[Introduction]
Another 4X game, you know the drill. You're gonna be exploring, expanding, exploiting and exterminating. Unlike Stellaris, neither expansion nor extermination are really optional this time, because playing tall isn't viable and conflict is inevitable. Incidentally, you shouldn't expect this to be an experience similar to Stellaris. It'll probably hamstring your learning curve pretty badly.
[First Impressions]
Wow, this isn't Stellaris!
That might be painfully obvious to some, but unlike you, I didn't have someone around to tell me that I shouldn't expect this to be an experience similar to Stellaris and that it'll probably hamstring my learning curve pretty badly. Instead, I ended up not liking the game very much, and it took several tries for me to actually get into it.
[Development]
There's not much to say.
To the extent of my knowledge, Endless Space 2 had a pretty uneventful development cycle. The only really noteworthy element is that the developers have continually improved the game for 4 years. 5 if you count its initial year in early access.
Good job, Amplitude.
[Game Mechanics]
The game plays fairly simply. More simply than you'd think, really. You select a race, set up a galaxy and you start the game. You start off with 1 colonized planet in a randomized solar system at a random location in the galaxy. You might be able to colonize some of the other planets in the system if you're lucky, but this will frequently not be the case.
From here, you send out ships to explore the systems connected to yours. Eventually, you will be sending ships into other constellations as well. Generally speaking, depending on your galaxy setup, you'll most likely have 2 factions per constellation. Whether or not you'll get along with them is up to whether or not they're a warlike faction like cravers, but make no mistake, even the lumeris will stab you in the back if it benefits them.
As you explore, you'll want to colonize. As you colonize, you'll want to improve infrastructure. As you build, you'll want to keep the economy balanced and healthy. This should be fairly easy to grasp, it's not rocket science. Positive income good. Negative income bad.
Exploration may also yield the discovery of minor factions in addition to player or AI factions. These minor factions will never expand beyond their system, or even the single colonized planet in that system, and largely exist to serve as allies or beneficiaries of players and AI. In broad strokes, you have 3 choices: befriend them, absorb them or destroy them, although do bear in mind that simply keeping them as friends leaves them open to being absorbed by others.
To acquire new ships and planetary colonization, you need to research technology first. The same is true for ship components and planetary infrastructure, not to mention diplomatic options and even additional research. Also, the more tech you research, the more research points are required to unlock the next one, so keep those eggheads funded.
Speaking of funding, to carry out research (and do anything at all) your empire mainly relies on 5 things: food, industry, dust, science and influence. FIDSI, for short. Food obviously feeds your people and helps population growth. Industry represents your industrial output. Dust is your money. Science is a measure of your sum total nerd power. And, finally, influence represents your galactic hype and political clout. The more influence you have, the more complex laws you can pass and the more diplomatic decisions you can make.
Diplomacy is fairly straight forward. You can form science agreements, trade agreements, alliances, peace treaties, that sort of stuff. It's not terribly advanced, but it's encompassing enough that there's nothing vital missing from there. You can even trade systems if you so desire, which always struck me as a necessary option in a game like this.
Going back a bit, laws are faction modifiers that affect your entire empire. They cost influence to maintain, but can also provide some serious buffs. The bigger the buff, the more influence it costs. Which laws are available depends on the political makeup of your government and how long the parties have been in charge. For example, a pacifist government that has been in power for 3 election cycles will have more advanced legislation available than an industrialist government that has only recently been elected.
Other boosts to your empire come from heroes. Heroes are people who have somehow deliberately or accidentally been exposed to dust. Yeah, remember dust, the currency of the setting? It's actually a self-replicating swarm of nanomachines that can also drastically improve the physical and mental capabilities of anyone infused with it. Wild stuff.
Anyway, heroes can be assigned to fleets or systems. As they level up, they gain access to a fairly wide array of skills. The skills are always divided into 3 sections, 1 of which is available to all heroes. The remaining 2 depend on the hero's class and background. For example, a united empire guardian will have different skillsets than a lumeris overseer. Depending on their political affiliation, they might also provide additional bonuses if their party is in power.
Speaking of power: power is usually projected via fleets. Fleets are, of course, made up of ships, all of which are customisable to a satisfactory extent. Don't get too excited, however, because combat is pretty simple and uninvolving. All you really do is choose fleet composition, ship loadout and what strategy to use in battle. The same is true for ground combat, except you only get to decide army composition and strategy.
