ESG Game Speed

[Casper]

Does the ESG mod make the game a LOT faster for other players? In the vanilla game on higher difficulties the AI can win around turn 150, but I regularly find myself losing to pacifist win conditions around 80 while playing ESG.

[Groo the one]

I think it doesn't have any impact on solving the win conditions faster for AI, in case you make use of ESG mod. But I could imagine, the chosen game speed is set to fast by default in case of ESG mod (as long as the multiplayer community around the mod prefers faster games from what I remember).
In ES2 vanilla it should be set to normal game speed by default.

Edit: You can switch game speed in new game lobby, before starting game.

[Gedeonn]

ESG really speeds up the game a lot. Experienced multiplayer players finish the game by turn 55 (fast speed)

[clop1000]

Can you recommend this mod though?
Does it add balance to the game?

[Tat011]

Originally posted by clop1000:

Can you recommend this mod though?
Does it add balance to the game?

yes, It makes the gama actually playable

[Casper]

Originally posted by clop1000:

Can you recommend this mod though?
Does it add balance to the game?

There are many factions and play styles that just dont work in the base game. This game does a great job making them all competitive (At least when used by a player).

[Freny]

ESG Mod does make the game "play" faster like Gedeoonn says, easier when compared to Vanilla, which is already easy because there is basically no AI whatsoever. The AI builds random stuff so they can't compete in the end. They are also not aggressive outside of expansion (you can pretty much skip the military quadrant without much consequences which sums it up).

The Mod is great, they reworked many things to lessen the galaxy generation random and tried to "help" some races so that they are all at least viable. They also added some fun things, like being able to build merc ships. Overall it is a good mod for multiplayer. For single player the game is already easy enough without adding more layers of easiness, but it is not the mod's fault that the vision and/or capabilities or the ES2 devs stopped at the races' creation and the galaxy generation tool, so that by the time you reach your colonization limit there is nothing left to do because they didn't code anything beyond expansion for AI.

If they were to release documentation about the AI, I'm sure people would try to fix the AI side of things.

[clop1000]

Does it work with disabled inflation?

[Tat011]

esg tweaks inflation to make it less of a pain, thing is tho i asked the lead dev and you can't actually disable inflation entirely, no inflation aparently doesn't cover some areas (it should work with esg btw just load it after)

[Casper]

Disabling inflation would just be a huge nerf for economic focused factions. Your best bet is to just not play against economic factions to keep inflation down.

[Tat011]

wut no its the oposite

[Tat011]

factions that focus on other things dont have that thing become less valuable as time goes on

[Casper]

Originally posted by Tat011:

factions that focus on other things dont have that thing become less valuable as time goes on

Economic factions that generate a great deal of dust increase inflation over time, but this impacts them less because they are the ones generating it and have plenty to spare. When you aren't making as much dust and another empire is making a TON suddenly you aren't going to be able to afford anything because inflation is taking much bigger of a cut.

[Tat011]

it still impacts them significantly lol, try playing vanilla lumeris were they dont have stacks upon stacks of inflation/buyout cost reduction (also if you have plenty of money to spare you're playing wrong, especially as lumeris), also if youre getting rekt by inflation you're not lumeris and as such dont care that much since your economy runs on something else

[Freny]

Disabling inflation is a nerf for Lumeris, it is their economic weapon.

ESG latest version tinkered with Markets in 2 ways: 1) the resources market stock gets replenished quicker so you can actually buy luxuries and strategics more reliably; and, 2) The AI sells resources they don't use instead of hoarding them, which floods the market lowering the prices, so if you are playing vs AI the cheese tactic of selling everything as way of dust generation is greatly reduced, which is a good thing.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Originally posted by Tat011:

it still impacts them significantly lol, try playing vanilla lumeris were they dont have stacks upon stacks of inflation/buyout cost reduction (also if you have plenty of money to spare you're playing wrong, especially as lumeris), also if youre getting rekt by inflation you're not lumeris and as such dont care that much since your economy runs on something else

Lumeris literally have tech and traits that reduce the Inflation impact on them.

You might as well be arguing that war significantly impacts Cravers because creating and maintaining ships is so expensive.

Conflict in Endless Space 2, be it all out war or economic manipulation, all carries a cost. The Lumeris aren't supposed to get a free ride with inflation, they're simply supposed to be hurt by it less because as Freny said, it's their weapon, it's their method of waging war.

I'm sure if you play with basically just military-related victory conditions enabled, you don't know how powerful economic factions really are, but economic victories are about the only ones the AI can reliably pull so you kind of just make the game easier on yourself by disabling them.