Hello Endless Space 2 community,

with the influx of new players the Steam sales have brought and the frequent question of “Which DLCs should I buy?” I have gotten to see wildly diverging opinions on Supremacy and Behemoths specifically, with some people getting quite passionate about their opinions.

So I want to invite you to discuss them here.

Tell us what you like about Behemoths.

Tell us what you hate about Behemoths.

Tell us about your (potentially crazy) ideas that could make them better.

But remember, even if you feel strongly about the impact that the Behemoths have on the game, please try to keep it civil.

Thank you for the feedback.

I was looking specifically for feedback on the Behemoths in this thread, so I clarified that a bit in the OP now, but I've still taken note of what you said.

From lore side of things, the behemoths seem to be very important. I really wish there is a small cutscene when behemoths enter the stage to increase its importance to a new player. 

What I like about them they spice up research any buildings order quite a bit. 

What I hate about them that there is a no behemoth list (in military screen). Which is infuriating thing for me. Forcing me to do lots of clicks. 

My crazy idea would be allowing them to reach outer space where other engines can not. 

I like that behemoths are an idea and that they created things like uncolonized resource mining, fleet-killer battleships and star destroying doomsday weapons.  Cool stuff--on paper.  Unfortunately, as has been expressed by a few, this is probably the first piece of work by Ampliteam that's been dubbed a general failure.  I appreciate you looking into that for solutions; while the wheels turn slowly, it says a lot that you're willing to look at the problem objectively.  Thank you.

The first problem with behemoth implementation is that we have three "general" hulls and three specializations.  Why?  Aren't the three regular hulls rather "specialized" already by definition?  It kind of elicits a frown from those trying to understand the mechanic the first time.  Add on the fact that the "military" hull actually has different module slots and the whole thing is just dumbfounding.  I said it in beta and I'll say it again:  we only need ONE regular behemoth hull.

The next problem is how many arbitrary rules surround the initial use of behemoths.

A: They can't merge with a fleet--command points be damned.  It's fine that they take up a whopping 10 CP, but once we have the CP, there's really no good reason to force us to split them off.  We have specialize them into juggernauts first.  This always felt unnecessarily clunky to me.

B: Citadels cease to be behemoths, yet still count against the behemoth support limit--while providing bonuses that aren't very well conveyed.

C: Obliterators, while expensive to use, are completely devastating, have no repercussions for their use beyond the resource cost and most importantly, are impossible to answer once fired.  Citadel shields must ALREADY be in place to be a halfway effective counter; otherwise that system is gone and there's ZERO you can do about it.  I mean you even had to give the Unfallen a FREE shield because of this.  That should've been a warning sign.

My first suggestion is what it was back in beta: we only need one unspecialized hull.  The point is that it's general purpose and NOT specialized.  Get rid of two of the hulls and make one actual general purpose behemoth.

Proposal two: Let regular behemoths merge with fleets.  Please just get rid of this awkward exception.  Make the bonuses from economics and scientifics an activated thing so they're forced to stop and split from a fleet to provide bonuses.  If you want to merge them and move them, they can't also sit and provide FIDSI, but this removes a weird arbitrary rule and simplifies gameplay a bit by allowing behemoths to just merge with fleets like every other ship.  Getting over 10 CP should be enough of an accomplishment that we're allowed to protect our behemoths by merging them without having to make them juggernauts first.

Idea three: Instead of a "Citadel" why not just make the planetary shield an actual specialized behemoth hull?  It might need its own art assets and all that, but this would allow you to pack up the shield and move it.  You'd still have behemoths, making an accurate count of your behemoth limit more intuitive.  You'd also be able to play some mind games with your shield locations and ship counts, allowing for not only more counterplay to obliterators, but better strategic counterplay in general.  the roving clans in EL could pack up entire CITIES, so why not a shield generating ship?

Thought four: Obliterators should either be unusuable without a declaration of war or should automatically cause it.  There are so many things you can do that piss off the galaxy AND your own empire automatically for the slightest offense, but detonating an entire star system is perfectly fine?  Even for the peace-loving unfallen and the economically minded Lumeris?  Come on now...the Empire got the entire galaxy rebelling against it before they blew up a single PLANET with the Death Star.  We're busting entire star systems and no one bats an eye.  There needs to be consequences for attempting to commit genocide from the other end of the galaxy.

Flash of inspiration five: Make empire-specific behemoth skins.  Create a cool little content add-on for a couple dollars or something.  Do good work on it and people would buy it, guaranteed.  Maybe throw in some behemoth-specific quests or something to sweeten the deal.

