Endless Legend - Fantasy 4X TBS from Endless Space devs

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842

Winter is very interesting. Early on it’s a real pain - often the first winter I want my slowest units back in the main city (garrisoned units cost less to maintain and provide experience to any hero in the city), because they just can’t do anything during the winter and are vulnerable to more winter-suited troops ambushing them. You also want to time certain improvements to finish at the end of winter or early spring to get the most use out of them, as they stop during winter.

With the Shifters expansion, later winters can be an opportunity. Some of the buildings (Ice Works in particular, but also Winter Boroughs) provide massive advantages during winter or can only be built during that season. Pearls - required to access these benefits of winter - also spawn during the winter, and you want to be hoovering them up as fast as possible (though without costing yourself too much dust via army maintenance costs).

843

Yeah I encountered my first winter and noticed those pearls. What’s funny is that they emit a piercing high frequency whine that drove me to collect them after spending a while trying to work out where the noise was coming from (honestly, I was worried it was winter ambiance). You can hear this through the fog of war too, I think, so that gives you some clues as to where they are. Still, by that point I didn’t have many units moving around. Summer came back just as I’d researched dust dredgers which was good timing.

How do I offset expansion disapproval?

844

You outpace it with Approval. There’s a tech or two in each era that allows for construction of buildings that provide approval, as well as one tech that reduces expansion disapproval a bit, IIRC.

Other than that, I know there’s a class/race of hero that can add approval as a governor and you can also boost approval through the consumption of various Luxury resources (things like Dye, Emeralds, etc). You activate those on the Empire screen.

845

Ah, so it’s just something you have to use science and boosters to offset. I wondered if there was something I was missing. Cheers!

846

There are a few ways.

  1. Science to build approval improvements (Sewer System in era 1, for instance).
  2. Science for expansion disapproval reduction (Eras 3 and 5 I think?). Expansion disapproval is from more cities.
  3. Anomalies on the map sometimes have approval bonuses.
  4. Certain buildings placed on the map can lower approval (borough streets) or increase it (Museum of Auriga). Leveling up those buildings (particularly borough streets) will often increase approval. So you want tight, compact cities unless you have a good reason (e.g. reaching the coast or an important tile).
  5. One of the later tier empire plans has an increase in approval.
  6. Luxuries (these should be strategically timed, and you will need more for every city you own). Wine is by far the most effective at pure approval. A nice trick is to spend these before expanding to minimise the cost and maximise the benefit.
  7. Some heroes have approval bonuses or expansion disapproval reduction when acting as a governor.

Late game you will have plenty of approval - but it’s a real constraint early.

847

Since your last post I’ve been running my cities at Fervent, or FERVENT because Endless Legend loves its block caps.

Anyway, god, I keep losing track of time on this. I finally GET the ‘one more turn’ thing.

91 turns in and things are getting heavy now, in a good way.

I had a trade agreement going with this nearby faction but I don’t fully understand trade yet so it never came to anything. Things were good with her until another faction, the ‘Morgawr’ (I decided to go in with all the DLC turned on), started stirring stuff up.

I’m sure we were in a state of cold war and it put some sort of cursed ‘Black Spot’ on my faction which means my lands have been a free for all, with no diplomatic repercussions for other factions attacking my units on my turf. The only way of removing it is asking and that costs me influence and there’s nothing to say it won’t throw another at me. I also noticed Morgawr was pillaging (and razing?) nearby minor factions and was poking around my territory, by land and sea.

Anyway, I spotted some pearls on its patch so I sent some shamans over to grab them quick and a turn later it wasn’t pleased and closed its borders. I didn’t close mine at first but warned it, just in case I decided to. It dismissed me so I closed them.

A few turns later one of my pacified minor factions dissented and I lost assimilation of them which in turn caused a quest to fail. I wondered what had caused this and it turns out the Morgawr have ‘Seeds of Dissent’ that they plant to cause all kinds of trouble from afar. Bastards.

I then spotted a Morgawr army approaching and it was on its way to pillage this same minor faction village, and despite me closing my borders too. I raised as strong an army as I could and attacked before I lost the village for good. We prevailed with minimal losses but it was enough to sever the diplomatic ties with my trading neighbour.

I think we’re all on the brink of war now so I’m redirecting all my resources to try and take out Morgawr’s nearby regions before it fucks me over royally. Hopefully I’ve kept some sort of pace with my enemies because the diplomacy screen says they’re unafraid/dismissive of me. One is jealous of my global standing so I’m obviously doing something right.

Anyway, I’m really digging it. I’ve got more to say but I’ll leave that for another time.

848

Love reading stories like that, geggis. Glad you’re enjoying the game!

849

I find the 90 turn mark about when things start to take off (or if they aren’t, you’re in trouble). All that sci-fi technology starts to accelerate your fantasy industrial revolution into something a bit crazy.

In order to establish trade routes, you need Right of Way improvements in two contiguous regions (they can be another player’s). This produces roads in the region to all neighbouring cities (friend and foe). Cargo Docks serve a similar purpose for ocean trade.

