Thanks for all the thoughts. I'll try some Sophons play, I didn't know that there would be all that much difference between the two if I set up Scientists. It's a deep game, and I'm probably just missing a lot of stuff. I think I might just make a less ♥♥♥♥♥y sounding thread and try to get some general advice going. Thanks!

Well, I think it's just a matter of how much you're trying to learn the game and develop your play style. The 133 hours I've poured into it has rendered me three somewhat effective playstyles.

1) You could play a science centered faction that's focused on being late game aggressive because of your science advantage

2) Play a dust production faction that focuses on economic and alliance victory type

3) Play an early game conquering militarized faction that ends the game early on, typically around 40-70 turns depending on victory

Short summarization, and I'm still not Good at the game, I just now only won on serious

Stardrive is a bad game. Much of what was promised never materialized and now it's supposedly going to be in Stardrive 2.

coyote303 wrote:
I'm confused, too, because I don't remember MOO2 having epic-sized fleets.

I think for MOO2, because you controlled each ship individually, it felt like you had a much bigger fleet than was actually present. And I was fine with that, it was enough trouble doing the actions of 10 ships in a battle, 20-30 would have been utterly nervewracking.

Prof._von_Calamity wrote:
...

Also, there's the overall feeling of smallness due to the number of star systems (even on Huge maps) and the puny number of ships per fleet (even with maximum Command Points). It's intensely frustrating to me. Even post-Disharmony, these core problems are unchanged. It would not bother me at all if I didn't care about sincerely wanting Endless Space to be the best 4X game possible, and a worthy heir to MoO2....

I'm confused, too, because I don't remember MOO2 having epic-sized fleets. But then I consider both MOO2 and Endless Space to be great games despite this tragic "flaw."

The most common reason for "not being able to attack them" is that you are inside their influence sphere while being at cold war. You have to declare actual war in order to attack them.



However, the game really should ask you if you want to go to war in such a case instead of simply not letting you without giving any feedback.



Heared it so often that people got confused with the diplomatic-stati-related restriction because of a lack of feedback.



Some of this stuff you can really only figure out by reading the forums and uploading savegames to have other people look at them and explain.



Other than that: Maximising pop-growth is the single most important thing you have to do in order to be successfull. That's even more true in Disharmony. This is mainly achieved by boosting food, approval and of course planets to colonize.

i too agree on the feel of smallness. take battle for instance, there really a cap on ships allow to participate. and contrast with stardrive, i can wrap in an many ships as i want to battle front . also no cosmic strings, feel fake in a way. in stardrive, no such thing, instead they use something called,"subspace projector", which creates a circular zone that speeds up space travel.

Bravo, Igncom1! You echoed my thoughts as easily as if you had read my mind.



There's a bit too much required micromanagement; a bit too little granularity with the AI Governors to rely on them in all cases in order to safely avoid the micro.



Also, there's the overall feeling of smallness due to the number of star systems (even on Huge maps) and the puny number of ships per fleet (even with maximum Command Points). It's intensely frustrating to me. Even post-Disharmony, these core problems are unchanged. It would not bother me at all if I didn't care about sincerely wanting Endless Space to be the best 4X game possible, and a worthy heir to MoO2.



I still play the game on occasion (+400 hours), but it's less enjoyable to me nowadays because the arbitrarily-tight limitations are so bloody obvious and yet so unnecessary. ES is a modestly good game; it's solid & interesting in numerous ways that are pleasing. But in no way is it a great game. My disappointment stems from the fact that it really could have been a great game.

I feel like the game has become more complex that it has gained depth, and as proven above, is far too much about having build orders for me to have much fun in it.



I don't feel like im building a interstellar empire, in numbers or in fluff.



The fleets are too small, the systems are too small, the development of systems far too small....I don't feel like ES is a bad game in many respects.



But I will say that it is only above the chaff......so much potential, but unrealised potential.





As one point to consider, the numbers of ship you command over a entire game, is far less than what our earth has in navy ships....one planet with less technology, then a galaxy crossing empire. The scale is...disappointing in the end, why don't we build squads of ships, rather then individuals? Why don't we have a chain of command to organise fleets, why don't we see civilians?

the thing is, is that traits give useful bonuses but will not change gameplay much. all of a faction's unique improvements, technologies, and ships are tied to its affinity and those are what really separates factions from each other.

I never get anywhere with it. I just played a game, and for some reason a system of mine was being attacked by Pilgrims. No big deal. I sent over some fleets and for some reason they couldn't attack the Pilgrims and my system is just invaded and that's that. There's nothing I can do. I have no idea why, and I've played it for 88 hours, which I would think was time enough to figure it out.



But it never matters. I play on "Medium" difficulty and just lose every time. I am never competitive. I have as much technology as anyone, I set up my own faction, none of it matter. It's only a matter of time until I'm crushed.



