Guys, I am afraid I am dealing with Normal level players here.

You get the basic mechanics, sure.

The core problem is that Cravers are currently not being what they are supposed to be, and it arises when you play Endless, and when you play it effectively. 

By which I mean you produce at LEAST 6k science by turn 60 and 1st in every victory condition besides Economic since Doria will always, always beat you to it.

So please, unless you are ready to discuss the deep mechanics of Endless Difficulty and how to actually rush things, please. 

How can you not differentiate playing in a mode puts you in a very difficult situation between the intended gameplay and blame the game design -of all things- and ranting with much zealous when people giving you good advice. You just find out lots of things you never even heard of and trying to play on the hardest difficulty?

Not to mention you are trying to fight the AI (who gains much with every turn you can ever have) and your plan is to lay back, grow and when you think you have the edge(?!) you are planning to strike? And your choice of faction to do this is Cravers?  Good luck.

I sense a lot of hatrred and rage from fanboys, but okay, back to original points.

1) Wars and alliances

The Cravers are supposed to conquer worlds and expand, rapidly so. Correct? If they stay sitting on their worlds, they just deplete them and choke. Correct?

So please explain to me, how it is correct to 1 - make them abide by the SAME expansion disapproval rules, like everyone else and 2 - how are they supposed to overcome their expansion unhappiness with Jingoist law giving puny +15 bonus per war if you keep only with 1-2 factions at war? 

To keep up even with basic expansion of 8 systems for the large galaxy, and settle shit worlds like Lava/Toxic etc you already use up all your happiness. We didn't even start conquering and adding planets ovee the disapproval limit! Naturally your scouts are trying to find each and every minor civ just to declare war on them to get back on happiness train. And hey, guess what, by turns 20-30 most of them are assimilated and you loose your Jingoist happiness at alarming rate, back to Mutinous. The only options you have is switching to Religious or Ecology with their OP verdict, which only highlights the point of Cravers approval mechanic disfunctional and requiring work.

Late game research gives you a building to cover this, +1happiness per NUMBER of ships. But hey dear devs, it is late game, I use Carriers now, so my NUMBER of ships is just 4-5 per fleet! so this building is not doing jack-all for me! This should be per CP and not per amount of ships.

The common eXpand eXploit etc garbage of 4x game works perfectly. For ANY other race, but not the Cravers.

And if you keep declaring war on everything just to keep up with your conquest/expansion - yes, the end result is entire galaxy united against you.

Craver gameplay mechanic is broken and contradicting itself. Please prove me otherwise.

How do I propose to fix it?

Hard to say, considering how much production you have to put into a system, so vacating a depleted system is still a hit on your economy. At the very least, the core Craver mechanic should include consumption of worlds and vacating them, literally leaving them empty. Which means, in reality, their core mechanic is more similar to Vodyani sucking out the planets and moving on. So, this is the general design breach to fix.

2) Fleet speeds and useless FLAG hero ships

Guys, if you need to add 5 support-class ships to your fleet to keep it moving at proper speed - no, it does not mean it is working correct. First of all, these ship types are the first ones targeted. You will lose them all after 2-3 fights and will be reduced back to a crawl. Tried and tested. I set out a 12CP strong fleet with 4 Supportships carrying speed mods, in just 3 fights I have 0 of them and my fleet speed is back to 6 (2 base 4 engine), which is a joke.

Not to mention that if you stack your support sheeps with only speed boosting mods, it means they are 1 - not carrying siege mods 2 - not carrying repair mods to repair themself since they are being targeted 3 - not carrying ANY of the other mids you might want to support your fleet. No, al they do is carry speed mods. That is wrong, and broken. Please prove me otherwise.

How do I propose to fix it?

Change 1 defense slot on FLAG hero ship to Defense/Support slot, so you can either fit engine , a probe, or a defensive mod there. Solved.

Add a skill for basic fleet speed increase to Guardian, +2 speed is already fine. Seekers can keep their bonus +free movement buff, but give SOMETHING to Guardians so they can actually deliver their fleets on time, and not in 20 turns.

Allow to install fleet speed mods on hero ships as an option.

Basically, let us tune WHO will carry our buffs, instead of limiting us to including support ships, which also act as a nuke sponge for the fleet.

3) Useless hero skills

I have said that most useless and broken hero skills are, namely, last two picks in Universal skill tree, 1 - reduce hero upkeep by 25% 2 - remove hero upkeep cost. They literally contradict themself, not to mention they are completely useless and not worth the skill point.

I also noted that if you are trying to build a pure Admiral hero, at some point you are forced to take planet/system improvement skills to move further down the skill tree. Which means, the skill paths are broken and need work.

How do I propose to fix it?

Rework the last 2 skills blocks in Universal tree from the ground.

Make sure the hero can pick relevant skills for chosen patch - e.g. Governor/Admiral/Explorer etc and not be forced to pick crap fillers. It makes it UNFUN, and we play the game for FUN.

4) AI not building fleets

I play with pirates turned off, simply because AI cannot deal with them, not on Endless difficulty. Which means, AI still needs work.

By turn 40-60 all AI has on endless difficulty is fleets of 1 mid-size ship and 1 small attacker. Or fleets of 4 small attackers. Which is a joke.

How do I propose to fix it?

Make sure AI pays attention to military research, get more fleet cap faster. Understans the value of special Titanium/etc weapons. By this logic, I should NEVER see Titanium etc in the market until late game, which is correct.

5) Broken quests

I am NOT using any mods and never plan to, I always play the game exactly as made by developers. I have received a quest which reqired me to produce 600+ production and 500+ science in one system IN A TURN. It is impossible to complete with Cravers, ever, since the system is depleted.

How do I propose to fix it?

Never ever ask to produce something in a system in ONE turn for Cravers unless you understand the system is depleted and how much it can actually produce.

