Faction Decor

One thing I miss from Endless Legend is that I could see the architecture of my cities. My cities visibly grew, my lands were visibly built up, and I was changing the world.

Endless Space 2 completely lacks this right now. From the galaxy view, I cannot tell which worlds are settled, how strong they are, or any other details except by whether a few small dots are filled, and in what color they are filled. It is a case of telling instead of showing, where I must read something to see how big a city is instead of just seeing how big it is.

Thus, I suggest adding some small visual indicators of settlement, even if they are not realistic or properly scaled. Things like small model stations, nondescript tiny ships milling about, things small enough as to probably be programmed as particles instead of proper models, which grow outward with a settlements population, influence, and system level.

In addition, I would suggest modifying the System Improvement illustrations to be animated and faction specific, so we can see what our settlements look like. This is all just window dressing in the end, but every chance to re-affirm a factions identity and visually show our progress seems like an important chance, since currently our faction identities don't seem to exist outside of the diplomacy screen, the Empire screen, our ship models and our quest lines.