MorallyGray wrote:

Ok here is an idea. following from Nasarog stating.....

Nasarog wrote:

No more human and biped factions. I want really "alien" Aliens. I love the Unfallen and Riftborn. I want more like those with even stranger gameplay mechanics.

Remember when the Harmony were in development? Remember how there was a space virus faction that ended up becoming a single hero? Think about it, intelligent space virus. Personally, i would love to "infect" planets.

Yea, they could be fun. With the talented dev's at Amplitude, I know they would make this faction very interesting.

Anything weird and interesting that isn't another human faction. Which leaves out the Vaulters I know, but they wouldn't be different enough from the UE to be interesting. Give us more weird aliens please.  

We don't have a true machine intelligence yet, so that's one option. It should be something we can negotiate and trade with. Not Saberhagen Berserkers or else they're too similar to the Cravers niche. Maybe another completely space-based faction like the Vodyani, but focused on resource harvesting and trade. Something like a robotic version of the migratory Outsiders in the Niven novels.

KyoPa wrote:

Starbound wrote:

vahouth wrote:

I'd say that Harmony is a good pic for the next faction. 

They are alien enough both in appearance/makeup and gameplay.

As  much as I'd love to see Automatons and/or Sowers in the game, I'm  afraid their niche is already filled as a completely artificial race,   and their attributes are divided among minor races. 

Harmony would fit for sure. Especially as they were in ES1, it'd give some nice structure to the established game universe.

According to the Pulsos lore, most of the Harmony have already left the Dust-filled galaxy.

Also, there's a quest where you get ambushed by a small force of Harmony. I don't remember the details, but the quest was particular about how the Harmony were an ancient race that should've disappeared from the galaxy ages ago, according to the narrator's/player's knowledge.

I don't think that the narrative of this particular quest would work if the player was a theoretical Harmony faction, or if the player has already encountered a major faction of Harmony.

Ah, but as a counterpoint, the quest as stands is strange due to the explicit reference to crystalline ships while (at least in the early access, I don't know about now) using Sophon ships. It's not impossible for them to add Harmony and simply add a check to stop the event from firing if a Harmony faction is present, in a manner similar to how several current events will only fire if a certain population type is present in your empire.

I remain of the opinion that this quest, and the Pulsos's reference to the greater Harmony as still existing out there somewhere, is meant to, if not tease the return of Harmony, at least leave the door open to bring them back.

Zenicetus wrote:

...

We don't have a true machine intelligence yet, so that's one option. It should be something we can negotiate and trade with. Not Saberhagen Berserkers or else they're too similar to the Cravers niche. Maybe another completely space-based faction like the Vodyani, but focused on resource harvesting and trade. Something like a robotic version of the migratory Outsiders in the Niven novels.

Well, maybe mix that with my desire for a Deep Space centric faction? Maybe a faction of asteroid carvers and miners, they could possibly use ships to directly exploit Nodes or something. I'm not really sure, I'm just an idea guy for lore and theme, not mechanics very much.

Dartonus wrote:

Ah, but as a counterpoint, the quest as stands is strange due to the explicit reference to crystalline ships while (at least in the early access, I don't know about now) using Sophon ships. It's not impossible for them to add Harmony and simply add a check to stop the event from firing if a Harmony faction is present, in a manner similar to how several current events will only fire if a certain population type is present in your empire.

I remain of the opinion that this quest, and the Pulsos's reference to the greater Harmony as still existing out there somewhere, is meant to, if not tease the return of Harmony, at least leave the door open to bring them back.

I don't see how that is a counterpoint. It is merely a discrepancy caused by the lack of a unique ship model for a single minor quest.

As for the stop-check idea, that is a completely different situation than the events that check for specific population types. It's not merely quest or no quest. It is effectively changing the history of the Endless universe itself before the game even begins from a history where the Harmony left and never came back to a history where they are still here in the galaxy. It's not like the other factions are absent in the Endless universe just because a player or AI hasn't chosen that specific faction. They would still be a current presence in the lore even if no one is playing them.