What is happening with this game? I'm about to give up. I've literally never been anything except the weakest player in every single game, and I've played enough that I've completed entire branches of the technology tree. I'm not terrible at this kind of game either, it's what I like.

i suspect bug too from the OP's statement. but there are other possiblities. maybe you haven;t looked close enough at the situation. perhaps something normal's preventing you from counterattacking pilgrim.



for example, cold war status allow a race to attack you, doesn;t need war status to attack someone. also, if you in someone's influence and haven't declare war on that race, you can't attack that, well something like that i think.



i wouldn't say it is bad game, but like everything else,knowing is important. i actually forgetful half the mechanics from the classic version cuz i put it down a while. then recently i replay with disharmony mode and wrote down some important reminders/notes to make things easier.



now i'm the most powerful faction ,got all the endless wonders, terraformed most planets in my empire to state i wanted. and almost wrapping up an all out war in which i annexed like 50% of everyone's else empire. and for long run, thinking about setting up peace and trade relation cuz i gotten enough territories now.

alright, you want to play sheredyn and set up a custom faction? well sheredyn is my favorite faction and i'll help you. first off, sheredyn are always going to have less science than others so giving them scientists isn't such a good idea because as a percentage it only works well if you produce a lot of science already. for your negative traits you should always choose the ones that give negative bonuses to heroes, except micromanagement, you should avoid that. second, you should try and max out your dust production with entrepreneurs and the dust percentage bonus however you should avoid bonuses to trade as sheredyn are too war mongering to benefit much from trade. fourth, take all traits making things cost more industry, basically free points as you will buy out pretty much everything. those are just the basics of designing a faction however, i find the dust lode anomaly trait works incredibly well and i personally use crowded planets and growth plan to give me an early game lead. for gameplay, you want to expand your empire through low tier planets and you should keep happiness high as increasing the taxes is imperative for later. for science, try focusing on the first tier fids techs starting with xenotourism, however i really suggest avoiding military techs in the beginning. next you want to dabble in colonization, get the better dust exploit and then rush for magnetivc field generator. as soon as you build those, rush the sheredyn exclusive money making improvement, on the way you will unlock some happiness improvements that i suggest you build. when you unlock the tech, you have to build the improvement in all systems as soon as possible, however during its construction your empire will slow growth and decrease happiness so i recommend lowering the taxes. as soon as the improvements are built though, they will produce 250 dust each. the happiness goes back to normal so increasing the taxes is a good move, then you can buy out whole fleets of ships. just steamroll through enemy systems until they are willing to armistice and give you a lot of their systems. build the exclusive improvement in these cities, keep the tax level the same as these systems will hate you even without building the improvement. then when the turn limit has ended, immediately attack the enemy and wipe them out. rinse and repeat for all other factionslol



just my tips as an experienced sheredyn player.

larrymal wrote:
Good thoughts there, thanks. What do you think about bonuses to tonnage, hit points and damage dealt as an affinity?

Well, I'm wondering about your choice of affinity + traits, in general. The Sheredyn are a high micromanagement maximum dust buyout race.

Their best-working mechanic is to produce as much dust as possible, then buy out everything from buildings to colony and military ships at an astonishing rate. They're not really the greatest scientists, as they neither have an affinity or special buildings tied to science, alone.



I'm not really a Sheredyn-player, myself, so I cannot give you a simple list of traits to try out.



A rather sciency race to start with would be the Sophons, allowing you to stack lots of science bonuses on top of each other.



/#/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14056-beginner-s-guide-to-disharmony-improving-your-game might be a good point to do some more reading on the mechanics, should you be playing ES + disharmony (I cannot tell, because you don't have any achievements)

Good thoughts there, thanks. What do you think about bonuses to tonnage, hit points and damage dealt as an affinity?

Well, I can see one of the problems already; rushing for Casimir is pretty much never a good idea, you want to either get N-way fusion plants of Soil Xenobiology first. In early game, food and industry are very important to grow your starting system quickly - and it's pretty much a universal truth for most factions in ES (yes, there ARE exceptions to that rule - but if you're having problems with the game then you shouldn't really worry about them just yet)



Secondly, unless you're REALLY far behind in science and/or are unable to produce a decent quantity of ships, you shouldn't just be dominated by an enemy fleet. Do they have weapons and defenses that counter yours? Use cheap suicide scouts to find out what the AI is using and then adapt your fleet to counter them

OK, so the Pilgrims attacking my system and me being unable to do anything about it wasn't normal? I sometimes run into bugs with this game- the most notable being an inability to set an exploitation for a planet until a restart happens. I just wasn't sure if I was unable to reinforce a system that was attacked by Pilgrims or something. It might have been able to be worked around if I saved and restarted the game, I got frustrated and just pulled the plug.



I have a Sherydyn based custom faction, which I focus on science for the most part, I think I took the biggest bonus there, Scientists level three. I have the affinity that allows for extra hull tonnage, and I have Businessmen for a little Dust bonus.



I usually try to go for Casimir first, followed by a smattering of low level technologies from all the branches, then with a focus on the Magnetic Fields and other things that I think will help me to get my Science up there as fast as possible. From there I'll usually focus on having bigger fleets, from there having better ships.



I feel there really just be something I don't know about making ships be good, though, since inevitable at some point enemy fleets show up and I am completely unable to harm them in any way while they shred me. I configure them to have almost 20,000 Hit Points, no matter. I will have level three weapons and defenses, I never get beyond that before I'm wiped out though.



My ships are always slow, weak, and ultimately powerless, although I can be dominant for a little while in the beginning. It never lasts.

Maybe you should try playing on a lower difficulty to practice, or check some guides online or on youtube. ES can be a bit unforgiving

Let's begin at the start: Which faction do you play, what do you do/research/build in the first 30 turns?

I don't think so. I've never had this problem, maybe you've encountered a bug or something.