Endless Space

[Sirian]

Endless Space has been out for about a month. It's a 4X space game in the tradition of Master of Orion. It's not a clone or remake, but has many of the fundamental, familiar elements.

I have played over a hundred hours of Endless Space. That's not as many games as one might think. These empire games can go pretty long, and this one is fairly traditional in most ways.

The biggest problem with any empire game is the combat. ALL previous combat systems have had their weak spots. With Civ it was the Stack of Doom, and that issue plagues MOO1 as well. Combat systems with any tactical element end up with balance flaws to where the tactical can override the strategic. Games with purely strategic combat end up being purely about the economy and who can build the best snowball, via minmaxing the strategic path. All the various combat systems have cracks, which if exploited to the max can dramatically lead players away from where the game intended to go.

Endless space tries to simplify the combat dramatically. It's not quite down to pure number crunching, so it's NOT just about the economic snowball, but it's dramatically less intricate than Civ or Master of Orion. This has its up sides. If you choose not to focus on trying to break the combat model (it's doable), then you are left with a more strategic, less tactical game, for the most part.

I can't say that I was impressed with this game on first contact, but I gave it a little more time and a chance to grow on me and it did. In fact, I've lost sleep on a few nights, looked up and found it was hours later than I intended to stop, and realized I got sucked in to "one more turn" until I met some strategic goal or other, and only then came up for air. A game that can do that must be doing plenty of things right.

Endless Space is not a successor to MOO1. It does have some issues that may inhibit extended replay. But it is worth experiencing. So I am giving it my recommendation to MOO fans. Don't expect miracles; just allow yourself to have some fun. The multiplayer for this works reasonably well, too.


While I'm here, I want to say a positive word about Space Pirates and Zombies. This is an almost entirely tactical game, with a progression that is impossible to lose at, but in which forward progress must be validly earned. I played this game all the way through more than once and greatly enjoyed it. I might go back some day for one more run.

This one has some foul language and adult themes, so don't get it for your kids. It's all about the combat. So maybe try the demo first. If you like it, there's plenty of goodness in store for you.


Another game that gets my big thumbs up is Mount and Blade: Warband. Specifically this version of the game is the best balanced, to the point at which I can't play the others, which have a few more flaws. This is a first person shooter minus most of the shooting, where the action is mounted and you have free reign over your toon. The graphics are dated but good enough for a gameplay lover like me, and I played the living daylights out of this game. There's a strong strategic metagame behind the combat encounters, which gives you a reason to keep on fighting. I loved this game. It's a pure classic. I am sure to go back for more at some point.

In fact, this game is worthy of a page on my site, even more so than the other two. My experiences with it reach that soaring level of fun that comes through in my best reports. The only thing that pulled me out of this game was Skyrim, which is also a worthy game.


Last night I spent the evening rereading all my MOO1 reports. Many of the details slipped my memory until I had read them again, so it was almost like being a fresh reader to my own writings. ... I miss writing reports like these, where I'm having a blast with a game that is both challenging and fun, and not dwelling on the game's flaws. That's harder to do in today's game world where games have built themselves up over time with "must do" elements that carry designs beyond where games in the past went, which actually end up not being as much fun to play. Sequels tend to pile on in bad ways.

Steam has been a godsend in this regard. Digital platforms allow the distribution of lower budget games to niche markets, and there are some real gems in amongst the games that are $30, $20, even lower cost. All three of the great games I mentioned above are in this category, rather than the blockbuster AAA high art games that hit the WalMart shelves.


I'd like to write some more game reports, about whatever games I'm playing that are good fun. It just takes so much energy. So no promises. But there is a part of me that is nostalgic for the days when I wrote about games instead of working on games.


- Sirian

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the thoughts, Sirian! I played a couple games of Endless Space during the beta period, but there were still some issues that made a number of things annoying. From what I am hearing much of that has been corrected, so I will have to find some time to try it again. The other games mentioned sound interesting, and I will have to give them a look as well. Especially with a demo available for at least one. And I intend to play further in my latest MOO game and continue reporting here, once I finish Adventure 54 (Hill Valley).

