Endless Space 2

INTRO:

Space sci-fi 4X games owe a lot of their complexity to Master of Orion, but the progenitor was not exactly known for being great at presenting its thematic setting. People who obtained their introduction to space-based science fiction through space operas like Star Wars, Star Trek or even Flash Gordon might be put off with the amount of micromanagement and statistics that this genre of games throw at them. This is because such games often put forth these before their glitzier elements – if there were any at all.

Endless Space 2 intends to step forth with a glamorous foot first, working aesthetically impressive presentation into each of its elements without slipping into the trap that is high computing overhead. In other words, it is a game that would offer just as much style as substance.

PREMISE:

Endless Space 2 is practically a remake of the first game, which was criticized for not making good on its presentation but otherwise delivering a competently complex, if not particularly memorable, 4X game. Amplitude Studios reviewed its mistakes and made Endless Space 2.

Endless Space 2 has less playable factions, but in return, the developer has greatly diversified each faction from the others gameplay-wise and narrative-wise. Each faction has its own motivations for reaching into the stars, and there are indeed a chain of unique quests for it.

Although this means that the opportunities for role-playing, such as in Stellaris, might be reduced, Endless Space 2 spins a tighter story and its story designers can incorporate aesthetic assets for their presentation.

LOUSY TUTORIALS:

Just about any decently different 4X game would need to have tutorials, even for the sake of veteran followers of the genre. Endless Space 2 has these too, and these have been expanded bit by bit since the debut of the game. Unfortunately, they are still not entirely great.

Firstly, the tutorial pop-ups block the view of buttons and icons. The developers had been mindful of where they are, so the pop-ups are usually located in an empty portion of the screen, but updates to the various UI’s are sometimes not accompanied with updates to the tutorials.

Secondly, the tutorials highlight buttons with perhaps too many particle effects, sometimes even obscuring the buttons that they are highlighted. The player would be looking for things that are not seen rather than the odd ones out, no thanks to these highlights.

Eventually, after the player has learned enough about the game, he/she might want to just disable the tutorials just so that they do not get in the way.

IN-GAME DOCUMENTATION:

There is no dedicated in-game documentation of things, such as a glossary or an encyclopaedia. Rather, the game depends on tool-tips to describe both the fluff and gameplay properties of things. There are nifty shortcuts that bring the player to the relevant screens too. However, all these aids require the player to keep multiple things in mind so that they can be pieced together to learn a lesson of association, specifically associating this thing or that with typical elements of 4X gameplay.

This game is not friendly to rookie players that are new to the 4X genre.

SIMULTANEOUS TURNS:

For better or worse, Endless Space 2 is one of those simultaneous turn-based games. This has been seen in games like the Age of Wonders series.

To elaborate, the pacing of a playthrough is still measured in turns, which are the classical representation of the timeline of a playthrough in the 4X genre. However, once a new turn starts, every player, human- or CPU-controlled, gets to make their moves all at the same time.

In single-player, the CPU-controlled players are usually hasty in making their decisions. However, the player should keep in mind that they are likely not able to make use of everything that they have, because the opportunity to do so is simply not there. If the human player does something that gives the CPU-controlled players to do something more, they will; this can be an unpleasant surprise to human players who are not experienced with simultaneous turn-based systems.

RESOURCES - OVERVIEW:

Just about every 4X and 4X-lite game requires the player to manage resources; even those that do not have a lot of resource types have the player juggling time and opportunity costs. This is the main source of complexity in the gameplay of the genre.

In the case of Endless Space 2, the game has many, many types of resources, which are in fact how the game expresses its complexity – for better or worse. There is even one that is required for diplomatic options. The gameplay is a considerable amount of resource juggling, especially in the weighing of opportunity costs of spending resources on one thing instead of another.

Of course, if the player could be successful enough to get a lot of any kind of resource, that juggling would not matter. Indeed, a player/civilization that is flush with resources is likely one that would win the playthrough.

The primary resources are Dust, Food, Industry, Science, Influence and Manpower. Only Dust and Influence can be accumulated without any limit, though it is wise to spend these where they are useful instead of hoarding them. Food, Industry and Science are outputs of star systems and cannot be hoarded; they have to be spent as soon as they are produced. Manpower is somewhere in between these two groups in terms of functionality.

DUST:

“Dust” is the primary resource in the galaxy of Endless Space 2. It is the pinnacle of nanotechnology and is made by the now near-extinct species that is the Endless. The Endless once conquered the stars but became terribly jaded with their achievements, both great and terrible.

The advent of Dust spelled the doom of their race, for the nanotechnology promises a higher form of existence that almost all Endless took whole-sale by transferring their consciousness into it.

Dust is nigh-indestructible nanites, and somehow responds to the desires of anyone who wields it. Such great power comes at great cost, of course; it can inflict fates worse than death, and it almost always damages the sanity of those that use it.

Yet, “Dust” is powerful, and surprisingly plentiful. Indeed, any substance that looks like regular dust may well be inert Dust, just waiting to be reactivated through some strange means that nobody other than its creators have canonically figured yet. Using it is risky, yet it is too valuable to leave alone. Hence, Dust has become a form of currency – a form that the likely sentient Dust itself does not mind. Furthermore, thanks to the wondrous technological properties of Dust, it can also be used to accelerate engineering projects and reconfigure ships on the fly.

Of course, long-time followers of the 4X genre might recognize this as the mere expenditure of money to hurry things up. It makes better sense in this game, though of course this is due to the crazy sci-fi properties of Dust.

DUST INFLATION:

Since Dust is a currency resource, there is an aspect of inflation to it. As more Dust is produced in the entire galaxy, inflation occurs and rises. Inflation causes prices that are measured in Dust to rise. This is meant as some kind of gameplay-balancing measure against strategies that are oriented around cranking out Dust willy-nilly.

