Endless Legend, fantasyland trying to fix Endless Space's flaws

[Bubbles]

This is Rock Paper Shotgun's game of the year. Expect sales to quadruple overnight.

 

[Diablo169]

Fair play to RPS. Don't agree with them on a lot of things these days but this was an unexpected and surprisingly good choice.

 

[Angthoron]

That's really something I'd never see coming, but EL definitely deserves attention. Good choice indeed.

 

[made]

People play anything but cultists? :3

I play as the ancient and noble race of dragons. Problem?

Game's pretty cool. I enjoy the mix of 4X and RPG elements. The tactical combat is better than in most RPGs lul.

 

[Phage]

So... how does the difficulty in this game scale?

Playing on normal, and I've had multiple AI flat out die to minor factions
AI is also insanely passive. Pretty game, but it's devolved into "click to end turn" as I slowly chug towards a wonder victory far quicker than Civ 4/5

 

[RK47]

Yeah, when i realized it's the Xth turn I've ended without really accomplishing much I knew it's KFC money down the drain.
It's not as engaging as I thought it'd be. I was expecting something like Fall from Heaven mod in Civ 4 where you try to advance your factions goals and remake the world in your image, but in here it's all very passive shit involving going around popping huts (ruins) and doing City State quests (Because ghosts need Dyes amirite)

Not to say it's a terrible game or anything. Maybe I've not hit the good spot, but so far I've not had the motivation to start it up again.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Yeah, when i realized it's the Xth turn I've ended without really accomplishing much I knew it's KFC money down the drain.
It's not as engaging as I thought it'd be. I was expecting something like Fall from Heaven mod in Civ 4 where you try to advance your factions goals and remake the world in your image, but in here it's all very passive shit involving going around popping huts (ruins) and doing City State quests (Because ghosts need Dyes amirite)

Not to say it's a terrible game or anything. Maybe I've not hit the good spot, but so far I've not had the motivation to start it up again.

I have the same opinion. It's fairly limited for a 4X games. More so than Vanilla civilization 5 in fact. And the military side of things is particularly clunky.

What's it got for it is original civilizations, very diverse. Decent graphics. Empire management is also terribly limited, and becomes tedious toward the end, the UI being less than stellar. Lore is the result of a shit writer taking a liking for the Dying Earth genre. It's decent but only because of this inspiration.

It seemed like a fantasy civ with tactical combat, which would have been awesome. It could have hooked me if the battles were as good as Heroes, Eador, Wonders...

I do not understand why the posters who shat on civ 5, a mediocre game in its own right, are in awe over this equally mediocre title.

 

[RK47]

Once again RPS proven themselves to be the purveyors of shit tastes.

 

[Phage]

Alright men, turns out that Hard is significantly harder than Normal. The AI doesn't die to minor factions, and if you expand nonstop, they will stop you. Going off of sheer numbers from the game's data, the difficulty difference is similar to the jump from Prince to Emperor in civ games. Don't know why they made the leap that huge so quickly, but whatever. I do have to concede that Hard is forcing me to git gud, which does force actually exploiting/learning the game to its fullest. There is more here than I initially gave the game credit for. After I git gud enough I will give my updated thoughts.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Hard isn't that bad. You get into the stride after a few attempts. It's the hardest difficulty that really blasts my anus. AI is permanently butthurt so you need to start preparing for nonstop onslaugh since turn 1. No peaceful expansion or diplomacy to be friends only to backstab the enemy later. They are coming right for your testicles and they aren't taking prisoners.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

It's fairly limited for a 4X games. More so than Vanilla civilization 5 in fact.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Not sure what you're trying to express but if it's the way you intend to argue, you may want to look into getting a shitposter tag

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Bro, it's the best retail fantasy tb strategy since Shadow Magic, even mentioning it in the same sentence as the stinking dumbed down turd that vanilla CiV was makes you p retarded. Claiming that CiV is somehow better or that disliking CiV means you should also dislike EL places you somewhere between an amoeba and an IGN journalist. Now , I know that this post might seem edgy at first, but if you read it again you might find that it also happens to be true.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Now , I know that this post might seem edgy at first, but if you read it again you might find that it also happens to be true.

Don't worry, it reads like a retarded assertion in fact.

Bro, it's the worst retail fantasy tb strategy since Civ 5, even mentioning it in the same sentence as the Glorious sophisticated gem that Shadow Magic was makes you p retarded. Claiming that EL is somehow better or that liking EL means you should also like Shadow Magic places you somewhere between an amoeba and an IGN journalist.

