What is this game about?

[Dakelh]

Steam has suggested this game many times and I've always been interested in knowing more about it. I'm coming from the Age of Empires type RTS, last thing I played was Stellaris which is awesome yet it lacks (imo) a bit of depth in the combat system.
Judging by a few videos I've watched, Endless Space is another Stellaris (not in a bad way). Is this true?

Thanks y'all :)

[Masterofkaputnik]

I like ES2 better than stellaris, ES2 is more or less endless legend in space...

[Sloan]

ES2 no RTS
ES =TBS

[TheCr33pur]

Probably like Master of Orion type, didnt like what the Russia made on the new Orion. But i did like the old part two and three MoO. I wasnt impress with the first one, but this one seem to be better, but i like the alpha or beta they did on the tech trees, unfort they switch it like in original tech trees. Use to be from left to the right while advancing in techs.

This is alright, not crazy about it though.

[Varivox]

If you are looking for in depth combat systems, you probably won't like ES2. Combat is largely determined by the tactics you select before combat (you choose the range of your fleets and the respective boosts from that tactic) as well as the actual ship design. Certain weapons have certain effective ranges and effeciency against either shields or armour, which you can also adjust yourself.

It is not just another Stellaris, there are quite a few differences between the two.

Stellaris governments are largely static, unless you choose to change types. ES governments are a little more natural, determined by your own actions and choices.

Real time (stellaris) vs Turn based (ES)

Stellaris races are largely just passive +% with the only real "unique" mechanic being tied to the type of travel they use. ES has very unique factions with unique mechanics. Horatio can genesplice to make themselves better, Riftborn can tamper with time, Cravers deplete their planets and enslave populations for constant war and Empire buys things with influence. Certain government types also have unique boosts (laws), pacifists can force peace, scientists can research early, etc.

Overall, they are both 4x games. Aside from being in the "strategy" genre, they have nothing to do with AoE really. I would say that ES2 is the "better" game imo, it does more unique stuff and adds more to the genre in general.

[Chaos12Legion]

Originally posted by Varivox:

If you are looking for in depth combat systems, you probably won't like ES2. Combat is largely determined by the tactics you select before combat (you choose the range of your fleets and the respective boosts from that tactic) as well as the actual ship design. Certain weapons have certain effective ranges and effeciency against either shields or armour, which you can also adjust yourself.

It is not just another Stellaris, there are quite a few differences between the two.

Stellaris governments are largely static, unless you choose to change types. ES governments are a little more natural, determined by your own actions and choices.

Real time (stellaris) vs Turn based (ES)

Stellaris races are largely just passive +% with the only real "unique" mechanic being tied to the type of travel they use. ES has very unique factions with unique mechanics. Horatio can genesplice to make themselves better, Riftborn can tamper with time, Cravers deplete their planets and enslave populations for constant war and Empire buys things with influence. Certain government types also have unique boosts (laws), pacifists can force peace, scientists can research early, etc.

Overall, they are both 4x games. Aside from being in the "strategy" genre, they have nothing to do with AoE really. I would say that ES2 is the "better" game imo, it does more unique stuff and adds more to the genre in general.

While its not wrong I think I prefer Stellaris and view it as the better game... it adds more in terms of dynamic events, story into the blend. Im a 4x player who loves immersion, emerging story telling within them and watch my empire as it changes, evolves, decline, fall or rise trough time. While Endless Legend 1 and 2 has more focused civs in the sence of assymetrical mechanics tied to each faction. Stellaris is better at simulating an space empire due to its realtime and also political climate. Factions can break apart in the end game and form there own empires. The way the game treats end game dangers and also fallen empires is amazing something this game does not (yet) its just your factions nothing else Stellaris has depending on map size and numbers a few extra old stagnant super empires. However in terms of combat this game is a bit more fleshed out with a little bit more controll and a beautifull close up 3d visual side to that aspect. It reminds me of Galactic Civilization 1,2 and 3.

At the end of the day you cant go wrong with either Galactic Civilization 3, Stellaris or Endless Space 2. In fact they are all pretty awesome with there own focus, quirks and stuff. I prefer Stellaris myself but would not argue to much if you or others prefer Endless Space 2 its each to there own. For OP I can reccomend that beside this game here and since you already have Stellaris take a look at Galactic Civilization 3, and the new Master of Orion if you need more options. 4x (in this case beside stellaris more grand strategy style turn based strategy) has a plenty but if you buy this you wont go wrong either Endless Space 2 is a good game. In terms of combat itself I could suggest you to take a look at Empire at War and also Battlefleet Gothic if you want a more focused war game in terms of controll over units and such. If you need something more in depth I would go with the Nexus jupiter incident or maybe the new Battlestar Galactica game.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Patrikseve:

At the end of the day you cant go wrong with either Galactic Civilization 3, Stellaris or Endless Space 2.