Inflation can be stymied by spending a lot of another primary resource, which is Influence, to drive Inflation down. However, Influence is used for other things, as will be described later.

FOOD:

No 4X game would be complete without a resource that represents sustenance for organic sapient beings. In the case of Endless Space 2, this is simply “food”. Every star system generates its own food output for its own people to consume, but food can also be shipped in from elsewhere. The purpose of food will be described in later sections, where appropriate.

INDUSTRY:

Every star system has an industrial output, which only it can ever consume; there is no exporting or outsourcing of production capacity. Nonetheless, Industrial output will be the most important statistic of a star system, because it is generated without any caveats (like pollution), and it can be used to develop the star system further, leading to even higher industrial output. A star system with a high industrial output is far more versatile than star systems that concentrate on other things.

SCIENCE:

Science is a resource that immediately goes into the research system. The player selects any research project to be the current one, and all science points that the player’s civilization generates are invested into it.

Like in other 4X games, scientific advancement is the key to getting the upper hand over the competition in any playthrough of Endless Space 2. However, there are some caveats about this that will be described later.

INFLUENCE:

Influence is a resource that is mainly spent on diplomacy and other options that are narratively about convincing people to do things. Influence is gained from population units (more on these later), so the player will want to have many population units to generate a sizable income of Influence.

However, in some cases, the expenditure of influence is proportional to the number of population units in the player’s civilization. Therefore, the player should not expect to be able to hoard doles of influence and somehow go on a mind-changing blitz later.

MANPOWER:

Manpower represents the people who have joined the player’s government as employees in various capacities. They can be soldiers, labourers or work-crews; these various roles will be described later, together with their associated gameplay elements.

Manpower is generated by the population units that are living in the player’s civilization; there are few other sources. Nevertheless, after the player has obtained a lot of population units, the manpower contribution rate per turn can be considerable. However, there is a limit on the amount of manpower that the player can hoard.

This manpower resource is used to crew ships and staff garrisons. Ship crews and garrisons can be depleted, often through war. They replenish through transfers from the manpower resource counter; there will be more details on these later. There are other options that consume manpower (sometimes literally), but they are lesser in occurrence than the usual uses.

Together with the aforementioned cap on manpower, these gameplay designs prevent well-resourced players from being able to withstand wars of attrition simply by absorbing losses.

STRATEGIC RESOURCES:

Strategic resources are generally metals, alloys or minerals for technical uses. For example, special ship armour require said metals and alloys, whereas shields require the minerals.

Exploitable deposits of strategic resources only occur on planets. Their presence is not immediately known; they have to be discovered before they can be utilized. Furthermore, the player needs to have the correct technologies before they can be exploited.

LUXURY RESOURCES:

Luxury resources can be exploited whenever they are found; no technologies are needed. Despite their name, they occur more commonly than strategic resources. The gameplay-related reason for this is that luxury resources are needed in bulk for very important improvements of star systems. Luxury resources can also be consumed to boost the population occurrence of specific species. These two gameplay elements will be described later.

REPRESENTATION OF SPACE:

Endless Space 2 uses a tried-and-true representation of space in the 4X genre: a 2D web of nodes. Each node represents a star system, and most star systems are connected to others with “faster-than-light lanes”, which is a gameplay element that is usually associated with the 2D web system. The “exploration” part of 4X gameplay involves searching along the spokes of the web, looking for nodes that are worthwhile claiming.

HYPERLANES:

The hyperlanes represent the standard means of faster-than-light (FTL) travel. For players who are experienced in the 2D web system, they will know that the lanes indicate the most obvious paths of approach for fleets. Consequently, star systems that are connected to many others are simultaneously vulnerable links and strategic chokepoints.

Generally, fleets travelling along lanes cannot do anything else other than to travel down the direction of where they are heading. They cannot interact with other fleets, and other fleets cannot interact with them. They do not recover hitpoints while travelling along lanes either.

When a fleet reaches a star system, it must have at least one movement point remaining, or it technically remains in the lane that it was travelling along. This is not told to the player.

MOVING THROUGH THE VOID:

What makes this game stand out from the others that use the 2D web system (such as Stellaris and 4X-lite A.I. War) is that fleets can move through the void in between the nodes, even if there are no lanes between them. There are distance-calculating scripts that fleets use when they are directed to move to somewhere; if they can get to someplace earlier by moving through the void instead of using the lanes, they will do so.

This allows some sneaky maneuvers that can catch enemies off-guard, especially if there are star systems that are physically close to each other but are not connected with lanes. However, ships that are travelling through the void cannot do anything until they reach their destination.

ONLY NODE-TO-NODE TRAVEL:

Players cannot deliberately have their fleets hang out in the void; they can only move from node to node, i.e. the travel destination must be a star system. Thus far, there does not seem to be any way to stall or yank a fleet in transit – be it in a lane or a void – away from their destination.

STAR SYSTEMS:

As mentioned earlier, the nodes are star systems. A star system usually has at least one planet, at the very least. (This may be a lonely rogue planet, or a gas giant that never managed to form into a solid world.) The types of the stars in star systems determine the types of planets that can be had.

Each and any planet can be inhabited, no matter how improbable it seems. Of course, whether that planet is nice to live on is an entirely different matter, but there are always some advantages to balance the disadvantages. For example, hellishly hot lava planets are often rich in minerals.

OUTPOST:

If a star system is not inhabited, an interested player can choose one of its planets to build an outpost on. Preferably, this should be the most valuable planet in the star system.