Rather than leaving the door open, it is more like they shot themselves in the foot if they ever plan to re-introduce the Harmony. Why would they ever come back? They have already stopped by the galaxy on their quest to the Core. Since they left, there wasn't anything of interest to them in this galaxy. Their repulsion towards Dust is even more of a deterrent that keeps them away. There's very little reason for the Harmony to ever return to the Endless galaxy. If there was a reason to stay, why would they even leave in the first place?

Here is an idea I've been tinkering around with:

Aesthetic wise, the faction would look like the Zerg or Tyranids. Their ships would be very organic and living just like they are. They would be an ecologist faction that is heavily dependent on food production. They wouldn't use science to research technology, instead they would use food as well. The reasoning I had with this is that they don't need science or technology, every adaptation they need would be through mutations.  Need to colonize/live in an ice planet? Evolve to do so! Need bigger ships? Mutate them! Need manpower? Mutate your population to be super soldiers! Maybe they would also infect other populations to be part of the hive mind. So when you assimilate a minor faction, you change their political ideology to fit yours.

If I could grab any faction from an Endless game, I'd kind of like to either see the Ardent Mages (Giant chained crystal ships firing out lightning across space) or the Shifters (Giant bio-organic ships that can alter their purpose, maybe a grand quest to return to Auriga?)

For Endless Space 1 I want my Sowers back :P

Daleks.

New faction would be great but if picking any from ES1 then sowers for sure :)

Yeah... there was a poll a while back and Sowers were surprisingly the most popular vote for a returning faction.

Truly alien is only nice if it is written well. I think the majority of my favorite sci-fi novels all entail humans and humans changes/ interactions into the future. 

I suggest sid meiers alpha centauri (very old 4x game) a classic and with fantastic human factions, which I think shows how well only human factions can work well. Here ideas from communism and capitalism are taken to the extreme in some factions. If you got the history of the spartan nation to build on, who need the hissho or cravers? Are aliens that feed on us more scary or are humans that kill all offspring with deformities more terrifying? 

The news today mentioned North Korea firing a missile into the japanese maritime zone, a totalitarian regime  of which we can hardly grasp how living in it would be like for us. Put across it:  South Korea, japan and the USA who now for decades maintained a policy of de-escalation. I doubt the current game AI could even remotely remain passive under such circumstances. 

So definitely don't rule out more human factions. 

KyoPa wrote:

According to the Pulsos lore, most of the Harmony have already left the Dust-filled galaxy.

This is true. I had missed their lore description and it indeed indicates that Harmony is gone. Pulsos is all that remains (well, for the most part at least). While there are ways to write a story about their return to me it seems that they're gone for good. Pulsos are there as a reminder of them.

Ozgwald wrote:

Truly alien is only nice if it is written well. I think the majority of my favorite sci-fi novels all entail humans and humans changes/ interactions into the future. 

I suggest sid meiers alpha centauri (very old 4x game) a classic and with fantastic human factions, which I think shows how well only human factions can work well. Here ideas from communism and capitalism are taken to the extreme in some factions. If you got the history of the spartan nation to build on, who need the hissho or cravers? Are aliens that feed on us more scary or are humans that kill all offspring with deformities more terrifying? 

The news today mentioned North Korea firing a missile into the japanese maritime zone, a totalitarian regime  of which we can hardly grasp how living in it would be like for us. Put across it:  South Korea, japan and the USA who now for decades maintained a policy of de-escalation. I doubt the current game AI could even remotely remain passive under such circumstances. 

So definitely don't rule out more human factions. 

True as well but it swings both ways. The success of any faction/race concept depends largely on the writing behind them. And, of course their gameplay style. I guess the appeal of alien aliens rests largely in the idea of a vast galaxy. It's a big unknown universe out there so it's natural to expect to encounter very strange creatures on the journey. It's a whole different story if you take the game setting on to a single planet, nation or such like. In EL it was quite natural to see Rovers, Ardent Mages, Vaulters (not related to Auriga though.. but they look pretty much like the rest!) and so forth as they all share the same world. Space, on the other hand, is vast.

