Endless Space 4x-All

mastrude wrote:
Lars wrote:

So, who would be interested in trying to get a multiplayer game going? I'd like to try and get one started next week. I work weekends, so I'm looking for people that are available to play midweek (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), starting anytime from about 8:00 PM EST and after. I'd like to try and play at least once a week. Any interest/takers?

I am interested. Sent you (I think) a friend request.

Yep, received and accepted. Since it looks like you are the only one interested, what night would you like to give it a shot? I work Wednesday night this week, but I'm available Tuesday or Thursday night. Let me know.

Thanks for the hint on increasing hero capacity. Amazing how much they help a system.

PAR

Lars wrote:
mastrude wrote:
Lars wrote:

So, who would be interested in trying to get a multiplayer game going? I'd like to try and get one started next week. I work weekends, so I'm looking for people that are available to play midweek (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), starting anytime from about 8:00 PM EST and after. I'd like to try and play at least once a week. Any interest/takers?

I am interested. Sent you (I think) a friend request.

Yep, received and accepted. Since it looks like you are the only one interested, what night would you like to give it a shot? I work Wednesday night this week, but I'm available Tuesday or Thursday night. Let me know.

Just to let you know, all last weekend we were doing multiplayer games of this. We might be continuing said game tonight (or starting another since in my opinion the AI kinda beat us there doubling the second place in some of those scores). Ventrillo is where we usually meet up and do stuff (http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/2...). I think tonight is 6-6:30 start time and end time before midnight I can only hope.

Complex wrote:
Lars wrote:
mastrude wrote:
Lars wrote:

So, who would be interested in trying to get a multiplayer game going? I'd like to try and get one started next week. I work weekends, so I'm looking for people that are available to play midweek (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), starting anytime from about 8:00 PM EST and after. I'd like to try and play at least once a week. Any interest/takers?

I am interested. Sent you (I think) a friend request.

Yep, received and accepted. Since it looks like you are the only one interested, what night would you like to give it a shot? I work Wednesday night this week, but I'm available Tuesday or Thursday night. Let me know.

Just to let you know, all last weekend we were doing multiplayer games of this. We might be continuing said game tonight (or starting another since in my opinion the AI kinda beat us there doubling the second place in some of those scores). Ventrillo is where we usually meet up and do stuff (http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/2...). I think tonight is 6-6:30 start time and end time before midnight I can only hope.

I'd love to join tonight, but with family stuff to do, I don't have time to get involved in a game until later.

So, what use is influence other than to see "borders"?

I kept trying to find a GalCiv option that would let me convert other race's systems due to them being well within my empire's influence and I couldn't find any such thing.

Also, is there any kind of espionage?

I also noticed, that EVERY TIME a race asked to ally with me, as soon as I hit the "ok" button I am immediately in a war lol (happened at least 6 times to me). I guess that's really the only time to be an ally eh?

PAR

par wrote:

Also, is there any kind of espionage?

Heroes have some high level abilities that do espionage-like things. Stealing dust from a friendly system was one I remember seeing.

par wrote:

So, what use is influence other than to see "borders"?

I've found that the main use is controlling unsettled systems. The system is a bit buggy, as I've had to wait 20-30 turns to colonize an unclaimed system that used to be controlled by another race but shifted to my control - deep into my control. The Horatio are particularly good at it, so it's possible that it's involved in victory somehow (I haven't read the manual or the wiki yet).

I also noticed, that EVERY TIME a race asked to ally with me, as soon as I hit the "ok" button I am immediately in a war lol (happened at least 6 times to me). I guess that's really the only time to be an ally eh? :P

Correct - I go for cooperation agreements, which don't involve going to war.

Quick question: I scanned the manual and also the tech tree fairly quickly so I might have missed it, but is there any way to heal units when not in combat? What I've been doing currently is if I'm going to overwhelm whatever enemy I'm fighting I always set my melee phase to nano repair in order to repair any damage taken during a battle. However, that's the only solution I've found so far.