6) Useless trade companies

So we agree that trade companies are useless? The investment you put into them is never going to pay off. If you cannot do the basic math behind it, tough luck. Back to drawing board then?

How do I propose to fix it?

They should give passive bonuses from start, and meaningful ones. Having a mid-game trade company on turn 70 across entire galaxy from HQ making me 100 dust and 10 science, when I make 3k dust and 4k science is a joke. Needs heavy balancing according to current turn.

Can we please keep the fanboyism raging down a bit, and take an actual sober look at state of things?

Thank you.

Ansa wrote:

I sense a lot of hatrred and rage from fanboys, but okay, back to original points.

I sense a lot of rage coming from a train of thoughts crushing into the reality, shattering the misknowledge.

1) Wars and alliances

The Cravers are supposed to conquer worlds and expand, rapidly so. Correct? If they stay sitting on their worlds, they just deplete them and choke. Correct?

This is how should you play, yes. Let's see If you continue to try to find some tools to back this strategy. Keywords are rapidly & expand.

So please explain to me, how it is correct to 1 - make them abide by the SAME expansion disapproval rules, like everyone else and 2 - how are they supposed to overcome their expansion unhappiness with Jingoist law giving puny +15 bonus per war if you keep only with 1-2 factions at war? 

Why same? Because even you admitted the rules has to force you to expand in a rapidly fasion. How do you ask? Besides the laws, governors, buildings and faction unique mechanics like feeding pits, you have to consume the planets (rapidly) and move on(expand) to the next one in order to keep a tap to the system limit you can have. This requires planning and strategy and this is totally doable.

I'll stop quoting now because you keep going on and on about same things in different sentences but as a Craver enthusiastic myself (stated to add this faction to my arsenal, recently).

-As Cravers, you should never try to go to tall empire and be mindful of your borders. Think of this as a bacteria in the water. As you move towards somewhere be sure to deplete your planets the opposite direction. 

-Be sure to have spaceport many populations as you for you to fill the planets and consume them faster.

-Make some feeding planets for your slaves and transport them for feeding pit in order to keep the happiness checked. 

-Cravers is a rush faction. It's not an empire building faction. That's why the purpose of this faction is to change up the common playstyle. 

-Always think of your first correct sentence when trying for cravers and approach different this time "The Cravers are supposed to conquer worlds and expand, rapidly so. Correct? If they stay sitting on their worlds, they just deplete them and choke. Correct?"

I'm not against for people trying to make a point passionately, even they lack the necessary experience to fully make one but If you do you better come prepared or be ready to take the hit.

Wait, what? My OP was anything but insulting. If there is bad coding, I call it what it is - bad coding, bad design. Bad and contradictive skills for heroes, etc.

The game keeps crashing after playing 2-3 hours because of obscene memory leaks still - am I supposed to praise Allakh/devs/who? It's bad coding.

And yes, when people spam nonsentical insults at me for posting anything which is not praise to their beloved company, this is exactly what is called "fanboyism".

Just to clarify - not intending to insult anyone. But I will call shit design work and decisions "shit" when it is so. If you want to stay politically correct to everything, you should probably watch Oprah instead of playing strategy games.

Back on topic.

So you suggest as a Craver for me to use the current implementation and actually try to vacate the built-up worlds and try to spaceport my pops to new ones? Correct?

So, basically, if I follow this strategy, I am constantly stuck building stuff and not actually reaping my rewards. How is that correct? 

How is that anywhere near effective next, to, say, Empire, which builds up their worlds to full and then have ALL their systems terraformed into colder and running Planet Cracker for 25% prod into science, and 2-3 all-Hot industry systems with industry Governors spamming ships ships ships?? 

You will not stand a chance against Empire like that, since they are both spearheading science and spamming latest-tech fleets faster than you can chew through them.

Guys, I am afraid I am dealing with Normal level players here.

You get the basic mechanics, sure.

The core problem is that Cravers are currently not being what they are supposed to be, and it arises when you play Endless, and when you play it effectively. 

By which I mean you produce at LEAST 6k science by turn 60 and 1st in every victory condition besides Economic since Doria will always, always beat you to it.

So please, unless you are ready to discuss the deep mechanics of Endless Difficulty and how to actually rush things, please...

Can we drop the superfluous ad hominem attacks from this thread?

Ansa, I believe many here felt uncomfortable with the way you phrase your criticism, regardless of its validity. Framing disagreement as fanaticism doesn't lend any weight to your points, especially when most of the people who took the time to reply to you specified they found your tone problematic, more than whatever disagreement they might have with the message itself.

I would strongly advise dropping the mentions of "fanboy" and the (for a lack of a better word) pissing contest. Please don't assume people's skill levels or reasoning on a certain topic are inferior to yours because they differ from your own line of reasoning.

Thanks.

EDIT: TheFunMachine beat me to it, darn.

Frogsquadron wrote:

Can we drop the superfluous ad hominem attacks from this thread?

Ansa, I believe many here felt uncomfortable with the way you phrase your criticism, regardless of its validity. Framing disagreement as fanaticism doesn't lend any weight to your points, especially when most of the people who took the time to reply to you specified they found your tone problematic, more than whatever disagreement they might have with the message itself.

I would strongly advise dropping the mentions of "fanboy" and the (for a lack of a better word) pissing contest. Please don't assume people's skill levels or reasoning on a certain topic are inferior to yours because they differ from your own line of reasoning.

Thanks.

EDIT: TheFunMachine beat me to it, darn.

Yeah, understood sorry Frog.

C0ldSn4p wrote:

Ansa wrote:

So you suggest as a Craver for me to use the current implementation and actually try to vacate the built-up worlds and try to spaceport my pops to new ones? Correct?

So, basically, if I follow this strategy, I am constantly stuck building stuff and not actually reaping my rewards. How is that correct? 