So many games, so little free time.

[Zed-F]

I also got SPAZ and enjoyed it for a while, though it quickly got a bit too repetitive for me. I may give it another go again some day.

If you haven't tried Sword of the Stars 1 I'd encourage you to give it a whirl. With the expansions it's a very strong game.
Sword of the Stars 2, I am waiting for them to finish patching up the game to make any judgement call.

[kjn]

Agree on SotS1. I usually play as the humans, and the logistical problems it poses can be quite challenging if you're trying to REX.

It has its flaws, and I think it starts to drag by the mid-game (the trade system gets tedious, and there are few strategic choices about the worlds), but it manages to combine a strong tactical element with a play style where strategy matters.

[Sirian]

Endless Space has been out for about a month. It's a 4X space game in the tradition of Master of Orion. It's not a clone or remake, but has many of the fundamental, familiar elements.

I just lost an interesting game of Endless Space.

I played Hissho for the first time as a selected race. (I've taken them before in a coop game, but not counting that.) Most of my games I play random race and adapt, but I was gunning for a military game this time.

Galaxy size was large, full compliment of hand-chosen AIs, one of each race. So 8 factions. Galaxy type Spiral 4 (so two factions per arm, plus the unoccupied middle section). Difficulty was Serious, two notches above the normal.

There is a wide range of variance on the luck side with number of stars per constellation, number and quality of worlds, etc. And all this is tinkerable in advanced settings, but I have been playing defaults so far.

Hissho are a military race with stronger weapons, cheaper ships, and short term bonuses that kick in with military victories (and can steamroll if you can keep the wins coming). Best race to rush with in the early game. (Think Mrrshans with a research penalty, but also a military production boost -- and just not as weak in practice.)

My neighbor and I drew the short straw in terms of number of stars in our arm. There were 9. I was on the outer part of the arm with four stars in a line and one more off to the side. My home system rocked -- 6 planets, even if three were gas or rocks. As long as you get an Administrator ability among your first three Heroes (and I did), you can get +70 Happiness on one system and be able to settle a pack of extra planets with bad environments. And gas giants have awesome FIDS (economic stuffs) so the system was going to be a superpower. But among my other five stars I had three weak ones with just one decent planet each, and my fifth system was a "project" with one decent world and four harsh ones with some negative modifiers.

I had no idea how bad our arm was, but my neighbor was Sophons (think Psilons, except not as OP). Beyond my little string of systems was one crap system with a small Barren and a gas giant, which nobody was going to settle any time soon. This system had a wormhole to the center region, so I was NOT going to be trapped behind the Sophons and having to go through them to get out. (Maybe it would have been better if I had. At least I would have gone all-in on the attack from early on).

The spiral arm design worked against me big time. The long distance from my home system to the front was bad. Maybe 7 turns worth at starting speeds. Thats a lot of logistics to overcome. Then two or three more turns to reach their first system. Ten turns of movement. Systems outside my capital were just too weak, and the capital was too far away. These were some LONG links, too. I tried to gear up for an attack anyway, but I had the wrong opponent. They got to stronger techs than me and had a full fleet of ships by the time I got two minimalist first-gen boats in to the sky.

It just wasn't a winning proposition to attack. I took the peace they offered and tried expanding in to the middle. But while they had only THREE stars in their little niche of the arm, they were the techies and they beelined to Wormhole travel tech and were spreading in to the middle like roaches, completely unopposed. I did get the system on the other end of the wormhole and it was a very nice one with three good planets and five total, but that was all she wrote. So I had six worlds. Pilgrims came in to the middle and took a few worlds near their wormholes, but Sophons got the rest, except for two. One was under a far-reaching Horatio-faction influence (their cultural reach is wider, so they can block off unsettled stars more easily than others. You'd have to declare on them to settle there, and that seemed unwise.) And there was a 2-lava 2-barren system next to that one that I actually managed to grab by beelining to lava tech just in time to get it. But it was surrounded on four sides (out of five links) to Sophon systems, so it added a LOT of border-pressure negativity to our relations.

