I haven’t seen this bug at all, and I’ve played a lot of hours. I recall something a while ago, but it seemed rare and I thought had been fixed.
You should definitely post, especially if it’s reproducible.
I was playing this recently after a long hiatus. It seems to me, that I always end up in a big alliance, and the end game is a just a conquest slog unless I either: get a science victory and then bug out of the alliance so I can win or build wonders so we can all win.
The game play seems to be the same kind of thing over and over. Is there something I am missing?
The victories are military, science or wonders, roughly, yes. I usually disable the dust victory condition.
Actually, so do I. THe dust victory is by far, the easiest to get. I was asking about the game-play loop in general. I just do not see much fun in this game it seems. Each play-though is much to similar for my tastes.
I find there’s enough variety in the mechanics of each race, the political system and so on, that each game has plenty of interesting decisions. The options might be (oftne) the same each time, but they are frequently important and beneficial enough I have to spend some time pondering them.
I don’t find the gameplay loop any more repetitive than Civ V etc. Qute the opposite, in fact.
I reloaded a save with the invasion bug and now it worked, yay!
but I’ve lost interest in that game, need to restart on a higher difficulty.
I just noticed that some of the lines that connect systems are now “thicK” and are spinning,I don’t recall seeing that before. Is it the result of a tech I researched or did I somehow change the map view?
I think one of the factions has a gate thingy they can build between systems. Maybe the vaulters? Anyway one of the abilities has that twirly effect thingy.
yes, vaulters can build portals, but aren’t any vaulters in this game, it’s a tiny map with just UE and Lumeris.
Perhaps this is related to the fact that next to “galaxy view” is now says “diplomacy scan”? I’m pretty sure it used to say “trade” and not “diplomacy.”
nope thats not it- it’s back to sayinbg “diplomacy scan” but the spinning lines are still there.
Weird. Yeah I have no idea. Sorry :/
These are wormholes. They appear after researching a tech in the science quadrant. They’re a 1-turn travel thing.
Ohhh cool. I actually thought it was some kind of direct trade route.
oh cool, thanks!
Hey, @Fifth_Fret (or anyone else who would like to chime in!), the discussion in that other thread made me want to poke my head in here and get caught up in Endless Space 2 land.
I haven’t played the game since prior to the diplomatic rework they were talking about in November, I think it was. So I haven’t played since that update, as well as the Vaulters and other stuff they have added.
How did these updates impact the game? Do you feel they made significant improvements to the point where someone who was a little lukewarm (not dislike, just not love) should jump back in and try again? Or would it be more accurate to describe it as more great content for people who already really enjoy the game?
I guess I’m shamelessly asking for a recap of the past 6 months of development and what your thoughts on the current version of the game are. :)
Well, it depends what you disliked. I have my own list of gripes with the game, but I expect they are significantly different to yours!
Nothing has fundamentally changed. There have been great strides with balance (especially combat and trading companies), and there are some cool diplomatic interactions (along with a way of bullying weaker AIs in a way that they can understand). There is a cool new faction with some neat mechanics, and a ton of bug-fixes, and some of the faction quests have had certain paths tweaked to make them more accessible.
I really like the game, but I have a list of grievances with it - I like the rest of the game sufficiently that I can overlook them. But here they are:
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Selling resources and the weird ‘inflation’ mechanic trivialises dust production at the expense of early resources, of which there is nowhere near enough demand for.
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The AI is not good. It is not bad - it is better than Civ V AI (and from what I have read, miles ahead of Civ VI). But it is not good, and probably behind Endless Legend’s AI (which was also not good).
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The victory conditions are not well paced, and tend to occur before the fun late-game techs and quest is in play.
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Combat is a bit obtuse (I don’t mind that it’s hands-off), and certain aspects still unbalanced or out of player control (due to lack of clear information, mostly).
If those things were putting you off, they haven’t changed. They have made some positive tweaks to the political system (which I consider a really novel and interesting mechanic in the game), added a variety of quests and minor races, the aforementioned political interactions, some more weapon types, fighters/bombers, etc.
There are also some fairly cool mods aiming to address much of the above, and a clearly active development road-map which may also do so later. Endless Legend came on leaps and bounds over time.
I doubt the patches are going to make you fall in love with the game if you were luke-warm on it before, though.
Thanks! I wish I could even identify what preventing me from really getting into the game. I didn’t dislike it at all, it just didn’t grab me. I played partway through the game as the Sophons, then played a full game as the race that sends vines out to other systems. That one I won as a science victory IIRC.
I think my issue has been that my games have played out like you described your Stellaris playthrough. I feel like I’m just floating through the game idly pushing the occasional button, but I’m not really being engaged with interesting decisions or problems to solve. I had already played with the difficulty up a couple notches, maybe I need to turn it up more? I just am wary of the Civ5 issue, where at a certain point the numerical bonuses just get stupid.
I love the races and feeling of the game. I really enjoy the idea of the hands-off combat, but never felt like I was faced with an interesting decision to make in terms of cards to play or how to design my ships (the latter is a common bugaboo for me in these games, including Stellaris).
The game just felt floaty and aimless while I muddled through and won, so I’m hoping some tweaks to settings (someone earlier mentioned turning off pirates, I think?) or mods might solve that for me. I feel like the component pieces are there, they just never gelled into a compelling experience that made me want to go back, if that makes sense.
I think part of the issue is that AI is a bit passive, and isn’t very good as chasing it’s own victory conditions. Singleplayer then becomes an optimisation problem, and if you don’t treat it as such, it’s true that your decisions become rather meaningless.
Here is a guess: turn of science and dust victory, and start a small galaxy with United Empire, Cravers, Lumeris and yourself. Turn off pirates, and play on Serious (which is before the difficulty gets stupid). I’d expect the AIs to do rather well in such a situation, and you’ll be stuck meeting them early. All of these races thrive in the early game, so if they are at all aggressive, it might be quite a challenge.
I might try this out myself, and see what I learn.
Thanks for the suggestions! I think I played on Serious previously, but this was a long ways back and I think pirates were crippling to the AI at the time. I may not have had a representative experience.
When I fire it up next I’ll give your suggestions a shot! Thanks for taking the time to help me out. :)
Honestly, it’s a pleasure to talk to someone about this stuff.
I’ve just started up a game on those settings, by the way! I’ve picked the Vaulters, and added the Riftborn to the mix. The Vaulters start with no homeworld, so I get to pick from two systems:
Mizar has two colonizable worlds - a forest with unknown anomolies, and a Boreal with known Titanium.
Meanwhile, Bani has one small Monsoon with Hyperium and Transvine, and a Steppe blighted with Acid Rain.
I’m going to go for Mizar, and probably the forest - industry is more important than science, and it will be a good second planet to take.
I pass the Dirty Hands law (which will speed my buildings at the price of some influence - well worth it) and get going on Drone Networks.
I assign my hero to the scout, and research those anomolies: I get lucky! Titanium and Eden Incense. I probably won’t be using Eden incense as a system improvement (Vaulters can optionally use strategics - of which all this Titanium will be perfect for) but the bonus science and approval will be excellent.
The right tech is almost certainly Xenp-Linguistics for extra production, but then I’m faced with a real choice on the second tech: I think the food building will be extremely valuable, as I have two great planets to colonize and some good population bonuses on both.
I spend some money adding probes, an engine, and a torpedo to my hero, and send them off to the stars.
And so on. ES2 doesm’t send out fireworks when you make good choices or find good things - maybe Civ does that better. But the choices are there.