Fleets at colonies repair some percentage per turn. I *think* it has to be colonies (not outposts) for this to happen. You can research techs to increase the repair rate. Also, there is a ship component that provides fleet repair both in battle and when not in combat (no need to be at a colony for if ships with this component are in the fleet). Look under support components for it - you do need a tech for it.

Okay cool, I'll check it out when I get home today. Thanks!

So I've been fooling around with this game, and finally figured it out well enough to get a really strong start, and then all this "random" bad stuff starts happening to me.

The most recent one cuts all my speeds in half. In HALF. And it's been in place for a long time.

Is this permanent? I think I'm going to bag that civ if it is. The glacial speed of moving around is just unbearable.

I think random events last for 20 turns.

So, after playing a couple games with Endless Space I have a few observations.

  1. Very impressed that this is an Indie developer. The game is polished and the UI is done very professionally. Hats of to them! And the game was all done on the Unity Engine. I wish I knew what they used for their UI...
  2. I have played a couple multiplayer games and single player games and by far the multiplayer is "funner".
  3. If I had my choice between this game and MOO2 or GalCiv2 and I am only looking at playing a single player game, I would pick the other games. There just isn't a huge amount of depth to the game compared to those others.
  4. The actual battles are lame. This is my own opinion but for a conquest game this system is just annoying.
  5. Because of #1 above, you can tell the difference between this game and other games in this 4X category. Although the dev's did a good job balancing, there are a lot of things that are missing in the game in the overall enjoyment such as full blown espionage, influence wars, ship designing/configuring (GalCiv), race differences (all races end up being the same about mid-way through the game due to tech) and others.

With all that said, due to its multiplayer capability and the supposed longevity of the game and its development, I am happy w/ my purchase and really hope that they can embellish the feature set a bit more in the future. I will continue to play multiplayer sessions with friends but honestly only because MOO2's multiplayer code was horrible when it was made (all those years ago) and GalCiv2 has no multiplayer mode. As for single player games, I'll stick with GalCiv2 for my time

PAR

I'm not having a lot of fun with this. I've played five or six games, and I keep losing on Normal difficulty within 100 turns or less. Doesn't seem to matter what I do. The AI has twice my score by turn 50 and their fleets outnumber mine ten to one (and with MUCH better combat tech) by turn 100. There seems to be some critical factor that is eluding me. If I focus on defense and combat tech, I don't expand quickly enough, and my economy can't keep up. If I expand more quickly, I am crippled by unhappiness - the tech and hero bonuses aren't enough to compensate. Even with all-out expansion, I can't keep up with the AI juggernauts.

At least I can fend off pirates.

Aetius wrote:
I also noticed, that EVERY TIME a race asked to ally with me, as soon as I hit the "ok" button I am immediately in a war lol (happened at least 6 times to me). I guess that's really the only time to be an ally eh? :P

Correct - I go for cooperation agreements, which don't involve going to war.

Check your race's research. I know in the amoeba's west tree (Diplomacy and Trading) there is one that gives trade and approval for each co-operative (This is Amoeba only, all other trees have bonus to defense and trade for allied partners), then there is another that gives +25 approval per alliance on system, -10 approval per number of wars on system, +10% Industry per number of allies on system, and +5% science per number of allies on system. That is the Perfect Negotiations that cost 14K research. If your in an 8 player game and are able to ally with 3-4 other players, the sheer amount of bonuses it gives is daunting. The cooperative one isnt half bad either except that it is a star system improvement instead of a global effect like the diplomacy. It gives +10 per cooperation treaty on start system +10% trade route dust per cooperative treaty and a -5 dust cost for it. In the current multi with Jam, Xeknos, Nimcosi, and Gaald I have cooperative agreements with every race (even the one that jam, xeknos, and nimcosi are working to destroy). I have that star system improvement on alot of systems making my empire pretty ridiculously happy. Jam, Xek, and Nim formed an alliance midway in and invited an AI player (I think the AI bribed Jam to be in it). At the moment I think Jam is purposely trying to make sure me and gaald don't get invited in due to us being amoeba (Speciesist I tell you!) Of course it doesn't help that me and Jam have close borders and he has been making "Jokingly" remarks about invading my empire since I didn't build military. But back on topic, cooperative gives a nice trade boost, but allies can give extremely large boosts as well, and I think being in an alliance with all surviving species is a win scenario. before creating an alliance with another empire, use the diplomacy screen to see if they are at war with anyone or soon will be. When you go to the screen and click another empire, you see their relationship status with every race YOU have seen. So if there is still a race you have not met, they could be at war with them and you will never know until you take the plunge.

