Seriously, this game in it's Alpha is more polished than any 4x I've played in the last decade or so..! The layout, the UI, and the way the game teaches you to teach yourself are all superb; there is an almost 'futuristic' user-friendliness to the game itself that not only fits the aesthetic, but also really helps get you seamlessly into the game, at least if you read and experiment. Despite having only purchased Empire Edition last night, I've already logged an almost an entire day in, thanks having the day suddenly much freer than expected. And given that on such rare occasions I mostly prefer a good book, well... To say I'm blown out of the water is an understatement. I'll try not to gush love for the rest of the review however; I'm pretty sure you all know how good the product is, and in this case I'll go over things as linearly as I can. If there's anything here that can help you make Endless Space even better, great. And if anyone wants to contribute more or add something, please feel free. So, without further adieu!



Startin' up: The title screen theme and presentation are good. Classic 4x stuff. Menu had everything I needed, although two options that I was hoping to find for low-end PC users like myself were something to downgrade the graphics below 'fastest' (a custom setting, perhaps) and a way to change keybindings; some users don't have a mousewheel, for example. Both things that could be added late in beta, though I think they'd be useful. Looking through the races, each seem distinct and interesting. My gut tells me to go with the Sophon, being the pacifist builder I usually am... But chaos demands blood, and the Cravers look awesome robotically insectified. I pick them and start up a small normal map. The tutorial kicks in, and I read through it; I didn't really need to, being old hat at this kind of game, but can point out that it handles several questions that people have asked before. A really solid tutorial; if anything needs to be changed or added, you could perhaps create tutorial maps that further expound on stuff, but I really don't know what else that might be. Examples of how to play each character type, p'raps?



First steps: Haha, that little pithy event made me laugh. Colonizing is easy, but I soon run afoul of pirates that taste Craver gun. Gaining science from defeated foes is cool, and encourages me to kill, maim, and burn! Unfortunately (fortunately) my quadrant is mostly empty at first glance, and I choose to stay in the nearby systems as opposed to scouting too far, and too fast. Colony ships are soon established and sent out - at this time, I start to examine the variables that effect my realms, which leads me nicely to my next section.



The economy: This is fantastic. Very simple, and yet very complex. The way you can choose to specialize planets, generalize them, terraform them later (I do miss the ability to make every planet an ecotopian Gaian realm with only negative traits removed, but like I said earlier - pacifistic builder with pops minds in heart), or build fleet structures is quite nice. Liked the expanding zones of influence, which I considered a sort of extra resource for purpose of information. Several games through - not to get ahead of myself, though - I've made the analysis that you will never, ever want high taxes in the game. I realize this may be WAD on the part of y'all, but it makes the United Empire's ability far less useful, as the only time you really 'need' Dust is for buying heroes or buildings, retrofits and hero abilities. Since better industry is ceteris paribus (all things considered) strictly better than disfunctional revolts on all your planets, you will only jack up the taxes in order to pay off going into the red or to quickly raise cash, then lower them again. Again; this may be WAD, but I'd highly recommend that high taxes do *NOT* lead to unhappiness and lead to far reduced resource waste. If that really goes against personal beliefs or plans you have for game balance, create an investment or something that players can buy 'social programs' or something from to temporarily/permanently boost happiness under higher tax rates. Maybe some other player has found a strategy, gamey or otherwise, that works with high taxes - me, I'll take free research, food, and industry, please!



Part of this is based on my impression that states like the United Empire (market monarchist corporatists) would have no taxes on corporations, but huge taxes on corporate drones, and that the Hissho, being a centralized state, are likely to have at least moderate taxation on average. It makes sense for the Sophon to have low taxes, perhaps with a special 'Dhimmi' tax on foreigners who reside in their lands, and I doubt the Cravers even care for the idea of wealth; why tax anything when you can take it? With such varied states, it seems a little simplistic and too much of a no-brainer to have the low taxation slider be strictly better. Also, you may notice that in my above analysis, I make no mention of Horatio - I, I have no idea where the Horatio would fit. They have a tax on being awesome, maybe.



But, back to this starter game- After fiddling (and fiddling) with my economy and getting it to that magic sweet spot that every player gets to when they have made their realm run juuuust the way they want it... I ran into the downside of Eternal War. The Sophon appear, lost in space and looking for friends!... They find me, and their high-tech goggles do nothing against the bug war they've gotten themselves into. Mwahahaha! But, after awhile I do notice that Sophon ships are faster, better prepared, and strictly speaking, uh, better than mine. Time to fix that.