For example in this thread there's been ideas about shadowy reptilians, organic mutators, living planets etc. Those kind of creatures hit the "wow what's this thing now" nerve with me. With UE and Horatio, I find humans to already have their corner of the galaxy covered. Been there, seen this, done that.

With all that said though, I don't loathe the idea of extra human factions. If it's well written, sure go ahead. Just a personal preference to see more alien aliens.

Nasarog wrote:

No more human and biped factions. I want really "alien" Aliens. I love the Unfallen and Riftborn. I want more like those with even stranger gameplay mechanics.

More or less +1.

While I don't get what's wrong with biped, I share the general sentiment.

We have UE which are as "normal" as it gets, we have Sophons and Lumeris, which are nearly as normal as it gets, and we even have Horatio which is not quite normal, quite ugly, and yet still technically human or at least very close to human. I don't see how we would need any more vanilla flavored factions than that in foreseeable future.

That said, it's not “normal” that bores me, it's typical. Give me another zerg faction, or another tentacled ones, and I'll be as uninterested in them as I am in UE. Being revolting doesn't by itself exclude you from being boring.

I like the Harmony faction. And while they may have lore reasons to not be here, something similar has no lore reasons not to appear.

I'd also like to see a nomad factions that is:

-Not required to suck the daylight out of other beings. (Let's face it – non violent essence collection is NOT how you play them.)

-Not fanatical and doesn't stink of a cult. Preferably not religious as well.

I also like the gene stealing (but I hate everything else about Horatio), and I'd like to see a version of it that:

-Doesn't require consuming population.

-Doesn't require amassing said population.

-Has nothing to do with a deranged and deformed baldie triying to destroy diversity in the universe. (thankfully that part can be dealt with via custom factions)

Get some other ways of getting gene samples (trading, stealing, capturing in war, using heroes) and don't make the faction unnecessarily freakish, and “I'll be sold” on it.

I also like the ideas of strong population factions in general. So far my 3 favorites happen to be the 3 strongest ones “per pop”. (I should probably note that I don't see Cravers as strong, more like uncivilized, desperate, and reckless, or maybe just genetically flawed. Didn't dig the lore, no idea if they mostly can't stop because of genetic traits or just mostly can't stop because they aren't bright enough for any self-improvement.)

Ozgwald wrote:

Every-time a science/ tech is unlocked you get to complete one system development (could tactically be used on wonders). 

It's arguably OK for developments, though I'd say it would only be ok if it's a development of the tech of the same tier or lower, and only the kind with unlimited numbers of them per empire, but never for wonders.

There are improvements that are SUPPOSED to be costly to build in their respective stages like the ones with +25 per system level, and even the normal ones are not meant to be build in earlier stages easily. This is reflected in both their production costs and buyout costs. And it's there for a good reason.

And wonders are simply out of the question no matter what. They are supposed to be competed for, not cheesed away.

Ikeaboy33 wrote:

hissho warmongers and some espionage faction

I do like to see some Polymorph espionage faction.

Without question, the Sowers and the Amoeba are the two factions I would most like to see make a return. I'm hoping that eventually the majority of the ES1 races will be added as major factions though.

I'm not against new factions - I like the Riftborn and Unfallen, and I warmed up to the Lumeris and Vodyani over time - but at this point in time I definitely think the priority should be with bringing back more of the classic factions.

I would also really love to see the Mezari. Either as a playable Empire or as one of the Minor Civilizations. Other then being connected to the UE (As Raians used to be a Mezari colony.) Horatio (Having been born into a Mezari Clan.) It's ties to the Vaulters AND one of the Vodyani Heroes used to be a Mezari clansman they seem to be a widely spread out race....But we don't see them at all. (Unless some of the 'Generic' human soldiers we see in a few art pieces are Mezari since they don't seem to match the UE, Sheredyn, Horatio or Pilgrims.) It's possible they were wiped out but right now everything is a little cloudy on their overall status. 

