>>2490770
undercooked

>>2490770
It is alright, not perfect. Mechanically the game is good with the asymmetric factions. I do hope they keep adding main factions and not just the sub factions

What I liked about 1 was the unique setting of this doomed extremely dangerous and weird doomed dying weapons factory planet and how winter was a gameplay mechanic. And also how different and unique all the factions were.
Does 2 do any of that as well or better?

>>2490770
i dont know what it is about these new factions but outside of crav-i mean necrophage 2.0 none of them seem that interesting compared to how the EL1 factions really stood out to me. Or maybe I'm just a coomer and miss Ardent Mages.

>>2490904
The factions are definitely very different and "unique" as well but see my post here >>2490908
for my personal issue. They replaced winter with a monsoon which then leads to the water levels going down and revealing more of the map which to be completely honest I find much more interesting and fun than the winter where unless you're the fuzzy fuckers you're spending turns getting fucked in the ass by it. The 1.0 faction they added was apparently on this new planet which was very sandy before the endless showed up and drowned it for some reason so there's that.
I think the game's art and graphics are nice, too but also a bit les readable than 1's.

Worth getting at 50% off?

>>2490965
maybe in five years after they add ten more races and twenty DLCs

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>>2490908
For now, there's three returning factions, that got reflavored a bit:
>Vaulters
>Broken Lords
>Necrophage
the other three factions are new. It also seems every faction will now have a "rogue" variant, somewhat similar to what the Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion did. My biggest gripe is that artwork seems to have taken a hit and the new factions feel a bit bland/uninspired, just run of the mill amplitudeslop. Minor factions vibe. Gonna post their title screens so everyone can see them and judge for themselves.

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>>2491023

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>>2491024

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>>2491025

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>>2491026

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>>2491027

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>>2491028

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>>2491030

>>2490770
No unique art for anomalies and terrain
Less factions than the previous game base game factions(I don't count the reskinned factions as unique)
Factions don't have unique gameplay mechanics like the first game did, nothing like the Roving Jews, Cultists or Ardent mages
Less customization for creating your own faction
Units don't have equipment anymore, only heroes
Only a year of early access with very little changing
Quest system changed to clunky dialogue instead of lore paragraphs
Feels soulless compared to previous Amplitude games

It's obvious this was a way for them to get funding for Humankind 2 and the timing of the announcement and release shows it. I will probably not buy another Amplitude game ever again.

>>2490908
Sandshapers and Aspects are cool, Last Lords are better than in EL1 , Necrophages are worse but still decent, Kin and Tahuk are very boring.

>>2491125
>Units don't have equipment anymore, only heroes
I like this change, managing loadouts and multiple templates for every unit was way too much micromanagement.
Agree with the other problems though.

>It's obvious this was a way for them to get funding for Humankind 2 and the timing of the announcement and release shows it.
This is just schizophrenic.

>>2491031
>>2491025
these guys should team up and turn it all into arrakis

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Wow, nice faction design guys...

I'm not normally one of those anons who spergs out about minimalist UI but this game is truly abhorrent with it. Why is every single fucking icon just plain white?

>>2491125
I've checked some time ago after being disappointed by el2 and the company's cofounder left before Humankind so i assume he was the one with sense

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>>2491187
Welcome to Amplitude, enjoy your stay.

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>>2491257
I've played every Endless game, ES1 was fucked in the same way but EL1 and ES2 had unique art for pretty much everything.. Now every improvement is just a tiny white icon and impossible to distinguish.

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>>2491125
but they added a fucking pet slot for the hero unit that has no other purpose than cosmetic shit lmao. This game is literally just making me want to download EL1, which is a damn shame because I like the concept of an evolving worldmap.

>>2490770
>Not allowed to eXplore cause you're landlocked
>Not allowed to eXpand cause you're landlocked and city capped
>Not allowed to eXploit cause you have to wait 100 turns for the map to open up
>Not allowed to eXterminate cause other players start off on other islands you can't reach until 100 turns have passed.
Shouldn't count as a "4x game"

>>2491290
By this retard logic Civ isn't a 4x game because you can't cross oceans until midgame.

>>2491307
Civ at least makes sure you can still meet opponents early to 4x. EL2 is designed to be a pass turn snoozefest from turn 1 cause there's little to do until the first tidefall

>start the game
>Build a buncha stuff in my city while exploring the 2 nearby regions
>AI next to me already has 4 territories by the time I can afford a second outpost
Huh? What the fuck is happening, like I can't keep these fuckers from expanding so fast.

is it the future of all strategy games to have a cluttered unreadable flat UI or be full of AIslop?

