Foraven wrote:

That could be it for the last one, yeah. But on my previous game, it was clearly stated Conquest, Economic, Technological, Wonder victory... They kept spamming thoses every few turns yet no one was winning until one actually pulled off the Wonder victory, but that was looooong after the spam started (like more than 100 turns).

There exists actually more than one "nearing victory" trigger for each victory type, that for some reason don't mention anything concrete about how far the enemy has come, again underlining the need for an easier way to track victory progress or at least give a basic idea about what's happening, especially for newcomers who don't know about the triggers. In addition since each empire's / alliance's victory thresholds are tracked separately it means you're going to get a lot of vague warnings, even more when empires enter or leave alliances since the threshold changes are also instant and the game always announces whether a lone empire or alliance is close to achieving victory. Lots and lots of vague information.

For Wonder victory I think the first warning message triggers whenever an empire unlocks the last stage of Empire quadrant of tech tree rather than actually attempting to build one of the wonders. This doesn't get mentioned anywhere so it would be easy for new players to mistake the warning for enemy empires being already in the process of building them. Economic victory warning is also kind of esoteric since the actual "amount of Dust generated" triggers aren't mentioned anywhere, but if I recall correct there's three warnings total.

Other victory types' warnings are somewhat more easily understood, though they don't have any concrete numbers either. Conquest has several warning trigger thresholds that depend on map size and how many systems the enemy has conquered already, and you can roughly see how close they're to victory through galaxy exploration and simply looking at the color of the map, then comparing it with the number in the victory screen. Same applies to Supremacy and number of controlled capitals if you've discovered their locations, especially since each one is clearly marked on the map with a crown. Science victory warning triggers at first victory tech research completed, and IIRC again at third researched one.

The reason why single player games usually continue a lot longer after the first warnings is a combination of the weird placement of some the warnings, alliance shenanigans and AI stupidity

• Wonder victory's first warning comes up regardless of whether the enemy empire is actually attempting it, as merely unlocking the right tech quadrant is sufficient.
• Economic victory doesn't provide any relevant numbers and no way to gauge how close or far the enemy is from achieving it. From my experience this is the only victory type the AI can realistically achieve as it's passive, requiring nothing but producing a lot of Dust and the AI gets resource cheats on higher difficulties, so they can do it without being able to optimize trade routes.
• Conquest and Supremacy victory's threshold warnings make sense and you can discover how far the enemy has come by looking at the map, however the AI doesn't seem capable of pursuing either one purposefully, meaning even if you get a warning you often need not worry. Particularly for latter it isn't good at capital sniping.
• In my 300 hours of play I've never, ever seen a Science victory warning from AI popping up so I'm guessing victory techs aren't that high on their priority list either.

And to add as context just in case, I play with default map settings and game speed against Endless difficulty AIs. Like Aitarus mentioned, lackluster victory conditions, very vague information about victory progress and especially lack of capable AI means all of the things we have been talking about so far aren't just multiplayer issues, but things notably plaguing the single player experience as well. Even moreso in fact since unlike a human player the AI isn't capable of abusing the several loopholes and if it ever wins, it's more on accident rather than by design.

Numinumi wrote:

I currently play a Vaulter game and I had a warning the Horatios where winning in 4 turns... 20 turns later nothing happened.

You sure you weren't fooled by the silly message that indicates someone winning a cooperative quest? It took me a while to understand it myself and panicked everytime, I'm not sure the actual victory conditions says that someone will win soon by turns, but I could be wrong.

That could be it for the last one, yeah. But on my previous game, it was clearly stated Conquest, Economic, Technological, Wonder victory... They kept spamming thoses every few turns yet no one was winning until one actually pulled off the Wonder victory, but that was looooong after the spam started (like more than 100 turns).

What Numi said ^

Victory conditions are certainly just as easy to accomplish on larger galaxies as they are on small.

WeLoveYou wrote:
As for the shuffling research about to prevent notifications - I hadn't thought of that at all and it's clever. It doesn't seem very efficient though - that's a lot of time researching nothing. 

