I referencwd Endless Legends ams stated that out of all the many mechanics there, the only interesting one was the racial variation, and it was interesting only as long as it took to figure out the code. For example, going from memory, Broken Lords use dust for everything. And healing especially. And don’t have innate healing.
OK, figured it out.
Now what?
And the rest of the game, the combat system, the economy system, the hero system, the city management system, was incredibly boring and frustrating.
Again I can only offer my opinion, but IMHO pretty much the entire total war series, the age of Wonders series.
Once you figure out Rome (in both Rome total wars) which in my case gave many enjoyable hours, there’s still enough fun in the game to enjoy it. Ditto Carthage etc.
In Aow3 you can play for many many many hours and still not figure out everything even one class or race has to give you.
I’ll go through my steam library when I am back at my computer on Sunday evening and list all the games I think did this better than El.
Better being giving me a game World that is enjoyable and offers more than the intellectual challenge of specific racial gimicks, which to be honest were usually handicaps, to engage me.
My experience with EL was that playing on high level was pretty boring and micro intensive. Like for the best result you need scouts all over the map, and once eclipse hits you have to visit every temple again, and in winter you have to get all pearls. Combat’s finnicky too. So I haven’t beaten this game at a highest level though I’ve played it more than ES2.
ES2 mechanics are much better (at least till hacking came along). But there was no point in learning them: after several game I’d try a new faction with unfamiliar mechanics and win on highest difficulty settings. No strategy, no mastery needed, just don’t do dumb stuff and enjoy the ride, now the game gives you achievement for being cool. Maybe if the difficulty was higher I’d discovered that mechanics aren’t welll thought out, but I doubt it. It’s a great game design without a game attached to it.
Well, I haven’t tried any games from Amplitude and I’m just annoyed that they announced this one so early. A new Civilization type game, I’d be willing to buy right now, but months from now i have no idea. I wish I could play it now.
My experience with the Endless series, so far, is they seem okay. I played a little, and will probably go back… one day. The problem is they didn’t grip me, hold me. Their first impressions didn’t keep me going, but I can’t really say that I can explain that I hated… anything which is why I am curious about what they might do here.
Civ V and VI… I can give you a laundry list of things I hate, but since I the series had been is it 2am already sort of thing until that point.
So here’s to hoping they create something that will be worthwhile for a lot of folks.
I’m a heretic: I prefer the Endless games and Civ 5/6 to AoW3 and Planetfall. The AoW formula doesn’t click with me. I like having more non-combat stuff to do – building my empire in the Civ games, expanding my “trees” as the forest race in ES2, etc. So I have high hopes for Humankind.
Actually, I’d really like to see a 3x game: explore, expand, exploit.
Yeah I could use without the exterminate myself. I thought some of the later entries to a lot of the 4x offered that with diplomacy options but… mostly no. You just survive battles until you get to those options. No real way to avoid them.
