ENDLESS™ Space 2 is turn-based 4X space-strategy that launches players into the space colonization age of different civilizations within the ENDLESS™ Universe. Your Vision. Their Future.
So going to war now is counteproductive becouse you'll always have 9 systems to colonize (if not you'll generally wage a war over mere couple systems to hit a cap or slightly above). ...Worth to mention again - i'm talking about huge map size
I assume with more opponents to compensate for the increased map size?
So going to war now is counteproductive becouse you'll always have 9 systems to colonize (if not you'll generally wage a war over mere couple systems to hit a cap or slightly above). ...Worth to mention again - i'm talking about huge map size
I assume with more opponents to compensate for the increased map size?
Well it's a viable choice, but you won't be seeing serious warfare with 9 colonies cap and then again you might be resource screwed or simply win the game before being able to expand further then 9 colonies.
...developers introduced new feature that removes system from your cap maximum and that theoreticly always you to conquer wholle universe (that's a great change!), but it comes extremly late...
I have to agree here, and expound on the deeper problem for this.
Too many improvements, hulls, and components rely on System Development and/or Strategic Resource Deposit techs for how very, very deep into the Economy and Trade Quadrant they are. You can theoretically use the Marketplace or Diplomacy to get strategic resources, but that just means you're relying on somebody else to do it instead, so you haven't really broken the overall reliance on it; meanwhile reaching System Level 4 means researching all the way to Tier 5. Strategic Resource Deposit techs need to become Stage Unlocks way earlier so we can focus on choosing between interesting techs instead of beelining for the most expedient method of meeting our demand for resources; the Marketplace needs to consistently produce resources on its own instead of just being a middle man to rely on somebody else's generosity; and the System Development Stage Unlocks need to be moved earlier so we don't have to dive all the way to the end game of the quadrant not associated with expansion techs to continue expanding.
For every mechanic that relies on System Levels or lots of Strategic Resources, the associated techs and tech quadrant become less of an interesting choice of strategy and more of a checklist for basic functioning; if a tech is that important, it should be an early Stage Unlock we get to as a side effect of making interesting choices to reach it, not a false choice itself. The reward for researching deep into Economy and Trade should be additional ways to produce more Industry and Dust and Resources using the Resources we've collected, not enabling the base ability to collect those resources at all, because then we can never focus on our preferred strategy without first filling out this one required quadrant. To top it off, we require 5-10 of any given Strategic resource, but Luxuries are constantly costing more and more and more simply because they have no constant way to spend them, but can be produced in massive amounts using Trade Routes. So maybe having a System Development cost more than ten times as much of a resource isn't the solution?
I don't see much reason for it either. We unlock Tier 1 Strategics in Stage 1 of the quadrant, even though improvements/hulls/whatever using them don't kick in until Stage 3 in all quadrants; I see no reason we couldn't unlock Tier 2 Strats in Stage 2 when they don't help until Stage 4, and unlock Tier 3 Strats in Stage 3 when they aren't used until Stage 5, especially as they are so rare and difficult to produce. I research Stage 1 Economy to get my resources for Stage 3 Empire Development, why not the same for the other resources?
On an unrelated note I wish I'd thought of during the Mod Testing threads run, Jingoist Paradise still rewards sham wars; only a couple weeks later does it occur to me, why not just make it boost the Dust income from War Reparations? You're encouraged to actually fight instead of just declare war, you're encouraged to pick fights with bigger foes for higher risk and higher reward, and it encourages players to look for a Truce and take a break from war instead of steamrolling someone, which was a goal in the Diplomacy GDD.
Just to chime in on colony development, I agree that way too many resources are needed to improve. I just opened up the 2nd upgrade and saw I needed 120 of the basic commodities. This game, I haven't sold any resources and I've taken two systems over my cap while focusing on getting the resources in my starting area. Even if I could afford to buy out the commodities I have the most of in the marketplace, there wouldn't be enough to upgrade two systems.
I bought all the jardonyx for my first colony development earlier and no new jardonyx has come on the marketplace since. It's the major luxury resource in my area and I've only been able to upgrade three systems to the first level so far. It really is ridiculous.
I do like the hits to approval making it harder to go wide, but I don't see any reason to limit colony development so harshly. My understanding of the changes were to make it so that you had to upgrade your systems before you can go wide to deal with approval. Sounds great! Now why did you make it so hard to upgrade your systems? What is the point?