 

[made]

Finished a normal game with the dragons. Was off to an interesting start, but became boring endgame because the AI just didn't do anything, much like in ES. Gonna start another on hard now with the undead knights.

tyrannosaurus rex Name a better recent (fantasy) 4X and I'll play it. I'm in the mood for these games atm.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i don't know about endless legend because i just started, but in endless space as soon as you get a certain advantage all the other races begin to declare war.

 

[Phage]

Hard isn't that bad. You get into the stride after a few attempts. It's the hardest difficulty that really blasts my anus. AI is permanently butthurt so you need to start preparing for nonstop onslaugh since turn 1. No peaceful expansion or diplomacy to be friends only to backstab the enemy later. They are coming right for your testicles and they aren't taking prisoners.

Well, I was having a pretty sweet game as the Wyrmlords - had a bunch of nicely positioned cities and a fairly decent army, then suddenly literally 2 genophage AIs and a Broken Lords ai all declared war on me within 4 turns of each other.


How do I git gudder?

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

tyrannosaurus rex Name a better recent (fantasy) 4X and I'll play it. I'm in the mood for these games atm.

4X have yet to have a proper revival like RPGs.

Worlds of Magic and At the Gates might turn out to be good, when they get released. Heroes 7 might turn out to be decent, though you have to put up with the already obvious flaws.

Age of Wonders 3 was a disappointment. Beyond earth is beyond crap. Eador masters of the broken game. It's depressing.

 

[MrBuzzKill]

Just play Eador

 

[baturinsky]

TBH, BNW>EL

 

[Phage]

Alright men, I got gud enough to win on hard. Serious and Endless look like immense pains in the asses though. I did some teritary research, and apparently Endless Vaulters will flat out win the game with a science victory at like turn 120 (yes I know that deity AI in civ also pull of science victories that fast, but the way that game is setup you actually benefit from that through trade and science leak)

 

[Riel]

So everybody is praisign this game?? I supose it will be good then. But still having played Endless Space I have that tingling sensation that this game will be very prety, immersive and have a great 1st experience but eventually as your learn the mechanics you'll find they are shallow and uninteresting with a weak AI. Still I wouldn't say I didn't like Endless Space, it was a solid game for a few matches and all in all I think I got my money's worth in fun so I'll grab this too.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

It's not a top tier game. At least not yet, but it still has some unlocked potential, with patches and an inevitable expansion(s). But like I said, definitely the best fantasy tb since Shadow Magic and best 4x in a long time.

 

[Phage]

Even on hard AI is quite wonky. I am presuming the strategic AI itself doesn't improve beyond normal/hard - I mean, it'd be pretty silly to have to play on the immense bonuses of Serious/Endless just for the AI to function correctly. I would say the AI is flat out wonkier than BNW's. Things of note:

- Unless there's something I'm misunderstanding, the AI will always be somewhat resentful to you as long as you have a higher score/more cities - pretty much constantly closing borders and refusing further peace. Market man will pretty much always ban you if you're ahead of him. On the flip side, they almost always ally with you if you're behind them (a few aggressive civs like Necrophages notwithstanding)
- Even if you are curbstomping them into oblivion, the AI will require you to give them something for a truce. Example situations: I took 3 of the AI's 5 cities, my military on the status screen was more than double theirs, and on the negotiation screen they still wanted compensation for a truce lol. Sometimes the AI will offer you things for peace, but it's usually at the point that they're essentially out of the game.
- AI refuses to properly defend their cities. Want to win easily at EL? Just sit around with city sieges. One game, the AI kept its only sizeable army half the map away from its capital literally idling for 20 turns - needless to say I simply marched my guys in and took the capital.


Other random thoughts:

- City sieging is a dumb mechanic overall. Punishes defenders too much, and the AI has no clue how to handle it on both sides. Needs some kind of rework.
- Truces don't really matter since if you have enough influence you can simply break them at will.
- Luxury resource boosters and minor faction bonuses can be so gamebreakingly powerful with certain civs that starting/immediatel location is significantly more important than even in the Civ series.
- On that note, starting locations aren't very well balanced in general - a start with 3 anomalies in your starting hex vs 1 can snowball a game ridiculously.


Overall - very pretty game with amazing races that play differently, but after you spend enough time you'll start to notice all of this shit. I will probably play a few more games though, definitely will play when they release big patches/content updates.

 

[tuluse]

Just play Eador

That's not a 4x game.