>>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.

I like the Sandshapers. They're like the Nakalim (relic hunting and buffs based off relics) and Riftborn (desert/terraforming backwards)

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Surely the third time will be different.
I think the secret is that you build things, you buy to make it quicker, you fight, and you make camps.
Science is not so much a problem as influence and gold, with three cities you will catch up in tech

>>2493021
I'm only willing to forgive to an extent. Humankind, Endless Dungeon, and Endless Legend 2, and now Humankind 2 have convinced me the studio is past its prime with or without Sega and just thinking it was the big bad publisher holding them back is too simplistic. If anything I expect their problems to get worse because they've become "trademarks" of the way they do things. Every game now has had lackluster to abysmal combat(honorable mention to ES's goddamn card combat) and they keep reinventing the wheel by going back to square one and trying a new approach when they should just start simple and refine it. EL2 shows some improvement but it's trying to fix a broke idea. Diplomacy is busted but unlike Civ you can't just ignore it, UI still can't decide on bland modernist sleek or tonally fitting, techs still feel rarely impactful beyond one or two uniques, victory types still operate on snooze to win or bust your ass not worth it, etc. I knoe a lot of these are more than applicable to most if not all 4x games and in particular Civ, but Amplitude falling into the same pitfalls sucks. They were an up and coming little guy punching above their weight at one point but more and more they just seem like a budget Firaxis with better presentation. I end up just reading the world details and barely playing

>>2494166
>and now Humankind 2
The fact that you're seething about a game that isn't even coming out yet for at least another year tells me all I need to know about your opinions.

>>2493021
>but hope they don't dip into AI.
Ngl, the dialogues feel AI written to me. The fact everyone has the same register is jarring when the factions are so radically different. Like, why do the Kin, the Necrophages and the Sandshapers all talk the same damn way?

>>2494304
It's very clearly not AI writing. Not all shitty writing is AI.

What's the best strategy when it comes to city building? I've been seeing people say they like to prioritize attaching over making new cities, but I like having more cities to produce more stuff instead of just making one city have slightly more yields. Should I specialize my cities to a point where if I put down a city center in a place for good production, should I keep attaching territories with a good production focus, or try to spread out and get some science and food and dust?

>>2494246
I don't know how you're extrapolating seething from that but Humankind was a mistake and repeating an attempt at an underperforming title the very second you get a new publisher and are already spread thin is dumb. EL2 is half-baked because Humankind 2 is a thing, and it'll either have terrible contracted DLC like ES2 or be permanently underwhelming because they moved on, like with Endless Dungeon.

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I just realized I can kill all these fucks on my land.
>Huge dust and influence boost
>Buyout research dome and fast track to era 2 to increase influence from battle
>You don't need to settle the perfect location, you will get multiple cities fast
Maybe this faction is more broken than I thought

>>2494573
Actually you have to go works first so you can have an actual economy behind it

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kwab
I don't like vast majority of writing here

>>2494796
the more i play this game the more i hate this gay ass dialogue. the way it was done in es2 worked much better i don't know why they went this route but it legit makes me almost want to stop playing this cyberbug playthrough.

Thread made me pick up EL1 again.
God damn the Forgotten are so fucking fun. Spying on everyone, pillaging everything, sneaking through closed or unmet borders, all these glass cannon units, the insanely-rewarding main quest, god damn, it’s all so good.
The AI is still appallingly bad, though. Is there a mod for this?

does el2 have teamgames? im hoping for humankind2 to have teamgames, but if el2 doesnt have it then i imagine humankind2 wont either.

>>2494796
I got this exact event as Sandshapers. Why do talking dildos even have a "lover" and why do they care about money?
The dialogue system is the single worst thing about the game, why couldn't they make faction specific events instead of generic ones that are extremely weird for specific factions?

>>2495184
wait do they fucking straight up just recycle events and do them for every faction even when it doesn't make sense like this?

>>2495189
Yes. Amplitude are genuinely that retarded and soulless.

>>2495132
That community patch does a lot of work
iirc even lets you actually have all factions on a single map

>>2495197
man what happened to this company? When I heard derek paxton was working on this i was excited but god damn they musta been raped by being let go by sega

>>2495164
There's a tech that unlocks shared victory conditions. Could probably just mod it so that everyone starts with the tech.

>>2495189
>>2495211
It's not quite as bad as anon said, there are some variations and they've been adding more over time.