Research: Cravers have cool ship chassis names; Marauder class? Right on. The Research Matrice is really nicely thought out, although at first I couldn't figure out how to figure what did what. After some time reading up on each tech, I realized that I couldn't just blast my way through on superior research alone; each choice I made would be a 'now/later' problem. Sure, I could go for colonization techs first - my choice in this game - but I was sacrificing the ability to produce more, better units, faster and more efficaciously. I really like how you can choose to research in a broad manner, or specialize in one or two areas, and get a decent enough result either way (if you have a plan, of course). Planets quickly seems pretty good to me, especially as it unlocks better build sizes; but I also get a few research and military techs. The diplomacy/government tree looks a little top-heavy; it gets some great stuff later on, but in the early game you're best off just setting your taxes low.



The Sophons are forcibly brought into the fold, and find out that despite looking like horrible robot bug-creatures (and having Evil written as our alignment way to make an insect feel pigeonholed) we are actually quite friendly. The revolt period is pretty rough, but is alleviated. Things are looking pretty good! From here on, the game continues pretty much in my favor; explore, colonize, meet new friends and greet them with warm pleasantries!=railguns. The AI, despite seeming quite capable in build order and research goals, chronically undervalues me due to lack of a standing fleet. Due to having so many industrial centers, I can get a full command-point allotment up in a turn; thus the enemy attacks first and is quickly subsumed. More weight should be paid by the AI to player industrial/research generation, but more on that later. The last Horatio falls, and we cocoon the universe in nanosilk to celebrate! And then my computer, which has been stuttering for the last hour even on the lowest ('fastest') settings, chugs and starts to menacingly overheat. Sigh. It's worth mentioning that the graphics, especially the BEAUTIFUL dynamic flames/explosions, look fantastic even on said setting; but as much as I love them, to be able to turn off or reduce them eventually would be great as I think(?) they are causing most of the drain on my GPU. Maybe.

Post-Game/Nu-Game thoughts: First, as I didn't cover diplomacy; playing several other games on other maps, with other races and other settings: Ah, the one part of the game that needs a little %polish_n'_shine! The CPU show good judgement about alliances and trade et all - especially on the higher difficulties, which I am pleased to see seem to have more AI then random computer 'gifts', though I do believe they got some much needed boosts to colonization and early survivability - but yet again terribly underestimates player ability to suddenly decimate their worlds due to a conscript army - indeed, chasing down ships that (somehow) broke through my blockade is most of the challenge of my late game, wahahah! That's not saying the AI is bad though, merely that it needs to reweight player factors; one of the reasons I prefer to be a peacenik is that I tend to expand less and thus have stronger opponents to deal with later, after all.



Combat is great, please don't change it. Speaking personally, there are plenty of RTS games out there - for those of the forum who like such games, great. I much prefer to have a nice autoresolved or plotting card(<3) aided battle that lets me mull over strategy, myself - and there are far more of the former (RTS) then the latter. At first, I thought combat might be too simple; it seemed like the only variable taken into effect was MP, but after some fooling around I realized how insanely awesome it is. From the rate/time at which weapons fire versus the blunting/strengthening effects of cards, there are so many little cool things about it that hook up nicely with ship design and research strategy. Awesome! One thing I did note, however, is that due to both the AI and myself keeping taxes low for maximum profit (that... Makes very little sense to my mind), neither of us used dust cards very much; they were awesome, but for the cost I'd much rather take a gamble on one of the old stand-bys. Even with my industry growing rich off of the far too-profitable Ind-Dust late game moneymaker, the money was more useful for rushing buildings on new colonies.



Heroes - either as combat units or governors, or in oft-case both - are very powerful. Figuring out who will unlock what abilities is interesting, though I did notice that I tended to stick into patterns of Veteran/labor/wit skills, with nary a combat skill picked besides occasionally Melee Masher. Labor especially, with the insanely powerful 10% and 25% boosts, gave huge and consistent returns. At the beginning, with only the occasional pirate to fight, you'll end up sticking heroes on colonies just for the XP. Later, it's easy to win on flotilla strength alone, netting even unskilled combatants valuable XP. One of my Empire games involved using the Cravers as a valuable Sustainable Mechanorganic Imperial Training Ground - combatants would beat the stuffing out of the lone Craver system left, work their way up, and then take a cushy retirement job at the Colonies. More random events/ways for non-combatants to gain XP, while perhaps limiting the combat XP growth of heroes with one or more civilian specialties would be a good balance, I think, while making it harder for primarily combat-oriented heroes to gain more than a level or two from desk jockeying.



Finally, a personal word. This is, perhaps, the game I have waited... Quite some time to see. I love the sounds, the look, the feel, the UI - everything. Even for my personal grievances (and they are there), it is perhaps the game I have been most excited about for some time. I cannot wait to see what Beta looks like if this is Alpha. And that soundtrack! If there is any chance you could put some more tunes up on the youtube page, that would be fantastic. On top of that, if there will ever be any concept art released, I'd love to know how y'all settled on the designs you did - anyway. All the best, and I hope ya can overlook the textwall and get something out of this - if only that you all rock, and keep it up. All da best!



P.S. Sorry for the doublepost; forumlimits, though. Feel it's acceptable in this case; you can nuke this if I'm wrong.