I've played it for a little bit, and sad to say the like Endless Space, the combat is lame. Basically, you set up your units, choose their style of fighting, and then watch things play out more or less automatically. It's really simple, and just not fun.
Game looks great visually, but the UI is rough. It's also confusing how it notifies me when my tech finishes, but not when my city is finished making something, so I need to keep an eye on it to queue up the next thing. Haven't met one of my opponents yet, but there are these minor factions that I'm not sure how to interact with except attacking them. Tech tree is less confusing than Endless Space, but much more obtuse than just about any other 4X game.
It's early. It's an alpha. The overall flow to the game feels clunky, and at least at the moment, there doesn't seem a whole lot to the actual strategy. I'm just blindly choosing the next option, and not feeling like I can make real decisions with pros and cons, while my hero wanders the map, clicking on ruins. I hope a lot changes before the final.
No. The combat doesn't play like any other 4X game. It plays more like a party based RPG where fighters take turns based on initiative rolls, but you can only choose to attack, defend, or hold position. Just had a big battle, and it was frustrating because I didn't feel like I had much control over it. The bigger army is certain to win every time.Isn't that sort of combat a trope of this kind of genre though? Not saying you're wrong - just curious as to what you think of others in the genre.
Gonna pick up the founder's pack I think - these guys have done fantastically well supporting their games - I'll pay them back for that.
No. The combat doesn't play like any other 4X game. It plays more like a party based RPG where fighters take turns based on initiative rolls, but you can only choose to attack, defend, or hold position. Just had a big battle, and it was frustrating because I didn't feel like I had much control over it. The bigger army is certain to win every time.
No. The combat doesn't play like any other 4X game. It plays more like a party based RPG where fighters take turns based on initiative rolls, but you can only choose to attack, defend, or hold position. Just had a big battle, and it was frustrating because I didn't feel like I had much control over it. The bigger army is certain to win every time.
Not sure. Better elevation might make you do more damage, but since you don't actually control where your troops move to, it's hard to take advantage of that.Does the terrain affect the battle?
So this is an Early Access game, I guess everyone knows that, but what that means is not all of the factions, sub-factions, victory conditions and a few other aspects of the game are present yet. You can get a detailed list of everything that is and is not in the game on the store page. They even state that the data structure may change several times throughout the early access so you could lose saves and progress in the campaigns you're playing. Just thought I would make sure to mention and highlight that, it's probably a deal breaker for some.
Anyways...
You start off the game with a Hero, two military units and a settler. I didn't realise I had a settler in my army and moved around a bunch of turns before I figured this out. I started the game over, settled right away and then began exploring the world with my army. You seem to start the game off with a predetermined culture/empire border. I don't know if you need to expand that border through city improvements in your capitol to settle your cities further out or if settling cities outside that border expands your culture/empire border for you. I'm on Turn 20 in my game as the wild walkers and about to settle a ruin, which is perfect for settling according to my army that explored it, and it's right outside my current border.
The only victory condition in the game right now is domination so I'm trying to mostly building up an army and looking to expand my empire. City improvements are only going to come on an as needed basis.
Things I like about Endless Legend:
1. The quest system. This sort of teaches you how to play the game and provides you with basic rewards for completing them. One quest required that I explored three different ruins to get a small amount of a luxury resource, another has me looking for an item in one ruin and returning to another with a specific unit type at a specific level to gain a reward.
2. The sub-factions. These are sort of like Civ V's barbarian camps and City-States mashed into one. Rogue/Neutral units are generated by them, you can fight these units with no consequence and you can simply wipe their strongholds out if you want. You can also win them over to your side. You can outright bribe them for an amount of Dust or complete a quest to win them over. I don't know if these sub-factions are like Civ's City-States, meaning that their loyalty is something you can gain and potentially lose to someone else or if you can win them over permanently. I could've outright bought out the sub-faction near my capitol but their quest lined up with a strategic resource I'm already researching.
3. The user interface. This was a highlight of Endless Space and it's a highlight of Endless Legend. It's so minimalist and slick looking but, more importantly, it's so easy to use.
4. This game is pretty. The overall aesthetic is kind of like the user-interface in that it's a very minimalist looking game but that's what kind of sets it apart from other recent games in the genre. Age of Wonders 3 and Warlock 2 are not bad looking games by any means but they look incredibly similar. Endless Legends overworld map kinda looks like the intro to Game of Thrones. It's very stylised, simple but stylised.
5. The combat. When two armies engage in battle you get a dialogue window where you can choose a to manually engage in the fight or simply auto-resolve the fight (yay!), you also choose how your army will fight from three options. You do transition to a combat mode but that transition is much smaller than say Age of Wonders 3. The game doesn't load up a whole different map it just establishes a field of combat on the overworld map, all extraneous details from the map are removed, you position your units from the army stack where you want them and then initiate the fight.
Things I don't like about Endless Legend:
1. Unit movement. There isn't a hex overlay of your units possible range of movement that turn. Maybe these's some display option I need to find and this is a feature but as of now it's possible to end a turn when a unit can still act. There is an refresh icon with a number by it showing the number of units that can act by the next turn button but if you move the unit once and it still has the capability to do something but you leave it, that's the equivalent of Civ V's pressing F to ignore moving that unit. This was sort of a general knock against Endless Space, you could press next turn without having production or research set and sort of not know it. They eventually fixed that in ES and the same is true for EL but the unit thing bugs me. I'm just so used to Civ V and that game holds your hand in ways this doesn't.