How is that anywhere near effective next, to, say, Empire, which builds up their worlds to full and then have ALL their systems terraformed into colder and running Planet Cracker for 25% prod into science, and 2-3 all-Hot industry systems with industry Governors spamming ships ships ships?? 

You will not stand a chance against Empire like that, since they are both spearheading science and spamming latest-tech fleets faster than you can chew through them.

Guys, I am afraid I am dealing with Normal level players here.

You get the basic mechanics, sure.

The core problem is that Cravers are currently not being what they are supposed to be, and it arises when you play Endless, and when you play it effectively. 

By which I mean you produce at LEAST 6k science by turn 60 and 1st in every victory condition besides Economic since Doria will always, always beat you to it.

So please, unless you are ready to discuss the deep mechanics of Endless Difficulty and how to actually rush things, please...

Well that's one of the possibility and I think that would be the intended one for normal game. I also gave you 2 others that work perfectly fine on endless. And BTW the crux of this strategy is that there is no build-up world to vacate since you almost don't build up your world, your goal with this is to conquer build-up world, not build them, suck them dry with the 150% FIDSI and using that to build up your fleet for the next world and then move on.

And if you compare the first strategy to someone who has terraformed their world you have already lost since terraforming doesn't come until mid-late game with a great cost in industry and by that point you should either have snowballed out of control (it's not like you get 150% FIDS for an insane early game) or be implementing another strategy.

Craver are about snowballing out of controll, not sitting back, terraforming and building a strong empire for the late-game. And yes you will be at a disadvantage in a big galaxy since unlike science or eco that can work by playing tall you have to play wide.

Not entirely true man.

I am terraforming my hot worlds at turns 60-70 into something more comfy and giving me more science because by this time the system has built literally everything it ever needed.

The only meaningful buildings left are Dark matter/Adamantium science labs, but no way in hell I am building those because all my Dark matter and Adamantian is going into ships and weapons.

Granted - it is just a waste of PlanetCracker turns to terraform anything, but if I feel I am very far ahead, hey why not.

ruzen wrote:

Guys, I am afraid I am dealing with Normal level players here.

You get the basic mechanics, sure.

The core problem is that Cravers are currently not being what they are supposed to be, and it arises when you play Endless, and when you play it effectively. 

By which I mean you produce at LEAST 6k science by turn 60 and 1st in every victory condition besides Economic since Doria will always, always beat you to it.

So please, unless you are ready to discuss the deep mechanics of Endless Difficulty and how to actually rush things, please. 

How can you not differentiate playing in a mode puts you in a very difficult situation between the intended gameplay and blame the game design -of all things- and ranting with much zealous when people giving you good advice. You just find out lots of things you never even heard of and trying to play on the hardest difficulty?

Not to mention you are trying to fight the AI (who gains much with every turn you can ever have) and your plan is to lay back, grow and when you think you have the edge(?!) you are planning to strike? And your choice of faction to do this is Cravers?  Good luck.

Man, you may be amazed, but Religious Autocracy Cravers will own the galaxy before you know it.

Since you simply do not care about your expansion approval and approval in general - you never ever declary war on anyone. Righteous Fury is your friend.

AIs get annoyed, they scream at you, they clench their tiny fists and stomp their tiny feet - but they cannot do anything, because you are NOT AT WAR with them :-)

You literally take their stuff under their nose, invade what you want and there is NOTHING they can do about it, because there is no Force Truce in Cold War...

So you just happily expand and settle everything on sight. 

You never attack Minor Civs - nonono, you woo the minor civs with inluence, make them your buddies, and you get stuff and science from them, and obtain their planets in a few turns, only increasing your territory.  Of course as soon as you get a Craver pop on those planets, you Feeding Pits and turn all their pops to paste to grow quicker :-)

I am really uncomfortable posting that here tbh, because next thing I get is Frog nerfing the hell out of my cheese instead of fixing the stuff I was poiting out, but whatever.

Frogsquadron wrote:

Oh I'm not the one wielding the nerf bat, I'm more of a banhammer person myself (although, really, I prefer the pen to the sword, especially if the pen has a pointy bit).

I think we'd all be curious to see a couple of your saves at various states of progress, just to get an idea.

Noted :-)

Anyway, unfortunately I forgot to remove the limit on my savegames, so only 20 last ones are kept

- Religious Autocracy Cravers

- I always ignore Endless Park because I will be Content

- The start was amazing - I had several 5-planet systems to settle next to me, and they bloomed in lategame

- Sophons were annoying as hell, I had to constantly fight them for distant outposts. Turned out their capital was really close, so that's why.

- I added a bunch of systems from Minor Civs, but now it is hard to say what was what since I ate them all. They were yummy. 

- In general, I tend to settle what I can, stay put on my worlds and push science to biggest ships with best hulls and titanium weapons. I rarely find early rushes worth it, still it's a viable option with t2 hulls. I usually tend to wait for Carriers if I got Antimatter and Adamantian on my worlds, and I "rush" things down with t2 hulls if I don't have any.

Turn 89

- I have 16 systems now

- Took Sophons capital with my basic fleet before even Carriers came out

- All non-essential systems are done with basic constructions and only Planet Cracking

- The best hot system I have with Counselor hero is spamming titanium-packed Carriers, 2 turns per each, in preparation to siege enemy Capitals. I have several Guardian ready to lead them

Turn 108

- Sophons are reduced to rubble

- Riftborn gave a good fight at their homeworld, almost took down my tank Guard but 3 Carriers with Titanium slugs just nuke everything too fast. 