To trade with the cities of another empire, you need to be at peace. A high level Roving Clans hero perk lets a governed city trade with enemy cities.

You start with one trade route in each city (two in the capital), but you can add extra ones in various ways. The game automatically picks the most profitable trade routes to assign, and I believe your cities can’t pick the same city multiple times. The profit is based on distance and population, though I’m not clear on the numbers. You get a bit of science, as well as dust.

These numbers can be huge, particularly for sea trade and even more so for the Roving Clans. Big empires want roads anyway, but the bonuses from trade can be incredibly lucrative. You typically have to pay a considerable bribe to the AI to get them willing to open their borders to trade though (or be at war with a common enemy, perhaps).

850

Awesome, cheers!

I did research Right of Way and got that going in… one or two cities. My capital fired off two roads to neighbouring regions and my second city fired one off to another. My trade partner was actually two regions across so was that the problem? Do they need to be adjacent?

I managed to snag a science deed/reward that increases trade earnings by 50% so I was really banking on being able to make some serious dough dust from that. I might try and get another deal going soon but we’ll see how things shake out with Morgawr.

851

Not adjacent, but you need an unbroken chain of roads (Right of Way) between the cities. You tend to get higher earnings with foreign cities, so you were missing a fair chunk of cash! Also, any cities that the route passes through receive a small amount of income - these are the secondary trade routes you’ll see on the trade route scheme.

The trade route income you see on the city or trade screen is raw, by the way. Buildings that increase dust production will also boost these (but it’s hard to see the breakdown).

I managed to snag a science deed/reward that increases trade earnings by 50% so I was really banking on being able to make some serious dough dust from that. I might try and get another deal going soon but we’ll see how things shake out with Morgawr.

The luxury that increases trade route income is - by bug or design - even more of a boost. Unlike other trade bonuses, which each add their own percentage bonus to the raw value, Grasssilk doubles all trade route income on top of this. You can get thousands, maybe more, per turn from trade routes by the turn 120ish mark.

Of course, by then the game is often nearly over.

852

Said no true gamer ever! Better late than never!

853

My application’s in the post @Mysterio!

854

Obviously I’m a few years late to the party but reading this thread through from the start I feel like I’m playing a different game in light of the criticisms that have been aired. As I said earlier, I’m a 4X noob, relatively speaking, but I’ve had very little trouble wrapping my head around most things here. I mean, I think Amplitude have done an incredible job of making most information I need easily accessible and easy to read (passages of block caps notwithstanding. Seriously, drop the all caps). Contrary to some comments here I feel like nearly every turn I’ve had something new to deal with and assess and mull over, and that’s fantastic. Whether it’s moving my units around to explore ruins, collecting pearls, taking the high ground to get a better lay of the land, or rethinking my construction/science queues and worker priorities.

I also don’t really get the criticism that there’s not enough units for each faction. Something I’m a really big fan of with Endless Legend is its restraint with cities, armies, heroes and loot. I’m 100 turns in and currently I’ve got four cities with garrisoned armies in wait, two heroes and… three pieces of loot. Those three pieces of loot/gear were very exciting to find/be rewarded because they’re rare and special. Age of Wonders 3 felt like a fire hose of stuff each turn and I found it was just a bit too much. It seemed that almost every other turn there was a new hero waiting to join me and any gear just got lost amongst them. Levelling too seemed more frequent and across so many heroes that got unwieldy. The identities of these heroes were usually fuzzy at best. Compare that to EL where I’m very attached to my two heroes and if I got a third right now I’d be thrilled. Edit: I got a new hero, yay! You only have a handful of faction units to start with but when you assimilate or research new ones it’s genuinely exciting, and you see what cool stuff they do and contemplate how they can be integrated into your ranks. I just find it all a lot more manageable, elegant and involving as a result. Less is more.

I read complaints about winter too and, sure, it slows down your units, reduces visibility and production, but I had a look what tech and gear could mitigate these effects and managed to offset them for the most part. I’m playing as the Wind Walkers so I’m not sure how this tallies up with the other factions but my Agache Shamans I equipped with tier 1 gear but added some trinkets to boost their movement and vision. My Empire Plan buffs movement and the added vision synergises well with another tech I got which buffs movement further if an enemy is in sight. This means that my Shamans (or ‘Runners’ as I’ve renamed this unit) are brilliant at braving the winter and grabbing pearls. They’re even faster in summer. To add to this I also just researched Ice Works which has buffed the industry production hugely on river and sea/lake tiles (+10 per tile!), so much so that winter is now a good time to be building stuff!

One thing that totally escaped me that only clicked in the last 10 turns or so is that, yeah, cities can be upgraded too. Districts I’d noticed could be upgraded but I pretty much ignored that in favour of sprawl to grab more resources. My approval rating has been hovering around fervent for a long time now thanks to boosters and the right buildings. Soon I’ll start levelling districts however and then I’m hoping I can be the first to get 100% approval for a reward in the next era. Edit: the Vaulters beat me it to it. They only had one region to maintain…

I love trying to work out what technologies and other effects will synergise well with different exploitations. That’s where most of my time is spent from turn to turn, looking for opportunities to fully exploit what I’ve got. I acquired the Abbey of Anomalies the other day and wasn’t sure where to place it then… bam, saw the Golden Tree. That’s one hell of a match. It makes me want to go back to Reus.