>>2491290
Maybe stop playing on islands if you don't want island gameplay.

>>2490770
Can you still spam stockpiles and then use them to boost yourself like in EL1?

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>>2491387

>>2491399
Are they Necrophages? They expand very quickly
>>2491439
There are no more stockpiles

>>2491407
>>2491187
It can't be both, trannies.

Am i gonna be bamboozled if i buy Endless Legend 2 and Terra Invicta for 30 dollars
I was interested in Terra Invicta too, and i did like Endless Legend 1..

>>2491507
In my opinion EL2 plays a lot better than the first game but the writing is much worse and the art isn't as charming. Still a pretty solid game. Terra Invicta is just bad and not worth your time.

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>>2491510
Is the writing really that bad? Thats a shame, I did like the writing for EL1 and in retrospect i think it did a lot of work in making the game stand out as a 4X

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>>2491513
Quests are now mainly written as dialogues between characters and none of it is very good, it's especially a problem for Necrophages and the new Aspects and Sandshapers that should be very inhuman and then every quest has them talking like this.

>>2491516
These conversations are like AI drivel. I can't even bring myself to care. Provided feedback that they're out of place during closed beta and early access, it got nowhere. At least there's a quest paragraph before the conversations start now, it was solely conversations before.

>>2491541
I think it was even worse and less alien in the Insider program

>>2491516
It's bizarre that they decided to make all non-faction quest lore and dialogue to be completely generic and shared by all factions regardless of context.
EL2 is IMO barely above "AI-slopped EL1" tier, but only very slightly

Will I miss out on anything if I don't play EL1?

>>2491618
There are some variations, like I remember doing the minor faction quest for the necromancer guys as Last Lords they commented on how weird they thought the lords were. But there's definitely not enough and it's especially awkward with Necrophages and the other more inhuman factions.

>>2491620
You won't get some of the background lore especially concerning the Last Lords and you'll miss out on a few cameos from previous games but it's nothing major.

This game still has a ton of bugs for having been in early access for a year.

>>2491640
Because they rushed it while changing very little besides adding some glow up. There's even an early access survey and suggestion notification in the "release" version of the game. It is very much still early access in all but name.
They have very little confidence in the game that they put a 50% sale on it's release.
>>2491569
Sandshapers heroes quip with each other during battle and map interaction. One yelled out hell yeah when they won. It's very jarring.

>>2491399
I look for the juiciest looking place that is next to a ridge, if there is no ridge then I settle near minerals so I can build works there, a production bottleneck means you do not build influence and science as fast. Endless level AI gets insane economic advantages especially necro and aspects. Going on fast speed helps you keep up because you build shit and expand faster, if you are next to a land grabbing motherfucker I would advise to put a second camp in any territory with good food or production because the earlier you get the second city the better and I have had games where there is no good territory for a city behind my capital and going through my neighbours territory to grab city 2 takes ages
>>2491507
EL2 has improved in some ways mainly better combat but I just skip through quest dialogue it is not that good.

>>2491640
Has it already been a year? Yeah it's pretty much Endless Earlyaccess 2. EL1 also had a bunch of bugs that needed community patch to fix, devs never got to them for years, pumping out DLCs.

>>2491025
>my boys made it out
YES! Stalwarts never die!

>>2491024
>>2491025
Are these the Vaulters? The rogue Vaulters aren’t the Forgotten? Dammit. I guess that’d be greedy, but…dammit.

>>2491027
Meh.

>>2491025
Broken Lords look so gay in this one

>>2491935
I like them, the new hero design where they're on all fours reminds me of some of the DS3 enemies. It really sells the evolution of their story where they're just totally corrupted by their curse now and willing to do absolutely anything for survival.

Not a fan of how their cities look though, especially the merchant and workshop districts don't match the gothic style of their other buildings at all.

>>2491932
They're not Vaulters, they're United Empire marines from Endless Space.

>>2491955
>It really sells the evolution of their story where they're just totally corrupted by their curse now and willing to do absolutely anything for survival.
O-oh...

>>2491958
I don't know anything about Endless Space. Is that what the Vaulters actually were?

>>2491935
>2491935
agreed

>>2491968
>I don't know anything about Endless Space. Is that what the Vaulters actually were?
There was an ancient empire called the Mezari that all humans in the Endless universe originated from. The United Empire started as a Mezari colony and the Vaulters (also the Forgotten and probably the other human factions in EL1) descend from the survivors of a Mezari ship that crashed on Auriga. So they are all human/Mezari but there's hundreds or maybe thousands of years of history separating them.