The only purpose of the outpost is to eventually make way for a fully-fledged colony. Until then, the outpost is nothing but a resource drain, often taking food resources from other star systems (especially the capital star system). That said, an outpost needs a lot of food to build up the population unit that would eventually become the first inhabitants of the planet. This population is always of the primary species of the player’s civilization, by the way.

The outpost can make use of its host planet’s food resources, if any. Otherwise, it has to depend on external sources, or else starve.

FOOD DEFICIENCY IN OUTPOST:

An outpost will always consume food at a rate equal to that of one population unit on a developed world (more on population unis later). If the outpost cannot make use of its host world’s food (likely because it lacks any), it is doomed to starve. Starved outposts die out, and any Dust spent on making them is wasted. Fortunately, when the outpost is started, they are given a dozen or so turns worth of food, so there is time to save it if it lacks food output.

FOOD DELIVERIES TO OUTPOST:

If there are planets with positive food revenues, food shipments will be generated from these planets and they will automatically move towards any outpost. The player does not appear to have any control over which planet produces these shipments though, and the shipments do appear to take a chunk out of the food revenue of the planet (which can crimp its own population growth).

These food shipments are the only way for outposts without low food output to develop into colonies. These food shipments work like fleets do, so they will always take the paths with the least amount of time. However, they might go through star systems, which means that they risk being waylaid.

When enemy fleets attack food shipments, they outright destroy the food shipments without any space battle. The spoils are automatically converted into Dust for the attackers. This act is seen as vile by the owners of the food shipments, however.

FOOD STOCKPILE FOR A FLEDGLING COLONY:

If an outpost has turned into a new colony, any on-the-way food shipment will still come, but new ones will not be made. These food shipments are stockpiled when they arrive, and will last the new colony for a while until it can produce its own food revenues. Depending on how massive the shipments had been, the stockpile can be considerable.

If the new colony is already producing a reliable income of food, all that food stockpile will be rapidly consumed to give a significant boost to the creation of the next population unit.

RIVAL OUTPOSTS:

Building an outpost does not fully stake a player’s claim on the star system; having it turn into a colony does. That said, until that happens, another player can build an outpost on another planet within the same star system. If that happens, this becomes a race to be the first to get a colony. The winner ejects the loser from the star system.

ACCELERATING OUTPOST DEVELOPMENT:

The development of an outpost can be accelerated through food shipments, as mentioned earlier. Alternatively, the player can spend Dust and Influence to accelerate the colonization. If there happens to be a rival outpost in the same star system, the player could spend Manpower to poach colonists from it, thus accelerating the player’s own outpost while delaying the other. The owner of the other outpost will be aware of this dastardly tactic though.

CLAIMING A STAR SYSTEM:

Once an outpost has been turned into a colony, the owner of the colony claims the star system. This is, of course, just the early-game way of claiming star systems, when there are still unclaimed star systems around. Later, more assertive means of claiming star systems would have to be used because they are already someone else’s property.

There are diplomatic means of getting star systems, but as any veteran of the 4X genre would expect, getting other players to give their most precious assets to someone else is nigh impossible. This is the case in Endless Space 2 too, despite the gameplay element of diplomatic pressure (which will be described later).

The most direct means of claiming a star system that is already owned is invading it. Successfully defeating the garrison of a star system lets a player claim it entirely, regardless of how many planets there are. On the other hand, star systems with more planets tend to have larger garrisons. The mechanisms behind invasions will be described later.

Obviously, taking a star system from another player without their consent would anger them outright. The player can expect them to try to take them back – and they certainly can, due to the limitation that is “ownership change”.

OWNERSHIP CHANGE:

When a star system changes ownership through any means, the star system takes time to fully adapt to its new owner’s ways. Gameplay-wise, this is represented with a percentage counter that shows how much progress has been made to change the ownership; it is not measured in numbers of turns, unlike other things in the game. As long as it is under 100%, the new owner can expect complications along the way, like the garrison being weaker than it should if there happens to be any counter-invasion.

COLONIZING OTHER PLANETS IN A STAR SYSTEM:

After a star system has been claims, the other planets become much easier to colonize. Colonization of other planets is like a star system project, meaning that it merely consumes Industry output and it can be accelerated through increments of said output. When another planet is colonized in a star system that has already been claimed, the first population unit that occupies the planet is by default that of the primary species. However, if the star system has an indigenous species, the new population unit is usually of that species.

POPULATION UNITS:

Population units are the people who live in the player’s civilization. They will always live on planets; there will not be moons, space stations or such other places that they can live on (though presumably they set up habitats in these places if the planets themselves are inimical to life).

Population units are the player’s main source of output, so the player must have them. Furthermore, for a star system to be viable, there must be at least one population unit. Besides, some star system improvements are just not effective if there are few population units in the star system.

(That last population unit is also very difficult to kill off too – any colony will always produce enough food to maintain that population unit.)

Juggling population units of multiple different species is not as difficult as one would think, mainly due to the lack of penalties for mixing them around on planets. (This absence would be much more noticeable to players that have played Stellaris.) Species-related gameplay elements will be described elsewhere in this article, where relevant.

POPULATION SLOTS:

Every planet has at least one population slot to accommodate a population unit. Without any population unit, a planet simply will not produce anything. The player can freely move any population unit from one planet to another, even within the same turn. This is convenient, and likely needed, especially when new population units appear and the game simply places them wherever without any optimization.

At first glance, it would appear that planets are little more than slots to put population units in. Long-time followers of the 4X space sci-fi genre might be miffed at how planets are treated in this game, especially those that had expected each planet to be its own colony with its own assets.

However, the planets do have variables that complicate the placement of population units and the development of star system improvements. Therefore, the human player might be able to find some challenge in juggling population units around and deciding which improvements to focus on first.

