Hello there all! 

First post here, so hope I managed to get most of the typo´s etc. out of the way! 

Okay so now I have tossed a few days of my life into the ES2 and feel ready to come with some initial impressions. Also after having read a few other posts here on the forums I apologize if I might say something that has been said before. 

Also sorry in advance for the inevitable Stellaris comparisons. But they do so many things right in that game that it would just be sad not to acknowledged it. 

Visuals: 

Short and simple. I love them. You really put a lot of other companies to shame with your UI design as well as consistent and overall pleasant graphics. The nice mix of fully animated scenes and concept drawings work really well. I do hope to see more of that in the future, since it does help get a better feel for the various races. 

One thing I have noted is the lack of planet diversity. Especially the unique planets you encounter. You have a nice concept drawing of it, but when you see it ingame it is just a generic type. I am sure this will be fixed... think I read that somewhere. But just want to make sure, since the diversity of planets in ES is one of the things that sets the game apart. 

One thing I hope will be implemented is some more unique visuals for each race. So far we only have the ship design, as well as the odd ground combat hologram. 

Would be nice to see some race specific graphics in the systems they control. Like small space stations as well as traffic etc. as the system is developed. In short just small visual indicators that would make each race stand out. Like a Sophon system would look different from a Craver one. (For cravers it would be cool if you could visually follow the depletion of systems. So you get broken shallow husks as the game progress.)

Audio: 

Great music, you really did it again. The other day I even just left the game playing while doing some chores around the house. It really fits the mood of the game. Also most of the weapon audio I have heard so far is good enough. 

Races: 

One of the strongest points in ES is the background lore and the truly unique feel of each race. I am pleased to see this will continue and be built upon.  

I will not go into balancing since I think we can all agree that there essentially is none at this point. Every race is OP when played by the player. But here are a few things I have noticed. 

Cravers:

AI cravers just cant do well. As I recall this was also a problem in ES 1. They always seem to be shut down fast by other empires (due to early wars). In general I think their unique abilities seem to be their biggest weakness. I must admit I find it funny that in the current alpha, it is the Lumeris who expand rapidly and all over the place and not the cravers. I mean they have the FIDS bonues to expand more rapidly... or so one would think. 

Just because I said it once does not mean it is not true... please add some visual depletion indicators! Would be so cool to just be able to see where the Cravers have been even after you have wiped them from existence. :D

Lumeris: 

I guess this it just summed up into one sentence. What the heck is up with all the rapid expansion? 

I hope that the Lumeris is going to be much more at the whims of their senate in the future. Considering that their whole deal is various families etc. one would expect that the political side of their empire is what holds them back. At least that is how I currently picture them. 

As it is now it just seems like there is no real downside for them. And they get to steamroll because of it. I shudder to think how insane they would be on larger maps where you cannot shut them down early. 

Sophons: 

I will admit that I preferred playing the Sophons in ES 1. Because the science and fast exploration generally meant that I could get to the good planets first and ignore combat entirely. It is nice to see that they remain more or less the same. 

Not much to say about them so far... They seem to do alright in most of my games. They eventually die to either myself or a lumeris AI, but always manage to get a few systems and actually do something. 

Vodyani: 

My current favorite, because well I like the whole "dark elf/vampire" thing they got going. There are plenty of posts about their balancing so I wont touch that. There is plenty to balance, but I hope they will keep their current flair, since I find that refreshing in the genre. 

Political system: 

One of the new features, and frankly one I have high hopes for. 

The one thing I currently do not like about it is how parties gain popularity.... I can see why it seems like a good idea to have your politics shape after your actions, but in the current implementation I do not think it is good.

As an example (That others have also mentioned). You almost always end up with strong militarist support... just by building ships. Why... just because you want to defend yourself does not mean that you are going to be a warmonger. 

I think ES 2 needs to borrow from Stellaris on this and have a more visible population ethos system in place. It works in that game. and it makes it visible what your population is disposed towards. I love how if you are a true warmonger in that game and you have a pacifist population you will get severe happiness modifiers. It is simple and it makes sense.  

Where Stellaris shots short is how much government type matters however. This is what I hope ES 2 would get right. Yes you can be a warmonger with a pacifist population in Stellaris and have a democracy... it makes no sense. The government type should reflect what options are available to you. 

