Latest patch notes: http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=392110
Trying to sort this game out. I love how pretty everything looks and the fact it doesn’t look like the Gal Civ or Civilization interfaces, but this makes is difficult to suss things out.
At any rate, are we supposed to just colonize every planet we can? It looks like they all have 6 “stats” unless they’re a better world and then they have more than 6. As I research new techs I can colonize more and more planets in systems I already own but can’t tell if there is some kind of penalty for doing this.
Also really don’t quite grasp, besides benign slight bonus, why I’d want to bring in different races, or vote against the most popular political party.
Is there an maintenance cost for ships? Can’t seem to find one. I see it does require Command Points, but can’t find “Command Points” anywhere in the menus or interface.
Thanks for the help :)
Mostly yes, though there are happiness penalties for over-colonization. I think that’s the only downside.
yeah, mostly that it’s free population and sometimes they have useful minor bonuses. There are a couple quests or techs that like having variety but there’s not much. That said there’s not much downside either.
You can only choose laws from the top two political parties (or is it top one? I forget) so if there’s a particular policy you like you may need to promote that party. It’s very easy for the military party to push others out if you’re having to build a lot of ships, for example, and you might want the science laws instead. Also depending on what your primary race is, they may have a preference, and matching or not matching that preference has some happiness implications.
Command Points are how it decides how many ships you can have in a fleet but doesn’t have any implications for how many ships you can have. You get more CP from a handful of techs in the military branch - see for example Quantum Communications and look for the radar-dish icon.
The maintenance cost, which I literally had no idea about until I just looked on some wiki while I was trying to remember the name of a tech that gives you CP, is as follows:
Command Point cost of the ship (which depends on the size of the hull) * 0.4 * your max CP for your empire (which is the number that goes up when you research those techs).
That can’t be the right formula for fleet maintenance. Doubling your max CP would double your maintenance costs.
I just googled it, and couldn’t find any conflicting information, so I guess it may be correct. That is something I’ll have to try and keep in mind, to see if I can follow it in my current game.
It depends on your government type. The more democratic your empire, the more parties share power (and you can enact laws from all of them). The less democratic, the fewer parties - but you usually have more control over who is in charge.
When you get enough of a certain race, the bonuses can become quite significant. But their politics will adjust your own: filling your planets with war-loving races will mean your politics swings to militarism, for instance.
Politics make a huge difference in your empire. The bonuses you can get from various laws significantly affect how you play.
As a thing many people miss, luxury resources can also be used to boost populations from the population screen. This doubles any bonuses they provide for (I think 10?) turns, and makes them more likely to grow. I guess you’re either attracting them to your empire, or the luxuries all function as productivity boosting aphrodisiacs.
The only thing I can think is that N divided into two fleets would be less powerful than N ships in a single fleet? So in some sense you pay maintenance for effective combat power?
I don’t know. I find that a lot of the mechanics in the game don’t make sense to me. It’s like they are designed to fit an abstract gameplay function and then given a label for flavor rather than model the thing the label refers to. They are not very simulationist I guess?
Isn’t this from ES1? I don’t know what it is in ES2, but frankly I never notice the trivial maintenance costs.
I honestly don’t know. I saw this in one wiki and copied it, but I have never noticed the maintenance costs either.
I encountered something I don’t understand. I colonized an ice world, then a while later it said my colony vanished. If it takes too long to colonize do you lose it? If so, how might one fix this if you’ve already paid for the bonus’s on the colonize screen?
Was it a colony or an outpost? Did they have enough food?
Good write up here :
https://guides.gamepressure.com/endless_space_2/guide.asp?ID=40015
It was an outpost that never made it to colony status. I think a pirate might have attacked while it was in Outpost stage. Apparently the Settler ship must stay intact til then?
OK, here’s another one. I’m losing manpower apparently. Might be because I’m making lots of ships? If I increase food production will that increase manpower? I can’t seem to get a straight answer on that on the Internet. Thanks! :)
Each ship has a set number of crew that is subtracted from your manpower so if you are making lots of ships you would expect it to go down, especially if they have those extra manpower components. Your manpower increases as a defined percentage of your food production, around 10%, so if you increase your food production your manpower production should increase by 10% or whatever the current rate is for your empire. Things like patriot pills increase that percentage I believe. If you need manpower desperately you can do the chain gang project which turns a pop point into 300 manpower.
OK thanks that helps a lot. Starting to understand more of this. So for some ships it shows I have 100 of 500 manpower. The small ships. But I don’t see a way to increase it from that 100 to get to 500. I’d like to try and invasion.
Also, is there fortify/guard command for ships? So if I want to park one somewhere I don’t have to keep skipping it’s turn?
Increasing a ship design’s manpower can be done with modules. You’ll need to research the modules from the Military tech tree to make them available. Then, edit your ship design, and include the module on your ship. Update old ships or build the new and you will have a ship capable of holding more men.
If you are having Manpower issues for your Empire, it may take a while to load the extra men on your ship. The UI should tell you what % of Manpower will get added each turn to your ship.
There is a shield button for fleets that tells them to defend that system. The ZZZ will just tell them to hang out at that system until an enemy fleet comes into scanner range.
Maybe it’s because I’m still playing out the beginner tutorial thing, but I don’t have either of those buttons for any of my fleets.
May be, I am not sure how the Tutorial plays out.