Sophons went to war vs Pilgrims pretty early on. I wasn't quite an ant among giants, but I was firmly in last place on the scoreboard.

Cravers (the always-war super military faction) were counterclockwise from us, with United Empire in their back lines and the two of them going at it full bore all game long. Cravers AI seem keen on not declaring on everybody at once (they actually don't have to be at Hot War with you, but you never get anything better than Cold War), which is good design. They try to pick one target at a time and consume them, unless they are feeling so OP they aren't worried about multi-front wars, but that's pretty rare.

Cravers, Hissho and UE are the three aggressive military factions. I was playing one and the other two were duking it out off in a corner, ignoring everyone else. So it was kinda sorta a "peaceful" game out there, with no threats from anybody toward me except from the Sophons, who were NOT playing their usual "sit in a corner with a few systems and hide" strategy.

The Sophons would ultimately beat down the Pilgrims to a pulp and eliminate them. I nursed my last place economy through as many tech trades as I could with the other Outer-Arm civs: UE, Horatio, and Amoebas. With civs galore between us and one another, they were all quite fond of me, having trade and diplo positives and virtually no negatives. I'm used to being more of a power and having relations troubles from being ahead in score, but not today. So trade routes and occasionaly rounds of tech brokering kept me at least nominally in the game.

Horatio wanted an Alliance and I turned him down once. I accepted the second time he asked and promptly found myself in a Hot War with the Sophons as Horatio attacked them from behind as they were finishing off the Pilgrims. Horatio had 14 full fleets charging in against a lightly defended back line, and I had... like, um, 5 fleets, 4 of them badly outdated.

I bent my all to roping Amoebas in to the Alliance. They were busy munching on Sowers over in their arm, and Sowers were on the way out, having lost the war. But I figured every fleet I could get lined up against Sophons was another smidge of chance at survival, and besides. It was an "interesting challenge." The two good things I had going for me were the Mrrshan-like extra power on my weaponry, and the cheaper ship costs. My one fleet with an admiral hero in it was nearly competitive, once I spent almost my whole treasury upgrading the ships to the latest designs.

I played defense and let the other two factions distract the Sophons, who actually had their hands full taking on three other factions at the same time. Horatio's 14 fleets had about 3 left when he got done whittling down the Sophon force on his front (like 3 fleets? Horatio was outteched by a wide margin) but he DID capture the Pilgrim home system from the Sophons. The pilgrims took that tiny system between my home space and Sophon home space, and when Sophons took it back from them I pounced and took it over, gaining one crappy little system. Wooptedoo!

Sophons started to invade my lava-barren system that was several hops away from the rest of my territory and it was initially going to take them 15 turns. My admiral fleet moseyed on over there and about 5 turns later arrived to save the day. Along the way I was killing whatever fleets were foolish enough to cross my path, and gaining some levels on my hero, which only made my fleet stronger. The system itself built suicide missile boats (Tiny bits of armor and crap tons of my best missile), which can be effective at whittling down larger and higher tech fleets IF they can survive long enough in to the fight for the missile volley to reach the enemy ships before the combat exits. Pricey move, though, as the boats are certain to be destroyed. Normally I prefer to load up my ships with enough defense to try to survive, and win wars through attrition as the AIs are better at quantity than quality, when it comes to fleets. I peeled off two of their ships that way, from one boat pair, and that made the odds actually favorable to my admiral fleet, who only lost two ships in the big battle. I saved my distant system and ended the threat, but this pinned down my only fleet hero.

Military production was in high gear and I soon had a couple more fleets, but what other fleets I had lying around and not upgraded mostly got slaughtered. But it was only ships. I had a capable fleet guarding my newly acquired crap star, which linked my Home 5 to the Second Good Star across the wormhole, giving me a home territory of seven stars in a long, thin, curved line. TERRIBLE tactical geometry, but thems the cards I was dealt. And one lone star off in the mist, but everything intact. With just two fleets capable of winning a battle, I was able to guard my territory and not lose anything.