The UE can turn into the Mazari if you run through their faction quest.  You turn the imperial citizens to  sophen template.  

Vaulters are near the top of my list since they were probably one of my favorite ES1 and EL factions. And chances are good they will be included since their implied to have had some sort of great impact on the Endless setting when they left Auriga aboard the Grey Owl. 

I would also really love to see the Mezari. Either as a playable Empire or as one of the Minor Civilizations. Other then being connected to the UE (As Raians used to be a Mezari colony.) Horatio (Having been born into a Mezari Clan.) It's ties to the Vaulters AND one of the Vodyani Heroes used to be a Mezari clansman they seem to be a widely spread out race....But we don't see them at all. (Unless some of the 'Generic' human soldiers we see in a few art pieces are Mezari since they don't seem to match the UE, Sheredyn, Horatio or Pilgrims.) It's possible they were wiped out but right now everything is a little cloudy on their overall status. 

The question who else I'd like to see is a bit more complicated. I'd love to see the Hissho and Pilgrims but what would you do with their minor factions? Replace them with something else? Or maybe just say that the Minor Faction versions are smaller offshoots? I don't know but I'd imagine they both would be interesting additions. (Pilgrims being a more 'Good' Religious faction to the Vodayni while the Hissho are more Klingon-Samurai to the Cravers war like locusts.) 

I don't think we'll see any playable EL factions. Though maybe a few Minor Civilizations? The Wild Walkers wanted to make something like a space elevator to escape as their end level quest. And the Broken Lord's due to their being uploaded armor shells could have survived the killing winter's. 

No more human and biped factions. I want really "alien" Aliens. I love the Unfallen and Riftborn. I want more like those with even stranger gameplay mechanics.

My vote goes definitely for the more alien aliens as well. While one can write interesting background to human-faction-spin-off #37 overall it feels a bit bland in my eyes. I'm happy Pilgrims are just a minor faction. Mezari and Vaulters are also just reskinned humans basically. Not that they're necessarily bad creations, just that there's already enough classic humanoids around.

How about some shapeshifters? Creatures who's identity is shrouded to everybody, possibly even to themselves as they absorb the traits and appearance of whomever they meet? Could do well with espionage update.

Maybe some slime/jelly kind of aliens? Beings who act as parasites and develop more powerful traits as they evolve on their hosts? They'd do well on fertile planets, giving more emphasis on focused colonization.

One funky idea could be a spin-off of Riftborn. Another extra-dimensional species who'd play differently from RB. Give them stealth ships and teleportation abilities and make them like a corrupted counterpart of their fairly kind-hearted cousins.

A living planet? Singular entity spreading it's influence and control over the galaxy, somewhat akin to Cultists in EL.

Super charismatic snake/naga mind controllers? They could rely heavily on politics and get extra benefits from there. Could also affect their opponents political views.

Possibilities like this are endless IMO and would keep the galaxy and the world setting interesting. Humanoids are cool and all but it's best not to overdo those. A healthy mix of the more traditional humanoids and weird creatures is a good way to go I'd say.

The Harmony, Sowers or Automatons.

I really want more ES1 factions to return.

hissho warmongers and some espionage faction

I don't get it. What's the appeal of the Vaulters?

I expect Harmony, probably Sowers, and I have a dream that I know won't come true of other Legend factions. Maybe also some mindflayer faction that plays like Morgawr.

WireWolf wrote:

I would also really love to see the Mezari. Either as a playable Empire or as one of the Minor Civilizations. Other then being connected to the UE (As Raians used to be a Mezari colony.) Horatio (Having been born into a Mezari Clan.) It's ties to the Vaulters AND one of the Vodyani Heroes used to be a Mezari clansman they seem to be a widely spread out race....But we don't see them at all. (Unless some of the 'Generic' human soldiers we see in a few art pieces are Mezari since they don't seem to match the UE, Sheredyn, Horatio or Pilgrims.) It's possible they were wiped out but right now everything is a little cloudy on their overall status. 