- Doria declared war on me, but she is having it brought to her capital doorstep very soon - trying to pinpoint her capital location with probes, clearing cockroaches on the way

- Found Horatio capital and sieging it

- My production system got depleted after spamming 3 full fleets of Carriers, setting up a new system to spam 2 more fleets to check how Empire and Vodyani are doing

Note - trying to bring support ship with fleet blows, because 3 carriers + 1 tank support is weaker than 4 carriers. Next time I just fit 2 engines on the ships and use Seeker heroes instead of Guardians. Which brings us back to my previous rant - Guardians FLAG ship blows because if you fit 2 engines you cannot fit probes. In general, adding any ship to the flotila which is nto Carrier at this point is worthless - they die like fruit flies, and I cannot afford that balls-deep in enemy territory.

Another note - diplomacy notifications sometimes are too much. Ways too much. AI spams me like crazy. And even more annoying, missclicking can lead to your Empire loosing 30% of all feeds, insane.

Last note - We cannot seem to pick who will be our Great Leader. When I got Reyarin, he immeditealy became the leader of Religious party. naturally, I put some skills into him for senator since he was highest level.

Next thing - I get a Religious guardian hired, level 3, and he immediately replaced my high-level Senator Reyarin, I lost all buffs I was putting skill points for on Reyarin.

Need to fix this somehow, at the very least let us pick which one of our heroes will lead the party.

BUG - AI can buyout systems you just captured with influence. You take system, and they can buy it back with influence in just a few turns after. First of all, need to re-capture it again - and the system is put to permanent "Mutinous" with 50 approval but Mutinous debuffs, even with Saints and SInners law. Need to reset and re-apply the Saints law to fix this.

And the influence buyout needs some cooldown, especially on recently captured systems, otherwise this is a broken circle - I capture it, they buy it back immedately. Zzzzz.

The game is pretty much won at this point, since I hardly see anyone who can say "No" to my fleets. Need like 20 turns to find and siege all other Capitals.

AutoSave 1019.sav

AutoSave 1038.sav

Brace for impact.

1) Empire management numbers are empirical and impossible to guess. 

- Will settling this colony put my food into negative? No? I have no idea.

- Why food is taken from my homeworld to colonize, when I have colony right next to it, overflowing with food? No idea.

- How many colonies I can settle before expansion disapproval hits? I have no idea.

- Why Food % to Manpower buildings bring my systems into starving and pops running away? If there is not enough food to feed the pops, stop slamming it into manpower then?

2) Economic victory is still broken

- As a Craver, naturally, I declare war on anything that moves, to keep the happiness bonus from Jingoist Paradise law.

- Just a dozen turns later I find entire galaxy united in an alliance against me. They seem to have no issues with each other whatsoever, but as soon as they see me - they immediately ally.

- A few more dosen turns later, by turn 80 normal speed Endless difficulty, while busy trashing their puny fleets with my stacks of Queen carriers, I get the message "Hey man, nice game and all, but this alliance is close to economic victory, cya!". Complete disbalance. Especally lame that an alliance can work together towards a victory - there is no way a single empire can outpace that or rush enemy down. Especially in 80 turns. Not with the current fleet speeds (more below).

- Have to disable both score and economic victories now until they fixed (when?)

3) Fleets are too slow. And non-seeker Admirals are useless.

- Best engine tech you get access to in reasonable time  is +4 speed engine. Considering you mount it on a 2-speed Carrier, that's 6 speed on fleet, which is a joke, of course. It will take roughly 10 turns to move this fleet anywhere. So, naturally, the most logical option is to fit 2 engiens to it, to bring it up to 10 speed at least.

- Now comes the sad part - the actual fighter heroes, the Guardians, flying FLAG ships, that have onl2 2 (TWO) support slots. So if they fit 2 engines, they cannot fit probes, which are constantly required here and there. 

- On top of that, Guardian heroes do not give any speed bonuses to fleets, ever. So, they are eaither stuck with 2 engines and no probes, or 1 engine and probes, which is slower than 2 engines you fit on ships.

- End result - never use Guardian hero for the fleet, have to scrounge Academy and Marketplace for Seeker heroes, who use ship with 3 support slots and can fit 2 engines + 1 probe. Also they have 2 fleet speed increases in their skill line.

As of right now, Admirals are considered to be utterly useless - you always get more bang for your buck, by putting a Governor into the planet.

Why? In Endless Space 1, a Pilot/Adventurer hero put as Admiral had access to skills that bring you Dust+Science per destroyed CP, get your fleets repaired outside of friendly territory, got access to unique tactics (Dust Barrier OP), and so on and on. Your fleets bloomed with an Admiral.

Here, in this game (I guess we still call it ES2, even though it has very little to do with ES1), Admirals have nothing besides dubious skills like increase some fleet damage/health here and there, sometimes add move points. All of that is taken care by fitting mods already.

On top of that, since you have moved the powerful Dust+Science per destroyed CP from faction traits and hero skills into laws and ship fittings, they never see the light of day simply because by the time you unlock Militarist law for that the game is almost over, and fitting that on ships simply never happens because there are ways too much modules already and not enough slots for them.

The whole reason of the Dust+Science per destroyed CP was to help aggressive empires, who forfeit heavy science and dust production, to keep moving forward, was it not? Besides, the bonus is very small now (50 dust+science per CP), and was supposed to help in early game, since the gains are negligible in late-game, when you pushing thousands scince per turn. Now,  considering that you stuffed it into VERY late game, it is utterly useless, specially since AI barely builds any fleets, as mentioned below. This mechanic was very powerful and working very good in ES1 (up to a point where it was banned in multiplayer), but here is entirely broken and useless, out of its place. 

The balancing of it in ES1 was also perfect - you field a huge fleet, your dust income plummets into negatives, and you are looking for anything to kill to gain more dust to keep your fleets going - exactly how the mechanic should work and feel.

4) Useless skills for all heroes

- It is obvious, that throughout the course of the game, most heroes will either spend their time as Governor or as Admiral. By the time you can make hero thatis good in both, the game is probably over.

- So,in all skill trees there are constantly bad choices that force you to take fleet-related skills on Governors - since Admirals usually can roll around this problem by picking skills in their personal tree, still useless ones, but not as bad as Governors.