I've been wary of GC3 ever since they made major arbitrary changes to the game like removing the planet wheel and introducing a penalty for "overspecializing" in a game that focuses mainly on it! The only thing that stands out in GC3 is the ship designer but even that gets stale after a while unless you're into aesthetic ship design.

As for lack of an end game challenge, it's something that many games suffer from in general. Because the AI doesn't think like a human, it seems that so called "late game challenges" are just arbitrarily created in an attempt to stop the human player. This might be enough to delay a veteran from winning but the main result is just to annoy the player simply because it's arbitrary. For example, Rome 2 Total War spawns a ton of rebel armies in your backyard during a civil war just to present a challenge. There's no logic in it especially when it happens despite the population being happy.

I think ES2 took a step in the right direction by refraining from introducing such arbitrary effects (apart from random events) and focusing more instead on moderation mechanics that serve their purpose, yet can be managed by the player, which helps retain late game interest. The perceived lack of a late game challenge here is not due to the game's design but the fact that most victory conditions are simply collect X amount of this or that. For example, the economic victory could be improved further by requiring the player to have several trade agreements at the same time on top of reaching the dust quota.

[Chaos12Legion]

Originally posted by twel70:

Originally posted by Patrikseve:

At the end of the day you cant go wrong with either Galactic Civilization 3, Stellaris or Endless Space 2.

I've been wary of GC3 ever since they made major arbitrary changes to the game like removing the planet wheel and introducing a penalty for "overspecializing" in a game that focuses mainly on it! The only thing that stands out in GC3 is the ship designer but even that gets stale after a while unless you're into aesthetic ship design.

I think ES2 took a step in the right direction by refraining from introducing such arbitrary effects (apart from random events) and focusing more instead on moderation mechanics that serve their purpose, yet can be managed by the player, which helps retain late game interest. The perceived lack of a late game challenge here is not due to the game's design but the fact that most victory conditions are simply collect X amount of this or that. For example, the economic victory could be improved further by requiring the player to have several trade agreements at the same time on top of reaching the dust quota.

Yes I came back to gal civ 3 with the crusader expansion and I liked it... for me though its just a little tad mechanical and static. But I still like the franchise. Total War is a fav but Rome 2 had some missteps the political system and civil war was one. For me that has to do mainly with how poorly it leads up to it and is explained. I think Stellaris does a better jobb with that and helps you better understand why people are angry or why they rebell etc.

For your second point this I think is a point of preference... I love dynamic and suprising elements to my games. This is the reason I loved the snow storm mechanic in Company of Heroes 2 while other hated it... introduces seemingly random non controllable aspects to it. I love these aspects make the game more organic, interesting, a bit assymetrical and third party threats in that case nature, and to me more engaging. This to make a point about different 4x players is important. Some play to win, I honestly dont. I play to experience and follow the emerging stories of my empire. It doesnt matter if it crumble as long as its interesting fun. Some of my most enjoyable times in Stellaris has been when my empire grew to big splintered and entered prolonged civil wars, while an Ai unleashed well Ai or other end game threats that occured. The way that forced alliances... destroyed my place as leader in the galaxy and how it shaped the post end game crisis what so satisfying to engage with. I love random encounters to of course they spice the game make the world or universe feel alive and vibrant this is important to me but less so for others.

And I think this makes for a good point that many of us play games for various reasons and none of whom are wrong. I usually have this discussion with Civilization fans (Im also a long time player of that franchise). Where we sometimes discuss if Civ might have gone to far to a board game structure, more mechanical and less dynamic and less emerging story telling. This is because it to me atleast has been a good blend of both mechanical and emerging story telling. So not to go out of topic. I wish to finish with saying I understand what you mean. I might disagree but thats because Im more into the very systems you in return dislike a bit whom I also can understand due to how they impact the game and can be crippling to the experience if winning or not being defeated is the goal etc or for any other reason. And its an interesting topic and it showcases the various ways 4x/grand strategy and or rts and or many other genres strategy gamers engage with the content and what they prefer and more.

[KatArus]

ES2 is a 4X specifically crafted for casuals, around Civilization 5 Beyond Earth level of complexity. It seems to be packed with 9000 things but neither of those have deep or even tangible 'strategic' effect whatsoever and even combat is not interactive. It plays more or less like HOMM3 with quick combat on and has a gazillion quests to maintain illusion that something is going on. It works very well as a space opera though - despite marketing as 4x it concentrates on a story-driven internal national struggles rather than expansion and international war which annihilates immersion. E.g. there is a lot of United Empire vs Cravers art but there are no actual in-game events when both are in the game and you play either of them.

