Endless Space 2 early access appraisal and improvements

Already a great game. Have played the first endless space and thought it was a good start. Played endless legend and thought it was a refreshing take on 4 X games.

First impressions:

Very nice art and interface design, highly polished and graphically advanced. Presentation is spot on. Game play is pretty much what we are used to with Endless Legend. Combat is cinematic in presentation, make all your decisions and watch the show. Engaging factions, each with a story to tell. Fantastic replay ability.

No real cons at this stage, at least nothing that cannot be overcome.

This game has all the elements in place however the feedback I will provide will be centred on the most important aspect of any modern 4X game. Immersion, immersion and more immersion.

for this I will list some fundamental errors that other games of this type have and are still making.

Throw the old school thinking surrounding most 4X games out of the window. Let's be brutal here. There is a lot of misguided nostalgia surrounding the old greats. While they were great at the time they are crap now. Simply put flat 2d graphics and cartoon characters do not cut it in today's market. Fans want cutting edge graphics that will immerse the player into the universe of the game world. We want to feel that we are present and that there are meaningful stories to be told. ES2 as most of this covered.

Game play must be engaging and addictive and offer consistency throughout the games three main phases, beginning, expansion and end game. The endgame must have a real need for the player to want to complete it, surprise the player who is arrogant enough to think that they have won.

Don't cut corners. Provide the best that you can. Push the PC experience to the max.

Now that we have the bases for a good space 4X game let's take a look at where ES2 can really shine.

Immersion improvements:

Planetary invasion is probably my biggest concern here. Let's look at it head on. 

Fleet combat shown visually is fun and meaningful. Testing ship designs in the environment is immersive. You are an emperor watching you creations perform in a deadly opera of space. Losing a fleet hurts. Now losing a planet or star system has to be devastating, It must convey a feeling of dread. Your populations are being eradicated by aliens, no quarter given. To convey this I think we need to keep within the theme of cinematic representation. I want to see The Cravers land on a planet, obliterate its population and then send a transmission to your senate that sends dread into your populations across your empire. Eight races time three outcomes (Takeover, resistance, defeat) is 24 cinematic representation needed for planetary invasion. Think of the "Borg" first encounters in star trek. So get rid of that awful line-up of star troopers facing of each other. The cinematic option tells the story for all races of the game, it has immersion and the average player will not see all cinematics in one play through.  At the very least it would make a good post battle report and would offer depth to the AI players in the game.

Text needs to be voiced over. Especially story content. Thanks for making the text larger for older fans like me to read if we want to. I find I tend to skip over the text and miss some of the lore of the game world.  All modern AAA games use voice overs.

Ship designer needs to be more immersive. I would like to see it tied to ship yards so that some planets can be tailored to build certain class of ships. I would love to see the shipyard integrated into the ship design screen. Take a look at Battle fleet Gothic. It shows your ship docked at the fleet yard where it can be customised and seen in space orbiting your planet. This keeps the player in the game world, every screen that takes you away from the games universe is a failure to maintain immersion. The ship design screen is to sterile and meaningless in its presentation.

Tutorial and advice. I would like to see this represented as a AI character that informs you the emperor of events and advice across all aspects of the game. Each AI character different for all races in the game. The AI could report anomalies and game events. Offer advice in diplomacy or ship building. Tech tree choices could boost AI effectiveness. There is a whole extra dimension to be explored in this area, virus attacks that cripple empire management for a few turns and so on.

Espionage is a fantastic concept as in EL. It works and is a fun dynamic. Who doesn't love to spy on a neighbouring empire.

Flagships and experience crews are all part of most 4X space games. Acquire or manufacture the required resources to construct a flagship on your favourite planet shipyard.

Lastly but no less important. Multi player and single player are two vastly different approaches to game mechanics. I am a single player guy who likes to play solo. So many games fail to grasp the difference in single player and multi player requirements. In the multi player world every thing regarding map design and starting positions are based on the flawed concept of fair play. That is to say that all things start off as equal and the game kicks off from there. Now single players want total freedom from this constraint in game play. I want to set up a galaxy that is uneven and unfair. Some races could be made to be fully or partially developed, They might not be expansionists for example. The Cravers might be fighting a civil war and are weakened by it. Events could be created to allow players to battle over high yield planets or special technologies. A map scenario editor is the most overlooked game mechanic. It is one of the biggest mechanics requested in online forums. Single player is all about setting up the game world and playing your own roles within the established universe. This game mode would be a sure winner.

I have outlined some areas that could be improved upon. I think this game has so much potential that I needed to participate in the games 2 gether program. It has style and is pushing the 4X space frontier. Well done Amplitude. Let's make this game rock.