>>2495098
I think it's because they wanted a bigger emphasis on characters? That's why they have stuff like hero havens and more than one hero per army at least plus companions and friends. I don't really get it because they're still kind of underbaked systems and the faction quest ends up not involving them anyways, but that also leads me to my biggest complaint: it makes every faction quest feel the same. Since every faction quest now focuses on the leader character and an advisor or mentor type character(even Necrophages) they end up feeling very samey in terms of prose, like a series of comversations rather than a tone like in EL1 where the factions all have really good variety in writing. Add to the reuse of events and dialogues between factions and everybody ends up acting the same, to say nothing of how banal the actual dialogue in them is. I can't say that EL2 is necessarily worse in the long run than EL1 because the core game is a step up but it feels like corners were cut for everything but the base of it. Sucks too because there's enough to EL2 I think is better to make revisiting EL1 a bit lamer, but EL1 just feels like a more unique fantasy world.

this is halfway off topic, but in my CEO grindsetmaxxing brain I dediced to use EL2 as a way to "passively" learn french while playing
It worked, but having never played EL1 trying to learn the game in a language I grasp at an A1-A2 level resulted in perhaps the most mentally exhausting few hours I've ever had in a video game.
Switched back to english to actually just have fun.
Also the game is bretty good for someone who has never played EL1, it feels like it has solved some of the biggest flaws a game like Civ6 had; clunky one-dimensional combat, city/border/tile micromanagement (especially with workers) and the ballooning mental tax for managing tens of cities and units lategame.
The receding oceans also make it so that you're not just basically done with the eXploring part of 4X after reaching midgame. Some minor UI bugs and sometimes wonky battle deployment would be my biggest negatives.
My initial impression places it in the 7.5 - 8.5 out of 10 range, leaning upwards.

>>2491507
Can’t comment much in EL2 but I can Terra Invicta. Fantastic game, but dev patched it into pure frustration. Highly recommend playing with custom rules if you do buy it, as default settings are basically impossible to win under for your first game.

>>2491516
>>2491541
This, right here, is what stopped me from buying this after the demo. These companies NEED to fucking fire their women, they always want this shit in their games.

>>2491181
it does look like somebody went through the kitchen then the tool shed and made that shit into aliens

>>2495283
The lead writer is a man, schizo-kun.

>>2495291
NTA and I really don't care about it, but that kind of purple prose is feminine-coded at least.

>>2495301
That's not purple prose.

>>2495306
I was thinking that in the context of heartless killer bugs having a conversation, but in the larger sense: you are right, fair enough.
I misused the term.
I still think Prime saying "Wait a minute" is somehow...off.

>>2495306
it's not really
fair enough

I haven't kept up with all the changes, any of the factions that were in the EA get buffed or nerfed really hard?

>>2495283
You are part of the problem.

>>2495234
bro im playing the game, fuckin necrophage: craver edition shouldn't be talkin the way they are it's atrocious

Is Search Party worth it in EL1? I can’t decide.

>>2495250
I agree and frankly I think both EL1 and EL2 are even in my book due to the fact that EL1 has much better writing, atmosphere, factions, while EL2 has better gameplay and combat. The problem is that the writing is straight up getting in the way of my enjoyment i guess. This shit could have been a 9/10 for me if not for these boring factions and the writing being utter drivel so instead if lands on a 7/10 like EL1.

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Why are those games 4x
This is 4th strategy game of theirs and it feels off every time. This genre does not mesh with their strengths at all. It feels completely at odds with what they are trying to do.
All their strengthens lie in nongameplay related features art, writing, lorefagging, storyfagging etc. Each faction has their own storyline, characters in them, choices etc. And all of this is cucked by being multiplayer balanced, gamey 4x game and functionally just another win condition among others

>Playing Soiphons, AI has rebellion. You would think it will have drastic impact on your Empire. Actually it simply spawns new system with minifaction to defeat just for you. Doing anything more significant would be too unbalanced
>Bringing back Lost in ES2? They actually aren't there. That would be too unbalanced and random. You will have some minor buffs instead maybe
>Playing as Order of Zelevas here. Multiple armies of Sheredyn with more advanced units are encroaching our lands. How? Sheredyn just spawned just like me, they have 1 city with no districts

I go on and on with examples. Procedurally generated, balanced, sandboxy 4x doesn't work for linear stories like this. Stellaris does better meaningful choices like this and that game barely has narrative and lore what the fuck.
Honestly what they do would work much better for completely different genres, like cRPG especially given how character heavy their stories are despite you playing as an entire faction. Or even could be viable competitor to 40k tabletop wargame.