- On top of it, the personal hero skills in last picks are "Reduce hero upkeep by 25%". It costs 46 dust to upkeep. Why would I ever waste a skill point on that guano? On top of it, the latest skill in personal line is always "Remove upkeep cost for the hero", which is, again, crap because Nobody cares about 46 dust upkeep, and second - I have just put a skill point to reduce his upkeep by 25%, and now you offer me a skill that removes upkeep? Where is the logic in that.

In Endless Space 1, heroes had so much nice skills, it was always a tough choice "Hmmm what do I pick, aww come on everything looks so juicy". Here, in this game, the skills picks are reduced to nothing literally, you hit rank 3 on your hero and choose out of 3 skills - 1 admiral skill, 1 governor skill, 1 crap personal skill. Literally no choice whatsoever, and all heroes have same exact skills, because 80% of skills just suck. Clone army.

Please, make all hero skills mean something so there is actually any incentive to pick them. And please, add more skills so there is actually something to choose from and not "obvious planet stuff/obvious fleet stuff/obvious weird stuff" every level up.

5) Endless AI still doesn't build any proper fleets.

- I can declare war on AI and sit for 20 turns and nothing happens. Then I come over with Carriers to find out they barely have few mid-size ships. With fleet caps at 15-20 in turns 40-60, I have never ever seen an AI to build up to fleet cap once. No idea what they spend dust on - probably useless trade companies, but not fleets.

6) Trade companies are weak and useless

- So I invested 10k dust into a trade company, and it brings me 10 science and some dust? Really? First of all, investing this amount of dust to get more dust over 3000+ turns is pointless, the game pace is too fast even on normal.

Second, I generate over 4,000 science at this point myself. And I can build a planet specialization +1 dust per pop and it will give me hundreds more. No idea what is the point behind the trade companies, but they suck as it is.

The whole thing with ES1 trading was that it was passive income, without huge upfront investment. You spend research on it, and you spend production on it to get it going, and then it pays off in reasonable time.

In this game - considering you also have to slam obnoxious amount of dust into it, along with science and production - it is completely not worth it at all. The base economy of it needs heavy work, all the way back to the drawing board.

7) AI has no idea how to hoard and use strategic resources

Basically, what I do is hoard titanium, build slag&sludge, build all mining unions and max my titanium income. Then I produce a bunch of titanium-filled ships, even t1 hulls,  and voila - I can reap apart whole galaxy easily.

By turn 80 normal speed I am yet to see a single AI using Titanium or Hyperium weapons. And by this time, I am already uprading my fleets to Adamanitum and researching Orichalcx/etc.

AI needs to learn the basics of science, and which areas to approahc and when. Like, you beeline basic colonization first, then food, then you beeline basic science + production + dust, then you beeline to basic ship fittings, back to colonization and so on. Then you beeling titanium/hyperium weapons depending on what resource you got the most, along with goo hulls. As of right now, these waves of research for AI seem broken and inneffective.

8) Abysmal ship fitting options. This requires a topic of its own, but nonetheless.

God, there are SO MANY pointless, useless and bloated modules in the game now.

1st - fighters/bombers taking up a WEAPON slot on ships - why would you ever, ever fit a crappy fighter/bomber there when fitting Adamantium slugs in there guarantees you rip your enemy apart? If they could fit into expansion slots, or special fighter/bomber slots, that would be understandable. As of right now, they are terrible and useless.

2nd - there are so many support modules bloating my screen, but in reality what is the use for them? 

You fit a ship to carry:

- weapons

- 2xengines minimum or it will be too slow to get anywhere on the map

- 1 shield 1 plate

- if you have any slots left, a repair module or siege module

Done. There is no space for all those useless mods like "10% ship less chance to get attacked", lol, really? "Additional manpower on ships" who cares when I cannot field more than 900 troopson planet anyway? I could list useless modules here half a day and still wouldn't get half of those. Too much. Too pointless with miniscule bonuses not worth a slot.

Please, make the ship mods mean something so there is actually any incentive to use them.

9) Some quests are pointless/impossible to complete

Got the quest to Save the Core at my homeworld as Cravers. The planets are depleted, and there is simply no way for me to ever make this system produce 600 production and 500 science per turn and not in total. So, this quest is stuck forever. Need to change quests like that to produce something over time and not instantly in a system - otherwise very often you get stuck because the system cannot ever do it.

Sorry for so much rant, but I see you guys are already releasing eye-candy DLC, which means you consider the game balance being fine and not needing work.

It is nowhere near even Endless Space 1 as a 4x strategy - as explained above, many things need work, the overall game pace needs work as well.

Right now the only things enjoyable in this game are UI, visuals and music, so props to UI design, FX and audio teams. 

The rest, the actual gameplay and strategy component, is just terrible.

I could rant for hours, but my coffee is running low and temper cold.

As of right now, the game is still in the worse state that Endless Space 1, and it is really sad to see it.

Peace.

It seems that everyone else (^) has already explained many of the points you've made so I'm gonna put this far more simplistic than I normally would 

Many of the points you made (especially since you're playing on Endless Difficulty) are ones that either aren't balance issues or things that you've clearly overlooked (such as certain hero classifications being less effective at leading fleets when compared to the Seeker or Guardian like that's there since Counselor and Overseer are meant to be governors, while Seeker classes aren't necessarily good as governors but are great as admirals, and Guardian is the best defensive hero in the game, and you can see the empire expansion dissaproval, it's in the faction tab on the top right corner; literally one of the easiest things to see in the game, or the colonization food "problem" LIKE, you can literally choose which system the colony draws food from. The food percentage that is going to the military is 1. realistic b/c a military requires lots of food to sustain it and 2. maybe look at the system improvements you've made as two of them, I won't tell you which ones, but they're near the technologies used to unlock ships *cough* take 30% off of your food production, and you're probably spending manpower too quickly hence your systems food production cannot keep up with your expenditures. AKA it's less of a balance issue and more of a-you-aren't-paying-attention-to-your-empire-issue)

Your issue with the economic victory isn't a balancing issue but you not playing correctly. Yes, the jingoist law gives you a public order bonus, no it does not mean declare war on literally everyone. Cuz what happens when you give the galaxy a common enemy, they generally ally against you since you're attacking all of them, like duh ? 