The science victory costs are so low that shuffling has no meaningful impact on your time taken, especially not compared to showing your hand and the potential intervention by another empire would slow you down.

Some of the other things you mention I think I handled in the previous post - all of them have significant pre-warnings or can be found out by getting knowledge of the map.  I have suggested elsewhere that supremacy victory should maybe require full system ownership in order to win, to prevent Seeker capital snipes, but conquest is just fine. In terms of Wonder victory - sure you can buy them all out in a couple of turns. If you're making that much dust, industry, and strategics to spare on enough systems, you should be winning anyway.

Conquest is not just fine, it can be accomplished in a single turn just as easily as Supremacy. Cf. pacific conversion wave, or just acquiring multiple systems at once by blitz. It too should require system ownership.

The amount of Dust and production required for the Obelisks is not really 'that much' at all, which is exactly why they occur so early on. You should be winning, in my view, if you not only have the resources to pursue a victory but also to defend yourself while it's ongoing.

There is also a problem here in that we might be speaking past each other a bit. When you're talking about balancing for multiplayer games we're talking balancing usually for fast speeds, smaller galaxies, and a particular emergent meta-game for that group of players (as the multiplayer community is so small). Fast speeds, smaller galaxies in particular favour certain factions and playstyles. So in other words, we're talking about balancing for a very small section of options and players. Although it's important that gameplay is fun for everyone, that also going to mean some compromises from smaller sections of the community for the sake of larger sections of the community.

I do not think that this is unique to multiplayer games. You can win just as fast in single player and I think it diminishes the game just as much.

I'd also be interested to know what would count as a satisfying victory. It can't be that there is always some huge battle at the end, as this deincentivises pacific gameplay. And specifically, in terms of the top post, what would having lots of additional info for free do in helping to achieve this.

As I stated in my first post, we do need more means to interfere with victory other than all out war. As it stands, if that is all we have, then I would like a reasonable amount of time in which to engage in some sort of conflict. Ideally, I'd like to see the diplomatic demands system expanded with 'sanctions' and other methods. Espionage, whether or not we get that in future, would also be a means.

With regards to the info, if you had up to date accurate info on how close someone is to victory, you could make a decision whether to invade them or to invest your resources in your own pursuit of a victory. Without that info, it is simply too risky not to do anything but invade. Competing on the wonders and watching your score up and down, even if it's a very lacklustre tracker, is more engaging than having no idea.

Aitarus wrote:

Regarding wonders, you can already tell if someone else started it by tracking the deed rank. It will be 1/x at first, and then if one person has started and is thus ahead of you, 2/x. You can still make the choice to attempt to beat them if you think you have more industry. This info does not altogether deter attempting construction, since you may have more production than those ahead of you, means to increase that, or be intending to buy it out. More info is good.

WeLoveYou wrote:

The game (like all 4X's tbh) already has some issues with turning into a slug-fest towards the end, as your economy is overflowing. Dragging the games out even longer because of stalemate over victory conditions is not a recipe for fun. 

While this may be the case in other 4X games, it is not true of Endless Space 2. There is no stalemate over victory conditions because they can be accomplished way too early, with no opportunity whatsoever for someone to intervene.

In multi-player, while you can reasonably expect someone to follow their ideal victory, not all the factions are so clear cut. As it stands, the only options available currently to prevent another empire winning is all out war. And even then, if you start at the first notification, you are likely to be too late since:

• Science techs can be shuffled until you have enough research to complete all four in a single turn
• Wonders can be queued three at once in different places. They can be bought out
• Economic victory gets exponentially faster. The more Dust you produce, the more you invest, the more you produce
• There is no grace period for Conquest & Supremacy, the moment they have the systems, it's over

This is not really satisfying gameplay, when either you, an AI or another player can pull off a win in one turn with no conflict whatsoever. 