At the very least each faction in those games should have premade separate campaigns spread across dedicated handcrafted maps with unique scenarios, preset factions, often with already established cities etc. Like HoMM and Age of Wonders even.
Speaking of AoW their 4th game suffers from similar fate as well, where it's story campaigns are not premade missions, so what's the point. And those are still better than what Endless games do lmao.

>>2495465
>boring factions
I feel like it's the opposite. A lot of the EL1 factions like Wild Walkers, Clans, Drakken, etc were way more generic fantasy. EL2's factions save for maybe the Kin are quite unique and interesting but unfortunately the shitty quest dialogues massively hamper that.

>>2491026
>>2491027
What is it with them making necrophases and cravers gayer and lamer with each game? They were actual fascinating borderline body-horror cyborg bugs the first time and then became really retarded way too clean sterile robots and now even the Necros suffer from this

>>2491287
>This game is literally just making me want to download EL1
thats how I felt with ES2

>>2491181
it's weird isnt it. Technically they're relative "unique" but for some reason just come off as bland and hard to read. I cant even explain why exactly i feel that way. Amp really lost its touch

>>2491257
but that screenshot is actually readable

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>>2491695
>One yelled out hell yeah when they won

I actually liked humankind :(

Been having... a time with it, to say the least. I have no friends so everything is through the lens of Single Player, but I have been playing pretty much only Necrophage for the better part of the week and it seems like a hard coin toss on steam-rolling or being ineffectual, contingent on how hard I can cheese in battles / dungeons. Quests suck ass, and routinely bug / spawn in absurd places, and the rewards and storylines are far lamer than in ES2. The factions are in a sorry state, and feels like there is less mechanical uniqueness than in ES2, and I don't enjoy the focus on / implementation of Rogue Factions. Victory conditions are in a very rough spot. Few other issues that they can iron out over time and make you pay for in DLCs. Oh. You also can't end a game early. Small, but stupid.

jfc those centaur archers are annoying to play against on some maps
also a doomwraith with that aura that damages you every turn next to it is basically like fighting two "normal" doomwraiths
One of their model's design is also very similiar to the Deer God from Mononoke, mid transformation.

Necromancer Doomwraith are completely unbalanced, were they in before 1.0?

>>2494387
Also do you settle right next to an anomaly or do you give a 1 foundation gap so you can place science districts?

>>2495728
seems like this game is much more forgiving and versatile than something like civ6 where one wrong tile could fuck up your whole city's yield progression since you got closed off from the optimal route

>>2495728
I tend to focus heavily on production, I don't go out of my way to include anomalies but I don't go out of my way to exclude anomalies, you will unlock altar later on anyway

>>2495728
You can generate anomalies with camps before you build a city. One of my quest wanted me to own 15 anomalies, so I spent 10 turns generating them in camps. Anomalies don't feel unique or special because there's very little variety of them, no downsides, you can spawn them yourself and they don't have strong bonuses because of that. Also no unique art or lore writing on them.

>>2495568
Maybe conceptually, but concept matters less than execution. Well-handled and written wood elves are better than crazy high-fantasy weirdos that talk and act like normal humans.

>>2495864
Well yeah, that's kind of my point. The shit dialogue feels even worse because it's obfuscating what should've been a very interesting faction.

>>2495528
Yeah AoW4 being lazy and not making a dedicated campaign like 3 was ass. And frankly I feel like a dedicated AoW3 style campaign for Endless Legend would work way better, with the random maps as maybe a side mode like skirmish in rts games vs their campaigns. Balancing this shit for multiplayer is also fucking retarded.

haha just never engage in any battles whatsoever and get to move 5 tiles away haha retreating is so retarded why the fuck does positioning suddenly not matter anymore

Ive been playing it for like 8h
So far I feel like its still in early acess, but from what ive remembered about EL1 release it was kindda flawed too, but not to sucha degree.
>art is here, but its not as eye catching as in 1st one/ES 1-2. Most factions feels a bit "stale", there less 2d art present and interface/look of the world make it feel like its dlc, they should change things a bit because now es,el and humankind feels to same.
>music is done by flybyno but its worse than both EL1 and ES franchise, no goosebumps, its mostly forgetable.
>story bits feels like afterthought, filler epiosde of medicore anime at best.
>game is based on tidal mechanics that mostly feel like it could be bonus mode for 1st game
Its the direction they shouldve go. They should focus on doing couple dlcs that would introduce one faction and diffrent planets (maybe in the same stellar system) with the new world mechanic. Scorched planet, tidal lock, enormous satllite, ect. With a campaign that would focus on conquering/uniting all of the worlds and let you pick small bonuses in next map. That would feel like a game worthly off EL1 creed.

