So there is a new 4X Game (Endless Space) that is actually REALLY good....

Seen it, looks intriguing. Unfortunately I don't have much time these days to sink into 4X space games, but I did use to love playing Masters of Orion 1 & 2.
 
Hmm, so this actually isn't released yet. The screenshots do look really nice though. How playable is the alpha version right now?
 
This alpha is more playable than most betas as far as I'm concerned. Don't take my word for it and just read up on the steam forum for the game though.
 
I like the Kickstarter-esque pre-order bonuses like being able to offer input on the direction of the game and getting your name in the credits. But this...
Emperor edition bonus said:
Your picture in our offices in Paris.
Click to expand...
lol
 
You really couldn't have implied this was an alpha anywhere in the topic or your first post? I got all excited, and then it's not even out yet. Thanks.
 
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Loading said:
You really couldn't have implied this was an alpha anywhere in the topic or your first post? I got all excited, and then it's not even out yet. Thanks asshat.
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It took you all of 3 seconds to figure it out without me putting it in the title. And when you buy the game, you can play it now. Alpha stage or not, it's already a good game and more playable than many games at release.
 
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hmmm will this have a campaign? or be like sins, well actualy do any 4x games have campaigns? the only 4x game i have played was sins, totaly love sins one amazing game, would have been great if it had a campaign.
 
This is a more traditional 4x game, unlike Sins, which went the Realtime route.
 
Went ahead and picked it up, been looking for something like this for a while. (Since Sword of the Stars 2 was such a buggy disappointing pile of unfinished bad ideas).

Unfortunately, I'm getting an error: Failed to contact key server when I try to launch it. Looks like Steam is out of license keys for it at the moment.
 
Sword of the Stars 2......don't get me started. I rarely ever get upset about games anymore but that one was such a huge pile of dung when it was released that it really upset me. This Alpha is 100x more polished than SotS2 will ever be.
 
Good collection of player comments here:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/04/orions-belter-endless-space/

Seems, from the comments, to be most like Galactic Civilizations 2, with more interesting factions. It's turn-based like GalCiv2 was, not realtime like SoaSE. Even though it's an alpha, ES is already far better than Swords of the Stars 2 was at launch. ES goes back to using 2D star maps, which is probably a good thing because many don't like 3D star maps.
 
More details on the Emperor edition:
o To be confirmed: Your Steam Profile Name in the Credits of the game. (We're checking with Valve if this is feasible)
o To be confirmed: Your Steam Profile Picture in our offices in Paris. (We're checking with Valve if this is feasible)
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I don't think they've thought this through! Do they really want a hallway full of pony pictures and rage comics in their office?
 
AI War Fleet Command was a pretty damn good 4x game. Though the graphics leave a lot to be desired..
 
I was up till 1 am, playing a 100 turn game.

It's stable enough to make a let's play:


Let's Try: Endless Space (Alpha Preview)

Published on May 3, 2012 by quill18

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM1AFpN6rh4


The only reason I'm typing this is because I'm eating breakfast and don't want to turn into a total crackhead.

I had maybe 5 crash to desktops in 100 turns. One time I tried to assign a hero to a specific fleet and he went into a different fleet. Multiplayer is currently disabled.

It's the first time in 16 years that somebody tried to make a copy of MOO2:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II:_Battle_at_Antares

The game is turn based but there's an interesting difference in the tactical combat. You randomly draw from a set of cards and play 3 cards per battle, during specific phases. Each card has a counter ( like rock-paper-scissors ). The cards are stuff like: "do repairs" ( the counter to that would be a "sabotage card" ); "overload kinetic weapons"; "overload torpedos". You can research other cards such as the "tactical combat" card that will make your ship go offensive or defensive depending on what your opponent plays or "create deflection screen" etc.. The gaming mechanic turns tactical combat into a real-time, slightly abstract, slightly random phenomenon, as opposed to MOO2's "everything under a microscope" style.

@ Xeth "AI War Fleet Command" sucked balls; boring trenchwar.

@ evilsofa Gal Civ 2 was boring.