>>2491978
EL2 is set after EL1. You have Opbot in the game and it explicitly mentions he crashed on the planet because he was sent there by Iskander of the Academy. Opbot in ES2 was with the vaulters ship who are the canonical victors of EL1 and he was in EL1 as the leave the planet victory condition. He was also there during Dungeon of the Endless, which is set before EL1.
So there is a canonical timeline at least.

Also Auriga is miles better than Saidha. I really dislike the tidefall mechanic in this.

>>2492007
>EL2 is set after EL1
Yes obviously, I don't know what that has to do with what I said.
>Also Auriga is miles better than Saidha. I really dislike the tidefall mechanic in this.
Winters were cool thematically but they just slowed the game to a crawl. Monsoons and tidefall are a lot more fun though the concept of exploring what's under the ocean isn't very well realized IMO, like so often you get a tidefall and all it'll reveal nearby is a few strips of land with nothing on them.

>>2491030
I played those guys in that closed beta (before EA) and liked their religious scientists vibe

How the fuck do I play Aspects in the early game? They start with an archer hero and their early units are scouts and more archers. Meaning that any half-decent melee stack wipes its ass with you.
They feel like they should be a strong economic/expansionist faction, with their coral cancer and the diplomacy bullshit they can get, but their early game just feels miserable to me.

>>2492018
>Monsoons and tidefall are a lot more fun though the concept of exploring what's under the ocean isn't very well realized IMO, like so often you get a tidefall and all it'll reveal nearby is a few strips of land with nothing on them.

I think they needed to port some other factions from EL1 to make it work better, but for because of lore reasons they weren't able to.
Morgrawr, Allayi, and Roving Clans would all fit snuggly in EL2.

>>2492157
>Morgrawr, Allayi
Those are the absolute worst options you could've picked. Morgawr make no sense with the oceans vanishing and Allayi are innately themed around Auriga and its winter cycles.

>>2492185
I picked the morgrawr because they are water themed. The fact that the oceans are dissapearing doesn't mean they wouldn't have any unique mechanics to counteract that. Preemptively building dams in regions to create artificial lakes for example.

The Allayi are a faction who's gameplay and primary means of expansion are based on exploration. And considering we don't have a faction that doesn't need to explore in a game about periodic bursts of exploration is a waste.

>>2492193
>I picked the morgrawr because they are water themed. The fact that the oceans are dissapearing doesn't mean they wouldn't have any unique mechanics to counteract that. Preemptively building dams in regions to create artificial lakes for example.
This doesn't really make any sense, what would be the point? To have a little pond your monsters can swim around in and do nothing because no one else has any reason to interact with the water at all? Morgawr in the first game already had some design issues with being the only faction that cared about the ocean whatsoever and that would be 10x worse here.
>The Allayi are a faction who's gameplay and primary means of expansion are based on exploration. And considering we don't have a faction that doesn't need to explore in a game about periodic bursts of exploration is a waste.
That's Sandshapers though.

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>>2492157
I'd like if they ported all of EL1 into EL2. L4D2 style. And then when you start game you select if you want to play on Auriga or Saiadha or a custom mix of factions with no care for lore.
Unrealistic I know, but would be cool to have all content in one game. Feels really wasteful to leave all of that behind, but maybe TWW spoiled me

>>2492207
Beyond lore this just doesn't really make sense from a development standpoint. It's not like TWW where it's literally just a copy, paste, and touch-up job, EL2 has lot of differences from the first game and so many things would need to be redesigned and have new models and other assets made.

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Who the fuck thought automatically selecting random next unit during battle for you is a good idea
I cannot stand this faggotry Jesus Christ
Amount of missclicks I did because of it is fucking insane
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
fjuck niggers

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>>2490770
I think one of the biggest problems is the maps are always too big, there's never any real reason to have conflict if there's always just that much territory scattered around the map by end game. Necrophages attacking your doorstep because they're AI programmed to be aggressive is much different than having another 10 territories next to your cities that the AI never claimed.
>>2491125
>No unique art for anomalies and terrain
This is also probably one of the biggest killers. The game has a much greater focus on actual city building vs something like AoW 4 so a majority of the time will be spent looking at city management screens, and the """art""" for Improvements just cannot even compare to pic rel.
And when they overhauled the writing so that it featured more diary-like entries in EL1, they didn't want to throw out the written dialogue they already had done so they kept it in, but it's so bad that it actually brings down the quality by having it around.

Fortresses feel very unfinished. There are so many different units to pick from even just within minor factions yet fortress armies are literally the same 3 (snake/monkey/bird) every single time, why?