From what i could see playing larger galaxies, victory conditions are not that easy to achieve. In one game (against the AI), I had multiple warnings of imminent victory yet 50 turns later the game was still going. There was multiple wars going on and everyone was improving their systems and building up fleets thus that kept pushing back the victory conditions. I currently play a Vaulter game and I had a warning the Horatios where winning in 4 turns... 20 turns later nothing happened.

My guess is victory conditions are not scalled with how large the galaxy is; they are too quick to achieve in small galaxies, extremely hard to get on huge ones.

WeLoveYou wrote:

samsonazs wrote:

On the intel side it would be great to know if any of the other factions is building a wonder (not the ones for wonder victory but the unique ones from deeds).

It would be great to have a notification like "The Cravers started construction of the Intergalactic Technology Center"

Then you would get another one around 50% completion and then a last one saying that a faction is close to completion that would trigger somewhere around 2-4 turns before competion (random number so you don't know exactly when it will finish).

Those should be just general notifications. Nothing specific like in which system is it being built or exact completion time.

This would be way too much and ripe for exploitation. If you know someone has started building it then you're unlikely to start building it yourself which 1) Destroys half the risk of building wonders and 2) Could mean that players queue it just for denial. The whole point of wonders is that it is a huge risk with a huge payoff. 

Dreepa - there is nearly exactly the same screen in ES2, under the empire tab.

The victory pings go off way too much IMO, although it's more annoying that the music changes than anything else. The science victory ping goes off after one Endless tech has been researched. The economy one after halfway has been reached. Same goes for conquest and supremacy, which you can see on the map anyway. In other words, you have plenty of time to think about and act upon slowing down the leading empires/alliances. The only one that could really be considered to not give you enough warning is the Wonder victory, but given that the systems are pinged and you can see the strategic resources an empire has available, it's not hard to put two and two together. It's not exactly the easiest victory condition to achieve anyway. 

This isn't even to mention that certain empires are made for certain victory conditions. If you are not denying Lumeris economy, then expect them to drastically pull ahead. Same goes for Cravers in conquest, Riftborn on Wonder, Vodyani on supremacy, Sophons on science, etc. The asymetric nature of the factions already gives you intel on how to stop them acheiving an easy victory. I am all for an espionage system though. Fingers crossed for future DLC.

The game (like all 4X's tbh) already has some issues with turning into a slug-fest towards the end, as your economy is overflowing. Dragging the games out even longer because of stalemate over victory conditions is not a recipe for fun. 

I agree on lesser wonders not being announced. This would be open to exploitation.

Though I disagree on the major victory progress announcements being sufficient. 

So about that empire management victory screen: It is not like civ asinsofar that it is purely info about yourself and your rank. Civ "stages" the progress publicly so everyone is aware. Someone is going for space victory? You see how he slowly checkboxes the different parts of his space ship. Someone going for culture victory? You see: Shit, he is about to have 50% of the required tourists and keeps booming. I should act now.

In Endless Space2, you have 2 flaws: First, you need detailed game information to put the message into context. When it pops up for the first time playing, you basically just shrug and ask oyourself: How bad is it? Do I need to act? Is he VERY close to victory? Or is he still at the start of the whole journey? It is only through your extensive game knowledge  that you aquire the skills needed to judge the screen approriately. And even then it does not say anything about the momentum. We had the screen pop up and then still played 130 turns. At other times the screen barely left time to react at all. 

Add to this the consideration that many players do not have the time to play many ES2 sessions to dissect the game in a way that gives them an insight into putting this screen into proper context. And that's usually the majority of buyers. They need a proper info with context right off the bat.

The second flaw is absolutely inherent in any game that is a hidden information game, utilizing information and awareness as a key resource. Sometimes the lack of information is purely due to cognitive reasons, as there is more information than the player can process at any given time (RTS games, fast paced PVP action games, MOBA, etc.). In order to make those games work for spectators they use commentaries and a spectator camera, to compensate. The esports audience gets additional info from the commentator explaining what is going on. 

