First dev diary, on the economy: https://community.amplitude-studios.com/amplitude-studios/endless-legend-2/blogs/967-economy-dev-diary-1

Unsurprisingly, an evolution of what they had done with EL and Humankind, but also with some influence from ES2. Looks interesting. On paper, I quite liked Humankind's econ system. In practice, I can't quite pin down why it was somewhat less than the theory suggested. To me it felt like you were just building too much stuff, most of which didn't matter that much, Which may be linked to the the yields snowballing way too heavily. Those adjacency bonuses could stack up hard once you add improvements and techs to it.

From that perspective, limiting improvements to one per quarter and allowing standard foundations to exploit all yields of all surrounding tiles could be positive first steps.


Anyway, what I'd hope for EL2 is that they evolve the quests and story building and characterisation from the predecessor. It's something that HK sorely missed, despite being generally superior in most mechanical respects (imo anyway). Give me memorable opponents and a reason why I should care about winning please!

Originally posted by melkathi:

The Pantheon is annoyingly underdeveloped and shows a disconnect between developers and their game:

AoW4's base story has two factions. And this is something that has always been part of the AoW story arcs - in AoW2 we had the conspirators who were overthrowing Gabriel.
In AoW4 it is The Covenant and the Sha'drai. When you play a story mission, you know which side you are on. It would be easy to create two tags and have the godir who ascend from these missions receive the respective tags.
Then, the game could check these tags and not have ascended godir of opposing factions offer to join you as heroes. And for those appearing as rulers it could simply give a +-100 on initial relations.
Godir ascending from non-story missions could have a neutral tag. Expansions could add an Urrath tag.

The Pantheon would become a real pantheon with relationships between the various members.

It wouldn't be hard, as it would be very simple checks with very simple effects.

And it is annoying because the story realms have this in their stories. It is right there in the game screaming "Add me into gameplay!"

Those are good suggestions and not too difficult to implement. Yes, I guess there are more simple things that the devs could do with the pantheon system that could improve immersion and maybe progression.


On mods, I found them to result in a lot of un-fun micromanagement. Customising my own units? Ok yeah, that can be fun. But then also keeping track of what everyone else is doing, for every unit you'll encounter, is a lot of work, busywork imo. And there are a LOT of mods, some of which given powerful new abilities and not just stats boosts.

What might work a little better for me is if there was some additional cost to creating a new unit template (building a proto-type), or a limit to how many unit variations you can have. But overall I quite like the system in AoW 4. The main downside to me is there is basically never a reason to not cast an enhancement spell. Yes, it comes with mana upkeep but you just factor that into resource planning. If units could only have x number of enhancements (with maybe ways to increase it) that may result in more interesting choices.

It's a gradient. Of course, 100% full-on novelty is pretty rare these days, given the accumulated total of human knowledge in all sorts of fields in general, and the diversity of genres and sub-genres in gaming in particular. There are still unique twists on existing formulas or combinations that weren't there. But you can literally always find elements in precursor games.

For Civ VII, well, it's hard to see big changes that were done similarly in other games before, like Civ switching, more clustered outward city expansion, economy without workers, influence as a diplomatic resource, etc. Maybe it improves on how these work or brings them together better. The historic and constant leaders with (maybe) more defined personalities, and the conditions for civ switching could make it "feel" better than in HK, even it's still the same basic premise. For now, I'll follow Magneto's motto: "In chess, the pawns go first."

Originally posted by Tragic:

Originally posted by Shadowhal:

Mostly driven by lots of noisy and whiny steam posters who threw a temper tantrum from not being able play god emperor when it came to war

sounds like modern gamers to me... games companies need to trust their vision more and stop listening to the minority voices that are the loudest. Social media has monetised negative commentary and two entire generations of kids are now unable to talk about anything without speaking in negatives.

Damn kids ... need to get off my lawn ... in my days, that wouldn't have happened ... grumpy grumpy.

Jokes aside, I agree. Fan feedback can be valuable and a developer would be silly to ignore it completely, especially if it points to some very obvious flaws (bugs, tech issues, strategy game AI, etc.). But separating the noise from the signal and balancing all with remaining true to the vision is quite a skill I think.

For what it's worth, the recent beta update dropped as full release today. Mostly focused on changing war resolution. That wasn't a problem that needed solving in my view. Mostly driven by lots of noisy and whiny steam posters who threw a temper tantrum from not being able play god emperor when it came to war (plus maybe some edge cases). But the changes preserve the spirit of the original system and don't make it worse either for me.

Now, I wonder if that's it or whether more is coming. Bit more immersion would be nice. Addressing snowballing tile yields would also be nice but seems unlikely, if they didn't manage to nail it since start (and I can't be bothered to actually finish games anyway).

Even though I was traditionally quite the Civ fan, I'm not feeling much towards this one. And the overall design philosophy actually speaks to me in seeking to streamline pointless busywork, splitting the larger game up and making the end game more interesting.

Part of it is me. But part of it is also that I kinda lost trust in Firaxis to create a product that works from the start. I just couldn't get over how bad the AI was in VI, even later into the development cycle. And some of the interface issues. It seems they have learned little from that and I just no longer want to accept that they can't be bothered to do something that groups of engaged modders have obviously been able to do for a while now. Didn't help that they got pretty greedy with the pricing and early DLC on VII now.