Sophons have a bit of a glass jaw and sued for Cease Fire once the Amoebas took two former Pilgrim worlds from them. They gave up a GOOD system in the heart of the galaxy in the cease fire agreement too -- but not to me. Amoebas also got that, and they had their whole arm, too.

If I had had better sense, I'd have realized then that the Amoeba were in too strong of a position and would replace the Sophons as the next threat in line. Cravers had initially had 4x my score but they peak early unless they can keep growing, and UE was not the usual Roll Over and Die target for them, so even though Cravers eventually won that war and took over their whole Arm, the best one in the galaxy, they never got up the nerve to declare on either the Sophons or the Alliance of Three and were never actually a factor in the game, ironically. All bark and no bite this time.

But no, I didn't have sense. I had a very Hissho like fixation with the blood of my neighbors, the Sophons. I built up enough military tech and production to engage in actual war. Especially with my racial abilities to steamroll once I get going, and the ability to pile on defenses and rely on my racial weapon bonuses to kill stuff quickly anyway, I was all set to conquer the Sophons for real. And yet, my alliance partners kept signing new Cease Fires with the Sophons the first turn of any war. This went over and over and over, so I was nibbling off one system here, two there, etc, and it was all dragging out too long. ... During which the Amoeba were amassing a fortune and spending almost none of it on building ships.

I teched to the Wonder-building victory tech, the one I understood to be the easiest win type to get (like Civ3 UN win) but it was going to take 30+ turns for my fifth-best producing system to build its component. About half way in to that stretch, the Amoeba won an Economic victory with 500k in Dust (money) accumulated. Game over, lost by about 15 turns or so.

Somewhat of a humbling experience, and my very first loss (in a game played past the early game -- some I abandoned along the way for various reasons).

I turned a distinctly subpar starting situation in to a chance to win and a second place finish, but in lining up all the pieces to survive the steamrolling Sophons, I inadvertantly let one of my Alliance partners slip past to the finish line.


There are setups where the luck can break the other way and player can steamroll to an easy win even on higher difficulty. But that doesn't really matter all that much. The galaxy maps play a HUGE role in the challenge level of the game and there is a strong amount of variance between map conditions as far as outcomes go.

Like MOO, tech pace does NOT adjust with map size and richness, so a smaller map (with a full host of opponents) may actually be harder than playing on Huge.

There's still some concern on my part about combat mechanics and fleet AI, but the MOO1 AI did a few braindead things (like not upgrading engine speeds when they could, and getting obsessed with Hot Potatoes) and that was still fun. ... This game MAY have longer legs than I thought.

Sorry for lack of screens, but I had no intent on a report until the surprise ending yanked the victory rug out from under me and I caught the old bug and wanted to tell somebody about it.


- Sirian

[RefSteel]

Sounds like that was a really exciting game! I've never played Endless Space myself, but even without screenshots, I felt like I had a sense for what was going on in your galaxy. I'm intrigued about the different types of races too (what sort of advantages Amoebas have, for instance - are they a late-game race? Is an economic victory normal for them?) but the main thing I took away was your usual skill at evaluating and describing your strategy, including where it all went wrong. Thanks for posting it here!

[Sirian]

The Endless Space races have some real character to them. They also have a MOO2-style custom race option, and they even seem to have done moderately well in not making it a complete no brainer exploit fest.

All but one of the stock races (8 total so far) have a weakness, a negative trait that impacts their strategy matrix.

Perhaps a description is in order.

"The Endless" -- name for the mysterious ancient race that ruled the galaxy long ago and left all manner of artifacts lying around. Fully extinct. There is no "Orion" planet to find and no Guardian to fight, but artifacts from the Endless make up one category of resource types you can find on the planets.