The economic victory is relatively balanced since it's aimed at getting players to ally themselves so that they can reach the victory conditions faster like you're not supposed to go for a single person victory on Endless difficulty, it's far easier and more effective of creating the strongest alliance in the game. 

Furthermore, Cravers have some of the strongest early game economic ability due to that 150% FIDS bonus, I've been in plenty of Endless Difficulty games where the Cravers are the first to get the Economic victory notice (they usually get wiped out because of that, since other empires gang up on them). 

There is little reason for Amplitude to "fix" the score and economic victories, and if you're struggling, play on Hard and learn the basics of the game before playing on Endless, you shouldn't be forced to disable Victory types simply because you're not playing up to par with the Endless Difficulty. 

Fleets aren't too slow, they've been balanced for years, and if you do it correctly, it's not hard to get really fast fleets, especially if you research the correct tech, impute the correct modules, and understand that you can't make every single one of your fleets super fast (that's what heroes are for). 

Guardian led fleets aren't made for speed, they're made for killing power, that's why the Seeker and Guardian Heroes are completely different classes, since it would be overpowered for Guardians to provide speed bonuses to fleets as well as defensive and offensive bonuses. You use Guardians to defend systems and attack enemy fleets/systems. 

Hero skills aren't useless, ever stuck a Counselor or Overseer in a turn 400 system, the bonuses are disgusting. On top of that, they aren't made to give ridiculous bonuses until the late game (as many of the later skills are percentage based). 

If you're complaining about the scarcity of points, I've had a number of games where my heroes have up to 21 excess points, so complaining about that is useless.

The AI has built proper fleets, my recent Endless Difficulty, 527 turn Vaulters game is having my max fleets contest with extremely diverse and powerful AI fleets. 

Trade companies are by far the most powerful economic tool you have late game, they bring in the most wealth of any singular empire or system improvement, and if you're trading with one or two other empires, that dust, science, and luxury resource produced is way more than any system. 

You need to understand that investing Dust into a trade company does not provide an immediate boost but a long-term benefit, after all it is an economic investment, not buying candy at the store. 

AI generally uses the strategic resources quite well, they generally spend them on fleets and wonders and sell them in the marketplace (if you pay attention to the rises and falls in market prices you can make a shitload of dust from selling). 

Fighters and bombers are some of the strongest modules in the game, what're you smoking ? Bombers can easily tear large ships apart, especially energy weapon heavy ships, and fighters are a great defensive unit against the bombers. 

The ships are meant to have a limited number of modules sections with a diverse choice of modules so the player can create a number of different and unique ships that allow them to diversify their fleets and create ships for specific events. Module section scarcity is meant to prevent certain ships from becoming too overpowered and especially prevent powerful jack-of-all-trade-ships that would ruin the rock-paper-scissors space battle style that the game currently employs. 

I would normally create a detailed, and well written explanation to help you with these problems, but b/c you decided to use the Games2Gether platform as a way to rant about a game that the Amplitude team has put their heart and soul into, that they have balanced since day 1, and complain about a number of things that aren't issues with the game, but issues with your own clear laziness or ignorance on game mechanics I'll leave this as a long rebuttal to your "rant". 

NO ONE, ever said that this game is perfect, that is clear by the number of extensive updates that this game receives. However, for you to act like a pretentious asshole and attempt to trash the game simply b/c they released a DLC, and that it isn't perfect to your specifications is disgusting. 

This stupid rant has no place on this platform, and if you want actual help with mechanics in the game instead of treating this platform as a way to voice your misplaced frustration, you can message me or any number of seasoned Endless Space veterans and I'm sure we would be happy to help you understand the game.  

And if you're gonna complain about balancing issues, point out actual problems, not mechanics that are well rounded. 

And mind the fact you didn't play during Early Access, that actually had serious bugs and balancing issues that they more-or-less fixed. 

LASTLY. 

Don't trash this company of all companies, I've played games and observed and payed attention to a number of game companies for over a decade, and Amplitude has done an amazing job listening to the community, balancing the game, creating beautifully crafted content, and continuing to care about the game and the players. 

Ansa wrote:

Brace for impact.

1) Empire management numbers are empirical and impossible to guess. 

- Will settling this colony put my food into negative? No? I have no idea.

- Why food is taken from my homeworld to colonize, when I have colony right next to it, overflowing with food? No idea.

- How many colonies I can settle before expansion disapproval hits? I have no idea.

- Why Food % to Manpower buildings bring my systems into starving and pops running away? If there is not enough food to feed the pops, stop slamming it into manpower then?

2) Economic victory is still broken

- As a Craver, naturally, I declare war on anything that moves, to keep the happiness bonus from Jingoist Paradise law.

- Just a dozen turns later I find entire galaxy united in an alliance against me. They seem to have no issues with each other whatsoever, but as soon as they see me - they immediately ally.

- A few more dosen turns later, by turn 80 normal speed Endless difficulty, while busy trashing their puny fleets with my stacks of Queen carriers, I get the message "Hey man, nice game and all, but this alliance is close to economic victory, cya!". Complete disbalance. Especally lame that an alliance can work together towards a victory - there is no way a single empire can outpace that or rush enemy down. Especially in 80 turns. Not with the current fleet speeds (more below).

- Have to disable both score and economic victories now until they fixed (when?)

3) Fleets are too slow. And non-seeker Admirals are useless.