I love the laws system, and how it seems to be implemented, but I do not think it will shine until the "how parties gain support" is changed. I think it needs to be reliant upon the population of your empire, instead of just based solely on your actions. 

I hope that all made sense. 

Combat: 

You win awards for epic looking space battles... but that is about where the praise ends. And the most frustrating part of it is that I am not able to figure out just why it annoys me so much! Because on paper your system should work and be interesting... but it just is not. 

It was the same in ES 1. I hated the combat.. and never really found out why. 

You have so many choices, and the hero´s bring in magical abilities to add further depth... but sadly it still just feels like a rock paper scissors mode. The battle was decided before it even began, there was no point in doing anything. (Another reason I preferred playing Sophons in ES 1... having the tech advantage meant you could ignore the choices entirely.)

I miss that if you have a fleet of superior experience but inferior tech.. you could still win with the right choices against a numerically or technologically superior force. 

I miss that the battle plan choices do not have a larger impact. Perhaps more than three options as well as hero abilities would make it more interesting. Perhaps even adding tech that is related to military tactics.... as well as unique tactics for each race... that would open up a lot of interesting avenues. 

In short... there just needs to be something that brings in noticeable examples that your choices mattered. Perhaps winning that clutch victory... or making the enemy suffer a truly Pyrrhic victory. 

I guess what I really would love to see is what you have now, combined with what gratuitous space battles do. There you can get some epic space battles just using start position and really basic orders. But those orders matter! 

Invasion: 

Yeah... one day a game will come that will get this part of 4x space empire building right. 

I like how you have done troop count, and that every combat ship can help out. That touch is nice.. none of that invasion ship annoyance. It also makes sense that in the future any big military vessel would have its own compartment of troops. 

However again... the lack of choices is what kills it. I do like that you have made it so that combat is not resolved in a single turn if the amount of defenders and attackers are somewhat even. 

But there still needs to be some orbital defense options. Perhaps even structures you can build. In all of the 4x games I have played it is always the same... you defeat the fleet and orbit the planet ... and then wait until you can invade no problem. There are never any freaking big plasma cannons or a million nukes being fired etc. 

I would love to see a system with more choices, perhaps even phases of combat in a ground invasion. in short so you can create a battle plan for the invasion or defense. And again hopefully something that will make choices matter. If your defense strategy perfectly counters the attack it should inflict severe losses. 

For example would be lovely to have the option to keep your ships in low orbit, where they can get help from the surface if a superior enemy come in... would make for another interesting battle plan option. 

Economy: 

In ES 1 I was always a bit torn with this... it was way better than what GalCiv had... so I enjoyed it. But at the same time the fact that everything revolved around dust kinda ruined it a bit. I will admit that I almost always disabled the dust victory because it was just annoying and would always happen before any other condition... because by mid game it is so easy to accumulate obscene amounts of dust it is not even funny. 

Now the alpha currently does not progress long enough for me to see if the dust generation issues are still the same, but based on what I have seen so far I am going to guess that it is. 

To put it short I kinda always hoped I would find a mod that would turn dust into regular credits and dust into a special ressource you would have to seek out in Endless ruins etc. early game, and only late game would be able to produce yourself. 

I like the whole concept of dust and the story elements in it, but having it as the most generic ressource always felt cheap. 

I know it is most likely never going to happen, but I truly do hope that dust would be a special ressource you would fight over rather than the common currency. 

Dust aside I love what seems to have been done with special resources and how you can do system developments... it is a nice feature that I cant wait to look more into. But that is going to require a few more turns of gameplay I think. 

I have not had the pleasure of trying out trade yet... with the races in the game and the length of time the average game takes it has just never come up. 

Influence borders: 

This just seems to lack something... Stellaris does this really well with the way colonies and outposts are created. You already have the influence currency in the game so it would be easy enough to simply use that to lay claim to new land with outposts (Would also help make the Lumeris planet broker theme more sensible)

I guess the short of it is that there just needs to be some way to lay claim to area you cannot use now, but you know you are going to want to use later... before the enemy does it. 

Science: 

I like the era system... I think it is a good idea, and in general I have always enjoyed the space empire building games that have used them. I know a lot of people see it as an artificial limit on how they can progress.. but I think it helps balance the game out by not just being able to go for Awesome tech nr. 1 one era ahead. 