This is getting lengthy, so I'll wrap up this section the same way the game does: victory. What is victory? Victory is a multiple choice quiz. How would you like to win? Amass a staggering amount of wealth? Uncover the secrets of the Endless? Just be the last man standing? Simply be the best? There's a variety of options open to you, and some factions are better suited for certain goals. Cravers, for instance, are uniquely well-suited for killing all opposition, while the lumeris have an edge in terms of an economic victory.
[Graphics]
It's quite a pretty game.
The battles may not be very engaging, but the environment they take place in certainly tends to be. It's kind of a shame that there's no real point to watch battles take place unless you just wanna take some screenshots.
Other than that, the game is gifted with a fairly intuitive UI that never really got confusing for me. Good job all around. The only thing really worth noting is that the animation, due to having been animated from a still picture, sometimes looks a bit silly.
It also warrants mentioning that, gorgeous artwork aside, there's some real interesting designs in here when it comes to characters, factions and races.
Oh, and the explosions in combat kinda just... look like ships are exploding into wood splinters.
[Story]
Long story short short story short, the Endless were a precursor species who used to inhabit the galaxy. As in, all of it. They were everywhere. Until they weren't. What happened to them? We're not sure, but it involved a civil war between the Virtual Endless and the Concrete Endless.
Apparently the Virtual Endless figured out how to upload their consciousness to machines, which the Concrete Endless found repulsive. So naturally their entire society split down these partisan lines and a war broke out.
Now, being the ultra advanced aliens that they were, the Endless had access to a ridiculously huge arsenal of insane weaponry. Entire planets were scoured of life as bio-weapons and WMDs were unleashed en masse with the same casual disregard one might have when stepping on an ant. The Virtual Endless even created the cravers, a cyborg hive mind whose sole purpose was to strip planets for resources, turn those resources into ships and use those ships to transit between hostile systems and blow up anything stopping them from consuming more worlds.
But this was so long ago that the Endless are, at best, a weird myth to most people. Instead, the game's story is largely player-dependent. Each faction gets to go through its own special questline during which a variety of choices will become available, each of which provide different outcomes both in terms of reward and story progression.
Eventually the leader of a place called The Academy, Isyander, will start getting involved. His involvement works similarly, except only a few factions can reap the rewards, but each quest will reveal more of Isyander's agenda regardless of outcome.
Eventually, Isyander's true goal becomes clear and the player must choose to either side with him or stand against him. What exactly occurs at the end of it all is left pretty vague, but is heavily implied to either maintain the current existential status quo of the galaxy or change everything, although it's unknown whether it's for better or for worse. Isyander doesn't seem to care. Either way, which ending you get to Isyander's story is entirely dependent on who wins the conflict he began.
[SPOILERS]
There really aren't any to speak of.
I guess it was kinda surprising to me that the Endless aren't all gone. During the craver questline, you end up finding one of the Virtual Endless. It's actually a pretty neat interaction. It was interesting seeing how the cravers deal with the presence of one of their old masters, and how they react to his initial powerlessness.
There's your spoiler.
[Pros]
- Fairly easy to get into
- Game pace is modifiable; in fact the game is highly customisable in general
- Killer soundtrack
- Gorgeous artwork
- Active developers
- DLC is largely optional
- Compelling 4X gameplay, although some might consider it bog standard
[Cons]
- There's a very real risk you might become a simp for the fish waifu
- If you expect something similar to Stellaris, you'll be disappointed
- Replay value can be limited unless you're looking for competitive play
- DLC is largely optional
- There's an entire DLC that makes the game worse; >>DO NOT BUY AWAKENING!<<
[Conclusion]
It should be noted that I played this without any DLC. The game is perfectly fine in its vanilla state, but whatever you do, do not get Awakening. I'm not being facetious. It's about 13 bucks you can pay to make the game worse. The Academy becomes a faction and it's very hostile and very powerful from the get go. If you fight them, you'll face pretty significant disadvantages, because Isyander will hate you.
DO NOT BUY AWAKENING. Moral compass optional.
/DUX, loyal subject of Emperor Zelevas
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