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Endless Legend

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Yes, I meant Legends.

 

Sounds like it's a "strategy" game that doesn't really require any strategy beyond going with whatever strength your race has. Once you do that, you spend the rest of the game idly pushing units around a map.

 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy games like that from time to time. They're nice and relaxing. And i'll probably pick up EL once I've completed some of the other games I already own. But it seems odd that it gets so much praise as a great "strategy" game when there's not a lot to it.

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Yes, I meant Legends.

 

Sounds like it's a "strategy" game that doesn't really require any strategy beyond going with whatever strength your race has. Once you do that, you spend the rest of the game idly pushing units around a map.

 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy games like that from time to time. They're nice and relaxing. And i'll probably pick up EL once I've completed some of the other games I already own. But it seems odd that it gets so much praise as a great "strategy" game when there's not a lot to it.

 

Don't get me wrong but isn't every strategy game about maximising your strengths, & minimising your opponents?

 

If EL has a big fault it is as many have pointed out that skilled & seasoned strategy gamer can (after practising) out optimise the AIWhich is not exactly a uncommon fault in strat games :D and until you hit that point its fully deserving of the praise that has come it's way.

 

So not a "hardcore" strategy game by any means, but still one that offers within the scope of it's difficulty curve a rich and varied world and factions to play with.

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I was talking to a friend who's been playing a lot of the game recently and he was saying that the game starts to feel really shallow when going for other victory conditions because he felt the game depends a lot on you having a fully outfitted army regardless. How accurate is this? He's the kind of thing person that likes to do things like play Civ V and win with a cultural victory as a single city on emperor, so it's very possible I'd still enjoy the game since I'm not that kind of person.

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What do you want to know exactly?  Your friend's claim as you present it is pretty vague because every 4X suffers a bit from being very militaristic, so that's not exactly unique problem for Endless Legend in and of itself.

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Is maintaining a large army still necessary for pursuing other victory conditions than a domination victory? Is going for a different type of victory still satisfying to play?

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Is maintaining a large army still necessary for pursuing other victory conditions than a domination victory? Is going for a different type of victory still satisfying to play?

I know the quest victory requires a large enough army to take a distant city from your most powerful rival. The science victory is neither helped nor hindered by a large army. The diplomacy victory is odd, because it requires a large enough army to be respected, but not so large to be feared, unless you're willing to invest enough to overawe everyone.

So... yes, it's important, but not more than most 4X games.

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You will need a defensive force of some description, especially if your regions are large and cover a big area. The early game is something of a land grab to be honest - the more regions you can snag the stronger you will be and the weaker your local rivals. However it is entirely possible to go through the whole game without declaring war, or having war declared on you. That said you will still get wandering bands of minor factions who can take out undefended cities quite easily.

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In my game, I never got attacked once by another civilization, and only a few times from minor races. I didn't feel the need to have a military at all.

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In the last game I played (Vaulters on one of the easier difficulties) I actually found it more important to keep my military upgraded with the latest and strongest equipment than to increase its size. But that might just be because the Vaulters have that whole teleport-between-cities thing. War was declared on me three or four times, but I only ever needed one army, decked out in the best gear and led by a hero, to win all of them.

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In the last game I played (Vaulters on one of the easier difficulties) I actually found it more important to keep my military upgraded with the latest and strongest equipment than to increase its size. But that might just be because the Vaulters have that whole teleport-between-cities thing. War was declared on me three or four times, but I only ever needed one army, decked out in the best gear and led by a hero, to win all of them.

 

It's not unique to vaulters, this is just how the game works due to units gaining XP.  Swarm of weaker units will just end up 'feeding' smaller but more elite force.

 

2nd army does help a lot in that it lets your units heal up by rotating, but you definitely don't benefit from building 5 stacks or something.

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Had a friend gift it to me, played the tutorial, but it's heating up my PC like nothing else. I meet the minimum specs, so I don't think it's one I can play until I upgrade my PC a little sadly :(

 

That said, I like what the tutorial showed me.

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I played a really disappointing game where I customized the Cultists, and went for a one city science victory. Since the game makes public announcements when a player is making progress on a science victory, I expected the AIs to drop what they were doing and attack to try to prevent my imminent victory. Instead they just sat there content and lost the game.

 

The AI is really stupid overall. It never reaches Civ 5's level of suicidal mismanagement, but it never does anything smart: in battles it's completely predictable, and in empire building it doesn't plan well. I think it would be interesting to see how the game plays out with humans, would anyone like to find that out together?