Dude, Mezari are like cromagnon to "present day" ES human factions.  They fractured into UE, Vaulties, Horatio and Pilgrims (my headcanon is that pilgrims are mezari that remained nomad)

Starbound wrote:

Horatio already have pretty shapeshifty trait. Jelly aliens are Amoeba. The evil extradimentionals... I like it. *FRUMPLE*, YOU *SILLY COW*! THE VAULTERS ARE *NOT HERE*!

The living planet is 10/10 idea.

DisnagBurnazog wrote:

I don't get it. What's the appeal of the Vaulters?

I expect Harmony, probably Sowers, and I have a dream that I know won't come true of other Legend factions. Maybe also some mindflayer faction that plays like Morgawr.

WireWolf wrote:

I would also really love to see the Mezari. Either as a playable Empire or as one of the Minor Civilizations. Other then being connected to the UE (As Raians used to be a Mezari colony.) Horatio (Having been born into a Mezari Clan.) It's ties to the Vaulters AND one of the Vodyani Heroes used to be a Mezari clansman they seem to be a widely spread out race....But we don't see them at all. (Unless some of the 'Generic' human soldiers we see in a few art pieces are Mezari since they don't seem to match the UE, Sheredyn, Horatio or Pilgrims.) It's possible they were wiped out but right now everything is a little cloudy on their overall status. 

Dude, Mezari are like cromagnon to "present day" ES human factions.  They fractured into UE, Vaulties, Horatio and Pilgrims (my headcanon is that pilgrims are mezari that remained nomad)

Starbound wrote:

Horatio already have pretty shapeshifty trait. Jelly aliens are Amoeba. The evil extradimentionals... I like it. *FRUMPLE*, YOU *SILLY COW*! THE VAULTERS ARE *NOT HERE*!

The living planet is 10/10 idea.

Well the Vaulters in Endless Legend are an interesting mixture of Dwarves, the Brotherhood of Steel and Vikings and they were dumped in a Clarks Law fantasy setting....So this REALLY stood out, for me and others. And for an advanced faction in a fantasy setting their not so much steampunk as one would expect but a sort of unique "aluminum-steel-electricity" style that also works into their color pallete very well.
In Endless Space One they also have some pretty interesting gameplay mechanics which made them incredibly defensive oriented thanks to their wormhole technology but also such fun stuff as insurgency academies, allied c3 systems, reactive beacons. Even Cravers and Hissho had a hard time blasting Vaulters off their worlds.

Anyway as to the Mezari being the 'Cro Magnon' of the various human factions I don't necessarily disagree but that doesn't preclude them from appearing as a Minor Faction or even some sort of Mezari successor state. But more then anything I just want their to be some information as to what happened to them. Their implied to have been a widely distributed 'Empire' of various Clans but other then the UE being a Mezari Colony and Horatio being a rogue Trillionaire Mezari Noble/Buisness tycoon and one Vodyani hero having been a Mezari engineer we don't really know what happened to them. (We can't really count the Vaulters yet because they haven't been mentioned in the game yet other then us seeing the Grey Owl lift off of Auriga and then presumably suffer a drive malfunction.) I think the Mezari do serve a useful purpose at least as a way of introducing more Human Empires and Minor Factions at least. Their wide distribution and clan structure means you have a lot of options for humans.

I know the game is barely out, but it's still fun to speculate. So, what would you like to see next? It can either be an entirely new concept introduced to the Endless universe, or something from the previous games making a comeback.

Personally I would love to see the Vaulters.

