I would really like to see a heck of a lot more of the background story going into the game and more animated diplomacy with your neighbours. You have all these fantastic races and they are being completely underused so far in the game. Its weird that you read all this background fluff on then internet, but when you are in the game that stuff isn't in it at all. I think this game really needs to get some of the story into the game in order to start really taking off - by speaking with your neighbours and how they react to your offers you should start getting the story. And those responses should be affected by how powerful that race is, how much dust they have, how many resources they have, how many special temples they have found etc. It would also be great if there were more flavoursome events that reflect the story as well - for example races finding some endless clues that hint to what happened.



It could almost be stuff that is added in patches gradually so you play the game and get hints that aren't revealed until later patches almost like an episodic format. Its difficult getting a story and fluff into a sandbox game but I am sure there are ways to do it. Hearts of Iron is a good example of how to get the players involved in a story in a sandbox game. It might be that there are special events that are only discovered if you do something unusual in a particular game such as get all the endless artefacts, etc.



Perhaps you might also get notifications that other races have discovered a special temple which might encourage you to conquer that planet to get the information on its moon.



And finally perhaps introduce some missions issued by the emperor etc like Europa Universalis has. Give players some other things to think about such as get good relations with your neighbour or conquer another three systems, etc.



There are loads of possibilities in the game I just hope the devs have the dedication and money to make it a bit more than it is at the moment. The basics are there now lets start seeing more depth and immersion please.

I like this idea in the game as well, it would be nice to have more flavor in the game. One of the things that would be cool to see is multiple story arcs, like a set of predefined ones that can be randomized, race specific, or customized by the player. Europa Univeralis by Paradox does some cool things where you can select for countries to behave semi-historically or be totally random.



I like that this gives the player the option of kinda following a storyline game, or, playing a more sandbox hardcore 4x game. I think it would be even cooler to give the player options to set up a backstory, like what races might already be in contact with eachother, who has the edge in the beginning, just kinda what the breakout of the galaxy (maybe from a predefined list of possibilities) AND also still retain the option to make it all random. This opens the possibility that players can play the good 4x model on its own, or play a 4x game where they kinda defined a unique role for what their race is. Maybe you want to play a game where you start as the top dog but need to fight some existential threat and rally other races with you. Or maybe you set up a game to play as an upstart race and find your niche in the galaxy, things like that (I'm sure this must have already been discussed among the devs, just a lot of work to do to write all that content)



For instance you can assign each race a 'goal' similar to how each race already has an AI predisposition and as the AI races work through achieving that goal you can get events as a player of another race about the backstory going else elsewhere in your galaxy, and maybe events for creating things like embassies or some U.N. style space station for alien races just to spice up interaction between your empire and the other players. The other nice thing would be to have some existential goals that you could work to achieve alone or with the other races be it discovering the Endless, working to solve some natural disaster in the galaxy, or fighting some foreign invader. Just to give some flavor to the game and add the possibility for really long drawn out campaigns. ! Can also and likely will be the job of the modding community

I would hesitate to agree that these story-telling elements would enhance the game. If there was a campaign-story, certainly, but not as the game is now.



The problem is, you're beginning to butt up against the very principle of quality 4x gameplay, IE the "here's a situation, go" method. In every great 4x game, there is a formula: setting, empire, competition. Each of these elements can have extremely elaborate back stories and thorough integration with one another, but once the player hits that "go" button, all of it becomes moot.



This is because the ultimate appeal of 4x gameplay is a sort of strategic freedom. Story elements negate that freedom by bottlenecking players into certain choices and events. Sure, the Horatio are a populace race, but if I want to win with them via scientific victory, I'm allowed, if I can pull it off.



The only time I've ever seen story elements integrated well into a 4x is Alpha Centauri's excerpts from the Book of Planet at certain, pre-ordained events. However, the setting of AC was so specific that it very easily lent itself to such storytelling. ES's setting is less so.



Bottom line, good 4x games offer variable gameplay at the expense of story telling. Space Empire, MOO, Civilization, to name a few, all had exquisite backgrounds on their settings and empire choices, but no in-game story telling.



As for jdan007's ideas, what you're suggesting are scenarios. These would be predefined starting situations in which a player needs to work with or against the rules of the scenario. This is an excellent idea and has been shown to be both viable and popular in games such as Civilization 5 (and previous installments).

Agreed, I wouldn't want to take out the freedom of the straightforward 4x game, just add different things for flavor that kinda build on that sense of achievement of hey I took my human empire, politically reformed it, established a place among intergalactic societies, fought off an invasion, crushed the pirate threat, helped evacuate a system from a star going super nova, contributed research to stop a galactic plague, and so on, so that if you choose you can get all these side objectives and little flavor things to do and if not, its all disabled and off.



I also wouldn't want to make anything pre-determined in a game, just have the event chain react to what you're doing. If you just conquered a system for instance, I wanna see the galaxy be alive and really react and respond to that and know what's going on with the dynamic of the systems.



And it would also be nice to add goals for players to play a more/less peaceful development game. I played one game into the late late game and allied all of the different races together, but the in-game result is kinda nothing, nothing happened. I'd like a little flavor to say hey, you just created an intergalactic league of nations and everybody is going to get along now except these people really don't like each other you need to help settle disputes or do something etc. Kinda more along the lines of a robust civilization mod like you mentioned definitely. (and so I'm going to make a mod for it!)