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The new expansion, "Guardians" is now available:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/357360

http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/endless-legend-guardians-of-auriga-dlc-will-add-colossus-units-and-legendary-deeds-31669

http://www.shacknews.com/article/89357/endless-legend-expands-today-with-guardians

 

The main add-on is the addition of "Titan"-esque units associated with different natural elements of the planet of Auriga. It sounds like you can control these Titans and order them either in combat or to enhance your civilization. "Legendary Deeds" sound like unique quests that are available for all civilizations to compete for completion. Being the first to complete one gives you extra bonuses like technologies, items, or city improvements.

 

Speaking of city improvements, it seems they've added some new buildings that some reviewers have been comparing to the Civilization "Wonders" system.

 

I haven't played this game in a long time. For some reason, I wasn't expecting DLC. Dunno if I'll buy it any time soon, but it's got me thinking about how neat, if technically misguided, AMPLITUDE can be. They're a favorite company of mine lately just for trying new stuff.

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I recently watched the Yogscast videos for Endless Legend and it made me realize that there's actually some interesting depth there, just that the AI sucks, which makes me want to try it out in Multiplayer.

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I recently watched the Yogscast videos for Endless Legend and it made me realize that there's actually some interesting depth there, just that the AI sucks, which makes me want to try it out in Multiplayer.

 

I'd be up for that, were you thinking many human players or something 1 on 1? Either way, I'm Ninety-Three on Steam, add me so we can set up something.

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I was thinking maybe 4 people maybe? Enough to make it interesting but not too much so it bogs down.

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Thoughts on this?

I've been playing the game with the guardians expansion and enjoying it a lot. It still feels a little over complex at times - too many ideas and systems that occasionally fight against each other - but the faction design is exceptional and it always feels like a different game for each faction. Not entirely sure this new race is going to add to the game but it does look like there are plenty of new ideas coming into the game.

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I've been playing both this and Age of Wonders III recently.  Although, I've not put much time into either so far, I'm favouring AOW.  The strategic combat gives it the edge for me.

 

When EL was first released, it was criticised for lack of an endgame and for shallow combat.  

When AOW was first released, it was criticised for lack of racial diversity and lack of tactics and AI competence in the city-building phase of the game. 

 

Now, both games have been heavily patched and DLC'd, I wonder which has overcome its previous drawbacks to greater effect?  Anyone have an opinion on that?

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I would have to play a bit more of EL to tell more about the endgame, but I feel that AOW did overcame the drawback (but to be fair I never felt that AOW suffered from that too much to begin with) of lack of diversity (new races, changes to the older ones, the specializaitons) and lots of stuff add to the endgame/mid, however EL latest additions also improved the early and mid game too, combat is pretty much the same I guess save from eventual changes/fixes

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I found the Vaulters underwhelming. All the other races played better and had richer style. I love the game but the vaulters seem like your normal CIV 5 race. They play like your tall narrow turtle faction.

The rest of the game was great. It wove together great art and system design (learning curve aside). You have some detailed game mechanics with outfitting your unit and activating your racial trait. You need to dig into the main screen to fund the vaulter's holy resource trait or the necro's devour dead bodies for pop boost.

I wish the units out fitted themselves with equipment, but hardcore 4xers like that min/maxing. If you get some late game resources and outfit just one army correctly, you can cut a path through huge empires general armies. It brings a richness to the hero/quest system.

The biggest advantage of endless legend over beyond earth/ CIV 5 is their forums to fix bugs. You get on their website 'we game together' and the bug gets worked on. I was playing beyond earth yesterday and my artillery couldn't fire two squares over flat terrain...

About the comment on the end game falling apart, the two expansions and endless support have fixed this. I find it challaging after turn 200; the difficulty setting are good. I got about 150 hours played and can't beat it on endless difficulty all the time

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interesting, i played the base game a couple of times but didn't find it particularly gripping. Have the last few expansions been good?

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I've been playing this again a fair amount the last could of days, and really enjoying it. However I only have the shadows DLC - I don't have shifters which makes significant changes to the 'Winter' phases of the game. It's a game of exploitation to be honest - how well you do is ultimately down to how well you understand how your faction works and how well you exploit its strengths. My last game I went with Broken Lords, and by the end I was generating so much Dust I won a economic victory without trying to because I was earning about 50k dust per turn.

These guys have a podcast on where the game is now and what they expect from the new Ocean based DLC.

https://m.soundcloud.com/4xperts-show/the-4xperts-show-endless-legend-revisited

The conversation is a little dry in places, and O don't agree with everything they say, but it's good summary of where they game is now. In of the guys is very active on the Games2Gether forums, and he's just won the faction design contest for Endless Space 2 so it's not quite a bunch of ransoms as it were. Worth a listen but I'd love to hear Rob / Frasers opinions. Like we all voted for about 6 months back!!

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