- Best engine tech you get access to in reasonable time  is +4 speed engine. Considering you mount it on a 2-speed Carrier, that's 6 speed on fleet, which is a joke, of course. It will take roughly 10 turns to move this fleet anywhere. So, naturally, the most logical option is to fit 2 engiens to it, to bring it up to 10 speed at least.

- Now comes the sad part - the actual fighter heroes, the Guardians, flying FLAG ships, that have onl2 2 (TWO) support slots. So if they fit 2 engines, they cannot fit probes, which are constantly required here and there. 

- On top of that, Guardian heroes do not give any speed bonuses to fleets, ever. So, they are eaither stuck with 2 engines and no probes, or 1 engine and probes, which is slower than 2 engines you fit on ships.

- End result - never use Guardian hero for the fleet, have to scrounge Academy and Marketplace for Seeker heroes, who use ship with 3 support slots and can fit 2 engines + 1 probe. Also they have 2 fleet speed increases in their skill line.

As of right now, Admirals are considered to be utterly useless - you always get more bang for your buck, by putting a Governor into the planet.

Why? In Endless Space 1, a Pilot/Adventurer hero put as Admiral had access to skills that bring you Dust+Science per destroyed CP, get your fleets repaired outside of friendly territory, got access to unique tactics (Dust Barrier OP), and so on and on. Your fleets bloomed with an Admiral.

Here, in this game (I guess we still call it ES2, even though it has very little to do with ES1), Admirals have nothing besides dubious skills like increase some fleet damage/health here and there, sometimes add move points. All of that is taken care by fitting mods already.

On top of that, since you have moved the powerful Dust+Science per destroyed CP from faction traits and hero skills into laws and ship fittings, they never see the light of day simply because by the time you unlock Militarist law for that the game is almost over, and fitting that on ships simply never happens because there are ways too much modules already and not enough slots for them.

The whole reason of the Dust+Science per destroyed CP was to help aggressive empires, who forfeit heavy science and dust production, to keep moving forward, was it not? Besides, the bonus is very small now (50 dust+science per CP), and was supposed to help in early game, since the gains are negligible in late-game, when you pushing thousands scince per turn. Now,  considering that you stuffed it into VERY late game, it is utterly useless, specially since AI barely builds any fleets, as mentioned below. This mechanic was very powerful and working very good in ES1 (up to a point where it was banned in multiplayer), but here is entirely broken and useless, out of its place. 

The balancing of it in ES1 was also perfect - you field a huge fleet, your dust income plummets into negatives, and you are looking for anything to kill to gain more dust to keep your fleets going - exactly how the mechanic should work and feel.

4) Useless skills for all heroes

- It is obvious, that throughout the course of the game, most heroes will either spend their time as Governor or as Admiral. By the time you can make hero thatis good in both, the game is probably over.

- So,in all skill trees there are constantly bad choices that force you to take fleet-related skills on Governors - since Admirals usually can roll around this problem by picking skills in their personal tree, still useless ones, but not as bad as Governors.

- On top of it, the personal hero skills in last picks are "Reduce hero upkeep by 25%". It costs 46 dust to upkeep. Why would I ever waste a skill point on that guano? On top of it, the latest skill in personal line is always "Remove upkeep cost for the hero", which is, again, crap because Nobody cares about 46 dust upkeep, and second - I have just put a skill point to reduce his upkeep by 25%, and now you offer me a skill that removes upkeep? Where is the logic in that.

In Endless Space 1, heroes had so much nice skills, it was always a tough choice "Hmmm what do I pick, aww come on everything looks so juicy". Here, in this game, the skills picks are reduced to nothing literally, you hit rank 3 on your hero and choose out of 3 skills - 1 admiral skill, 1 governor skill, 1 crap personal skill. Literally no choice whatsoever, and all heroes have same exact skills, because 80% of skills just suck. Clone army.

Please, make all hero skills mean something so there is actually any incentive to pick them. And please, add more skills so there is actually something to choose from and not "obvious planet stuff/obvious fleet stuff/obvious weird stuff" every level up.

5) Endless AI still doesn't build any proper fleets.

- I can declare war on AI and sit for 20 turns and nothing happens. Then I come over with Carriers to find out they barely have few mid-size ships. With fleet caps at 15-20 in turns 40-60, I have never ever seen an AI to build up to fleet cap once. No idea what they spend dust on - probably useless trade companies, but not fleets.

6) Trade companies are weak and useless

- So I invested 10k dust into a trade company, and it brings me 10 science and some dust? Really? First of all, investing this amount of dust to get more dust over 3000+ turns is pointless, the game pace is too fast even on normal.

Second, I generate over 4,000 science at this point myself. And I can build a planet specialization +1 dust per pop and it will give me hundreds more. No idea what is the point behind the trade companies, but they suck as it is.

The whole thing with ES1 trading was that it was passive income, without huge upfront investment. You spend research on it, and you spend production on it to get it going, and then it pays off in reasonable time.

In this game - considering you also have to slam obnoxious amount of dust into it, along with science and production - it is completely not worth it at all. The base economy of it needs heavy work, all the way back to the drawing board.

7) AI has no idea how to hoard and use strategic resources

Basically, what I do is hoard titanium, build slag&sludge, build all mining unions and max my titanium income. Then I produce a bunch of titanium-filled ships, even t1 hulls,  and voila - I can reap apart whole galaxy easily.

By turn 80 normal speed I am yet to see a single AI using Titanium or Hyperium weapons. And by this time, I am already uprading my fleets to Adamanitum and researching Orichalcx/etc.

AI needs to learn the basics of science, and which areas to approahc and when. Like, you beeline basic colonization first, then food, then you beeline basic science + production + dust, then you beeline to basic ship fittings, back to colonization and so on. Then you beeling titanium/hyperium weapons depending on what resource you got the most, along with goo hulls. As of right now, these waves of research for AI seem broken and inneffective.