FEEDING & GROWING POPULATION UNITS:

Organic population units need food to live, obviously; they consume a portion of the food output of the star system that they inhabit.

If a star system has surplus Food output, it goes into producing a new population unit; this is indicated with a timer that is measured in turns in its information screen. The species of the population unit is also indicated; this seemingly cannot be changed after it has been decided.

The species that will be picked from is mainly decided from the species that are living in the star system. Other extant species in the civilization but is not in the star system has a chance to appear too.

The player can attempt to influence which species is picked by spending luxury resources on it; each species is associated with a specific luxury resource. Somehow, doing so increases the probability of the species being picked for a new population unit.

Ultimately though, this is still a matter of luck. The player might get species that are not suitable for the star system, in which case the player might want to ship them around, if there is an infrastructure that allows this.

FEEDING (& STARVING) POPULATION UNITS:

If there is not enough food for everyone, starvation happens. Other 4X games equate starvation with penalties and nasty de-buffs, leading to a downwards spiral that is difficult to get out of if the player had been careless enough to let this happen.

In Endless Space 2, this is more forgiving. When starvation happens, the game picks a population unit of a random species to starve; this is shown as a counter in the place of the counter that usually shows which species is going to have a new population unit next.

The counter shows the number of turns before the population unit is lost; the player has some time to reverse this, if he/she so wishes.

NO ACTIVE MEANS OF POPULATION CONTROL:

One overlooked weak spot that Endless Space 2 has is the lack of any means of active population control. For players that have played Stellaris and experienced its gameplay elements that allow (fictitious) genocide, xenocide and sterilization, this omission can seem limiting.

There are some means to convert population units to something else, such as the Chain Gang “improvement” that converts population units into manpower, but they are rather limited in their effect and availability.

BONUSES FROM POPULATION TOTAL OF SPECIES:

As the player’s civilization grows more population units of this or that species, it gains bonuses for having reached certain thresholds. These thresholds are the numbers of population units for specific species. After breaching these thresholds, the population units of those species gain bonuses to their productivity. Therefore, there is an incentive to favour the growth of certain species just for their bonuses.

PLANET VARIABLES - OVERVIEW:

The variables that planets have are their sizes, geographies, temperatures and fecundity. Mixing and matching population units to the correct planets for optimal productivity is an important part of the gameplay.

PLANET SIZE:

Firstly, there is the planet’s size. Bigger planets typically have more slots than other planets with the same other variables. Incidentally, star systems with multiple huge planets are rare, but these have far more value than even star systems that are rich in strategic or luxury resources. This is mainly because they can support large populations, and large populations lead to large incomes of primary resources.

That said, the player might want to consider the sizes of the planets in a star system carefully. There are star systems with many planets, but all of them might be small because their parent star is a stingy gargantuan.

PLANET GEOGRAPHIES:

The geographies of planets affect the happiness and productivity of population units. Terran, Atoll and other mild geographies would be pleasant for almost all species to live in. They tend to have more population slots than other planets of the same size too.

Conversely, Lava, Snow and other planets that are much inimical to life are awful places to live on, and generally have less slots than the more pleasant planets. However, these awful planets often compensate by having higher occurrences of resource deposits. There are also some techs that lead to star system improvements that make them more liveable.

PLANET TEMPERATURES & FECUNDITY:

Usually, the geographies of planets are the main determinant of their temperatures. For example, Snow planets are typically cold. Likewise, their geographies determine their fecundity too. Typically, life-supporting geographies are usually fertile, and the inimical ones are sterile.

These two variables are the ones that the player utilizes when determining which population units should live on which planets. Thankfully, the variables are binary in nature, so there are not a lot of combinations to juggle.

STAR SYSTEM IMPROVEMENTS:

“Improvements” are infrastructures that are built on star systems to improve their productivity and the livelihood of their inhabitants. These infrastructures are applied across all planets in a star system.

When they are colonized, star systems only start with the colony base; infrastructures have to be built from scratch. Generally, the player should start with infrastructures that improve the Industrial output of the star system, because almost all improvements are initiated through consumption of Industrial output.

Some infrastructures are only available if there is something in the star system that makes them actually beneficial. For example, an infrastructure that produces benefits if there are hot or sterile planets in the star system will not appear for a star system if it does not have any such planets.

Almost all infrastructures consume Dust every turn. Therefore, the player will want to consider his/her finances when selecting an infrastructure to develop.

There is no limit to the infrastructures that a star system can have. This means that a star system continues to accumulate value as time goes by.

IMPROVEMENTS THAT ARE NOT INFRASTRUCTURES:

Generally, it is in the player’s interest to have star systems keep working on improvements or ships over every turn. If star systems do not have any improvements that they can work on, something has gone wrong with the player’s planning and Industrial output is being wasted.

That said, there are some technologies that introduce options that do not build infrastructures, but rather consume a star system’s Industrial output for some other purpose. The game calls these “improvements” anyway, which can be confusing at first.

Some of these non-infrastructure options convert Industrial output into other primary resources, like Dust. However, the conversion ratios are often terrible; if the player has to resort to these, something has gone wrong too.

SCRAPPING INFRASTRUCTURES:

If, for whatever reason, the player needs to free up some Dust revenue, the player can scrap infrastructures in a star system to cut costs. This is a sign that the player has screwed up.

There are also other means of cutting costs, such as scrapping obsolete ships; if the player still could not free up enough Dust revenue from these other means, the player has been making some bad decisions.

EMPIRE-UNIQUE INFRASTRUCTURES:

Some infrastructures can only be built once, in just one star system. These are empire-unique infrastructures. Usually, they grant empire-wide benefits, such as increments to the Command Points of a fleet (more on these later). Most of these infrastructures do not have other benefits, so they should be built in star systems that are defensible.