[Elliott]

Originally posted by KatArus:

ES2 is a 4X specifically crafted for casuals, around Civilization 5 Beyond Earth level of complexity. It seems to be packed with 9000 things but neither of those have deep or even tangible 'strategic' effect whatsoever and even combat is not interactive. It plays more or less like HOMM3 with quick combat on and has a gazillion quests to maintain illusion that something is going on. It works very well as a space opera though - despite marketing as 4x it concentrates on a story-driven internal national struggles rather than expansion and international war which annihilates immersion. E.g. there is a lot of United Empire vs Cravers art but there are no actual in-game events when both are in the game and you play either of them.

The quests focus on internal issues yes it would be difficult to make quests that would depend on certain external conditions being present I remember Endless Legend had some quests that would pick a random place you needed to conquer to procced and it would be some far flung corner of the map nowhere near you or in the heartland of your new allys nation making the quest alot more difficult than I think was intended.

In my experience theres plenty of expansion and international war going on as there is in most 4x games its just augumented by the quest system. I recently faced a situation as the Sophons where my allies were requesting help on multiple fronts from craver invasions while the opportunistic Lumeris were besieging one of my northern systems. Unknown to all of them was that the Sophons were somewhat preoccupied with trying to stop their supercomputer from causing galactic war.

It felt like a high stakes situation and the way the in game events were coinciding with the quest was very cool.

[frank2351]

It's more like Civilisations than it is like AoE. Turn based empire building.

[Charlie Canyon]

It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. The original was much better.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Patrikseve:

For your second point this I think is a point of preference... I love dynamic and suprising elements to my games. This is the reason I loved the snow storm mechanic in Company of Heroes 2 while other hated it... introduces seemingly random non controllable aspects to it. I love these aspects make the game more organic, interesting, a bit assymetrical and third party threats in that case nature, and to me more engaging. This to make a point about different 4x players is important. Some play to win, I honestly dont. I play to experience and follow the emerging stories of my empire. It doesnt matter if it crumble as long as its interesting fun. Some of my most enjoyable times in Stellaris has been when my empire grew to big splintered and entered prolonged civil wars, while an Ai unleashed well Ai or other end game threats that occured. The way that forced alliances... destroyed my place as leader in the galaxy and how it shaped the post end game crisis what so satisfying to engage with. I love random encounters to of course they spice the game make the world or universe feel alive and vibrant this is important to me but less so for others.

I think there's a difference between random elements and arbitrarily chosen late game mechanics that try to present a challenge. The thing about such mechanics is because they're arbitrary, there's the question of how much testing was done with them so that they present a challenge without breaking the game. I've beaten civil war and realm divide in TW, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed the experience because of how it doesn't make sense. I remember many players even complaining that allies would easily betray them simply because realm divide happened in S2TW.

I do play to win but enjoyability of the process is just as important to me. Having a random snowstorm is one thing, having enemy armies spawn in your backyard overnight over an arbitrarily decided late game challenge mechanic that could nullify your hours of hard earned progress is another. Such late game "checks" should instead be addressed by a mix of moderation mechanics that scale with your progress and challenging victory conditions imo. The only reason why arbitrary late game challenge mechanics were included in TW is because TW games lack natural moderation mechanics that you see in ES2 or other 4x games. Granted 4x games are not immune to late game steamrolling, but I can see that efforts were put into ES2 to address this issue. What would make the game even better would be more challenging non-military victory conditions as mentioned.

But I get your point that you don't play to win and just enjoy the process. To each his own I guess lol.

Originally posted by KatArus:

ES2 is a 4X specifically crafted for casuals, around Civilization 5 Beyond Earth level of complexity. It seems to be packed with 9000 things but neither of those have deep or even tangible 'strategic' effect whatsoever and even combat is not interactive. It plays more or less like HOMM3 with quick combat on and has a gazillion quests to maintain illusion that something is going on. It works very well as a space opera though - despite marketing as 4x it concentrates on a story-driven internal national struggles rather than expansion and international war which annihilates immersion. E.g. there is a lot of United Empire vs Cravers art but there are no actual in-game events when both are in the game and you play either of them.

"Casuals" is relative. If you compare this to Paradox grand strategy, then of course it's "casual". But compare this to a simple shooter game, then it's not. It sounds like your gripe isn't about how deep the game is but that it doesn't suit your preferred style of all out warfare and nothing else.

[Dakelh]

Alright, thanks everyone for the detailed info! it has definitely helped a lot.

I'll check all the recommendations too - except Battlefleet Gothic, that game was horrible haha