I love the whole look and feel of their faction, and their philosophy and whole design really attracted me to them in past Endless games. What I'd love to see from them in ES2 is a lot of what made them great in EL. I'm sure Amplitude can find really inventive ways of allowing them to manipulate strategic resources with the whole holy resource mechanic they had in EL. I think it could transfer over into ES2 in very interesting ways. Not to mention their teleportation mechanic.

What would you like to see next?

Tdoggs wrote:

I would also really love to see the Mezari. Either as a playable Empire or as one of the Minor Civilizations. Other then being connected to the UE (As Raians used to be a Mezari colony.) Horatio (Having been born into a Mezari Clan.) It's ties to the Vaulters AND one of the Vodyani Heroes used to be a Mezari clansman they seem to be a widely spread out race....But we don't see them at all. (Unless some of the 'Generic' human soldiers we see in a few art pieces are Mezari since they don't seem to match the UE, Sheredyn, Horatio or Pilgrims.) It's possible they were wiped out but right now everything is a little cloudy on their overall status. 

The UE can turn into the Mazari if you run through their faction quest.  You turn the imperial citizens to  sophen template.  

Oh I know that, I also like the Sheredyn option give to players. Those options are a big reason why the UE is one of my favorite playable factions so far (Zelavas's outfit changes, it changes up the name, your pops and so on. And the rewards are awesome.) But it's less you playing as an actual Mezari nation and you playing as the United Empire who decided to put on some of the trappings and practices of the old Mezari Clans atop of the United Empire. 

I would like to see the Sowers.  A religious industrial faction focused on going very wide and not tall.  Right now it seems EU are the only one able to spread without heavy penalties.  It would be neat to have a faction wanting to colonize all the one planet systems.  It would be tough to balance.

Ok here is an idea. following from Nasarog stating.....

Nasarog wrote:

No more human and biped factions. I want really "alien" Aliens. I love the Unfallen and Riftborn. I want more like those with even stranger gameplay mechanics.

Remember when the Harmony were in development? Remember how there was a space virus faction that ended up becoming a single hero? Think about it, intelligent space virus. Personally, i would love to "infect" planets.

Tdoggs wrote:

I would like to see the Sowers.  A religious industrial faction focused on going very wide and not tall.  Right now it seems EU are the only one able to spread without heavy penalties.  It would be neat to have a faction wanting to colonize all the one planet systems.  It would be tough to balance.

 

You already have such - vodyani and cravers (religious build) can slap forced content aproval law and consume every system. Also it's not hard to maintain religious support for federation/republic governments and do the same so you can easilly pull it off as UE or Riftborn. Getting to 20-25 systems count as Unfallen is also a piece of cake with all aproval bonuses they have. The main downside is that game runs really slow on high end pc when you're occupying 30+ systems.

About races, well i'd like to see Harmony return who're always content and can't use dust. But they biggest strenght of Harmony was that you didn't have to worry about ship upkeep and could crush anything in late game with sheer numbers. Atm i've a feeling that every race can support any size of fleet not even worrying about dust (mb dust inflation doesn' apply to upkeep).

I'm just gonna take a few of the first ideas and mush em together... Howsabout, for an Espionage update, we get a faction which is Religious/Pacifist, shapeshifting, charismatic reptilians? Go for an updated, Endless take on the classic lizard people conspiracy and insidious reptilian aliens schtick, like "The Visitors" with possible addition of silly 50's-70's sci-fi aesthetic.

Story wise, they'd be a mix of Lumeris and Sophon tones, with an over the top James Bond/Austin Powers feel to their quests. Or, go dark, and spring for a brooding, introspective noir feel. Bonus points if you're the villain with an eye patch and a lap iguana.

Mechaniy, they would be able to somehow seed any world they saw with a unit of population that fits in, but is secretly a unit of Reptiles who can be turned against the system owner. For balance reasons, you would only be allowed to seed X systems with up to Y fake populations.

Nasarog wrote:

No more human and biped factions. I want really "alien" Aliens. I love the Unfallen and Riftborn. I want more like those with even stranger gameplay mechanics.

This.