>>2495996
>try to jump ai
>they retreat
>by the time I reach them again they're basically full hp
>they retreat again
>repeat
yeah this shit is retarded.

>>2496012
>cleaning up for a dom victory
>enemy runs away for 15 turns
>starts up 3 distinct cities on the edges of other cities and starts them immediately, delaying the game at least 40 more turns
how the fuck is this a 1.0 release

>>2495996
>>2496012
>>2496067
you just took 50% of their army's HP for free, imagine if you had a skill to do that on a hero
retreating is always very costly, a bit less so if it's a single scouting unit or something obviously
I have my issues with the game but the retreating mechanic has not been one of them
>delaying the game at least 40 more turns
Have you ever played 4X games before? In single player you basically always know if you're gonna win the game by midgame and domination victories are always "over" way before you officially achieve the goal.
The AI not just rolling over and playing dead does not sound like a flaw.
Just start a new game man.

>>2495132
My favourite part about EL1 is how almost every faction has it's own gameplay identity it leans into and by the lategame takes it to ridiculous levels. Does EL2 at least do something similar?

>>2495211
Even if they've left Sega the structural changes to amplitude as a dev team made under them are probably too late to change.
You can take the devs out of the corporation, but you can't take the corpo out of the devs.

>>2496128
>Does EL2 at least do something similar?
Not to the extent of EL1 or ES2.
If you go in expecting that, you will be extremely disappointed.

>>2496134
A shame.
One of my favourite 4x memories is reaching critical mass with roving clans, having so much money I could buy out the entire production queue of a newly settled city with a single turn of income, and just barely ekeing out a victory in a horrific war of attrition against my friends gigaroided broken lord hellstacks.

>>2496128
The factions are just as distinct in as in previous games, that other anon is seething over nothing.

>>2496156
Not that anon but i feel like its not as distinc5 as in 1st one. All of factions are different but at the same time they dont feel like a different race/culture. All uniques feel like a gimicks, wheather its ruins, coral, observatories ect, they just lead you towards certain victory condition, but other than that they feel quite the same. In EL1 all factions felt more unique, it still prsent here but to smaller degree. I think it will improve with dlcs but the issue is about that the all game (ai behaviour, expansion, quests) is build upon tidal mechanics which should be just one of the world modes. Its to specific and I think it will get stale after few sessions.

>>2496188
I kinda like the monsoon/tidefall mechanic, solves one of the biggest conceptual problems of 4X games like civ6, which is that the X of eXplore gets dropped after early game and large parts of the map become eternally irrelevant
having tidefalls keeps it fresh and also keeps the balance of powers evolving

>>2496188
>All uniques feel like a gimicks, wheather its ruins, coral, observatories ect, they just lead you towards certain victory condition, but other than that they feel quite the same. In EL1 all factions felt more unique, it still prsent here but to smaller degree.
This just isn't true. Like let's compare Necrophages.

Compared to the 1st game they lost
>permanent war, but you still can't get any diplo techs
But they still have
>can't parley or bribe villages
>get unique resource after battle that can still be used to grow cities but now also for upgrading units or building certain districts
>free units after battle (but innate now rather than part of the proliferator unit)
And now they have
>one city only, which can only have your own population
>3 unique districts including one that completely changes how their city planning works
>new burrows mechanic
>new mechanic for evolving units into other units
>4 different unit models with 7 different upgrade paths compared to every other faction with 3 and 5

In no possible sense have they lost any uniqueness, it's just nostalgia speaking. The game has a lot of problems but assymetrical faction design is not one of them.

>>2496228
I forgot about their global, any-tile chopping too.

>>2496067
yeah the ai sprouting new cities like mushrooms when they're about to get btfo is another thing I find obnoxious.

>>2495437
No. Generally you want to start researching Era II techs as soon as they unlock, and there's too much stuff in Era I you want for there to be room for Search Party without delaying that.
Like...
>Language Square
>Mill Foundry
>Empire Mint
>Merc Market
>Libraries
>Strategic extractor
>Luxury extractor
That's seven essentials already, give or take depending on the circumstances. Two left before Era II. That could be your UU, sewers, pillage, maybe whatever the food one is called. Do you really want slightly better RNG on ruins over any of that? No, you don't, not even if you're playing a faction that hits a lot of ruins. It's just not worth it.