2. The game doesn't seem to like alt-tabbing. This could simply be my rig showing its age, I do need a new processor, probably a new mobo and a RAM upgrade but the game took a while to come back from alt-tabbing, it almost didn't come back. The only reason I stopped playing was so I could post this.Yeah, it's definitely my rig showing it's age.
3. There's no hex overlay on the world. Hopefully this is just an option I need to find and turn on. One thing I like about Civ and Europa Universalis is how there's all manner of different hotkeys for turning on and off different display modes for the map on the fly.
So far, even in this early alpha state, Endless Legend is looking good, really good. It definitely has that "one more turn" vibe for me, the only reason I'm not playing it right now was so I could make this post. Endless Space was good but this looks like it could be great. I need to play the game more to make a more concrete judgement but the fact that I want to play the game more is already saying something about it to me.
Hows AOW3 in regards with Warlock 2? Really not feeling Warlock 2 as much as the first one.
I'm still searching for that elusive fantasy 4x game that will have it all. I've been playing the hell out of AOW3 and Warlock 2 (to a lesser extent) and neither AIs have the challenge I was hoping for.
How about Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes? I've been tempted to pick it up (sadly just missed the GMG sale for 66% off). How does it compare with AoW3 and WL2?
I played alot of FE and while it's a pretty game, I just don't feel like it has much depth. Plus the endgame is a huge slog moving your Stacks of Doom all over the place. There also is no real mid-game. You start out incredibly weak and pretty much have to turtle until you can take on some stronger mobs, but then quickly ramp up until your stack can wipe out anything on the map. If you like the genre, you can get some fun out of it, but its not a long term replayable game like Civ or AOW, at least for me.
I know it has gotten a ton of post release support (which is why I pre-purchased Elemental to support Stardock and got FE for free), especially with the hiring of Derek/Kael (from FoH Civ mod). I just burnt out on it, so I haven't seen the most recent changes.
Can someone point me towards a good tutorial? Bought the game yesterday and I am a bit at a loss at how to play this.
I haven't watched it yet, but how about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQGrSHFIIew&feature=youtu.be ?
Thanks a ton for your thoughts on this. I realized I had FE (not FE:LH) in my Steam library and after playing it a bit I'm not feeling it like I did Civ (haven't gotten AoW or WL yet) so I'll likely wait for a deep sale for FE:LH. Thanks!
I haven't watched it yet, but how about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQGrSHFIIew&feature=youtu.be ?
That's a massive bummer. I really don't like this approach.I've played it for a little bit, and sad to say the like Endless Space, the combat is lame. Basically, you set up your units, choose their style of fighting, and then watch things play out more or less automatically. It's really simple, and just not fun.
Game looks great visually, but the UI is rough. It's also confusing how it notifies me when my tech finishes, but not when my city is finished making something, so I need to keep an eye on it to queue up the next thing. Haven't met one of my opponents yet, but there are these minor factions that I'm not sure how to interact with except attacking them. Tech tree is less confusing than Endless Space, but much more obtuse than just about any other 4X game.
It's early. It's an alpha. The overall flow to the game feels clunky, and at least at the moment, there doesn't seem a whole lot to the actual strategy. I'm just blindly choosing the next option, and not feeling like I can make real decisions with pros and cons, while my hero wanders the map, clicking on ruins. I hope a lot changes before the final.
Added a "Battles Pace" option in the new game advanced settings: you can set the game timers, and also choose to control every round of your battles (choose Encounter Sequence "Advanced").
Does this mean we can control troop movements now?
I don't hate that combat mechanic (set the strategy, units fight out w/o interaction) - I mean, that's the series. I have Age of Wonders 3 for tactical game play.
I really loved Endless Space (and the ongoing support) so will definitely but this. I just wish I was an Early Access guy, but the whole idea of playing unfinished buggy games doesn't appeal to me.
I don't hate that combat mechanic (set the strategy, units fight out w/o interaction) - I mean, that's the series. I have Age of Wonders 3 for tactical game play.
I really loved Endless Space (and the ongoing support) so will definitely but this. I just wish I was an Early Access guy, but the whole idea of playing unfinished buggy games doesn't appeal to me.
anyone playing the release? The buzz on this seems pretty good.
Heard people comparing this to Civ V, is it very similar?
anyone playing the release? The buzz on this seems pretty good.
I've played it for a little bit, and sad to say the like Endless Space, the combat is lame. Basically, you set up your units, choose their style of fighting, and then watch things play out more or less automatically. It's really simple, and just not fun.
Game looks great visually, but the UI is rough. It's also confusing how it notifies me when my tech finishes, but not when my city is finished making something, so I need to keep an eye on it to queue up the next thing. Haven't met one of my opponents yet, but there are these minor factions that I'm not sure how to interact with except attacking them. Tech tree is less confusing than Endless Space, but much more obtuse than just about any other 4X game.
It's early. It's an alpha. The overall flow to the game feels clunky, and at least at the moment, there doesn't seem a whole lot to the actual strategy. I'm just blindly choosing the next option, and not feeling like I can make real decisions with pros and cons, while my hero wanders the map, clicking on ruins. I hope a lot changes before the final.
I saw this show up in my fancy new Steam feed and it looks interesting. How does it compare to, say, AoW3?
(Note: I haven't played Endless Space)