Endless Space - For all you 4X lovers out there

[Ninja_Khorin]

Endless Space is a 4X game by a new studio called Amplitude. And in my opinion it's shaping up to be really good. It's currently in its alpha, but if you prepurchase it on steam you get to play it.(I haven't bought it yet unfortunately, waiting for my money to arrive) Have a trailer:
http://youtu.be/_Wr19Ln9sO4


It's a game with a fairly revolutionizing concept. Let the players vote on what should be in the game. They call it G2G (GAMES2GETHER). On their website when you register you get points and those points can be spent on voting for what gets added to the game. Here's how that works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SOexT0kDhNc

If you're looking at some gameplay, then here's a 30 minute introduction to it from Quill18:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM1AFpN6rh4&feature=youtu.be

In my opinion this looks so much like Master of Orion it's uncanny. And all the menus seem really intuitive and snazzy. The combat system seems great and overall it looks beautiful graphics-wise.

I'm not really one to write long posts(okay, that's a lie)so I can't be bothered to write much about it, but if you want to read about it then here's a summary of it:
http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/showthread.php?656-The-Goat-Quarterly-%28Review-Thoughts%29

It's on steam on sale at the moment for 22,49€ or 26,24€ depending on which version you buy.

[Vibe]

Looks like a very decent game... but there is just no time!

[Bjarky]

I bought it a few days ago, it reminds me a bit of MoO, but with a bit less micromanaging.
As of now the game is still an alpha so expect some weird things to happen from time to time, the graphic resolution settings are still a bit off, some res can't be used, so expect to try a couple out until you found the one u like, i use 1440/900 fx, also ingame diplomacy is still very sluggish and i read that some people got a bad game start position (to many and strong pirates or isolated star system etc.), so if this happens to you, just start another campaign to get an balanced start.
here is what u got with the alpha:
http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/showthread.php?446-Playable-Alpha-Release-Notes

Even though some things are missing etc. the alpha really plays like an beta and works great, i already played for hours and like it very much.
Time flies by very fast as u get sucked in instantly if u are into these kind of games, so if u liked the MoO series, this is definitely a game for you 

[Ninja_Khorin]

Yeah, you're the only one on my friends list who has this

In any case, I agree with everything you said. It's shaping up to be one of those games I'll play for years. I've played it for about 100 turns now. Been beating a ton of pirates while trying to avoid conflict with the other factions. I want to grab as much as I can before having to face my enemies. My fleet is not up to fighting another faction, at the moment.

[Ninja_Khorin]

So, I bought this game sunday evening and I've already played it for 22 hours. I can't stop playing. It's the "One more turn" - syndrome :/

[Bjarky]

yup, its really good 
also the devs have said they are ready with bringing an patch out soon, so expect it to become even better hurr hurr

[Ninja_Khorin]

Thought I'd share you a glimpse of my empire I'm running on Endless Space. I play humans and the general idea has been to kill all the heretics for the empire(the usual). It's a normal large campaign with 3 AI enemies; the Horatio, Sophons and Cravers. As it stand now only the Cravers remain. 30 turns ago or so I destroyed the last of the supposedly peaceloving Sophon(they declared war on me. I killed them.)
I destryoed the Horatio fairly early on. They got stuck between me and the Cravers. What you see is the last that remains of the Cravers. I've recently developed even more powerful ships (the Zeus Mk. 3 class Dreadnaughts armed with the most powerful weapons my empire can create) that are being created in my forgeworlds. I'll have fleets ready within a few turns to do the final invasion and claim my galaxy.

Here's what my empire looks like at the moment:

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Until recently I had problems getting ships to the front from my forgeworlds due to the travel times, however with recent discoveries in wormhole technology I've managed to overcome the problem and the travel time has now been reduced to one year (= turn). I've mentioned my forgeworlds a few times now, here's a glimpse of a few of them:

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And the industrial capital of the empire, the Rasam system. Capable of churning out one Zeus Mk. 3 a year:

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They are harsh worlds to live on, but the people recognize their duty and are glad to fulfill their part in the unification of the galaxy.

And my homesystem. Birthplace of the Emperor and Empire. Iena Eternae:

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This game is awesome.

[Ninja_Khorin]

Release date is 4th of July, to anyone who might care

Here's an article about it, I stumbled upon:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/14/a-better-beta-infinite-joy-in-endless-space/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rockpapershotgun%2Fsteam+%28Rock%2C+Paper%2C+Shotgun%3A+Steam+RSS%29

[Taser]

Sounds like the setup of sins of a solar empire with turn based play. Is it similar? I loved playing sins of a solar empire so I might try this out.

[Ninja_Khorin]

It's not like sins, because it's not an RTS. It's like Total War in space with different combat.


It's being released today. Waiting :/

[Leesin]

Not sure if I want to play this or Legends of Pegasus, leaning towards LoP atm though, guess I can try Endless Space out rather than buy it to find out I don't like it.

[Taser]

It's not like sins, because it's not an RTS. It's like Total War in space with different combat.


It's being released today. Waiting :/

Only thought of sins because of the way they connected stars and systems is similar to how they do it in sins plus its in space.

Anyway it looks like it'd be fun but still hesitant to get it.

[Tot.]

This game is so good and so much like Master of Orion.

Btw. Khorin,you're such a perfectionist in your system management, in my game I'm about in 100th turn, captured middle of the galaxy, I'm on the edge of bankrupcy all the time but I've three wars at once and I'm expanding in three directions. AI sometimes is really surpsrisingly reasonable (ie. offering alliance vs. common enemy) then again sometimes it's really silly (got a "peace if you deliver 14 titanium" offer from Pilgrims, who are 6th or 7th in ranking while I'm 1st and my fleets could crush their systems in a couple of turns....).   

Wondering if dreadnoughts are worth it, since the core of my fleet are battleships, mostly defensive geared...

[Ninja_Khorin]

Heh. I like role-playing something when I play games like these. Currently I'm playing a craver campaign where I don't give a shit about any defensive stuff. I just spam fleets with tons of weapons and expans as much as possible. Great fun!

Dreadnaughts are useful and fun to watch during battle, but the difference between using cruiser, battleships or dreadnaughts is minimal. I think someone calculated that if you use cruisers you get the most military power per industry.

I really enjoy this game. 

[Tot.]

It certainly is good so far, though AI needs serious improvements. On my 3rd game I tried highest difficulty and still steamrolled it up to the point where by turn 80 it was obvious that the game is over. It just can't build ships properly, I don't think I lost more than 4 ships in total during the entire game simply because AI even despite having cheated FIDS boosts keeps producing same fleets which get hard-countered by any human player.

Anyways, multiplayer in here is PBEM-style or, hope not, do you have to actually sit and wait for the co-players to finish their turns?