"Cravers" -- insectoid/cyborg race created by the Endless as a living weapon. They get economic bonuses for the first 40 turns they inhabit a world, then forever suffer economic penalties on a world after inhabiting it for 60 turns. Cannot make peace, but get a fleet size bonus and a population cap boost on smaller planets. The fleet bonus size is a COMMANDING advantage that sweeps away almost everything else. I have never seen a Craver AI faction lose outright in a 1v1 on another AI civ. At worst, they've fought to a draw and normal is Cravers pwning somebody. Worse, there's no pacifying them with diplo, so if you draw them as a neighbor, it's only a matter of when, not if. Cannot trade at all or make any deals, including tech trades. It's military, start to finish, if you play them.

"United Empire" -- first of three human factions. Strong on cash, with a health bonus on ships. Aggressive when played by the AI, likes wars. This race rocks at rushbuying stuff with cash, which if used well can dramatically speed the growth curve on new colonies. Usually the second biggest threat on the map behind Cravers factions.

"Pilgrims" -- second of three human factions. Emotional/religious types who split off from the main human faction and try to win through diplomacy and peace. Suffers tonnage loss on ships, making their ship designs PER SHIP (critical factor) weaker than any other faction. They have a weird racial ability I don't even understand yet. When played by the AI, ALWAYS a patsie who fails. First to be wiped out in almost every game I've played, never a power -- even weaker than the Mrrshans in actual practice, a feat that is difficult to achieve. This faction needs some redesign, but are probably not AS weak in the hands of a Human as they are as an AI.

"Horatio" -- third of the three human factions. This is a clone faction. Ultra rich lunatic finds Endless cloning tech and makes a few billion copies of himself and somehow persuades the clones to work as a society. Interesting concept, even funner to actually play. Gets massive population boosts on smaller worlds, because they like crowding. Has influence boosts, so they mark off more territory faster. Biggest deal is they can clone copies of their Heroes. There is nothing quite as sweepingling powerful as leveling up a Fleet Admiral to max or near max ability and then suddenly having six or eight of these leading a sweeping armada. Their ships are expensive to build, though, so they tend to have fewer of them. A bigger handicap for the AI than for a human player, as AI on AI is usually a struggle of quantity, while players can adapt with quality. This race is second best with cash in the early game, but actually THE WORST on early game research because of the starting home planet is strong on cash and almost dead on research power. So like UE, Horatio relies on the cash to quickly stand up new colonies. And unlike anybody else, they have a production problem at the start of the game because they take twice as long as any other faction to research the ALWAYS must-get first tech that gives an improvement that boosts production output for a star system (without regard to planet stats).

"Sophons" -- Strong on research, but all planetary improvements cost more for them, dramatically slowing their economic growth curve. They also suck badly in any ground combat and can be quickly overrun if not holding their own at the fleet level. They get a defensive boost on fleets through research much earlier than other races, though, so that can be countered at least on defense. In the hands of the AI, this faction seems more sensitive to starting territorial luck. I've seen them suck the giant egg, but I've also seen them be a runaway superpower. Also has a speed boost on ships, which helps a ton in the land grab phase, both for exploration and settling. Unpredictable but easy to make peace with.

"Amoeba" -- Oceanic race, slow evolvers, mellow souls. Starts with the entire galactic map fully revealed. Sees all homeworlds. Sees whenever a system is claimed or changes hands. Gets huge trading boosts and significant boosts for having friends and allies. These are the MOO1 Humans: any diplo deal you make with them will benefit them more than you, but sometimes you gotta do it anyway. These are the slick ones you have to keep an eye on. Seems stronger than Pilgrims in every measurable way. Pilgrims need some love, man. They need some buffing.

"Sowers" -- robotic race, the second of the "created by the Endless" factions. Very strong on production output, but significantly weak on research. Also has a speed penalty, which hurts bad in the land grab phase. This race is a bit of a late bloomer. Their early research is aided by a homeworld strong on research power, but unless they get more worlds strong on research they start falling behind in the colonial phase. This is a solid middle of the road faction for the AI.