Screenshots:

Physics lulz:
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/5193/relativisticeconomics.jpg

I studied Psychology, so I found this amusing ( hopefully it will inspire you to buy the game ):
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/6590/consumptionpsychology.jpg

Alien Standards and Systems:
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/9119/alienstandardsandsystem.jpg

I tried to invade a system without knowing how to do it and eventually got pushed back ( I'm red, enemy is green ). Gangbanged by pirates:
http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/8682/pushedback.jpg


Ok you guys are cutting into my gaming time. I'll see you in a month or two LOL

Oh yeah, nobody mentioned the point of the Alpha ( Games2Gether ):

http://endless-space.amplitude-studios.com/Games2gether

http://endless-space.amplitude-studios.com/Progress
 
I'll be keeping my eye one this. Is there an exact or rumored launch date floating around yet? Steam page says Summer 2012.
 
So its a 2d map instead of a 3d map? Immense turnoff for me, someone seeking a a great space 4x game. That's what ruined Galactic Civ for me, I never felt like I was in space. I like 2d maps but they might as well be in a terrestrial game.
 
Sword of the Stars had 3D maps IIRC, although the galaxies were spread out in a disk shape usually anyway for the most part. Doesn't really add much usually, except a little depth.
 
Ya I actually spent alot of time with SotS. Not bad, why haven't space battles gotten close to Homeworld quality in all this time?
 
ScYcS said:
This is a more traditional 4x game, unlike Sins, which went the Realtime route.
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what does that mean? I have only played Sins, and totaly loved it, are traditional 4x games turn based? and do any 4x game actualy have a campaign or are they all like Sins with no campaigns and just tons of maps to play on. Yea sorry if I sound like a nub, 4x games is one I never gave a try till sins, and I have been gaming most of my life lol, be 32 this year. and yea sorry i cant spell worth shit :p
 
Savi said:
what does that mean? I have only played Sins, and totaly loved it, are traditional 4x games turn based? and do any 4x game actualy have a campaign or are they all like Sins with no campaigns and just tons of maps to play on. Yea sorry if I sound like a nub, 4x games is one I never gave a try till sins, and I have been gaming most of my life lol, be 32 this year. and yea sorry i cant spell worth shit :p
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Yes, most 4x games tend be to turn based.
Civilization, Masters of Orion, Space Empires et al,
The problem with real time 4x games as that you get latter into the game, the number of decisions you're having to make to keep your faction rolling has grown from a handful at a time to many hundreds. It's hard to scale down the pace of the game, but a turn based approach takes away any need for the game to scale back the pace, you just take as much time as needed to make all the decisions that present themselves and then end the turn.


The ones that do go for the real time either focus the game very tightly into a few spots on the map at any one time (like Sins, there aren't very many ways to get from planet A to planet B on the map so fighting focuses more into lanes with few planets being the front lines), or heaving automation (like Star Ruler, another real time 4x game on Steam from a couple years back, once planets were colonized you would set a focus and pretty much leave individual systems alone)
 
FreiDOg said:
Yes, most 4x games tend be to turn based.
Civilization, Masters of Orion, Space Empires et al,
The problem with real time 4x games as that you get latter into the game, the number of decisions you're having to make to keep your faction rolling has grown from a handful at a time to many hundreds. It's hard to scale down the pace of the game, but a turn based approach takes away any need for the game to scale back the pace, you just take as much time as needed to make all the decisions that present themselves and then end the turn.


The ones that do go for the real time either focus the game very tightly into a few spots on the map at any one time (like Sins, there aren't very many ways to get from planet A to planet B on the map so fighting focuses more into lanes with few planets being the front lines), or heaving automation (like Star Ruler, another real time 4x game on Steam from a couple years back, once planets were colonized you would set a focus and pretty much leave individual systems alone)
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ah thank you :) I will give one or 2 of the turn based ones a try to see how I like it. I think i will though not sure why i never played these types of games 10 to 15 years ago lol
 
You guys should check out the Distant Worlds series if you haven't already. Real time, steep learning curve, but very fun. Very addictive once you get past the initial learning curve.
 
Thanks a million times for the review. I saw this advertised on Steam, but I mistakenly skipped over looking at it until this review.

Does anyone know if the game is community-enhanceable (mods)?
 
Dam it I bought this last night and stayed up to 1 when I had to wake up at 6 fun game other then I get my ass kicked
 
Yeah, so grateful that steam style distribution has meant that this type of game is once again a viable choice for developers. I've been back playing MOO2 the last few days in anticipation.