HOMEWORLD-UNIQUE INFRASTRUCTURES:

Interestingly, there are some infrastructures that can only be built in star systems with the homeworlds of extant species. For example, there is the Black Tax Authority, which increases the Dust income of the star system. Considering that star systems with homeworlds tend to be rich in something, these infrastructures make the prize that is such a star system all the more valuable – assuming that the player can hold onto them after taking them.

GALACTIC WONDERS:

For better or worse, Endless Space 2 has Wonder races. In this game, Wonders are potent infrastructures that are made available after having unlocked certain tiers of research projects. (The tiers of projects will be described later.) These buildings are costly things, but they provide considerable benefits to not only the star system that they are in, but also the civilization that built them first.

Typically, there can only be one of each Wonder. Like the Wonder races of other 4X games, players vie to build Wonders before the others do.

Any civilization that is left behind has whatever luxury or strategic resources that it spent on pursuing the Wonder refunded, but there is no compensation for the opportunities that had been forgone for the sake of the pursuit. On the other hand, their star systems that have been building the Wonder would gain a lot of other infrastructures over the next turn; the industrial output that has been spent on pursuing the Wonder can be diverted to other projects over the next turn.

STAR SYSTEM LEVEL-UPS:

Eventually, the player gains technologies that allow the overall upgrading of a star system; this is called “modifications” in-game.

These technologies unlock templates for the modifications. The player has to fill the templates with luxury resources: the luxury resources determine what kind of bonuses that the systems would get when they are upgraded. (As a tip, bonuses to industrial output are a good choice.) Higher-level modifications require more types of luxury resources, making them a bit more difficult to implement (but more lucrative, of course).

Modifications require a lot of units of luxury resources; this can be a problem if the player has not found a lot of deposits for these resources. To allay this, the homeworld of any major faction has at least one luxury resource deposit, so its player can still accumulate enough luxury resources to spend on at least the first level of modifications.

SPACEPORTS:

After a star system gets its first level of upgrade/modifications, it gains a spaceport. The spaceport allows the player to ship population units off-world to a destination star system.

Like food shipments, the civilian ships that are carrying the population units are vulnerable to getting waylaid. Killing these ships is even more frowned upon than killing food shipments.

If the destination star system does not have any empty slots, the civilian ship just waits in-system; the population units presumably remain in stasis. Of course, this civilian ship is vulnerable to any invading navy, and its owning player cannot redirect it.

PLANET SPECIALIZATIONS:

In addition to improvements that provide benefits according to the variables of planets, there are specializations. Specializations also provide benefits according to the variables of planets, though the benefits always depend on the number of population units.

One specialization can be applied on each colonized planet. It can be changed later, though the player might as well get it right the first time to get the most out of each planet.

EVACUATING STAR SYSTEMS:

The final kind of “improvement” is one that removes the colonies from a star system. This throws the player’s efforts down the drain. It is definitely a drastic and likely stupid thing to do for the owner of a star system, and if the player has to resort to this to cut losses, something has gone terribly wrong. Furthermore, evacuations are expensive endeavours.

Still, the player gets to preserve some population units; some of these options may even preserve all of them. The player can then ship them around afterwards, using a mechanism similar to that of moving population units around.

PROJECT QUEUES IN STAR SYSTEMS:

The queues of projects in star systems can be manipulated by dragging and dropping the icons for the projects in the list; this is not told to the player in any tutorial, whereas most other games have up/down arrow buttons for this purpose.

That minor complaint aside, this convenience can be used to have more than one project complete simultaneously. The surplus Industry output that is spent on the topmost project automatically spills over to the next one, and the one after if that one is already almost complete.

In practice, this is usually not needed, but it can be used to surprise sieging fleets with more than one ship being made in the next turn – assuming that there is enough Industry output to make this happen (more elaboration on this later).

SUBTLE CAVEAT ON RESEARCH:

As mentioned earlier, scientific advancement along optimal paths is the key to any winning strategy. However, there is a subtle caveat here: all research projects, after they have been completed, do not grant immediate benefits. This is in contrast to most other 4X games, where completing a research project might grant bonuses that are automatically applied.

Rather, each research project unlocks star system improvements that have to be built, ship parts that have to replace existing ones, and laws that have to be passed. Even the most well-resourced player will need at least one turn before being able to reap the benefits of completed research.

In other words, the other aspects of the player’s civilizations should be able to keep up with whatever R&D produces. A sign of a sub-optimal or imbalanced development is that star systems have far more improvement options than they could ever implement, and the options only seem to grow in number.

Therefore, to minimize opportunity costs from investing too much in R&D, the player should consider spending science points on expensive projects while the rest of his/her civilization is busy utilizing/implementing whatever that scientific advancement has produced.

RESEARCH TIERS:

The first Endless Space uses a web network for the arrangement of research projects, meaning that there are prerequisites and such other limitations. Endless Space 2 uses a tier system that provides a bit more freedom in planning.

To elaborate, the tier system requires the player to have completed a minimum number of projects of one tier before gaining access to the research projects in the next tier. After gaining access to a tier, the player can pursue any project in that tier without any limitation.

SCIENCE POINTS SURPLUS:

Surplus science points are generated when a civilization’s science output exceed the cost of a research project. The surplus can be hoarded without any loss. When the next project is selected, all of the surplus goes into the next project. If the player did not select any research project at all, all science output goes into surplus.

Theoretically, the player could time the hoarding of science points to coincide with the completion of certain infrastructures or other assets that could make use of whatever research project for which the player is hoarding science points. In practice though, there is no reason to do this if the player’s plans are going well. Still, hoarded science points grant the player some versatility in changing plans.