>>2496204
Well its exploration wayout for later stages of the game, but I still feel like with said engine they could do variation of how the map/world unravels.
They could do one/few emerging landmass like islands/continents while og settling continent would just exisit in the same form, they could do grand flood with some type of buildable defence against it. The game should evolve to include couple map scenarios, they could even do a small campaign that would put player canquering planets in the same stellar system.
>>2496228
Ok so you brought up example of the faction that cant do 1 victory condition, while all of their uniques are mostly suited toward pursuing dom victory.
I only played like 8h so far, but game feels like railroading you into story or prefered, standard victory conditon. In contrast roving jews as an example were great with makish dosh, but they mechanics werent so focused on only achiving dust wins. The same stands with other factions, while most el2 factions feel super specialized, it makes them kindda one trick pony. So yeah they play different because they are designed towards pursuing certain win condition, but they dont have enough mechanics that el1 had (even with base game, but more with dlcs), that were unique for each race but still werent just tied to victory condition.
To be fair, its not that there are no mechancis like this, i feel like sand djinnies terraforming (which could be bigger) is awsome and unique, but i feel like game would benefit more from aftermentioned indentity that arent just tied to certain victory. Its not about nostalgia, its more of an issue of devs trying to come up with new things and ending up with medicore results that are mostly a mix of things from previous game/dlc. If I wanted to play one city than I already have cultist, which feel much more deliberated than new necrophages, if you catch my drift, or you are just contrarian?

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>>2496495
>I only played like 8h so far, but game feels like railroading you into story or prefered, standard victory conditon
So have you even seen the victory conditions in the new game? Because they are pretty general and you can absolutely do any of them as any faction. See this screenshot where I nearly have both Master and Impress complete on Necrophages. The 120 pop requirement for Worship is the only place they'd really struggle because of being single city locked but I imagine it's still plenty possible if you really focused on it.

>>2496495
>If I wanted to play one city than I already have cultist, which feel much more deliberated than new necrophages, if you catch my drift, or you are just contrarian?
A lot of the EL1 uniqueness was also just copied from the first Endless Space. Necros got their permanent war from the Cravers, Drakken had essentially their entire diplo gameplay lifted from the Amoeba, Broken Lords took the no food gimmick from Harmony, etc. They have always done this.

>>2496652
Yeah ive just seen em today, so i agree that they are kinda formulatic and usually all factions could try at least go for 2 of the 3.
Having said that EL1 had 9 vc while EL2 have 5. Just because of this the game will feel more same-y in 2nd and 3rd act of the game, so your argument is invalid.

>>2496667
nta but you were just wrong man
also talking about how the endgames go with 8h of playtime is silly

>>2496667
>Having said that EL1 had 9 vc while EL2 have 5. Just because of this the game will feel more same-y in 2nd and 3rd act of the game, so your argument is invalid.
My argument was never that the game was perfect or even good, only that the faction design isn't any less unique than in the first game, which is objectively true.

>>2496730
I pirate so I dont know how much time excatly I spent, but Ive got a vc window alarm and window already.
>>2496735
>game with 9 diffrent paths to victory
>game with 5 diffrent paths to victory
>somehow game 2 is just as varied when it comes to achiving victory as a unique faction.
EL2and previous instalment are better when it comes to diffrences between gamplay in comparison to other titles. But it feels like you played el1 long ago.

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Are sandshaper units trash or am I just bad at videogames?
After the first tidefall my 5stack is getting bodied by random spawns

>>2496805
every cycle the world kinda levels up, you gotta keep up
this means you often get a bit wrecked at the start of a new cycle
remember to use all the tricks you have, at the start I kept forgetting I had a fucking C&C GDI Ion Cannon at the ready for example.
also early units in this game are relatively cheap in the grand scheme of things, losing a couple of them to achieve some worthwhile goal is very much acceptable
hell I kept feeding sentinels to the ranged doomwraiths so they'd waste their attacks on them instead of the more expensive units
Also remember to use the consumables, you'll get more as you go.
As a general rule of thumb using a consumable in a tough fight will save you at least 1-2 units dying, which is worthwhile.