Overall, behemoths just didn't end up as cool as they sounded due to some awkward implementation.  If we can correct that, the vision of behemoths will become much more cohesive and their potential laid out more clearly.  THEN we can figure out what other cool stuff to do with them (possibly in future expansions? nudge nudge wink wink)

I have had many of the same feelings as Daynen, specifically having race specific skins for the Behemoths, then again I would pay for new skins on a weekly basis for most factions (think about alternate ship designs for all factions, that is the greatest area lacking for the game for me, I can only have a fleet of one primary ship design, I would love to have a fleet of multiple factuion designs, or multiple designs for each faction, but I have digressed completly).

My biggest problem with Behemoths would be the max capacity being shared between the various funcions. I really hate late game when I want to put a jug  with several fleets, and I have to start turning my economy ships into battle ships.  Maybe have a seperate max score for each type of behemoth, one max of eco ships, one max for sci and one max for military. That would encourage people to produce behemoths of a type they do not usually play with. And that would let you develope space for the sci and eco ships you would not  otherwise for fear of unbalacing combat

Firstly, I agree wholeheartedly with Daynen, the concepts are all great on paper. I do disagree with their 4th point about automatic declarations of war, but the AI should definitely be able to react much more violently and swiftly when they detect who launched a shot.

What I like about Behemoths:

1. Ability to have systems which are important territory but aren't colonized (special nodes, mining probes)

2. Ability to restrict the utility of insanely fast enemy fleets (Citadel preventing free movement)

3. Siege breaking tough systems to invade (Juggernaut, Military Behemoth).

Things I hate about Behemoths:

1. Overcrowding. 1 Behemoth by default, 1 for every 3 Behemoth techs, and C3 Centers. It quickly becomes a game of Behemoths.

2. Obliteration. System Shield cannot protect from the Double Tap, while Citadel is an opportunity cost to protect 1 system when Obliterators can target any number of systems.

3. C3 Centers. I understand Upkeep intuitively; many newbies, and even players who've been around a while, don't. C3 Centers invariably either cause mass overcrowding and Behemoth abuse in learned hands, or crash economies in unlearned hands.

4. Late Obliterator shots. God, so many fleets lost to AI allies with poor timing.

5. Samey Econ Behemoth builds. Build FIDSI modules, park, ignore for rest of game.

How to make Behemoths better:

1. Remove C3 Centers and scale the Behemoth Cap rewards of research to galaxy size; or switch to an EL styled system with specific, limited capacity governed by way fewer techs.

2. Make Obliteration cost Strategics even when fully cooled down.

3. Make Obliterators unable to be fired early, Strategics be damned

4. Empire-level Obliterator cooldown, shared by all your Obliterators.

5. Third-party responses to witnessing a launch. Renegades blackmail you for their silence; honest factions should tell on you to the galaxy; Benevolent factions pity the target of an Obliterator. But this is a pie-in-the-sky idea, not necessary.

6. Econ Behemoth specialized modules, like Arks have.

7. Almost forgot! Contextual Diplomacy needs to be expanded to new content. "Please don't colonize under my mining Behemoth." "Please stay away from my node research Behemoth." "Pay me or I'll denounce you as the Obliterator launcher."

I'd also disagree with BlueEyeD. Base ES2 needs serious work, it's biggest problem is imbalance between mechanics available to all factions, leading them toward samey strategies and tech paths. Population Growth (Food), Inflation (Dust), Strategic Deposit techs, Accelerator stacking, Ships in Empire Development, cheap election cheating, Influence... These are all mechanics which need someone to sit down and redo them, with a willingness to make cuts like crazy, or else all future content will be dragged down by past issues.

Our previous thread on behemoths would definitely be a good starting point.  I do feel that economic and scientific behemoths are actually decent additions to the game, so I wouldn't touch those.  Basic military behemoths....they're kinda cool, I guess, they don't really upset the balance of the game, as they're this big beatstick that is hard to take down, but can't contribute to invasions, and can be blown up by a fleet of bigger size since they can't merge.  

It's the specialized behemoths where you really start having issues, in my opinion.

Juggernauts: Of the three specializations, this one has the least problems (Now that all the weapons are firing correctly, lol).  it can either be the flagship of a fleet, or it can be a massive fleet wrecker with its ion wave ability...which is balanced, because there's the risk of friendly fire, the thing can't move for a few turns afterwards, and most importantly, IT HAS TO BE IN THE SYSTEM IT TARGETS.  My only gripe is that...well, aside from the ion wave ability, it's not that exciting.  It can easily be taken down by sheer numbers, it's just another big ship.  Cool, but still kinda meh.