"Hissho" -- avian race, aggressive, honorable, swarming. Like the Sowers, penalized on research, but with a research-oriented homeworld for a competitive starting situation. After that you fall behind, although as my report shows, if you are too far behind, you can make more friends and have the chance to use tech trading to avoid complete misery. Even more than the Cravers (which is saying something), this race needs an enemy, a target. They get major (but temporary) boosts from military success, and their super strong weaponry is almost on par with the larger fleet sizes of the Cravers. Hissho vs Cravers is a draw. But Cravers get their economic boosts up front so have above average research while Hissho just lag on tech, so in a drawn out fight, Cravers get the edge and tend to do better. Of all the races, Hissho are the most screwed if they are unable to engage their dominant behavior successfully. For the AI, this usually means Hissho are a weak faction and die out a lot. If you draw them as neighbor, you must not neglect your defenses or your military tech. But if you can delay war, avoid war, or they start fighting someone else (and losing), their threat level drops over time. If they fight someone else and are winning... well I haven't seen that yet, but in theory it could be very bad. How do you stop a runaway Hissho??


There is enough personality and strategic difference between the races to make for that MOO1-style variance in how a game plays based on who you are playing and the local neighborhood.

Another big factor is wormholes: how many and where they lie -- and what size "subsections" they have split the galaxy into. This plays a huge role in who your "close" vs "distant" neighbors are.

In the Spiral-8 galaxy, there are always nine constellations. One is the center, unoccupied, and one faction each (in an 8plr game, you can play with less) in each of the arms. Also 9 constellations in the colliding disks galaxy: one civ per constellation, but two "halves" of the galaxy, two disks, connecting through an empty center. Just between these two there are hige differences. In Spiral-8, everybody connects to the middle and none to one another, so those who grab systems in the middle get into conflicts more than those who sit back in their arms. But in the dual disk galaxy, there are "back corners" where you have two neighbors only, and "front corners" where you touch the middle PLUS have two neighbors, and usually end up with about four neighbors in practice. Quite a difference, as tensions always run higher with direct neighbors. Easier to make friends in the back lines, but you have no shot at grabbing extra systems from the unoccipied middle section.

Spiral-4 means two civs per arm with no wormholes, so you don't have that chance to grab more systems before having to deal with neighbors, but you could also grab more than your fair share more easily, too. Being in the outer part of the arm usually means no access to the middle except through your only neighbor and makes for a much more war-oriented game as each pair of civs is more likely to end up fighting than they do when they each have their own constellation.

Spiral-2 means two halves plus a small middle section, and the wide open arms means far fewer choke points. You can't pile all your fleets on one or two systems, but may have to cover a bunch of systems and threats from many directions. Harder to cope if you are badly outteched, for instance.

Disk is like Spiral-2 without the center: two halves only. Almost no wormholes anywhere. Disk-4 is broken in to quarters instead of halves. Elliptical I havent tried yet, but is supposedly similar to Disk.

You can also fiddle with the wormhole frequency. Not sure what all that does yet, but it surely affects how compartmentalized the galaxy is.

Late game you can ignore the star lanes and travel through empty space, but the star lanes matter a TON in the early game.

The tech tree is fixed, but has some minor differences per race. Some races have special versions of things that are beefed a bit. Others get this or that option sooner on their trees. This affects strategy a bit as well.

Overall, the variety factor in setting up games and facing a multitude of strategic dilemmas seems quite strong. I still havent detailed what I think is the game's weakest design element, but it is also still theoretical as yet. By that I mean, I think it's an issue down the road, but so far it's not actually squashing the fun -- or stopping the One More Turn syndrome.


- Sirian

[antisocialmunky]

I must get this when it is on sale... thx Sirian, haven't read one of your reports in a long time.

[RefSteel]

Belated thanks for the detailed info and explanations, Sirian! I can't get on the forums as often as I'd like, but it's great to see stuff like this when I can!

[Julian Delphiki]

Sale -50% & free weekend on Steam, you can try Endless Space until Sunday 1PM PST

http://store.steampowered.com/app/208140

downloading now, lets see