RESEARCH QUEUES:

The player can make a sequence of research projects to pursue; the only restriction is that the player cannot include projects from tiers that have yet to be unlocked.

If there are queues, then any surplus science points are spent on the next research project instead of being hoarded. This would not be an issue if the player’s game plan is already progressing well as intended, of course.

POLITICAL FACTIONS:

Any civilization in Endless Space 2 has political factions; even hive-minded species have differences of opinions among their own. These divisions are represented through a mixture of political groups.

Every species has a preternatural slant towards a political leaning of one type. The presence of different species and their numbers among the populations generally determine the political make-up of the player’s government.

POLITICAL LEANING:

Whatever the player does – emphasis on “whatever” – causes the populations of his/her/its civilization to lean towards one political slant or another.

For example, waging war against another civilization – and winning it – is guaranteed to push the player’s civilization towards the Militarists. For another example, building infrastructure for increasing the science output of star systems increases support for the Scientists.

However, certain species also have a different response towards certain events. For example, the Cravers respond to any decision that would increase support for the Pacifists by increasing support for the Militarists, albeit at a smaller magnitude than that of the support for the Pacifists.

GOVERNMENT TYPES - OVERVIEW:

There are five types of government. They offer varying degrees of control over the internal stability of his/her civilization.

The main aspect of any type of government is how many political groups are represented in the ruling body of the government (which is called “Senate” in-game). There are other minor traits that are unique to each government type; these will be described where pertinent.

POLITICAL REPRESENTATION:

Autocracies and Dictatorships, predictably, only allow one group to be represented. Typically, this is the political group that the primary species belongs to. Republics and Federations allow two groups to be represented, whereas Democracies allow three.

Political groups that are not represented in the Senate are, understandably, unhappy. This leads to penalties to the approval ratings by the populations of star systems that have inhabitants that lean mostly towards these unrepresented groups. Therefore, to mitigate this, the player should consider the composition of the species of the populations in the star systems.

Due to the aforementioned mechanism of political leanings, dominant political groups can see their majority being eventually chipped away, thus leading to turmoil in governments that do not allow elections.

ELECTIONS:

Governments that do run elections, namely the Republics, Federations and Democracies, have the means to release political steam. Indeed, if the player is the kind of person that changes variables whenever it suits his/her plans, such governments would be suitable.

Anyway, elections allow the most dominant political group to gain representation on the Senate, which allays unrest. This will affect the Laws that the player has chosen, but a cunning player that had been manipulating political leanings would have accounted for this anyway (more on Laws later).

If the player needs to do some last-minute adjustment (which is something that reeks of poor planning), Federations and Republics provide means to influence the outcome of the elections. Federations have an option for the player to spend Influence, presumably on leveraging or demagogy, to steer the Elections. Republics have an option for the player to spend Dust, presumably on bribes. Democracies do not allow any last-minute influencing.

The winner of any election gains a seat on the Senate, whereas the runner-up gains one too; in Democracies, the second runner-up also gains a seat.

DICTATORSHIPS & AUTOCRACIES:

Dictatorships and Autocracies allow the player to choose whichever political group would be in the ascendant; they are definitely there for players who care little for subtle playstyles. These government types also strengthen the effects of any political skills that Heroes on the Senate have.

In the case of Dictatorships, the player can still change governments. Autocracies are there for players who prefer iron-fisted rule. Furthermore, in Autocracies, only population units of the primary species can put forth votes – if there is anything that can be voted on at all.

CHANGING GOVERNMENTS & ANARCHY:

If the player so chooses, he/she can change the government type of his/her civilization. Yet, changing governments is not to be done willy-nilly. Like other competent 4X or grand strategy game of its time, Endless Space 2 makes certain that government changes cause paralysis – called “Anarchy” in-game – as the authorities reform to whatever is demanded. During this time, there is little policy-changing that the player can do.

The player is informed about the duration of Anarchy prior to the change in government, so the player is forewarned about this. Although there are a number of factors, the duration is generally proportional to the size of the player’s civilization. In addition to Anarchy, government changes also consume a lot of influence, and require civilization-wide approval.

APPROVAL AND UPRISINGS:

Speaking of approval, each star system generates Approval, just like it generates primary resources. The player mixes and matches population units to the right planets, builds infrastructure that produce Approval and implements policies that grant Approval, while minimizing factors that reduce Approval.

The Approval output represents the approval rating of the star system. It can only be between 0 and 100.

In the eyes of a player that has played Stellaris or some other 4X or grand strategy game with a more sophisticated system of approval, this can seem a tad too easy to manipulate to the player’s advantage. That said, if the player suffers setbacks from low approval ratings, the player deserves them.

When approval ratings fall to low levels, a star system suffers penalties to its Food and Influence outputs. They otherwise do not rebel and secede from the player’s civilization. However, their approval rating does contribute to the civilization-wide rating.

If the player has been doing a really terrible job of managing colonies, their low approval ratings lead to a low civilization-wide rating. At a low enough rating, the populations rebel, immediately throwing the civilization into anarchy. After this happens, a Dictatorship rises out of the ashes, and it would be represented by the biggest political group at the time.

OVERCOLONIZATION:

Not unlike Stellaris, Endless Space 2 has a soft cap on the number of star systems that can be colonized. The player can exceed the soft cap, but each star system that is above the soft cap causes cumulative penalties to civilization-wide approval. Presumably, this represents the difficulty of the civilization’s government in keeping things together across the stars.

Federations, thanks to their nature, increase the soft cap by one system per Hero that is on the Senate. The maximum of two additional systems can be lucrative enough to have players considering Federations, though that will greatly depend on the star systems that the player has access to.

