My experience with this game so far.





Ok, I will just write down the impressions I have.

I know its still an alpha, but I will mention too things that I felt were missing, even if im sure they will be added until the game goes gold.



Game Start:

the log in is as expected for an alpha quick and easy. For the gold version I would maybe like to see different loading screens, fitting to the race you are playing.

Options:

I know, it’s a strategy game, but its for pc, so I at least would like to see some more detailed possibilities to set the video quality.

The game options screen is kind of empty too, maybe there could be some functions to set up like autoscrolling when the mouse is on the side of the screen in the game or pre turned on auto build on new colonized/conquered systems (more about that later).



Game Setup



I like the game setup, but realized, that if I go out and in again, some of the settings I made are resetted, some are not. That’s a bit confusing.

I am missing the possibility to create my own race (one of the great features of MOO2, and something that makes the game more personalized. A selfmade race is just way more personal than a premade one.

Further more it would be interesting to have the possibility for a multi galaxy setup.

So 2 or more galaxies. The travel in between could be over wormholes or a new tech that you get close to the end of the tech tree, that allows jumps to new galaxies.

This would even be a possibility to make this game really endless, by adding random generated, populated galaxies.

But even bigger galaxies with more planets would already be great.

My comments about the difficulty I already made in the fitting thread, after playing more than once I have to say it is a big lottery about where and how close to who you start that makes the same difficulty setting really hard the one game, and completely easy the next game.





So as im already talking about it, Now ingame.

First I wonder, why there are already heroes popping up in turn one. Nobody (except chuck Norris) has enough money in turn one I guess (except maybe a race that I haven’t played yet)

So they are something that could come a few turns later.

First time I played I uset the colony ship on the same system, because I didn’t know it works over the planet menu (I think that is not mentioned in the tut)





System View



The UI is very nice and well arranged. No complaints here.

I would wish to somehow see what I already built (I don’t mean in the UI, I mean on the system/planet screen. the only change is visible after terraforming. But except the population heads next to it they are just boring planets like any other, you cant see the improvements you built, nor your ships in orbit.

This in my opinion takes away a lot of atmosphere, because it would personalize it.

Even little things like some moving traffic on the planet or some citystructures, depending on the population would help a lot.

Lets go back into the endless space.

Space View



All my ships/fleets on that map look exactly the same. Here some difference for shipclasses (maybe the biggest one in the fleet) or even size or strength of the fleet would be nice.





The next point, something that could be another option in the game options, when I have multiple fleets in a system, activate one and move it to another system, it will select another fleet in the old system (or none if there is none) instead of staying on the active unit. I personally think this is kind of annoying. If I send a unit to the next system, I usually want to do something with it. If I had wanted to send more than one I would have selected them all.



About the exploring: I am missing special systems, like in MOO2, that are either defendet and have some relics, or are even populated by a minor race, that can add bonuses to your race.

I don’t have more to say about the space map view right now, because I like most of it as it is.



Diplomacy/Trade



Diplomacy… always a hard topic, because its hard to get into the game. The best diplomacy mode I can remember in a turn based strategy game is Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.

This wasn’t just the standard Friend, Foe or Ally system with the standard trade system behind it.

No, with the votes and stuff you really felt like you could influence something, like “I give you some money, and you vote for my petition to raise the waterlevel”

Endless Space doesn’t even have a council, and things influence the attitude of the others too much.

In one game I was colonizing at normal pace, I was ally with another race with I think a very warm relationship (2000+ points if I remember right)

Suddenly from here to now they said im expanding too much. And in 10 turns (without colonizing more) the relation went down to neutral. Same to the other 2 races in the game at the same time, just that they declared war.

I usually love playing peacefully and diplomatic, but with a relationship that needed 100 turns to grow suddenly crashing because of one system I colonized, I think that is a bit too hard, especially in the newby mode.

About trade… I cant say much about it, I usually try to have everything myself. I didn’t have one traderoute and from what I read here they are kind of useless right now and the improvements need more money than they make.

I would like to see traderoutes with your own systems, so I can have mining colonies that don’t have to worry about farming (except of course the route gets blocked )



Fighting and Invading



To be honest, I don’t like the fights at all. I would prefer to have the freedom to tell my units where to go and what to do like in a strategy game. So I usually do the autofight.

And Invading just as a button? I hoped for a bit more. Some animation, the possibility to bombard or even destroy the planet, thought control…

The people there keeping their identity, having the advantages and disadvantages of their people. Why should conquered sophons suddenly be skilled builders? (or did I just not pay enough attention to that yet, because its not visible what race is living there?)



Ship building



Its great you have those many choices to build ships. But it would be great to have a better autobuilt system.

I would like the options to just say “built a missile ship or build a support ship” instead of just always getting the same (I think it’s the strongest) defense and office weapon and nothing else.

It could be like presets with relations between the different modules or things that have to be in, like a scout should have a good engine, or tarning systems (that are missing anyways! )



The End



The last thing I have, I was just invading another race after planning for a lot of turns, and suddenly I get the screen that I have earned enough money for the victory. (must have left that on by accident)

Boom, game done. No button that allows me to play on.

After that I was kind of unmotivated for a while to start a new game.

So please, put in the usual “just one more turn” option after a victory!



After all the critics I wrote down I want to say a big thank you to everyone at Amplitude.

It seems that something endless comes to an end…

A 16 year long wait for a worthy successor of the best 4x game ever. MoO2.

And if you keep up the good work until the release I may edit the ever out!

I forgot that one thing... planets with nothing set to produce should always be shown in the turn overview. It happened more than once that i forgot to set a production at a conquered planet, especially if you are invading multiple ones at the same time!

Get used to checking the empire view regularly, it help manage ships in hangar and production. It also gives you a very easy to read idea of where your administrators should go.

Please take a look at the suggestions thread in my sig. There is active discussion about many of the points you have raised.



(must ... keep ... posting .... need to catch up with arrowlance ...)

i do, but that might be 5 turns afterwards. im just saying it would make it a bit more comfortable, like it tells you when a production is done

davea wrote:
Please take a look at the suggestions thread in my sig. There is active discussion about many of the points you have raised.



(must ... keep ... posting .... need to catch up with arrowlance ...)

i read through it! nice one. will check on it more often. Thanks!

I just felt like brainstorming and writing down all my thoughts i had!