On the other hand sometimes the lack of information is part of the inherent design and how it makes information available. Exporation is often a reason why a design puts information into layers, that are revealed over the course of time and through player actions.  Most 4x games fall in this category. Particularily features like fog of war and enemy empires settling _somewhere_  in the dark doing their thing on the map fall into that category. Enemy actions are often times hidden. 

It is also for this reason, that these games can feel a lot like "you are playing on your own" and "all by yourself" without much going on.

To compensate this hidden game-play, games usually use overarching notification systems designed to give clues as to what the whole game-state currently is. They give you small insights into stuff you wouldn't normally be able to see. This can be as small and efficient as just adding a "kill message" in a shooter. Someone at the other end of the map gets killed, and you get informed. This alters your next move, as you might now move that route, knowing the enemy is around somewhere.

And this is essential for good 4x imho.

Civilization is very good at this. They do the right dose of teasing (rumors about enemies, first to prove the word is round, build wonder X) but they also do the right amount of abstraction of key game resources (aka victory progress tracking, what space stage is the enemy in, how many cities does eh need to convert with his religion, how many cities are of what religion, who is in what technology era aka "England has advanced to the classic era" etc.).

A competitive 4x game without a meta info layer feels alone, dry, leaving you uncertain about the game state and what actions to take. It is more random in it's outcome and much more hadrcore in terms of skill required to be good at it. I also would say it makes the game more "dry" and less exciting.

As for ES2, it has this one victory screen, yes, but it does not help you judge your place properly in the hierarchy. It is okayish to get a feel for where you stand, but comparing it with Civilization, it does not create the kind of late game dynamic that you would get from being able to judge the enemies advancement towards victory in greater detail. The player's reaction to the victory warning screen is just a best guess and not a very informed one. Usually just ending in war, as comparing different paths to victory and their progress relatively to each other is near impossible. So to play it safe, war is what people will do out of precaution.

Hi,

so I have been playing quite a lot lately, single-player, multi-player and especially in the MP (but also in SP).

There is quite a big problem with game dynamics I think: Because there is near to no situational awareness of the power levels of all factions (except general score).

In Civilization 5 and Civilization 6, the best games are the ones where people see that someone is strong on science, or strong on military and thus they try to counter act. And it is not just Civ, but many good games give you some kind of abstract orientation as to how strong an enemy is in each of the victory areas. 

In ES2 all we have is a warning that is very generic and does not offer much detail. (And a general score  in the turn button's tooltip).

Some victories even come so surprings that the game never reached a climax of any sort, cause once the warning came it was already unstoppable, or at other times, you didn't know what it meant and how much time you got left to react to that warning. 

This is Civ5, where you can hover over any area to see the progress of other players in the tooltip iirc.

(Hi-Res: Right click the pic, open in new tab)

And this is Civ 6 for the science victory progression:

(Hi-Res: Right click the pic, open in new tab)

But any info, even if it is just text in a tooltip would already help. Knowing the state of the game is crucial to having an exciting competition. Just think of the board game Twilight Imperium. It shows all the victory points to every player, and this is exactly the reason why alliances break and new wars are started. When someone wins, it feels like you knew it's going to happen and it felt like a real race, seeing the strongest competitors getting closer and closer. Do I go for my own victory? Or do I try to sabotage the other person's victory?

It keeps the game dynamic.

Hum... For some reason the last 3 games I played I kept receiving warnings about factions about to win the game yet many turns later the game was still going. Of course I have been playing AI games with all the factions on a pretty large galaxy. I had noticed the large radar like ping but was unsure of what they meant; would be nice to have a tooltip about them (tutorial was off at that point)...

Yup. We need more contextual info on the victory screens.

Not only are all victories still too easy and far too early to attain, there is often no way to prevent them once started other than completely eliminating the player pursuing them. This is especially jarring after hours spent in MP to end in an anti-climax - indeed, with no climax.

There needs to be far more detailed info on victory progression and means to slow, deter and prevent them.