Given this is still just the first alpha, all sounds great!
Downloading now.
Some previews/stuff
http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2012/05/endless-space-alpha-first-look-preview/
http://www.game-boyz.com/content/node/18623
http://www.spacegamejunkie.com/featured/endless-space-qa-a-child-of-civilization-master-of-orion-and-total-war/ (Hi Brian!)
I had time to play a couple of turns and look at the tutorial screens - but based on that very brief time, I’m liking what I see. I guess you can only play as human, and can’t select random races to play against, but I chalk that up to it being an alpha.
Just bought and tried this out a bit - wow…its a true classic 4x as far as I can tell, with tons of research, planets, exploration, combat, diplomacy and what have we - Could this be the worthy successor to Moo2?
anyways, for an alpha its seriously polished and good looking.
Bastards, the lot of you! bye bye $23
Hahahaha, yay!
Wow, the main dev guy worked on Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes! I love that game!
As much as I love the 4X genre, I’ve been burned too many times by it. I will wait for a demo.
As far as I can see, the game uses node based travel between stars? That’s already a plus! I’m at the point where I’ll give immediately a pass to any 4X game that does use something like a checkerboard (or hex) grid game map.
Out of curiosity, might I ask why you prefer the node/jumpgate method of travel over other methods?
Only before you get more advanced tech. Then you can travel anywhere.
You didn’t ask me but I like it because it creates strategic points that need to be held or taken. It may be a crucial node leading deeper into your or an enemies empire. or a node that leads to a number of colonizable systems.
90 minutes video, made by Shacker OverloadUT.
It’s a bit difficult to explain but in short: Checkerboard grid maps make an (already complicated) game needlessly more complicated and fiddly. Often in those games, you have to build a million star bases on every tile around a planet for example.
I doesn’t have to have starlanes, though. Master of Orions II’s (still the gold standard as far as I’m concerned) system is ok, too. I just don’t like grid maps in theses games.
Oohhh, I thought your beef was with the method of travel rather than the map layout. My apologies.
I don’t see a problem with grid maps myself – it makes sense that they’d map out sectors like that in the future I think – but I see your point.
Given his explanation of “having to build a million star bases around a planet”, I think he is talking about how a free movement system complicates things, instead of the clear, discrete checkpoints of a lane/star system.
Thanks! Always good to see some unfiltered gameplay.
I am LOVING this game. Based on an hour playing as the Horatio’s(?), who excel in diplomacy and exploration, and are best suited to a Wonder victory. Planet/system development is deep, and the “keyword finder” in the tech tree is one of those “How come no one ever did this before?” features.
Here’s how it works. You settle a planet with the luxury resource “Unobtanium”, which confers all kinds of bonuses to your faction. But you can’t get the bonus until you research “Phony-baloney element mining” (thanks, tool-tips). Going to the tech tree, you input “Phony-baloney element mining” into the finder, and it not only takes you right to the tech, but clicking on it queues up all the prerequisite techs as well (ala Civ). No muss, no fuss.
One more thing. One criticism is that there is no list of colonizable planets. The main screen shows you how many colonizable planets there are in each system, as well as where luxury resources can be found (like strategic resources in Civ V, researching the right tech reveals the locations).
Ships move towards their destination immediately instead of waiting until you hit “next turn”. I think that’s because ships have a “sensor range” that can reveal surprises. In my current game I keep running into the same “unknown fleet”, but can’t figure out how to make contact, nor do any other races show up in the diplomacy screen.
Unless there is some tremendous flaw that hasn’t cropped up, I would call this the best SF 4X game in a very, very long time.
There are 5 different races to play in the Alpha. Just click the avatar pic to change race…
Seems really cool, I’m looking forward to this one. Also looks like a major time investment.