Citadels and Oblits:  Talking about these two together, because they're symptoms of the same problem.  Obliterators were put in there as the ultimate superweapon, to give a way of denying valuable systems to your opponent without having to slog through a siege and/or invasion combat.  The big problem is they're a little too good at this; as mentioned in the previous thread, an oblit can target anything, whereas the citadel and system shield can only benefit the system it's built in.

My suggestion for the above problem, since we're allowed crazy talk.

Obliterator should not be a crazy long range superweapon.  If I had to design them from scratch, I'd make them work similar to core crackers and juggernauts, where they have to be in the system they're targetting.  

"Wait" you say, "But won't they be at ground zero for the incoming solar detonation?"

As mentioned before, as far as I can tell, obliterators were designed to address one of the major weaknesses of ES2;  Invasions just aren't fun.  If your opponent is really entrenched, it requires multiple turns of sieging, followed by multiple rounds of combat, where if they have a huge population to just keep hitting "Draft" as their defense response, it can last forever.  Unlike EL, you can't tactically control your troops, it's entirely automated.  The ground combat animation usually just gets skipped, because while cinematic, watching it is far less interesting than space combat.  Obliterators allow you to totally skip this step via area denial; if your opponent is making it so you can't have it, then nobody can have it.  Kind of petulant actually.

I would suggest a rework of what obliterators do.  I suggest making them function like an improved core-cracker dreadnought, but Instead of completely wrecking the entire system, make it so they kill off the entire population.  Something like a virus bomb or radiation blast, rather than this whole blow-up-the-sun thing.  But again, make it so that they have to be in system in order to fire off their shot.  So essentially, you would have a ship that can remove the population of a system, making it recolonizable.  This is still a nasty superweapon, but not only does it make it so that YOU can then colonize it, it then allows your opponent the chance to re-take it, even if it does mean a long rebuilding phase.  Since the base mechanic of core crackers (Show up, wait to charge before firing) has been proven as balanced, this seems like a good starting point.

With the risk of long range system devastation gone, we wouldn't need shields as badly, so those could be removed, and it wouldn't be nearly as punishing if your empire doesn't have access to huge amounts of titanium and hyperium.  Citadels would also still be able to fulfil their role in this way.  They would protect the population of a system from this ability, so your opponent would be forced to actually ground battle in the key systems that are chosen for this protection.  For the rest of the empire, well....there has to be SOME penalty to leaving territory unattended.  A system should be able to hold out long enough for it to be feasible that a defending fleet could stop the obliterator, before it fires its shot.  But if the arriving fleet is then destroyed by the obliterator escorts, too bad.

Edit: Just had a thought for the "flavor" or backstory of this ability.  Obliterators could be a tool that the endless used on planetary systems for "restoring to default settings".  Using this ability would restore planets to their original state, removing the existing population, terraforming, structures, etc, maybe even make this a way to remove craver depletion!

What I like about behemoths: 

The fact that juggernaut exists forces you to split up your fleets, otherwise you will get wiped out by the one-click-win button. I like the idea of having fleets with 1 single threatening ship, which forces you to move your fleets more strategically to avoid it. However, 1 click to destroy everything is a terrible idea. It would be fine if the juggernaut stayed as it is, a big battleship that is strong by itself and its fleet. 

Obliterators are a neat idea, but the implementation is bad. You should have to declare war to even fire these shots and their shots should be a lot less frequent. 

Citadels and economic behemoths serve to increase a systems' ressource output, which could promote more tall playstyle. However due to the nature of the game, tall playstyle is still not possible. Endless expansion exists and unless this gets shut down it will always be the go-to choice.

What I hate about Behemoths:

- They get unlocked too early

- Everyone gets way too many of them, they don't feel unique at all

- Building a behemoth does not feel like an accomplishment, something you worked towards. Its simply necessary to build them. If you don't build them, you fall behind in everything.

- The introduction of Behemoth modules also came with the terribly balanced "behemoth modules" unlocked by juggernaut tech. Looking at Cravers/Riftborn vs modules for the other factions. These have to be removed, or else they need to be banned from using in multiplayer because its simply unfair how good they are compared to what other factions get.

Factions lose their identity. It is less about the power of each faction, its about how many behemoths they can get. Everyone ends up doing the same thing which takes away from the core things of the game - having unique factions with unique playstyles. I don't want to play a game where everyone does the same, yet I am forced to. 

Behemoths look the same for all factions. If they were looking unique for each faction, I would like them a lot more. Each faction has unique looking ships, but Behemoths all look the same which doesn't fit at all. You would think a Horatio would want his mega-weapons to look different from a Craver one.