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One situation where it makes sense to delay the camp, waiting for techs to come in takes forever.
>>2492207
EL1 is regularly on sale, it makes a lot more sense adding factions for EL2, especially when development budget is limited.
>>2492328
Territory is hard to come by when you have an aggressive neighbour grabbing everything, if you leave them alone they will bite you in the ass so you have to kill them.

>>2492328
>I think one of the biggest problems is the maps are always too big,
Maybe it's because of my map settings, but I always feel that they're too small. I rarely get more than two decent-sized cities up and running by midgame unless I play aggressively.
The maps only start feeling too big for me in the lategame, but that's mostly because the options to increase army move speed are pretty limited so moving across the map takes too much time. I've gotten wrecked more than once just because someone backstabbed me while my armies were away and then raped my cities because it took my armies 8+ turns to get to the fight. Which I realize is partially a skill issue, but it does highlight how slow it is to move shit around.

>>2492226
b-but EL1 already has a lot of done. Meshes and such. Should be easier to rework and update that, than to make new things from scratch. I'd pay even for "Auriga Legacy" dlc even.
>>2492342
I know, I have EL1 for years already

>>2491023
>an offshoot of the united empire
so where are their guns and spaceships

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>>2492420
To my understanding they crashlanded generation(s) ago. They lost tech since they are just military order of space knights and not scientists

>>2492408
EL1's assets are nothing like EL2's. They would have to redo everything.

>>2492426
They've actually only been on the planet for a few decades, one of their final quests says so outright.

Does this shit need a Unity account AND Unity hub AND the Unity editor to make mods? I want to get into it but Humankind modding looked so retardedly complex I didn't even bother installing the tools.

Man battles are lethal as fuck. I can't stop losing units even with savescumming

>>2492434
You just need to cheese more. The AI can be reliably baited with two, maybe three tanky front-liners and the rest archers and/or flankers. If someone's at low health, just move them away. As long as you focus fire the enemy will drop faster than you. If the map has a nice chokepoint it's even easier.
Also, try to use terrain bonuses when possible. High ground = damage bonus, forest = defense bonus.

Combat does get frustrating if your faction doesn't have any good early frontline units, though you can get around this if you're lucky with getting the right minor faction near you, so you can just use their units until you unlock better shit of your own.

>>2492342
>>2492385
I must admit I'm a pretty casual strategy player so I probably spend more time in the mid-late game than I should and that warps my perception on map size during what others would consider is the "critical part" of the game, but looking at my last finished game there were so many territories after the last tidefall that I'd say 50% of the map wasn't claimed (and I didn't grab them because I was dealing with a necrophage war and I didn't want to deal with moving even more of my units literally across the whole map and having a new front to fight on)

>>2492201
>Morgawr in the first game already had some design issues with being the only faction that cared about the ocean whatsoever
Everyone cared about the ocean. Facilities were really good and made the sea worth fighting over on their own. Morgawr just cared about the ocean even more and were really good at fighting in it.

>>2491125
>Units don't have equipment anymore, only heroes
Oh no, I really don't like that. We needed that mechanic expanded, not removed.

>>2492542
Units can specialize in 2 different types, one that costs strategic resources and another that only costs dust.
It's a lot less compared to before, true.
Also you no longer get equipment for heroes from research, you only get it randomly from doing quests or battles.

Also the marketplace is gone, you have a menu where you can directly sell resources but not units. You can buy Heroes though.

>>2492559
what is the point of cutting features like this? EL1 wasn't terribly complicated to begin with

>>2492604
I'm glad it's gone, managing dozens of different templates was extremely tedious.

Finished my first run and one thing that stood out to me immediately is that titanium and glasteel are both important yet lacking, then you get lots of the later strategic resources that are barely used for anything, so you end up capped no problem on those while needing to buy the early resources. Maybe I just got cucked on my map gen.

I hate consumable equipment and it never should've existed, makes me just want to never bother looking at changing the equipment my heroes have

>>2492534
>the rest archers
Don't have any yet. I'm playing as Zelevas chudorder. Minor faction I got are those Daughters of Bor (are those preset? In my previous campaign got them in starting province too). And they don't have ranged units either. Cavalry feels awful to use here, maps are small and I can't disengage them to cycle charge since they will get raped with retaliation damage. Especially those Sheredyn pursuers are a bitch to deal with. Makes me wish for AoW battles again.