(Yeah I know the Sophons can still do this, and I think that particular law should be removed from the game... mainly because it does not make sense)

One thing I do hope will come is more racial unique techs, or even the option of randomization of the tech tress. If only on the spaceship module parts. All of the games with random techs have just provided me more interesting games than the ones where I know just what to go for every time.  I know this sort of thing is not for everyone, hence why I hope it will only remain an optional setting. 

But tbh. it is just more fun when you do not really know what sort of weapons you are going to go up against until after you have fought them and/or interacted diplomatically with them. 

Heck I would even be happy if it was only special weapons that where random... so that a basic generic type was available for all. 

In general just anything to make the gameplay unique, make the races feel unique. Because that is why we replay these types of games over and over after all. 

Well that was enough for now I think! 

Overall I must say I am impressed at this point, and in no way do I regret helping this project at this stage. I hope you can use my observations, and I do look forward to seeing what other people in the community has to say! it really seems like a nice community! Hope you all have a nice day! 

Personally love most of the game, and I agree with most of your points. I differ from you with the tech system though. Every part of it seems to be worse than the first Endless Space. For one thing, multiple technologies are made completely and utterly obsolete by the next era, and given that techs inexplicably get more expensive for each one researched, this makes researching certain techs out and out negative. The system also forces certain technologies to be taken, without allowing for certain technologies to be rushed. The old tech tree made it obvious that if I needed something specific - say Barren colonization - I could follow the exact path I needed to get there. This new system though, there's no rushing anything, which puts quite a bit to the whims of the RNG gods. All in all, this is my biggest gripe with the new game.

Two other issues have popped up for me:

Force Truce - I can't believe this system was implemented in its current state. For one thing, war is ALWAYS beneficial for the person who declared. The force truce has to come from the defender, which in turn means if someone declares war on you, they win. I had the Cravers declare war on me, and I went on to kick their butt across the galaxy without losing a single ship or planet. Somehow I ended up "losing" the war, and had to pay reparations. Force truce should be an optional action to both parties, and whoever initiates it should be forced to pay reparations. It is also annoying that it is forced acceptance as well. Why should the Cravers care if their prey asks for mercy? There's no benefit to them not continuing the attack. It also means that declaring war against everyone you meet is the best course of action, which severely limits the point of diplomatic options and focusing on economy.

Luck - For a strategy game, luck is currently playing way too much of a role in the game. Started as Vodyani and there aren't any other races nearby? You've lost. Started as Sophons and picked the wrong techs for the boni? You've lost. Started as the Cravers and there's no colonizable planets nearby? You've lost. Unlucky with votes, minor races, tech selection, quests or pirates? See above. A certain amount of RNG is fun, it adds to replayability and to force new strategies. But currently ES2 has gone too far down that rabbit hole, where my wins felt unearned, and my losses felt unfair.

Race Balance:

Sophon - Benefit immensely from less opponents. Their ability can become basically worthless against five competitors, whereas it can put them in to third era in no time flat against a single opponent. As a result, they scale very poorly with numbers. Beyond that, the Sophons are fairly average everywhere else.

Vodyani - They benefit a crapload from more races being present, and people seem to be aware of their severe balance issues. Still my favourite by a country mile.

Cravers - Benefit from more planets and more opponents, but are inexplicably weak so far (Unilaterally the weakest race in the game as of this moment). The AI is completely worthless with them at the moment, though they're pretty fun to use yourself.

Lumeris - Kind of the average I judge the others on. Good luck will put them in the lead, bad luck will put them last.

Romeo wrote:

Luck - For a strategy game, luck is currently playing way too much of a role in the game. Started as Vodyani and there aren't any other races nearby? You've lost. Started as Sophons and picked the wrong techs for the boni? You've lost. Started as the Cravers and there's no colonizable planets nearby? You've lost. Unlucky with votes, minor races, tech selection, quests or pirates? See above. A certain amount of RNG is fun, it adds to replayability and to force new strategies. But currently ES2 has gone too far down that rabbit hole, where my wins felt unearned, and my losses felt unfair.

I think that there should be two sets of map generation, because the game will be different single player more multi-player. Single player the randomness (in my opinion) keeps it fresh and can make games more exciting. Having a game where you go "oh man! I got screwed out of X, what am I going to do?" can be for some a good game experience. 