>>2496778
goalposts shifted, concession accepted

>>2496652
>you can absolutely do any of them as any faction
you absolutely cannot do worship as Necrophage

Ullax is so fucking of a hero OP it's insane

>>2497139
-flies
-swarm, so no zone of control for her (also bonus 10% dmg vs. juggernauts is nice and rare-ish)
-is ranged, but gets BOTH heavy strike from weapons and, as said previously, has swarm. The only way she gets retaliated against is if you fly into someones face to attack with her since you can stay still and shoot point blank or just fly the fuck away and shoot from 5-6 tiles away
-gets a crit booster that pairs well with the Intuition curiousity gainers
-gets to MARK with basic attacks, GUARANTEEING 100% crits for allies
-has skills to ramp up xp gains super fast early on with curiosities
-has a nice dust booster for curiosities too you can easily afford in midlevels
-since shes a flier it's really easy to get around the overland map, works especially well when hunting for curios during monsoons: I could fly around enemy territory and get 5-7 curios in a single turn and fly back to her army's safety
Holy fuck she's genuinely the most broken hero in the game, insanely versatile, extremely good both in battles and on the overland map and has basically no weaknessess.
I guess you do need to get lucky to draw her from the hero-lottery at least.

>>2497221
Oh and I forgot even her Council bonus for better curiosity rewards is strong as fuck.

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I have been refining a zelevas strategy, the basic idea is it starts off with a pre-tidefall land grab phase, you hit a village, take the energy and influence and then move on to the next territory so you can find a good place to camp, leave one village alive so it will spawn free loot for later and you also can't spend too much time in a territory you have already camped and you get bigger influence in era 2. The unit you make is more scouts, your hero buffs will make them pretty terrifying and you can make them even better later. Sometimes you do quests, if there is only one village in the region you don't gain a lot from killing it, you want to protectorate a faction with an OP council bonus, you can rebuild their villages or do quests. Also you can buyout extractors for cheap in a camp that has not been added to a city yet.

Getting the energy and xp from fights is as important as the influence, you want to buyout sanctity of life, you want to do the same for the geodesic dome and then your works you also want to buyout, industry makes your city less reliant on dust so you want to settle near industry anomalies or cliffs. The amount of dust you want to spend on any one city is limited because of scaling costs and you need energy for units later

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>Tahuks built a Trading Post next to a "lake" in a city I conquered from them
>When there is a perfect spot between two villages to get a fat 2 X 6 Dust buff
>Can't raze this Trading Post to place it between two villages since it's "linked"
>Literally nothing works, even tried to build around it other Foundation and Districts to make it not so crucial, including Keep to spread districts around, coping that it will "unlink" it, whatever this means
>My last hope was Lake drying up and opening Foundation around Trading Post
>It didn't dry
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
this is cancer
not like I really need it, but fuck it drives me mad with how blatantly inefficient this is

>>2498481
Just raze the city and rebuild it

>>2499740
Would be cool if capturing gave you an option to either keep the city as is, or start over in the territory but get a one time infusion of 40% of the territory's lifetime production to help players make up for the AI's horrible planning skills

>>2490770
I have decided to give Humankind another try after playing EL2
Honestly it's fine. The UI isn't ES2 good but it's still better than EL2's anemic minimalism bars, even if it is a little busy at times. But I don't think it's a Civ killer, and it's better if you don't look at it in that lens. It's got similarities since they are both about civilizations growing throughout the ages but it's a lot more "gamey" and I don't necessary think that's a bad thing, just have to decide what you value more. The culture switching gives cultures more things to do at all stages in the game instead of either getting your UU and UB in the first 30 turns or the last 30, and each culture carries with it lots of different passive and active bonuses that are both unique to the culture and shared by it's overall archetype so you have lots of decisions to make and various ways to exploit resources. Of course this system does sadly destroy any semblance of civilization identity because there's no point in learning another Civ's culture's name since it'll be different in 40 turns so you have to learn ruler avatars instead and that's always going to be lame. And of course the Neolithic phase is one of the most interesting shakeups in a 4x game in a long time. The Stars system also kind of removes the flavor of a science victory vs a culture victory vs world domination but I see how it helps keep cultures in line and competitive throughout the mid game and it's handled a lot better than the soft reset that happens in Civ 7. In some ways it feels more like scoring in a euro board game than the victory condition of a video game.
I know a lot of people don't like the game but honestly I think if it was more like Civ it'd be in a worse space. That being said I don't know what they can do with Humankind 2 to make players come on board since a lot of the gripes people have with the first game (culture switching) are really non-negotiable for those people.

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