It's been a while since I played a turn-based strategy game so the pace of the game frustrates me a bit. Because the turnaround on constructions or research can go for 5+ turns, I feel like there should be more to tinker with. Granted I'm only on turn 25 or so and only playing a handful of turns each night. Feels like I'm playing a PBEM game* sometimes with this pace.

*anyone remember VGA Planets?

Complex, that all makes sense, except for one issue - I've never been offered an alliance by a race that wasn't at war. That could be an artifact of playing single player, or of playing my particular race, which is designed to be played peacefully. In fact, the fact that playing peacefully is even realistically possible in the game is a big plus in my book, because previous games like MOO2 made every AI player eventually become a backstabbing jerk with no real consequences. Anyway, I found the cooperation agreement to be a good way of cementing the peace without having to get involved in wars.

I just read Rob's review, and was quite disappointed. He focused on only the one aspect of the game, and missed some actual serious issues, like the weapon balance problem and the cease fire bug. I also think people romanticize some of the earlier games like MOO and MOO2, which if you go back and play now have even less atmosphere and world-building than Endless Space.

BadKen - you must expand quickly, so it's best to stick with that - just try to choose good planets with zero to low happiness penalties and beneficial anomalies, and leave the happiness killers until you've got the tech to handle it. As far as happiness goes, the race I play with is designed to run with 0-20% taxes, so I rarely have happiness issues that can't be resolved quickly. Do note that some of the happiness techs are a double bonus; for example, Unlimited Information Highways is +30 happiness, and a 40% drop in overpopulation disapproval. You can focus on colonizing or trading for luxuries that help with happiness, like Bluecap Mold; 4 of those will net you a 20% increase in approval empire-wide. Finally, check your food supply - not having enough food really makes the population angry, and it usually results from settling less desireable planets, which makes it a double hit.

Maclintok wrote:

It's been a while since I played a turn-based strategy game so the pace of the game frustrates me a bit. Because the turnaround on constructions or research can go for 5+ turns, I feel like there should be more to tinker with. Granted I'm only on turn 25 or so and only playing a handful of turns each night. Feels like I'm playing a PBEM game* sometimes with this pace.

There really isn't that much to do as there's not a lot of micro-management in the game. If you want to really fine-tune your systems you can move population around until you've optimized their setup. Construction will speed up, particularly if you have a hero with a construction bonus. Otherwise I'd just click through the turns and deal with issues as they come up.

Hey Veloxi, I know you said that you're not into multiplayer, write-ups with screenshots for multiplayer matches with friends (i.e. Goodjers) would make for some compelling reading. Just sayin'

+1 to what Aetius said about expansion + happiness.

Here's my usual first ~50 turns:

1) Explore, explore, explore! Always keep that scout moving!
2) Don't research the colonization tree off the bat. Instead, I see what the best (Terran, ocean or jungle) food planets are in my constellation (I usually play 4-spiral maps with 3 AIs).
3) Colonize all the good planets. Set exploitation on them to the food one. Next up is the +10 industry system improvement.
4) Then research the colonization tree, making a bee-line to wormhole travel.
5) While doing this, colonize my side of any wormholes.
6) Once wormhole travel is discovered, scout the center, colonizing any systems that either have good food planets (Terran, ocean, or jungle) or the best food planet in a system that ends a wormhole to another constellation. The goal is to bottle up the other guys as much as possible. Sometimes it works, sometimes I have to share the center with the AI.