I find the anomalies and resources very flavourful too, in both their descriptions and appearance.

I’ve done enough combat now to say that I enjoy it despite it being flawed in some ways. I don’t like the tangle of white, red and blue/green arrows flying everywhere and sometimes it’s not possible to move unit A on to a hex that unit B is currently on but will move out of before unit A gets their turn. It can be a little confusing and clumsy at times. That said, I much prefer stacks to ‘1UPT’ (took me a while to work out what that meant) and especially the way that all the action happens on the strategic map itself instead of zooming into a discrete battlefield like AoW3. I’m not knocking AoW3 here, just that I appreciate the grounding in the strategic layer. It’s abstract sure, but it’s smooth and tidy. I find that I’m having plenty of control over my units though provided I make sure to use the ‘CTRL +’ function to chain a couple of orders and keep an eye on the combat behaviour (aggressive,defensive and hold position). All in all, I’m surprised how much I’ve been enjoying this aspect of the game given it’s allegedly the weakest element.

Anyway, I’m at turn 120~ now and aiming to grab a far flung resource rich region on the other side of the continent which is technically across the sea from my four cities. Hoping I can set up a ‘round the world’ maritime trade route. In the meantime I’m working through the faction quests, building science and hoping the Morgawr keeps itself to itself. It’s military might is at least four times greater than the nearest faction! :-/

855

Lol @ geggis, you can adjust how many heroes you want in AoW3. It’s just one of many options the game has. I frequently play with just 2 heroes.

856

I’m talking just vanilla settings here. I scarcely have the time to play through these games once let alone explore the options to tweak my experience for new games! :-)

857

Glad you’re really enjoying it @geggis. The only major complaint I had that I can recall is the combat. Not having units exert a zone of control in the tactical battle just made it feel too uncontrolled and chaotic. Other than that, Endless Legend is definitely one of the 4Xs I appreciated more over the last several years.

858

Yeah I know what you mean. After Chaos Reborn and Age of Wonders 3 I expected that too but I’ve just taken to using units to block enemies in if possible. Barkskin, Unsteady and Benediction have been handy for sustaining front line units. I’ve not witnessed many units that can move that far in combat though. Anyway, it’s early doors for me on the military front so I can’t speak too authoritatively on the matter!

859

So after getting back off my holiday, and with Breath of the Wild sat in my Wii U waiting for me to give it a proper spin, I decided that I needed to get back to Endless Legend to complete the campaign I’d started.

I accomplished the era I-III objectives I’d set for myself and for a spell I was a bit lost on what I was going to do next, which is roughly when I started to lose steam with the game. I returned to it a few times without the same enthusiasm I had early on, which got me thinking about why exactly. Nothing had got worse; my empire was growing, I had more doodahs to be playing around with and the map was more open than ever with a few more personalities to be jostling with, so why wasn’t I feeling it any more?

That’s when I realised that I needed to focus more on the bigger picture and not just my own little corner of the world. I needed to have a constantly evolving strategy with rolling objectives coming in as I knocked the old ones down. I think that’s why I got a bit lost in the middle there; I simply stopped creating new goals to keep the momentum up.

So on one of my last efforts I did just that and started making some bigger plans to expand my luxury and strategic resources as well as settle on a victory condition to aim for. I was intending to head down the quest path but I screwed up with some hero levelling to reliably achieve that so instead decided to bank on my scientific strength. This would dictate where I was going to expand as well.

Then I went on holiday. I so very nearly didn’t play this yesterday but I’m so glad I did because I pretty much fell in love with it again and had a good 6+ hour marathon session. In the middle-game I was struggling to get the strategic resources to construct some of the newer tech so I got quite bogged down but it looks like whatever I did before the holiday paid off because I had enough for a leg-up.

I wiped out my neighbour who was sat on lots of resources I needed (and she just wouldn’t stop falling out of peace with me) and my massive dust reserves allowed me to get a number of new cities up to speed in no time–that was really cool.

While all that’s been happening I got some tech that allowed me to search ruins a second time (with increased chances of goodies) which has given me a ton of quests to be keeping myself busy with while my stockpiles and resources build up. Now I’m in the final era and amassing as much science as possible to get the final techs.

Loving it!

860

You’re making me want to play again, Geggis!

One question: does the game still automatically end with the onset of Endless Winter? Somehow this deadline always bugged me, and it lessened my interest in the game. I know that’s irrational: games like Civ also have “time” victories, and no game lasts forever. But somehow EL made me feel more like I was racing the clock. Is there an option to push back Endless Winter, or remove it altogether? If not, does it bother you at all?

861

There are a lot of ways to deal with winter, especially with the expansion that added the Alayi (sp?). At that point, you should also have your heroes skilled up to the point where they can avoid winter penalties.