>>2492637
Cavalry and their charges seem worthless here compared to EL1 and Humankind

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>>2492607
I have to agree with this, managing templates seemed cool in theory but at the end of the day most people just had 1 or 2 templates that were actually radically different and then took those template ideas but a titanium version, a glassteel version, etc. And since you were locked into producing units based off a particular template and could only retrofit that unit by editing that particular template it was too annoying to actually have lots of different templates in production. My solution would have been to make it so any unit of a specific type can retrofit to any template using that specific unit as the base with an increased cost and cooldown based on the differences between the before and after. But the new system kind of does cut the fat and give you "do you want the crossbow unit that does extra flying damage or the crossbow unit that does extra infantry damage."
I think there would be less growing pains regarding the change if the trees were actual trees and not just 2 linear paths. More side paths or little extra upgrades you could purchase at each nodes, maybe make them repeatable with special art and names, like Lazualin Pauldrons for +1 armor and then the next upgrade would be called Lazualin Greaves for +2 armor, it would be reminiscent of the old system but still allow for dev balancing. And obviously the unit should have a visual change associated with the upgrades you get, another great feature of Endless Legend 1 that kind of seemed like a no brainer to keep around.
>>2492637
Early in the beta there was no ZoC at all and that really sucked, but they definitely over tuned it and moving outside of ZoC just to get another cavalry charge or to try and free up a ranged unit feels way too harsh.

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>>2490770
Can't say I'm actually liking it that much. Mostly comes down to the change from Auriga to Saiadha. The factions in Saiadha don't seem as cool as the ones in Auriga, and the tidefall gimmick mostly just means I don't get anything out of the vast quantities of water in the game other than waiting for them to disappear. I loved how in EL1 you could set your cities next to a coastline and it'd give you the kind of bonuses you could expect and you'd see little harbor areas form in them. Here, it's like, oh, shit, there's water, damn, guess that's just no-go land. It's nothing but an obstacle.

I mean, it's still enjoyable in a vacuum, but I'm struggling to find a reason not to just reinstall 1 instead, and it's not just because this still hasn't gone through it's updates and DLC cycle, some of the things that annoy me are fundamental design things.

>>2492434
Quest and minor faction battles vary from easy to hard, as I have improved I can take on more battles without losing massive HP on my starting units.
>>2492534
True, sollusks and a lot of other minor faction units tend to go into defense mode if their HP is low, as kin I took on two sollusks right away, using my hero skill to outrange them and then using the cavalry to take away retal and that makes one of the units basically useless. Also equipment and skills that give aoe on the hero are insanely valuable, I took on the necro capital with just one stack with the archer and defence hero and I had multiple different types of AoE and the enemy units didn't hold up, would be a different story if they had more spitters but it was mostly larva.
>>2492609
It does spawn but usually tidefall leaves a lot of shitty territories, you can hover over the water with your mouse, coastal water becomes land, ocean doesn't, look for large areas of coastal water and when tide falls send your scouts over. Do not get penned in by enemy territory expansion you need the resources. Once you get enough extractor upgrades you will have too much to use, as kin my scouts want movement upgrades which cost gold and my infantry upgrade for free so I can sell hundreds of that shit, I do need to put down the special building more often but I didn't think I would have this much glass-steel so I didn't prepare in advance.
>>2492637
Don't archers get unlocked in era 2, it is good to mix in one or two, they just cost more energy but it is worth having some ranged units even if they aren't the greatest.

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heh, I remember this hero from Endless Space 2. He is some chaotic evil tier shitposter who likes to destroy everything iirc. Amusing
>>2492891
>Don't archers get unlocked in era 2
For me it's era 3

>>2492916
I guess you should just bring more units then, production cost is replaced 1 to 1 with dust so quantity shouldn't be an issue provided you have income.

I can forgive Amplitude because they got gutted by SEGA. Back to square one. Be lucky enough to get more art for all the unique/building, but hope they don't dip into AI.

Have I just not found them yet or are there no flying minor factions in this game? Seems like an odd hole in the roster when the first game was pretty balanced between all the unit types.

>>2493037
There's an imp faction and a bird bard faction.
Imps are swarm/flying and birds range/flying.

>>2493021
I haven't seen any obvious use of AI in EL2. Doesn't mean they didn't use it at all, but frankly if I can't see it I don't care as much.

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Been trying out the Zelevas, they feel slow to get going, guess you have to really pick a good capital location, building extractors is cheap and can help get level 2 works which is a huge industry boost and you need big industry for big development, it also helps when there are plenty of weak armies to fight and kill for influence

hows el2 compared to humankind? humankind is ok, but i do sonlmetimes wish i was playing civ instead

Why can't Amplitude make normal Diplomacy and Trade system where I can normally barter with a different resources/lands/tech etc for things I actually want to sell/buy

>>2493419
Humankind has multiple years of updates and DLC that made a mediocre game slightly better.
EL2 feels like it hasn't left early access at all.