Hey everyone. Just got the game. well I've had it for a while but working though my backlog, and wished I'd gotten to this sooner. Signed up to say hi and ask for advice. I'm awful at ES. Also, put in the 4 codes i had from purchasing ES, doesn't seem to show up. Suppose I'll wait. Anyway great to be here. Can anyone give e a quick run down of ES? The last time i played anything even remotely close to this was back during the homeworld days.





~Raz

The game is more like MOO2 than anything.. (MOO2 is probably still better! But it's also old) umm.. I never played 'homeworld' even though I heard it was good.. you could just say I never "got" into it.. moo2 for me!! homeworld.. I don't know why? I heard 'sins of a solar empire' is good and or homeworld like I think..



As for how to play this game..?



I dunno if your not into conquer and dominate..?? I'd say Endless Space sucks.. the AI through negotiation.. will give you ANY tech and dust they have so it's all "free" if you want to do that



I would say the best thing to do is if you feel challenged by the game.. "rise" to the challenge.. but if you continue to suck and don't learn from your mistakes.. not sure why your playing?



The way I play endless pace these days is severely handicapping myself so the challenge is high for me

I only started playing in the last few days. Couple hours. Still getting used to it. Learning my way around.

Welcome Razov,

I would suggest the following in order to get into Endless Space:

One game setup: Default every thing, random AI players, AI set to normal, yes on pirates (makes you a better player)



The best factions to start playing with are the sophon (science), united empire (dust), sheredyn (dust/conquer), or pilgrims (anything).

These are the best to learn from because they don't have a specific gimmick or play style associated with them. Such as the Automation's industry stacking, Craver's Locusts, Hamony's disharmony with dust.

Once you learn the basics you can "get" how to play with the other factions.



Once in game:

1. Go to your empire management screen (Top Left) and use the tax slider to reduce the taxes on your systems until they are happy (not content). Keeping your systems happy (or better fervent) will give you a % boost to FIDS. This will let you build and grow your empire faster at the expense of your dust income.



2. In your first system, get the planetary Improvement giving +food. This will increase how fast you get new population giving more FIDS and people to colonize other systems/worlds.



3. Research N-Way Fusion Plants and build the improvement that gives + industry. This will increase the speed you build ships/structures on your world. It will drasticly reduce the turns until you get another colonizer ship. Building colonizing ships will stop all population growth while being built. So when you build colonizers, you want to build them fast.



4. With your taxes low, it may take a few turns until you get 20 dust. When you do, buy a Hero. Select one this is an administrator and send him to govern your home world. When it gains levels, get skills that give +labor. Labor increases the amount of food/industry the system produces. Other early skills to look for include +X Industry (my preference), +X Food, +approval. You'll need to get Veteran to unlock some of these, but stick to labor.



4b. If you did not get a hero with Administrator, go for a Corporate hero. These heroes gain dust and science for your empire and excel with trade routes. Increase their Wit and go for +X Science or +X Dust first. Later on, peace another faction (automatically form trade routes with reviled systems) and get +# of trade routes or +X% from trade route skills. Corporate Heroes are best late game.



5. Send your scout to the closest unexplored system. Once you can see what planets are there, look for T0 planets ( Terran, Ocean, and Jungle) without negative (red) anomalies or T1 (Arid or Tundra) with Positive (green) anomalies. T0 planets don't decrease approval by colonizing them which is very useful for keeping your empire happy. Anomalies that give negative Approval need to be avoided early game until you can "fix" them.



6. Once you find a close and suitable system/planet to colonize, send your colonizer there to start an outpost. On T1 and above worlds, you'll need certain Techs in order to successfully colonize the planet. I'll go for general techs until I find a T1 world that I wish to colonize before I research that tech. Colony ships are slow and thus you have time before it gets there. Each time you colonize another system, your empire will get negative approval from expansion disapproval. This is why your choosy with colonizing early game.



7. Again, go for food and Industry on the fledgling system.



8. Once your second system is rolling along, set it Ind to science/dust or build dust/ science buildings to help support the growth of the empire while it builds its population up. Once it has max or near max pop, consider colonizing another good planet within the system or building more colonizers (if there are other good systems out there).



9. Between building colonizers, build dust/science buildings or convert Industry to dust/science to let your population recover for the next colonizer/world.



This approximately covers the first turns in the game depending on your start and faction. Avoid teching the top tree (war/conquer) until you get later in the game. Get your systems rolling first and keep expanding.



Try to expand to every T2 planet in your local star cluster (without bad anomalies) before colonizing past the worm holes.

I'll topically go this route:

N-Way Fusion Plants (right tech tree) ->Soil Xenobiology (left) AND/OR Xenobotany(bot) OR Arid Epigenetics (bot) -> Particle Scanning(left) -> Botanical Scanning (left) (For supermarkets)

This lets you expand rapidly to get systems fast as well as lets you keep expanding once you land Supermarkets on your worlds. These increase your Approval greatly once built. Depending upon when you find suitable worlds to colonize, take Soil tech for faster growth.

After this:

Compact Fusion Reactors (bot) -> Applied Casmir Effect (bot) [Thisletsyoupassworm-holes]

By this time, you should have expanded your empire to a few more systems and your population on your home system should be nearly max. Compact Fusion unlocks faster navigation and Icy colonization, but I usually avoid these planets until later (unless they have good anomolies/resources) because they grow slow with low Industry but great science. Casmir also decreases your empires expansion disapproval which will let you expand more or move your tax slider.



When you first encounter other races, stay neutral. They will attack your scout/ship if it is on their world. Systems generate less dust/science if a non-ally has ships on it. When they attack you, just retreat. The retreat does not count as a hostility. If you don't want them in your part of town. place on next to a worm-hole world/neutral system and blockade.



On systems with max/near max population consider switching out their planetary improvement from food to Ind/Sci/Dust depending on their biases. High Industry Planets/systems usually consist of Jungle, Terran, Tundra, and Volcanic (Mid game). Especially on systems that lack high Industry required for ship production, go for Science/Dust specialization.



You will start to discover other systems and factions at this time and you'll notice your research starting to slow down for higher techs now.

Go for:

Isolation Shields (right) -> Neural Robotics (right) -> Nonbaryonic Particles (right)

The magnetic shield generators and Public-Private Partnerships will increase your tech speed. Nonbaryonic will also unlock tier 2 luxury resources that provide huge approve boosts. Consider planets with these luxuries because of their large approval bonuses often offset T3 planet/bad anomaly negative to approval.



Consider unlocking more strategic resources/industry upgrades, new ship hulls/Planet types, teching Planetary Landscaping -> Optimized Logistics, teching into peace/war at this time, Heroes for war/pease.



I consider Optimized Logistics to be the most crucial tech in the game because of its large Approval and FIDS bonuses through colonial rights. However, less expensive tech options through peace/trade routes (left), increasing Industry/Science(right), and increasing system population [thusallFIDS] (bottom: right side).



This is just a rough guide that is flexible. Adjust it as you see fit depending upon your start and neighbors.



The Big 3 I consider early game are Botanical Scanning Supermarkets (approval), Applied Casmir Effect Worm-hole (expansion), and Nonbaryonic Particles Science (expansion and tech lead)

give this tutorial a read, its not up-to-date but the information is mostly valid and will give you a good break-down

Always explore and keep an eye on your Enemies hehe.



This is a great help guide Im going to look into this.