Aggressive AIs (who are in Cold War with you) that announce they're going to attack soon instantly into Cordial status. Doesn't matter if you're dealing with Cravers or United Empire or whatever.
I haven't played as pacifists yet in the patch, but that's got to be a bug right?
What settings do you play on, as that might make all the difference? I play on large galaxies, and even then I can't see there being enough space to get the FIDSI/trade routes going without a bit of conquest. I also play with economic victory off, so that might also be a big factor.
My last game I held off on military for a while, and got DoWed by UE around turn 40. They weren't accepting any reasonable bribes either. I crushed them in the end, but it was still a war that I had to take time out to win. Later that game the Riftborn also declared war on me, which was a little silly given my fleet power compared to theirs. I'll check out the saves, but it's interesting that your experience has been so different. Also, how do you deal with pirates if you don't invest in military? The T1 ships are fine to handle, the T2 ships require some decent firepower.
Anyway, point being, I've yet to play a game where the AI hasn't declared war on me. I could have bribed them out I'm sure, but the AI asks for A LOT of resources if they think they are winning the war, certainly not worth the cost. I've also yet to play many games where I could get away with just sitting on my starting systems. The only way to get more systems in the mid game is to conquer them.
What settings do you play on, as that might make all the difference?
I hadn't considered that.
Endless difficulty, 8 competitors, Normal speed, Large galaxy (since it's recommended for 8 players by default but it actually seems way too big so lately I've been trying out Medium with 8 players), mostly Ovoid shape, many constellations, high density because otherwise nodes seem to be ridiculously far apart from each other, special node frequency high since normally battles will almost never play out with unique threater effects, normal abundance for resources and anomalies, Normal minor faction difficulty, default non-customized major factions. And yes so far I've left Economic victory on, but winning Science or Wonder isn't difficult either.
As for bribes, the AI keeps somewhat alternating what it values more or less but second and third tier resources are almost always valued extremely high in trade deals to the point you often get away with donating only a handful, likely something you got from exploring curiosities even if the AI probably can't use them yet either. Quality above quantity seems to be the key, plus you should donate small amounts of different types of resources rather than lots of one resource because the trade deal value of certain resource seems to cap at some point.
It's obviously easier if you play with the right senate or have heroes with bonuses to strategic and luxury resource extraction (in case of luxury resources you're always bound to have something you yourself don't need), but even without those I can't really recall being set off by a noticeable amount by bribes, at least in comparison to rather big opportunity cost of researching military techs and producing ships to defend my clay. Most of the time the only bottleneck to my bribes is the associated Influence cost. If you can get to Trade routes the luxury resource cost becomes a complete non-issue. You can also easily cave into the AI's demands if they're the one specifically asking: both the normal "give Dust, now" demand and diplomatic pressure demands are always pretty small, nothing you can't handle and they give the AI Happy modifier which might make them easier to convince to Peace on subsequent turns, though I'm not 100% sure about that.
Bribing in general seems to be much more effective when you're still in Cold War rather than full War status, because if you can get to Peace deal (normal peace deal or force peace) it turns the AI instantly into Cordial status, usually for the the rest of the game which means you can completely ignore them from then on. When the AI gets to Cordial status it will also stop demanding Dust or making diplomatic pressurre demands and the only thing you need to do to stay friendly with them is to not step on their toes with hostile acts or border incursions. Only exceptions are some traitor-prone opportunist factions like Lumeris and Horatio that might later shift to Sneaky, though it seems to be 50/50 whether they actually follow up on their attack announcement. But even if they do end up declaring war the bribe cost has never been anything insurmountable for me, since I've been able to freely focus on non-militaristic techs. Point is, if you manage to get your as many AIs as you can to Peace and Cordial status in early game (starting with your immediate neighbors) they very likely won't bother you for the rest of the game.
As for pirates I've never really been bothered by them. They seem to randomly fly around the constellation but I don't recall them actually sieging down systems, and they seem only a threat to civilian food and population transports, i.e. a nuisance more than a threat that needs to be taken care of, though I'd wager the Vodyani and Unfallen would be forced to focus them down considering their Leechers and Vineships need to be defended. I actually got the "Win a game never winning a battle" achievement on accident on Endless difficulty with Lumeris on above mentioned settings in previous patch.