I'll revisit in a year or two when it's had more time to bake and maybe the price/content point is more reasonable. Heck, maybe it will be available on a more convenient platform to enjoy it on (though that would mean losing out on mods.)

Good news. I liked FE:LH. A different take on a fantasy 4X with tactical combat.

Not sure what my wish list for the game would be. I find that the game starts to drag towards mid game and tilts towards an obvious victory earlier (in relation to official victory conditions) than other 4X games. I don't think I finished a single game as a result of that, outside one or two campaign scenarios. Again not sure what the right solution would be.
--- Pulling victory conditions forward, so that you can achieve them earlier? Maybe, but the quest victory should be possible early-ish, if you have a high-powered enough arm.
--- Making the AI better in defensive warfare? Again maybe, but I felt that they boosted it a good bit later in the development cycle. And maybe it's not a bad thing if the AI empires find it hard to recover after 1 or 2 serious battle losses. It wouldn't exactly be unrealistic.
--- Maybe just tighter design and less stuff overall?

Otherwise, I'd welcome additional faction diversity. It wasn't great that factions had 1-2 unique units, at most, and the rest was a unit-builder with maybe some modifier traits for the faction. (I probably wouldn't mind scrapping the unit creator altogether for unique units. I don't like those systems. But it was done fairly well in FE/LH, so something similar would be ok.)

The cut-out dynasty system sounds like something from Crusader Kings or Old World. That could make for an interesting addition. Might help to have templates of games that have implemented it to varying degrees.

They could probably tidy up and make it more systematic where spells come from. Even with experience in it, it was still confusing that some spells came from research and others from skill unlocks. What I did like a lot was how the shards on the map amplify some spells. It ties lore, strategic play and sometimes tactical play together.

Speaking of which, I think faction-specific main quests as in the Endless Universe would work very well for the game, I think. In a lot of interactions, there are hints to a larger game mythology, but in most games we don't get to see much of it. The game had a campaign. Maybe I should have played it more. But there are other ways how to infuse personality and immersion into your sandbox too.

There are probably a lot more thoughts, but that's what came to mind for now.

Well, in EL 1 the Roving Clans couldn't even declare war and the Drakken's unique ability was to enforce diplomatic states. So making EL1 uniquely about 100% isn't quite accurate, but you are certainly free to pursue it as such. I tend to agree that a casus belli mechanism works less well in an EL world than it does in pure human-human interactions and some historic settings.

As for casus belli and war management systems being generally bad in 4X games, we'll probably have to agree to disagree on that. Even your stylised example doesn't work that poorly for me. (I'm assuming 1-20 refers to turns?) The moment someone denounces you, for whatever reason, it's really your own fault for not being prepare for a war.

Why? Because it seems like a cheapo tactic to pretend to be friends and then exploit the weakness. Yes, sure, "then don't do it". But it cuts both ways. In such a system, if the AI declares war for no reason, it will have to deal with the consequences. That can be worth it but can equally be a risky gamble.

Bottom line, it's a system to increase the usefulness of diplomatic play. A nice one for those interested in diplomacy, a nuisance for those who feel at home in grim-dark universes.

Well, the game doesn't directly stop you from going to war. You do get heavy penalties. The most inflexible part is in being able to keep what you conquered.

I think casus belli is a useful system to nudge the player to signal intent towards the AI and make unpredictable back-stabs harder. It doesn't sit right with me that I can just attack a faction that I have been friends with for dozens of turns for no reason other than "because I can and it benefits me" and not have any consequences (beyond other factions being unhappy with me).

I personally appreciate the need for the careful planning and focused wars that the system requires but can also see how it's not for some people. What may have struck a more palatable balance for some is if, upon being able to force the surrender, you can dip into "negative" war score and get the points needed to keep those cities. It will still come with the heavy stability penalty of dragging out an already won war and won't help much if you had limited score to begin with. But it would be more flexible and present interesting trade-offs. Though it sounds like you prefer that system to be binned altogether.

What are you wishes for features from Humankind that you'd like to see in a possible EL2?
(Given the different themes, asking what we don't want to see ported makes less sense but can still be valid.)

For me:
- the bigger flexibility in which units can take in battles was an improvement on EL. For the battle itself, I'd probably be ok with either system. I liked both, they have different strengths and weaknesses.
- The regions and attachments system had its charms. I wouldn't mind seeing it return.
- I liked that units were fixed and not customisable but that seems much harder to transpose, so I'm not getting my hopes up.
- Something like the neolithic period. A few turns to just explore the landscape around you and not being forced (or even able) to found your capital right away. Or maybe for some factions but not others.
- Similar for the grievance and war weariness systems. I liked how they worked but they make less immersive sense in a game with so much more diverse factions.
- Maybe the more fleshed out independent peoples/ minor factions? A synthesis of the systems, retaining the treaties from HK with the unique units and perks from the endless series.


What I'd like to see retained in a form closer to EL:
- Tech dials, or things other than a single strict tech tree.
- Policies/doctrines that require influence upkeep. The ES2 system was neat. Not that HK' policies were bad.
- Faction diversity, of course. And narratively interesting faction quests with a path to victory!
- More interesting events.
- Ocean fortresses and sea tile effects.


Any other thoughts?