GalCiv was fun, and I appreciated the effort that went into the visual style ship modification, but the depth of weapon types and specialized options was puny compared to MOO2. Loved sitting back with a few all beam monsters bristling was heavy mount weapons with a few smaller ships out front to swat missiles or deal with any fighters. Or just build some extra combat range marine ships with little in the way of their own weapons, but outfitted to board and steal enemy vessels. Was always more enjoyable torching colonies using their own ships against them... hooray for 'Repulsive', extra points to overpower your race and not having to deal with diplomacy other than declaring war.
 
I love Space, and I want to get into some 4x space games!

I'm going to buy this. Looks cool. I like turn based. If I were to get a real time 4x game, which would you recommend? Should I just wait for Sins: Rebellion, or should I get the game that came out last year?

I have AI War: Fleet command. For some reason I couldn't get into it much. But I also played it a way long time ago.
 
So i see the big resolution issue people are having with this title, and they all say to edit the registry.xml, but i cant find a single damn thing that says exactly what to edit. My xml has no resolution setting in it, so i dont know what that setting should even be. Anyone here know?
 
So I'm having tons of fun with Endless Space. Anyone have recommendations on build order in the beginning? One thing I run into in the beginning is that my new systems build so slowly. Only way to boost it is with a hero or something. Any tech trees that passively give you more production?

Secondly, if I were to get a real-time 4x game, what would you recommend?
 
4saken said:
So i see the big resolution issue people are having with this title, and they all say to edit the registry.xml, but i cant find a single damn thing that says exactly what to edit. My xml has no resolution setting in it, so i dont know what that setting should even be. Anyone here know?
Click to expand...

Code: 
<Options>
...
      <Video>
           <Fullscreen>True</Fullscreen>
           <RefreshRate>59</RefreshRate>
           <Resolution>1920x1200</Resolution>
           <QualityLevel>Good</QualityLevel>
        </Video>
</Options>

Obviously, adjust the <resolution> and <refreshrate> tags to be correct for your monitor.
But it's just the WidthxHeight for resoultion. And make sure to set it to readonly, the game updates settings when you launch.

arachn1d said:
So I'm having tons of fun with Endless Space. Anyone have recommendations on build order in the beginning? One thing I run into in the beginning is that my new systems build so slowly. Only way to boost it is with a hero or something. Any tech trees that passively give you more production?

Secondly, if I were to get a real-time 4x game, what would you recommend?
Click to expand...

Just researching techs won't improve your production but..

Heavy Isotope reactors give a flat +10 production. (Research N-way fusion reactions, one of the first science techs). And they're not that expensive, so you can buy them outright on new systems pretty early on.

Lava Planets are the best for pure production with +4 per pop, with the production exploitation I think it's +7 per pop. If you find some systems with large lava planets, grab them even if you can't colonize the lava planets themselves yet.

Once you establish one or two good systems, don't move your heroes from those much, most heroes' bonuses are percentages, not worth going to newly established systems only producing a couple production points.
 
Can only hope this cures my boredom. Just got done with my 10,000th game of MOO2. GalCiv2 is alright but still lacking in many ways, even with all the expansions and patches.
Sins didnt blow me away. I love Imperium Galactica 2 but it runs like crap on XP and Win7.
Have a few others like Pax Imperia but they are also mediocre. There used to be a bunch of online games that took a whole day for your turn, but those died off over the years.
I never found EVE Online to be particularly fulfilling. Seemed mostly like long grinding to me.
 
Thanks. Now that i have my graphics fixed, i get first turn crash when ending first turn. Sigh...
guess ill just wait for a little more bug fixing to finish before getting too excited. :)
 
I wanted to add my thoughts - this game is absolutely great. For an alpha build, I haven't had any crashes that weren't due to playing around with the save game files.

The latest alpha patch added in two new races and some balance/bug fixes. Some people gripe about how the combat is a bit hands off, but I enjoy sitting back and watching the fleets duke it out through the various combat states using the strategies I set up.

- The UI is very fluid and easy to understand.
- I also really like how they set it up so that you don't create buildings on the planetary level, but on the system level.
- I like how once you are advanced enough, you can "fix" the negative planetary effects.
- Having a monopoly on resources that give an empire-wide bonus is a nice touch.

I strongly recommend anybody who loved MOO/MOO2 give this a try. Just keep in mind that, unlike the MOO's, you do not control ships in combat. You set a strategy/bonus (such as increase offense or defense, increase evasion, counter another strategy, etc.).
 
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