However, in a competitive multiplayer scenario that can be very frustrating and really starting position is only a portion of it. I would actually prefer for a much more predictable (or even a completely pre-defined) maps for multiplayer. Map design is a *huge* part of game design and making everything procedural denies the fun that can be had from a pre-made map. 

Honestly, I couldn't be too hard to just include a map editor and just let the community make balanced maps that they enjoy.

Aiyen wrote:

Forced truce:

So that is what happens! Yeah that will most likely change.. it simply does not make sense. Was quite confused why I kept getting that. Was playing as Sophons so thought it was some pacifist thing where they let the enemy off easy! 

Luck:

Yeah I have noticed this as well... there they should really do what Stellaris do and basically give everybody the same relative starting conditions. You will always be sure to find a planet of your ideal type or two inside your starting range. For Voiyani they could add in a lifeform or minor race they can leech off for a while. Or just start with a slave population. Plenty of good ways to sort that stuff out. It is a really non invasive way to ensure early game balance. 

Technology:

The only thing I meant that I liked was the era system. Currently I do think there are too few techs, and they are a bit weird setup. However if you are going to have an era system then you might as well leave the option to have randomized tech trees. If only on the ship equipment side of things. It keeps things at least a bit fresh. 

Also not sure yet how I feel about the terraforming diversity. Like why can you live on a jungle planet but not a forest one... etc. Perhaps a bit too much diversity for it to have an entirely separate tech. Perhaps there it would make more sense to have a group of tech you can then upgrade to live on harsher and harsher planets in the same "group" 

Yes. Someone pointed out that the forced truce happening without input seems to only occur when the Vodyani are involved (Either as attacker or defender), but even without it, the system is still incredibly puzzling. Playing as the Cravers or Vodyani absolutely necessitates aggression. Having a weakened, almost gone Empire tell you "Alright, go away now" and being forced to obey is incredibly infuriating. I almost lost a match as the Cravers from that exact reason.

I'm not so competitive I want there to be no RNG, but the amount of chance going on in the game right now feels excessive. And yes, it's weird that the Sophons always start with a minor race, yet the Vodyani do not.

I just miss the old tree. I know it wasn't groundbreakingly original, but it worked so well!

Downer wrote:

Romeo wrote:

Luck - For a strategy game, luck is currently playing way too much of a role in the game. Started as Vodyani and there aren't any other races nearby? You've lost. Started as Sophons and picked the wrong techs for the boni? You've lost. Started as the Cravers and there's no colonizable planets nearby? You've lost. Unlucky with votes, minor races, tech selection, quests or pirates? See above. A certain amount of RNG is fun, it adds to replayability and to force new strategies. But currently ES2 has gone too far down that rabbit hole, where my wins felt unearned, and my losses felt unfair.

I think that there should be two sets of map generation, because the game will be different single player more multi-player. Single player the randomness (in my opinion) keeps it fresh and can make games more exciting. Having a game where you go "oh man! I got screwed out of X, what am I going to do?" can be for some a good game experience. 

However, in a competitive multiplayer scenario that can be very frustrating and really starting position is only a portion of it. I would actually prefer for a much more predictable (or even a completely pre-defined) maps for multiplayer. Map design is a *huge* part of game design and making everything procedural denies the fun that can be had from a pre-made map. 

Honestly, I couldn't be too hard to just include a map editor and just let the community make balanced maps that they enjoy.

Oh, and I should say, I don't want the game to be hardcore unanimous every game either (I'm a singleplayer guy through and through). Just seems to be a little too random. Trying to overcome a few problems while playing is fun. Try to overcome 452 is frustrating. Certain elements just need to be toned down is all. And I strongly believe the tech tree is the biggest threat to that currently. Need a technology from Era II to even dream of expanding outwards? Congratulations, you just lost.

I actually think certain pre-designed maps would be fun even ignoring the multiplayer side of it. Custom scenarios are one of the more fun parts of Age of Wonders III, and I could see it being just as fun for Endless Space 2.

Gosh yes. I'll have to check the "Modding" directory, but I think a map editor was something being discussed from Amplitude already. Or that might've been Ashes of the Singularity. But it's definitely something I'd love to see in the game (Hello, Warhammer 40,000 galaxy).