It’s not bad. It’s just dull, is what it is. It’s not a spreadsheet game. It’s got unique planetary wonders, random leaders, random events, and miniquests. It’s got species with distinctive personalities, kind of. But it just doesn’t have the it that makes one of these games all that much fun. MOO2 is still a better game today than ES2 is. In MOO2 I hate those fucking Antarean raiders. In ES2, pirates, yeah, annoying.
Sure, the AI isn’t very good, but that’s not the real problem, unlike with Civ, where it’s deadly. Here for whatever reason I can tolerate handicaps for the AI a great deal more. I just don’t care that much about the game.
I am not sure we listened to the same podcast. They all said that they were far more critical when revisiting ES2 the second time. While they said it was not a bad game, they were disappointed with the faults and were putting it “back on the shelf” rather than enjoying it more. The podcast convinced me not to buy it.
I’m sure you’re right, I’d have to listen back. I came away feeling they liked it overall despite the flaws, and that they felt it was the best of the modern MOOs. Its also possible I’m confusing their take with that of what I read on another forum, where it was rated one of the top games of the year.
I finally started playing this. In my first game, I have a faction quest to create 6 trade routes. How do I create more than one trade route per company? I can create my own HQ and subsidiary, and I had a subsidiary in another empire but it never showed as a trade route in the summary for the company and I’m not quite sure what made that foreign subsidiary happen.
I wish this had a Civilopedia. It doesn’t, does it? The insistence on these weird Russian-looking hull names still confuses me.
6 trade routes? I suppose your domestic ones plus the invisible ones you get from negotiated trade agreements? Or maybe they’re visible but I don’t know how to see them? Generally I only learn they exist because they’re blockaded…
Is there a restriction that they need to have starlanes between them? Maybe that’s what’s going wrong. I built a third company and two of them have two routes and one has one.
I understand that the only result of posting news in this thread is to prompt people to explain why they don’t like Endless Space 2. But on the off chance that there are other human beings in the greater universe of Qt3 who actually like ES2, I thought I’d mention that a new race DLC, for the Vaulters is coming soon. Since ES2 already has a sciencey race in the Sophons, it looks like they’re having the Vaulters be nomadic space pirates as their thing. They even rescued the Sisters of Mercy from Auriga!
They’re going to have their own quest line of course, which may involve going back to Auriga and rescuing some Vaulters who inexplicably stayed behind. They can rescue me, too, since I’m gonna be there day 1!
Thanks for the link, I’m gonna get right on that! Does that make you, I, and Fifth Fret the resident Amplitude fan group on Qt3?
I’ve been playing a bunch of both EL and ES2 lately. I just can’t get enough of 'em. I love how the factions are so very different from each other, and the art, music and world building are absolutely top class.
I’m luke-warm on Endless Space 2. I certainly don’t hate it. Endless Legend I liked quite a bit, but didn’t love.
The best things about these games to me is the lore and the races. It’s what props them up for me, despite the AI not being very good.
The games don’t feel nearly as “tight” as some of my favorite strategy games. I’ve some games of EL and ES2 where it just didn’t feel satisfying. I’d get a tech victory or whatever without ever feeling pressure or really having much in the way of contact with other races. I just kind of meandered through the game until “Oh, looks like I won.”.
The games have a lot of “color” though. I love the flavor text, the racial quest chains, etc. They just lack that spark for me though. I don’t ever really get that “just one more turn” feeling. They’re good enough that I keep buying their products in the hope that one of them elevates themselves from mediocre/good to great, though!
You might want to consider disabling pirates. While I am sure they are working on this given the nature of the Vaulters DLC, up till now the AI has not been able to handle them. They do much, much better without their presence.
