Let's Play Endless Space!So, yeah, I recently finished my third game of this wonderful game, and I thought it would be cool to attempt a let's play of it. For greater !!FUN!!, you will be allowed to somewhat direct my actions, like the race I will be playing, the diplomatic stance, ship design (missiles, guns or lasers?), or more simply naming systems, ships and fleets.
For those of you who don't know what Endless Space is, it's a very good 4X game. Fairly classic. You got star systems linked by space lanes, each having 1-6 planets of various types and sizes, each with its own perks (like mutant flora, rings, irradiation, ruins, etc...). There is all the classic systems of production, food, money, population and whatnot. If you played any 4X at all you will quickly understand 80% of what's going on.
The combat system is unusual. Some may be turned off by it, but if you compare it to Civilization, it's much more interactive and tactical. Basically there's three kinds of weapons (with appropriate defence for each), and cards you play, which gives bonuses and can counter each other.
WINNING:There's several ways to win the game:
-Science: research The Ultimate Technology (not the actual name). Very difficult.
-Wonder: research Invulnerable Empire and build 5 wonders. Also science based and much easier than the Science victory, making it kinda pointless.
-Economic: earn 720.000 Dust over the whole game.
-Expansion: control 75% of the galaxy.
-Supremacy: control all homeworlds.
-Diplomatic: quoting the game: "If you manage to survive long enough while being at war the least amount of time, you may be able to impose yourself and win thanks to your wisdom and integrity. ". Basically being at peace and making lots of treaties. I hate this because the way the AI act: they never, NEVER wage war with each other (at least at the level of difficulty I'm playing), and make ridiculous demands you can't not refuse. So you always end up behind everyone else in the invisible "diplomatic points counter". And so it becomes a ticking bomb with a semi-random, invisible countdown. I nearly lost my first game to this, having to break all treaties with my (powerful) ally and rush out a wonder victory. One more turn and he would have won (he was like 99.8% complete). I lost my second game to it because of a retarded starting placement. I unified the galaxy in a single, huge alliance, and lost. In my third game the Amoebas managed to reach 85% (with +1% per turn) before I wiped them out and grabbed an expansion victory. This is turned off.
-Score: Disabled, I don't like my 4X game to be timed.
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First, deciding the race we will play. There is 10 of them:
The United Empire. Aka the humans. Gameplay based on making loads of money. Fairly aggressive. I played them once and they make ridiculous amount of money.
The Sophons. My favourite race. They produce 30% more science than everyone else, plus even more with low taxes and they have system improvement to make MOAR !!SCIENCE!!. By turn 100 they are like 20 tech ahead of your typical AI. Normally they aim for scientific victory, but crushing the opposition with unbelievably advanced warships is a viable option.
The Hissho. Samurai space-birds. Gain bonuses when they win battles and invade systems. Elite warriors.
The Amoeba. Unicellular organisms. Really good at diplomacy (unless it's a retarded AI in command), start with all the map revealed.
The Automatons. Clockwork robots. Have a strange gameplay mechanic related to the industry. Doesn't have their own ship models yet. (newest addition to the game)
The Cravers. For the Swarm! Zerg-rush warriors. They have a "Locust points" (LP) mechanic. Planets with 0-40 LP have a bonus in production, 41-59 no bonus, and 60+ a malus (they overexploit the ressources). Their unique techs gives them larger fleets.
The Horatios. Interesting backstory (they are all clones of an eccentric human trillionaire). They have more population on each planet, and can clone heroes.
The Sowers. A bunch of Wall-e. They can colonize all planets right from the start, and terraform more easily. They produce less food, but industry add to food (for 100 industry produced you got 40 bonus food).
Kinda like an hybrid between Sophons and humans. Good at exploration, can evacuate a star system (to screw with invasion fleets).
The Sheredyn. Based off the United Empire. Just a cosmetic change available for Emperor edition buyers in fact.
Then there's the form and size of the galaxy, and the number of opponents (you can choose their race, too). I find 3-5 opponents is a good number, but if you want a 1v1 on a huge 2-arms galaxy, fine. Don't try a 8 player battle on a tiny galaxy though, tiny galaxy is REALLY tiny.
You can also choose the number of constellations, space lanes, age of the galaxy (influence the types of stars present, which influence the type of planets.), but I won't list all of the options (there's a lot!). Pirates are off, that's not negociable. Also difficulty level, set to newbie (or easy at most). That said, feel free to suggest!
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Topic: Let's play Endless Space, like a newb! (Read 5261 times)