Idea to make Behemoths better/more exciting:

In general, Behemoths should feel like building a wonder. They should cost more industry/dust/strategic ressources to build.  You should only unlock them if you managed to reach the last tech era. So for juggernauts and obliterators, you would need to reach the last military tech era. For science, reach the last science era. For economy, reach the last economy or empire developement era. That way you can have a maximum of 5 Behemoths slots (starting with 1 +4) which is still enough for each type.

Behemoths C3 centres need to be removed. There were countless posts complaining about these and nothing good was gained by having them available. 

Obliterators should move on top of the system which you want to destroy, instead of firing missiles across the galaxy without warning.  

Simple fix to make citadels better: Allow them to shield all systems within influence radius. That way, you can have a sytem with a big influence bubble protect multiple systems. 

Something else to talk about:

The DLC didn't fix the current problems and instead added new stuff ontop of poorly designed systems! Read further to understand why.

We keep telling you guys to rework the food and growth system. 

Industry is the most important ressource. Food is very useful until you grow 1 pop a turn, after that you gain too little from it. Factions which produce a ton of food end up at manpower cap easily, so all their food is wasted! The game can be finished quite early, way too early for biofuel factory to ever make a big difference. In most games, all you need is only 2 food research techs from the 2 left quadrants, build all those food buildings and rely on heroes for your food income. All other food research can be ignored. This has to change! Especially if you ever want a faction to play tall, growth needs to be reworked so you are forced to invest into food to keep growing!

The dust/ inflation/ market has to be reworked. 

Producing dust only results on you increasing inflation, becoming more poor over time, while everyone else can just sell strategics and luxuries to the market and even benefot from increasing inflation! You can play the whole game with negative dust output and selling ressources each turn. Its tedious, but its the optimal way to play. This has to get changed!

All factions but the united empire lack a way to spend influence in the late game!

I hope this will get fixed with espionage actions, but you had the opportunity to atleast give us something to spend our influence with the Supremacy dlc. Instead this chance was missed, so we are still ending up with thousands and thousands of influence and the only thing we can do is spam the 500 influence cost diplomatic options.

What I like about behemoths: They are not just warships, they are also empire-building tools. I like designing my own econ/defense behemoths to sit on key systems (where I can easily convert them into citadels if needed). Behemoths look cool. I generally like behemoths and consider them interesting & useful enough to build, but not so critical that my game revolves around them. The behemoth unlocking quest reminds me to research early military tech.

What I dislike about behemoths: The starting behemoth designs are more confusing than helpful. I get that the idea is to illustrate what you can do with them, but it none of the default designs are very good, and they confused me about the difference between "specialized" and "general" behemoths. Having a separate, locked military design makes things worse. I also agree with Daynen's criticisms of the behemoth designs and fleet rules; they mostly seem like arbitrary balancing rules and cause more frustration than fun.

What I dislike about scientific behemoths specifically: Science modules and movement modules occupy the same slots, and you can't upgrade to switch between the two when you are sitting on an unowned special node. Therefore you're always forced to choose between taking forever to get there, or sacrificing science output when you arrive.

What I dislike about citadels specifically: They aren't good enough for the opportunity cost. I generally play single-player on Serious difficulty and my games just don't last long enough to see serious obliterator use. I'm not sure I've even seen the AI fire one yet. Citadels don't seem useful enough to me to build except to counter obliterators, so I just don't bother. Instead, I end up keeping all of my behemoths on key systems for econ use + emergency citadel specialization. But honestly if I ever did need to use my contingency plan, it would be an annoyance rather than a fun thing to do. Citadel shields look cool but they aren't fun, and the need for them hampers my use of behemoths in general.

What I would change: I would replace all of the weird generic behemoth designs and arbitrary rules with a single, normal ship design, as Daynen recommends. For tutorial purposes, I would make the standard behemoth design economic- or science-focused to illustrate that it's a thing you can do. I think the military potential of behemoths is obvious enough. Add some movement points to the scientific modules, maybe also to the economic and environmental modules. Make citadels more generally useful, economically. Perhaps make them extra useful for trading companies or something. I also like the suggestions to make citadels cover an area, either by influence zone or by starlane distance. I'm fine with them being immobile, but not with them being mostly useless cost sinks.

What I would change, part 2: My offhand comment about citadels and trading companies gave me an idea. What if the citadels and system shields and C3 centers worked more like trading companies and trading subsidiaries? For example, instead of having the current one-shot shields that are independent of the citadel system, what if you needed one citadel to anchor the defense system, and then you could extend the benefits to other systems with the shield & C3 improvements? The different system improvements could offer different degrees of protection, or extend different aspects of the citadel. You could also do something like require one C3 center per constellation, or something. Changing the way C3 centers work could also cut down on the number of field behemoths and focus more on extending defensive abilities instead.