Hard vs Serious Difficulty Settings

[Banterus Maximus]

Hello there!

This is the first 4X strategy game I have ever played and I gotta admit: if that's what 4X Strategy games are like, I was missing out a lot of fun!

Anyways, to the question at hand:
After 60 hours of gameplay, I can easily beat the AI on Hard difficulty with all the factions, but I really struggle with the Serious difficulty. I have managed to beat it with the Drakken and the Necrophages a couple of times each, but I absolutely cannot defeat it with the Forgotten.

Is this normal or am I just a big noob who has yet to grasp on the intricate isssues that this genre of games has to offer?

Do you have any tips on how to approach the Serious Difficulty mode, especially when it comes to the Forgotten faction?

Is it possible to beat the Endless difficulty mode?

[Ryou]

Hey, I think Endless Legend is one of the better 4X games, but generally, yes, this is what 4X games are like and you should give a couple of them a try (Civ V is pretty good and well known, for example).

I've dumped about 40 hours in the game, so, ironically, I suppose you have more experience in this game, and I've never gotten to try out the serious difficulty, but from my understanding with these sorts of games, higher difficulties are usually just an incredibly hard challenge not usually meant for casual play. I don't know how it's in this game, but I know that in Civ V the AI starts with bonuses compared to the player, so you need to be incredibly good to even keep up, and need to use really cheesy strategies to win.

It doesn't help that, from my experience, the Forgotten is hands-down the worst faction, it's also the idea that I've gotten reading around in this forum.

Usually difficulties are designed to be beatable, so yes, I think Endless can be beat.

[Banterus Maximus]

Are they really the worst faction? That's too bad cause they are sooooo cool.

[facciola007]

Welcome to 4x games galactic civilization 1,2 and 3 as well as endless space, (endless space 2) is being made. Es is made by the same dev. As far as your faction issue have you tried cultist? They are fun and a game changer as mechanics go.

[Banterus Maximus]

I 've tried the Cultists on Normal and Hard, but I didn't really like their gameplay. Spreading Empires are more my thing than what the Cultists offer.

I really like the simplicity of the Wild Walkers, the Drakken because of the forgiving nature of their gameplay (you can take almost all moves you make back through forcing truces) and the Forgotten.

But I still need some advice on the Serious difficulty setting :P.

[mohjotus]

Hi! Regarding serious difficulty, I have too played it with Broken Lords and had some difficulty plenty of time with it. Now is the first time I think I'll beat it and thats because I consentrated to get good start with economy, like creating dust mints and developing districts. Then as soon I got some pick offs from careless neighbours armies roaming inside my borders I started fast to create counquering army with some efficient ranged minor faction troops. From that on getting more povinces was quite easy. As soon as you can develop larger arnies with Era2 tech you can really begin to take some cities.

[Teirdalin]

I actually just beat Endless difficulty and Endless length as Drakken with the elimination victory, and I have to say it was one of the funnest most epic adventures I've had in the game so far; but probably won't be playing on it much in the future, feels too much like you have to be a perfectionist as I ended up making about a hundred saves.. Only real difficulties I've had in it were Necrophage murdering- everyone in two failed attempts or getting too much dust when they take a whole continent and refuse to even research boats to encounter the other empires as they generate massive dust and win via economic, Forgotten being major trolls (to get rid of them just convince a stronger empire nearby to wipe them out while they're harassing you with spies; never see them become very strong but early game they're incredibly annoying.), and the merchants just being incredibly powerful and gaining too much dust too fast (fortunately they also love to give you tons of dust to go to war with other nations which you can just truce out of in some cases, saving is your friend). Don't even worry about the cult too much though; their AI has always been pretty weak on Endless from what I've seen, sometimes not even converting outside of their city. :/.

I'd say the easiest race to win with though is a custom broken lords with conversion and diplomatics starting tech, and market ban and some other tweaks to make them as close to cultists that you can. Eventually you'll have so much dust(and people), influence, and units all over the world on a whim. Only issue though with that is that the playstyle doesn't really match with their questline very well so you'll be having some annoyance with getting the T3 equipment, perhaps a custom cultists would work better if you want stronger military faster; but you won't get nearly as many people as fast mid-end game. If using the broken cult tactic you can make a second city and just focus everything into the two, but on the harder difficulties chances are you won't even have time to make a proper start and settler before someone takes most of the land around you; which still works totally fine with conversion though; especially if you have diplomatics as just make peace, and convert to your hearts content. Since the price of conversions rises the more you convert I recommend getting each bordering area for defenses in case of emergencies, then going after strategic materials in your friends lands, make sure to get alliances as soon as possible by the way, as you do not want to get on peoples bad sides too often when they can easily murder your worshippers before it's even time to strike.

Here's my setup for the Broken Cult I have-
Broken Lords: Brace Yourself, Conversion, Keys To The Market, Weapons of The Enemy, Diplomat's Manse.

Weapons of the enemy won't really come in useful too often in my opinion when it comes to actually having use for the industry you get, (just trade it with others for tech if you want, or if merchant is in the game for a crapload of dust likely) but it definitely comes in handy in making sure there is no way they will retake their city in the near future without having to make new settlers; plus not having to worry about captured cities, and empire expansion penalties.

And always make sure to get all your allies to kill your ally who is getting too strong for their own good or getting too close to a victory or is just annoying you. Allows for silly diplomatic shinanigans such as war/truce spamming.