At this point, my colonization targets are resource planets, starting with the strategic resources (the purple ones). I try to get an abundance of each (4 or more); colonizing a planet with a resource gives the planet a boost but having an abundance gives a boost to the entire empire. Plus strategic resources are required for more advanced ships.

Food is vitally important; the more the better. Once you get a system fully colonized, it is less important of course and you can re-purpose the food generator in a system for something else. Plus more advanced techs make even lava planets food producers.

Regardless, my strategy is always to colonize but with a purpose, whether it be to bottle up the other players or to gain resources I need. So I don't think expansion just to expand is all that smart. Always have a reason for colonizing a system; either it has something you want or it has something you don;t want the other guys to get.

Same with system improvements, only build what you need and what supports the role that system has in your empire. Read the text on the improvements; a lot of them are only applicable in certain circumstances. Get all systems possible churning out research via Industry -> research (or Dust, as needed) or ships.

Lars wrote:

"So, who would be interested in trying to get a multiplayer game going? I'd like to try and get one started next week. I work weekends, so I'm looking for people that are available to play midweek (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), starting anytime from about 8:00 PM EST and after. I'd like to try and play at least once a week. Any interest/takers?

Since it looks like you are the only one interested, what night would you like to give it a shot? I work Wednesday night this week, but I'm available Tuesday or Thursday night. Let me know."

I am up for it any night starting tonight (Tuesday.) However I haven't been able to connect to Ventrilo. Is the connection information still correct? (v22.darkstarlic.com, port 4018) If anyone would like to help me with this, please send me an email. Poked a hole in my firewall for port 4018, but not connecting.

tboon wrote:

2) Don't research the colonization tree off the bat. Instead, I see what the best (Terran, ocean or jungle) food planets are in my constellation (I usually play 4-spiral maps with 3 AIs).

And if there aren't any Terran, Ocean or Jungle in your constellation? Maybe I'm just very unlucky.

BadKen wrote:
tboon wrote:

2) Don't research the colonization tree off the bat. Instead, I see what the best (Terran, ocean or jungle) food planets are in my constellation (I usually play 4-spiral maps with 3 AIs).

And if there aren't any Terran, Ocean or Jungle in your constellation? Maybe I'm just very unlucky.

Maybe so. Every game I've played has had at least 3 of them in my constellation. But I think if I hadn't found at least one in the first 10 or so turns, I would bee-line for the 2nd tier food exploitation tech and settle for arid/tundra worlds (after picking up the appropriate techs of course). Not as productive at first but they can be turned into big food makers too with some help. The other planet types will not be good food producers until much later in the game and should only be colonized in the early game for special purposes (like wormhole ends or to claim rich resource systems) and then you have to realize that they won't be very useful until later in the game.

I'm going to have a go at a game report. Hopefully it'll turn out to be exciting, or at least educational for those struggling with the early game.

Setup is normal difficulty, large Spiral-4 galaxy, no pirates, 3 AIs and me. I'm playing a custom race in which I took a double helping of bonus to planet size and bonus to system happiness. I'm going to favor a rapid expansion approach, then hold the line while I consolidate a tech/resource advantage, and then bully folks and probably go for an economic victory because I've never tried it. I have disabled the wonder victory option for this game (the one from the bottom tree; it's just too easy to do and I don't want the AI to pursue it).

I began by looking at my initial crop of heroes, and was pleased to find two with the Administrator trait, including one with the coveted Administrator/Corporate combo. I jacked my tax rate up to make sure I'd have 20 dust on turn 2, and started research on Fusion Plants in order to boost my production. I then sent my colony ship to a nearby white star, as it has the best chance of having an easily colonized planet. I found a system entirely populated with Tundras, so continued to explore with my 2 starting ships. Unfortunately I didn't have the best of luck and couldn't find anything to set up a colony on; here's the initial map after some early exploration:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/01-BR1.jpg)

There are a couple systems of decent size, but nothing I can colonize yet. Not such a hot start. I was getting worried that this game was going to be a complete wash, when I stumbled upon this little gem:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/02-BR1.jpg)

I promptly settled that little beauty, and hired the second Administrator hero and sent him to the new system. Meanwhile I had been researching the basic cash tech and research tech, and now switched to learning to colonize Tundra and Arid planets, so that I could start claiming additional systems.

