There is a small element in the Endless games that to me makes a huge difference in the way games are played out (or at least how I play them out): quests that push you to make decisions that were not planned in your overall strategy. Perhaps the best example of this is faction quests that ask you to capture a specific city from a player you were not at war with, but even quests encouraging you to send a party to get a treasure or beat a large monster can significantly vary the flow of the game.

To give you an example, one of my most memorable EL games was thanks to this mechanic. As the Cultists, I was asked to raze a Necrophage city by my faction quest. Of course they were the most powerful faction military wise and although the surprise effect allowed me to blitz a few cities (including the quest one), the Necrophage managed to defeat my offense and push me back to my borders. Thankfully I achieved the quest victory and was able to leave the planet before my city was overrun with necrophages. Of course, I'm building my own narrative around this but that's the point of player driven narrative isn't it? Without this quest, I might have ridden my very stable economy to an internal victory (scientific, economic...). Instead it became a massively memorable emergent storytelling moment that was triggered by my own decision to go through with this war to achieve my quest.

Now based on a question I've asked today on the storytelling stream it seems like there won't be quests at all. What are some other ways to push players out of their comfort zone and to achieve this level of involved story telling? Global events perhaps? Competitive events that award you with Fame and are different each game (Legendary Deed style)? An AI specifically designed to create high impact situations? Or perhaps AI that will pay you do do certain things? I don't think I've seen it in any other game but I'm sure there are ideas out there.

PS: thanks for the stream today and to @The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales for replying to my question

Im not a fan of small quests because they are micromanagement intensive. But a big one? Maybe get in control of a city your nation considers holy? Be the most dominant power of the seas, Or maybe create enough resources to help small faction avoid hunger, Get enough influence to convince other players to invest in scientiffic project that is not directly benefficial. Adding ethical aspect could boost involvement like decide about slavery genocide or totalitarianism. If the ai could determine our playstyle and push us in different direction by semirandom great causes. That would increase replayability drasticly.

Beyond earth made a great work with their small factions and giving player ethical choices to make. Adding hard decisions where no outcome is ethically better than the others and making it play a role in the mechanics sounds like something this game could be remembered by.