8) Abysmal ship fitting options. This requires a topic of its own, but nonetheless.

God, there are SO MANY pointless, useless and bloated modules in the game now.

1st - fighters/bombers taking up a WEAPON slot on ships - why would you ever, ever fit a crappy fighter/bomber there when fitting Adamantium slugs in there guarantees you rip your enemy apart? If they could fit into expansion slots, or special fighter/bomber slots, that would be understandable. As of right now, they are terrible and useless.

2nd - there are so many support modules bloating my screen, but in reality what is the use for them? 

You fit a ship to carry:

- weapons

- 2xengines minimum or it will be too slow to get anywhere on the map

- 1 shield 1 plate

- if you have any slots left, a repair module or siege module

Done. There is no space for all those useless mods like "10% ship less chance to get attacked", lol, really? "Additional manpower on ships" who cares when I cannot field more than 900 troopson planet anyway? I could list useless modules here half a day and still wouldn't get half of those. Too much. Too pointless with miniscule bonuses not worth a slot.

Please, make the ship mods mean something so there is actually any incentive to use them.

9) Some quests are pointless/impossible to complete

Got the quest to Save the Core at my homeworld as Cravers. The planets are depleted, and there is simply no way for me to ever make this system produce 600 production and 500 science per turn and not in total. So, this quest is stuck forever. Need to change quests like that to produce something over time and not instantly in a system - otherwise very often you get stuck because the system cannot ever do it.

Sorry for so much rant, but I see you guys are already releasing eye-candy DLC, which means you consider the game balance being fine and not needing work.

It is nowhere near even Endless Space 1 as a 4x strategy - as explained above, many things need work, the overall game pace needs work as well.

Right now the only things enjoyable in this game are UI, visuals and music, so props to UI design, FX and audio teams. 

The rest, the actual gameplay and strategy component, is just terrible.

I could rant for hours, but my coffee is running low and temper cold.

As of right now, the game is still in the worse state that Endless Space 1, and it is really sad to see it.

Peace.

 

1.

Food Export: It takes from the most productive Colony. Would not really help you if you got a new colony not growing? It is largely a limitation on how many colonies you can grow at the same time. A lot of 4x games have that, nowadays.

Expansion Penalty: Empire Screen. That bar under your Traits.
Just scrap unneeded Buildings that Sap Food to Manpower. Colony Center gives 10%, that is all you will normally need.

The only thing I agree here is the uncertainty about food consumption.

2.

Alliance is limited to Competitors/2. So not one alliance. If they ally quickly that is because you are a danger. Makes sense, does it not?

Cravers can be content, if they go Religious.

The message "close to Victory" can appear at about 50% completion. I had games where someone else was "close to getting Conquest Victory" every other turn. It triggers at like "40% to victory".

Alliances increase the Victory Tresholds drastically. Also you can just turn Economic Victoy off at game setup.

3. Fleet Speeds:
How about using Support Ships to Carry Support Modules? You know, like the FLEET SPEED BONUS one? 1 Engine on every ship (including Hero). 1 Fleet Speed bonus on the Support ship(s). Works like a charm, saves a ton of  Support modules, you can sue for buffs.

Certain Species give Speed bonuses. Why do you only pick Heroes by 1/2 of their Skilltrees?

If you do not think something like +20% Damage, +40% Health, +60% Shield and Amor Penetraion on Fleet is good - I have no idea what your definition of "Good" even is.

4. General Skills:
Please explain how these Level 12 and Level 19 Admirals are weak:

Damage: +20%. Another Fleet CP times 2.5% (at 30, that is +75% for a total of +95%)

Considering that Fleet sizes are strongly Regulated by CP limits, every single percentile bonus counts.

5. AI Challenge

A lot of issues appeared with teh AI, after the Pirate rework. In 1.0.5 Pirates were simply way to strong for the AI to handle, utterly ruining the early game. Try again in 1.2.1.

6. Trade Companies:
I barely (if ever) Invest money into them. If I do, it is always to get more Luxuries from them. One TC is a easy boost on any System making important Luxuries.

8. Slots:
Have you tried the Strategic Resource needing Squardons? Even the 1.2.1 ones? Especially on a actuall Carrier?
Why waste slots on Siege Modules? The average Fleet can overrun the average System with Sheer Manpower. Why not use the +20% Weapon Damage modules on Hunters?

9. 600 Production and 500 Science? My figures are usually in the 175 on normal speed. Sounds like one of your many mods screws that up.
Also with Cravers: Go for flat bonuses. Per Pop yields are highly penalised on Depleted Planets.

Ansa wrote:

Brace for impact.

1) Empire management numbers are empirical and impossible to guess. 

- Will settling this colony put my food into negative? No? I have no idea.

- Why food is taken from my homeworld to colonize, when I have colony right next to it, overflowing with food? No idea.

- How many colonies I can settle before expansion disapproval hits? I have no idea.

I agree with some points, but these 3 can be (mostly) answered:

-new colonies take a fixed percentage of your food (20%?)

-You can change which world food is taken from by selecting the (new) colony

-System limit is shown in the empire screen. As of this new patch, you also get a pop-up when (over)colonizing that warns you.

2) The game is very far from over when "close to victory" announcement is made, even on Endless difficulty. Victory condition caps are raised for alliances, so it isn't easier to reach victory condition in Allience, then without it. Usually it is harder. If you can't win as Craver before economic victory is triggered, then you are simply slow Craver.

3) This was a problem for me, before I realised how powerful fleet boosters are. 3 small upgraded support ships (defenders) stacked with fleet boosters - you have 15-20 speed fleet. 6 defenders - 25-50 speed for any fleet. Depends on the total amount of modules per fleet and their quality. Heroes make the even better. You can literally warp-jump to anywhere across the galaxy in one turn, usually even visit few nods per turn.