LAWS:

The main reason for having political groups on the Senate are laws. Laws are civilization-wide buffs and de-buffs. Whichever parties that are represented in the Senate provide the Laws that are available for adoption. The player can pass and repeal laws within any turn, but a law that has been repealed or passed cannot be passed or repealed within the same turn.

Some Laws are categorized as “Independent”, meaning that they can be passed whenever convenient. These Laws do not cause any Influence to maintain. However, they are practically give-and-take laws: they provide some benefits in return for some disadvantages.

The biggest political group on the Senate automatically passes its most basic law; of course, this basic law is themed after the political party itself. The basic law is beneficial, without any overt setback. This basic law is perhaps what the player would want, because it contributes the most to any playstyle that is associated with the political party.

The political group, or groups, if there is more than one, on the Senate also provide other kinds of Laws. These Laws are beneficial without any setbacks too, but they cost Influence to maintain. Furthermore, the Influence cost is proportional to the number of population units that are in the player’s civilization, so Laws become more expensive to use in the later stages of a playthrough.

If the player favours the use of Laws as blanket measures, the Republic government type increases the potency of the benefits of Laws.

SHIPS – OVERVIEW:

A space sci-fi 4X game would not be complete without space-ships. After all, these are how space-faring civilizations would be able to project their power. For just about any civilization, their line of ships follows a progression of increasing size and potential for combat.

The first few ships that any civilization gets are exploratory vessels. These are equipped with probes, which will be described later. They do not have the capacity for naval combat though, no matter how far the player’s tech has come.

The later ships are increasingly geared towards engagements in the void. They are bigger, have more module slots (more on these later) and have more hitpoints.

Ships can be produced at any star system, regardless of its level of development. However, they are best produced in star systems that are geared towards Industrial output.

CREATING SHIPS:

Whenever the player has unlocked a ship hull type, a ship design that uses that hull will be automatically generated. The player can also create his/her own designs.

Firstly, the player selects the hull type of the ship. The hull type determines the number of slots that the ship has for equipment, and it also determines its level of hitpoints and general cost.

Next, the player selects the modules to go into the slots; not all slots have to be filled. Generally, the player will want to mount at least one weapon so that the ship can actually do something in combat. Modules that increase the speed of the ship is important too; most hull types have terrible default speeds.

MODULE TYPES:

The modules that can be included in a ship design have several categories, as well as grading. The categories are weapons, defense, support systems and squadrons.

Weapons are the main means through which ships inflict damage on enemies. Defense systems help reduce damage from incoming fire, though the effectiveness of these depends on how much the player knows about the enemies that the ship would fight.

“Support” systems are the catch-all category of anything that could not be readily placed into the other categories. The sub-categories of support systems are engines, probes, damage intensifiers and invasion/siege augments. Engines contribute to the ship’s movement points beyond its default values. Probes give it vision range and a scouting ability that will be described later. Damage intensifiers increase the output of specific damage types, but only one of each type of intensifier can be mounted. Invasion/siege augments improve a ship’s ability to bring a hostile star system to its knees; the mechanism of sieges and invasions will be described further later.

Squadron modules are obtained much later, after the tech that allows the integration of hangars into capital ships have been acquired. Squadrons of strikecraft can launch from said hangars, providing a ship with indirect means of damaging its foes.

Sometimes, the player may be lucky enough to find special-grade modules, usually through quests or discoveries (more on these later). These are generally more potent than regular modules, but require expenditure of strategic resources. In the case of damage intensifiers, they count towards the limit of having one of each type of intensifier too.

HYBRID MODULE SLOTS:

Some ship hull types have module slots that can be filled with modules of more than just one type. These give the player more choices on designing specialized ships from these hull types. There does not seem to be any setback from having this versatility, though this is not a significant balance issue.

COST OF SHIP DESIGN:

The player then finalizes the ship design. The cost of the ship is displayed as a mixture of resources, the primary one of which is the amount of Industry resource. This in turn determines the number of turns that a star system needs to crank out the ship. Timely delivery of a ship can be important, especially when responding to sneak attacks (which can happen).

If the ship design is packing high-grade modules, the costs will include strategic resources too. These modules are not feasible in the early-game, but after the player has developed the economy of his/her civilization to ensure a steady acquisition of strategic resources, the player will want to pack as many special modules as possible into ship designs to give them a competitive edge.

UPGRADING SHIP DESIGNS:

After a ship design has been named, it can be updated later to incorporate different modules, preferably better ones. Ships of that design can be refitted at star systems that the player or his/her/its allies own for an amount of Dust (and strategic resources, if any). The amount of Dust depends on the total cost of the changes in the modules, but all changes are instantaneously implemented; this can be convenient, as will be elaborated later.

CANNOT CHANGE A SHIP TO ANOTHER EXISTING DESIGN:

Once a ship has been made from a ship design template, it is forever associated with that template. It cannot be refitted to another ship design, even if its original design template is deleted. This limitation is likely put in place to prevent a cheesy technique that will be described shortly.

CHEESING SHIP UPGRADES:

Theoretically, a ship design can be made without doing anything; the ship that is produced from this design can still move around, but it is of course outright gimped.

The only reason to have such a silly design is to drive down its Industry cost, thus allowing the ship to be churned out faster. The player can then update the design later after the ship has been made in order to enable its upgrading, which, as mentioned earlier, can be implemented immediately.

This is a sink for Dust of course, but the player’s civilization could be churning out more than enough of it that this cheesy tactic can give an overwhelming advantage against enemies, especially CPU-controlled players. However, due to the aforementioned limitation on not being able to change the design of a ship to another design, this cannot be exploited to near-cheating levels.