I finished scouting the area, and here's how the map looked in my corner of the galaxy, now able to colonize both Tundra and Arid:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/03-BR1.jpg)

None of the systems boast any particularly great planetary anomalies or combinations, but at least I have several solar systems with 4+ planets. I switched my research towards the first happiness tech, knowing that I was about to colonize heavily and would soon be needing it. Around this time my first hero hit level 4, which brings me to an important tip. Always build your early Administrators in the following order: Labor, Flat Industry, Labor. This will greatly boost your early game speed, and opens up the Crop Geneticist ability at level 5:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/04-BR1.jpg)

Once you have a flat industry, flat food, and flat happiness upgrade, your hero will be an absolute monster at kickstarting systems. The moment I colonized my third system, I relocated my first hero to there, and then when I colonized a fourth system I moved my second hero over to there. Any systems I colonize after that, if a hero can't be spared, then I purchase their first food exploitation upgrade for them to get them going quickly. Whenever you colonize a new system, your first build is always a food exploitation unless you have a double flat food upgraded hero that you're instantly going to assign there.

Steam seems to have lost a few screenshots at this point, but the broad summary is that I snagged Desert colonization and continued to expand rapidly. Very few of the systems had a good food production planet, so I had to prioritize Planetary Landscaping (provides the Hyper-Scale Farms food exploitation) before continuing down the bottom tree to wormhole travel. My early systems ran out of things to produce, so I flipped them over to Ind->Sci conversion in order to speed my research along.

Here's how the game looks after finally discovering wormhole travel and venturing beyond my arm of the spiral:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/06-BR1.jpg)

At this point I have only 3 techs in the right side of the tree (the first 2, and Core Mining for better Industry exploitation). I have nothing in the top, a bare minimum of colony techs in the bottom, and a beeline towards Optimized Logistics (second happiness tech) on the left tree, which I expect to complete in 10 turns.

While I can colonize many additional worlds in my existing systems, it's not in my interest to do so until my prime planets in those systems are at full population. Many of the uncolonized planets have bad anomalies or are ho hum undesirables at the moment. My plan for the future is to build a set of scouts to quickly make contact with the other races, pick up one more basic research tech and industry tech, and then focus on the bottom of the tree to improve my existing planets with the rainbow technologies and decrease expansion disapproval so I can settle the center of the galaxy as quickly as possible. I do not plan to build any military until I'm forced to.

Heading to sleep now, more to come tomorrow. Here's my Empire screen at the conclusion of this phase:
IMAGE(http://rharvey.home.die.net/forumstuff/endless/07-BR1.jpg)

Yeah, I am beginning to doubt the worthfulness of corporate heroes. Their major benefit from what I have found is the + to trade routes after the first level of wit. Actually I found this http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/A... and it says that corporate get trade, trade, and trade, and at the end you can possibly find a vision increase and a % science increase (after dust welder of all abilities?) Compare that to administrator with flat/percentage industry, flat/percentage food and flat approval rating? This past multi with Jam and rest left me administrator less until my 5th hero! so by end game I had 6 or so heroes and only 1 of them an administrator. I had 3 corporates, so I had decent trade income and such, but that lack of administrator early and mid game really hurt alot. At least I got 1 who I was able to put on my largest industrial system and get that system over 800 Industry by game end.

As a side note, if you are making a custom race, me and Jam have found that one of the best benefits you can go for is under heroes, it gives +1 to +2 levels upon being hired and a dust per turn reduction (Pilgrims get it by default). With 2 levels in that you can buy an administrator at turn 2/3 and instantly upgrade him to +25 industry and +X labor (starting and the +3 of lvl 1). This is awesome for early game and producing your colony ships. Assuming of course you get an administrator in your starting set of heroes.

I swear if there was a race ability to double your chances of administrator I would take it T_T.

Uh... the game may not be so unbalanced after all

Maybe I just haven't been playing it right.

