sustain them.

From a lore standpoint, I really enjoy the fact that the two "human" factions have very distinct flavors to them, to the point that I hesitate to call the Horatio human at all. Much more interesting than the good human/bad human dynamic we had with the Pilgrims and Empire in ES1.

Can't wait to see the last two factions, especially since they're brand spanking new and I'm not sure what to expect! :D

TheTakenKing wrote:

Leareu wrote:

I think it does too, my Horatio pop are dropping faster than flies I noticed. I now have more Lumeris than Horatio in my current game. I've spliced 7 factions so far and i'm afraid to splice the Kalgaros I have right now.

So I tried it again. The splicing isn't really noticeable until the 3rd or 4th time you do it, at which point populations can start starving, especially if the system is sending food to growing outposts. I've not gone above 4 spliced populations yet because of how extreme the last one was - I shudder to think at the food upkeep of a Horatio population with 7 spliced characteristics!

I've found that the Epistis are another very valuable population to splice, giving +1 food & +1 production.

Amoeba, Haroshem are +1 food. Kalgeros are +1 approval. The new primitive race (those benthic critters) give bonus damage on ground invasions. It feels like I'm playing pokemon here, trying to fill out the pokedex. Never thought I'd see something like this in an Amplitude game.

Honestly the populations that only grant +1 yield don't seem worth it to me, given how expensive splicing gets later on.

Splicing gets pretty noticeable for me after 3rd as well. Speaking of which, is anyone else getting this kind of food penalty?

Because either the food consumption shown isn't accurate or I'm getting more than a 5000% penalty from gene hunter, and I'm not sure how that happens if I have 64 Horatio pops and four assimilated races.

The food penalty from splicing does get very brutal. Seems like I have been losing pops every turn for 15 or so turns since splicing a 3rd race.

I could splice more but the empire would probably collapse.

A bug maybe? I played 3 times and such extinction starts absolutely suddenly twice. Not after another splicing, really suddenly. On the third time the was an error notification but I continued playing and after that the -2000 food penalty suddenly appeared at one planet... Or maybe I didn't get in some mechanical details.

lo_fabre wrote:

Played horatio once for about 100 turns, didn't noticed this, but only 2 gene splices.

Just curious, through Horatio quest (nor sure what option I chose) you can get a tech with an improvement that allows you to produce +4 food per Horatio. Can this mitigate the problem, or it won't be enough?

--- EDIT

Reading again this thread, seems that this high food consumption from Horatio pop stops its growth in favor of other factions pop that has less food consumption. Not experienced this, but suspect due to limited turns played.

Having in mind I'll probably experience this in future campaigns, do you think that the religious law that forbids growth of other factions pop may be useful? Or on the contrary may worsen your situation?

I don't know if that's the case. My Horatio were growing about as fast, if not faster than, other populations in my empire, even when I was experiencing something like -2.5k food/turn from Gene Hunters. And it wasn't always Horatio population that were lost when the system reached a deficit; there was one system next to an unassimilated Epistis planet that kept on getting Epistis population through migration, only for the Epistis to die first whenever the system starved.

Before experiencing mid-late game Gene Hunter food penalties, I thought that the +4 food/Horatio was the weakest building by far. I've used the other two, and they're quite good, but even with nearly every food-related technology unlocked and utilized in my systems, there's still this massive penalty overcoming food generation. It seems that Horatio might need their unique quest food bonus in order to reach the highest limits of their population - which I think is good design mechanically and aesthetically.

The Horatio have another insane strength: they are a dictatorship that starts out with the Religious ideology. So essentially, for free and for forever, they can have a +50% food bonus to their systems. I had that sweet baby going since turn 6 or something... anyways, I think that the food bonus law is the most appropriate for Horatio, given their extreme food upkeep.

Filling out the Pokedex: Sophons are +1 science (weak), Pilgrims are +2 science (strong), Vodyani - which I didn't think could be gene-spliced, but ho ho, dear readers, they can! - add +1 FIDS :O

Finally, I think that the Gene Hunter food penalty considers both the total number of Horatio in your empire and the number of populations you've gene-spliced into the Horatio. This would explain why food penalties went down across the empire whenever a Horatio from a somewhat overpopulated system died.