Due to the very positive response regarding performance and fixes, this preview has been pushed live. We are aiming to release another preview with fixes for the issues brought up in this thread in the near future.
Thanks to all of you for your input, and please, carry on with the feedback!
Did the federation government overcolonization bonus change from 2 to 1? Wasn't it already considered one of the weakest government before? If so why the nerf especially with the other change to the number of allowed system before overcolonization?
Is the vodyani A.I hopeless or is it just a bad game for them.They have basically sat there and done nothing for 100 turn apart sending the odd leech ship to my system that I bitchslap out.
My main concern was with the lack of Unfallen resistance. Unfortunately I didn't have an earlier save, but they put up very few fleets of their own. It's probably the case that they lost most of their fleets to the war with Lumeris and Cravers earlier in the game (I never met the Cravers, as someone else wiped them out). I just thought I'd flag it in case there was a wider issue, but to be honest I think more and more that it was just down to game circumstance. I'd had a relatively easy early/mid game, so just jumped on more beleagured empires in the late game.
I don't mind the alliance mechanics at all. I think it functions nicely as a way to speed up what could become a tedious 'clean up' for the end game.
In terms of AI's fighting each other, that's fine too. What would be cool is if there was a 'request help' diplomacy mechanic (other than the alliance mechanic). But that's only a small thought.
Really excellent stuff. Some of the little changes really make a huge difference (like being able to see when you get overpopulation disapproval).
Only two things worth mentioning:
Small one first - In 'confirmation' screen pop ups it says 'co' rather than confirm. Bigger one - The AI seems to make considerably less ships now. That wouldn't be a problem in itself, but there seems to be overall less focus on fleets. I rolled over UE, Lumeris, and Unfallen, very quickly (on Endless) with very little resistance. This was as Horatio, with not so strong fleets. It's possible I just lucked out through game circumstances, but I'll keep an eye out to see whether this is a little more endemic. The only reason I mention it is because of how striking the difference was between previous games and this one. Though, as I said, I might have just got lucky.
Other than that, the game feels way more polished now. Looking forward to the fighters and bombers patch.
Bigger one - The AI seems to make considerably less ships now. That wouldn't be a problem in itself, but there seems to be overall less focus on fleets. I rolled over UE, Lumeris, and Unfallen, very quickly (on Endless) with very little resistance. This was as Horatio, with not so strong fleets. It's possible I just lucked out through game circumstances, but I'll keep an eye out to see whether this is a little more endemic. The only reason I mention it is because of how striking the difference was between previous games and this one. Though, as I said, I might have just got lucky.
Other than that, the game feels way more polished now. Looking forward to the fighters and bombers patch.
This kind of disturbs me. Especially as you were playing Horatio. Not sure if to start a new game now or wait for further impressions.
Bigger one - The AI seems to make considerably less ships now. That wouldn't be a problem in itself, but there seems to be overall less focus on fleets. I rolled over UE, Lumeris, and Unfallen, very quickly (on Endless) with very little resistance. This was as Horatio, with not so strong fleets. It's possible I just lucked out through game circumstances, but I'll keep an eye out to see whether this is a little more endemic. The only reason I mention it is because of how striking the difference was between previous games and this one. Though, as I said, I might have just got lucky.
I had this problem a couple of patches ago... couldn't find A.I. fleets. Then I discovered that they were sitting all in one sector.... each faction had a sector/system with all their fleets sitting just there and not moving at all. I yet have to try this new build and see wether we are having the same issue. Lets keep finghers crossed!
Can you send us a save please so we can see what problems the AI encountered ?
Thanks for your feedbacks :)
WeLoveYou wrote:
Just finished a game with the preview.
Really excellent stuff. Some of the little changes really make a huge difference (like being able to see when you get overpopulation disapproval).
Only two things worth mentioning:
Small one first - In 'confirmation' screen pop ups it says 'co' rather than confirm. Bigger one - The AI seems to make considerably less ships now. That wouldn't be a problem in itself, but there seems to be overall less focus on fleets. I rolled over UE, Lumeris, and Unfallen, very quickly (on Endless) with very little resistance. This was as Horatio, with not so strong fleets. It's possible I just lucked out through game circumstances, but I'll keep an eye out to see whether this is a little more endemic. The only reason I mention it is because of how striking the difference was between previous games and this one. Though, as I said, I might have just got lucky.
Other than that, the game feels way more polished now. Looking forward to the fighters and bombers patch.
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