I've been getting creamed playing the AI solo, every time. My score dropped to 1/3 of the winner.

I read GamingALife's approval system tutorial at http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/..., and the next game I settled exclusively terran-type planets (including aquatic and jungle), and went to keep my approval in the green, i.e. above "content". I actually started the middle game ahead of the others. It can be done!

I think that may have been my initial problem. I have been going for the colonization techs early and suffering unhappiness.

Mr Crinkle wrote:

My plan for the future is to build a set of scouts to quickly make contact with the other races, pick up one more basic research tech and industry tech, and then focus on the bottom of the tree to improve my existing planets with the rainbow technologies and decrease expansion disapproval so I can settle the center of the galaxy as quickly as possible.

What do the "rainbow" technologies do? I probably never researched those, since my games have been ending early.

How do you decrease expansion disapproval? For me, it keeps going up and up, and that's one of the main things that kills me.

BadKen wrote:

I think that may have been my initial problem. I have been going for the colonization techs early and suffering unhappiness.

Yeah, this is definitely something to keep in mind for the early game. I thought I was making some good progress on my first game, having an initial goal of rapid expansion and concentrating on research techs. By around turn 30 or 40, I had around 3 or 4 star systems with those star systems colonizing other planets

It was finally at around this time when I decided to check the status of my empire. To my surprise, there were multiple systems unhappy, and one was outright on strike. Only then did I realize the strong negative affects that planets have on colonies.

Of course, by the time I got to this thread, seems like that is something everyone is figuring out, too Ahh well, think I'm just going to scrap this game and start fresh. The research tree tricks you by giving you all those colonization techs right off the bat, almost telling you to inhabit hostile worlds LOL

I highly recommend trying pilgrims at least once. Their high approval rating increase makes a huge difference early game, not to mention their lvl 3 leaders.

BadKen wrote:

What do the "rainbow" technologies do? I probably never researched those, since my games have been ending early.

How do you decrease expansion disapproval? For me, it keeps going up and up, and that's one of the main things that kills me.

There are 3 rainbow techs, all found in the bottom of the tree. The first is a cheap system upgrade that provides a flat +6 FIDS (6 of each resource, that is, so +24 raw output). The second provides +1 FIDS per population in the system, and the third provides +2 FIDS. Building the second two makes an enormous difference on system output, particularly systems that don't have very good planet types.

Expansion disapproval upgrades are Empire upgrades (i.e., passive skills) that you get from various techs in the bottom tree. They make your people less unhappy about horizontal expansion to new systems.

Read my post on the previous page

Also remember that if you mouse over the planet type and size you get the breakdown of a a single pop FIDS as well as the - approval from that planets type.

terran/ocean jungle, no approval penalty
arid/tundra (the first colonize techs you can research), -5 approval
desert/arctic - 10 approval (second level colonize techs), -10 approval
lava, -15 (i think)
gas giant/asteroid, -20 approval

This is cumulative so if you settle a system on an arid planet the system approval is -5, if your second planet colonized is an arctic then system approval is -15, third colonized is a lava so system planet type disapproval is -30.

I haven't completly figured out expansion disapproval but it appears to be a heavy hit on your capital and based on distance from capital and number of colonies.

You marry the early game disapprovals from planet type and expansion and you can get into trouble

So

be on the lookout for ocean / terran / jungle / arid / tundra early game

don't plan on colonizing multiple desert / arctic planets in a system until you have some of the the +approval system improvements (earliest is infinite supermarkets)

anomalies / resources can change everything

plan system food improvements with the reminder that you might only be able to grab a couple of planets in the system and excess food is worthless until very very late game

keep going into the empire screen and mousing over planets with lower approval ratings and notincg the negative numbers watch out for the expansion disapproval

The first early game tech to reach for is applied casmir effect as it not only opens worm holes but also lowers expanson disapproval

Your influence should protect uncolonizable early game systems in your starting constellation from ai expansion afor the late early game when you should have the tech to get them and dust to give them the immediate upgrades they need.