On the other hand, there is still a work-around. The player could edit a ship design to have no modules whatsoever before queuing up production. The player could then edit it later with the best modules to upgrade existing ships of that design, and then return it to destitute emptiness. It is a lot of tedious micromanagement, of course, but some followers of the 4X genre can be anal-retentive micro-managers.

FLEET SIZES & COMMAND POINTS:

A ship on its own, no matter how powerful it is, is doomed to be defeated by a fleet of ships. The most that it could hope for is the opportunity to disengage and retreat. Even if it is powerful enough to destroy a lesser ship with just a single volley, it is going to take a mauling. Therefore, it is in the player’s interest to bunch ships together into fleets.

There is a limit to this, however. This limit is represented as a counter of “Command Points”. Each ship contains a number of Command Points; the amount is usually determined by its hull type. Larger ship hulls typically have more.

The cumulative total of the Command Points of the ships within a fleet cannot be higher than the rating that the civilization has for any of its fleets. This rating can be increased with certain unique infrastructures that are unlocked through certain research projects.

FLEET MOVEMENT:

Fleets move at the speed of the slowest member. In single-player, the CPU-controlled players will usually spend the movement points of their fleets as soon as the turn starts, using whatever they knew from the previous turn. This gives the human player an advantage, if he/she is willing to hang back and let them enact whatever they want to enact.

However, CPU-controlled players are sometimes wise enough to not move, likely because they know that doing so gets their fleets into obvious trouble, e.g. avoiding moving any inferior fleets into a system that is guarded by a powerful picket fleet. As soon as the danger goes away though, they will act. Therefore, the human player should expect CPU opponents to be a bit sneakier than those in other turn-based 4X games, like Stellaris.

MOVEMENT POINTS:

The game does not exactly provide measurements of distance in space, but presumably they would be staggering, as FTL travel is the norm in the setting of this game.

Anyway, fleets and ships have movement points. Each movement point is spent on moving a certain distance along hyperlanes, or a certain distance across the void of space. Obviously, greater amounts of movement points allow fleets to move further in their turn. Movement points are restored every turn.

As mentioned earlier, most ship hull types start with terribly low amounts of movement points; it would take forever for such ships to move across even a single hyperlane, much less the void of space. Therefore, there are engine modules that solve this problem, but of course, these modules prevent the use of other support modules. Nevertheless, sometimes what the player needs most are ships that can respond quickly to unpleasantly unexpected incursions.

ACTION POINTS:

Most 4X games would use the movement points of fleets or armies for not only movement, but also other things like fighting. This is not the case for Endless Space 2.

Fleets, including ships on their own lonesome, have one “action point” each. This action point is required for initiating an invasion or starting a space battle. After it has been spent, the fleet cannot do much of anything else other than to move around or launch probes, if it has movement points left. Furthermore, any ship in a fleet that has spent its action point will have no action point when it is broken off from the fleet too, if the player is thinking about holes in the programming.

Obviously, this limits what a player can do with his/her fleets. This limitation is likely meant to allay one of the perennial problems of 4X games, namely the “Stack of Doom”, which is a fleet or army that has considerable numbers of units. Fleet size limitations have not exactly been effective at dealing with this problem in the history of the genre, so action points seem like a new balancing measure. This limitation allows other players to stall and chip away at any “Stack of Doom”.

However, wily players could just split massive navies into a convoy of consecutive groups to barrage enemies with. For example, the first group could be the hardest-hitting and toughest; the follow-ups are meant to wipe out any survivors or weaken them further.

A fleet can be engaged in more than one space battle each turn, if it is the one being attacked. This is usually not a good thing, because most attackers are already confident of victory, or at least inflicting worrisome damage on their targets if they are bound to be defeated.

EXPERIENCE POINTS (FOR NON-HERO SHIPS):

Non-hero ships can gain experience points, which lead to gains in levels. The player should not expect the benefits from level-ups to be particularly significant, however; if they were, they would imbalance gameplay. Anyway, more experienced ships have more hitpoints, thus allowing them to last longer in battle.

SHIP REPAIRS:

Damaged ships, if they are left alone for at least one turn, begin repairs in the subsequent turn. Such repairs are slow, however. If the player wants them to be repaired more quickly, the ships should be sent to the player’s star systems or those of allies. Ships that are stationed at these star systems make repairs much more quickly, while also regaining lost crew (more on this later). Doing so also allows the player to immediately repair them to full strength by spending Dust on them.

VISION RANGE:

Space may be the Big Empty, but the darkness of space makes things hard to see – even if they are gargantuan ships with many more lights than they should need.

Anyway, “Vision Range” is the gameplay element that determines how far something is able to see in space. Most non-Hero ships (Hero ships will be described later) do not have Vision range at all by default. In order to get any, the ship needs a Probe module, but then would mean giving up space for other support modules. Nonetheless, there has to be at least one ship in any fleet that has to have Vision; fleets that are blind often fare poorly.

That said, there does not seem to be any tech or ability that prevents ships from being able to detect other ships. Of course, being able to see ships and catching them are two different things, due to the simultaneous turn-based gameplay.

PROBES:

Probes are unmanned devices that ships with probe modules can launch to grant the player vision into places that the ships cannot go. In particular, probes let the player look into the void in between star systems, where hyperlanes do not exist. Indeed, these are the primary means of locating star systems and other celestial bodies that are not connected with hyperlanes.

If the probes are used in this manner, they do not last forever. The probes can only move in a single direction, and will fizzle out in several turns. Otherwise, during the time that they are operational, they are indestructible and cannot be stopped.

Probes are not entirely inexhaustible resources. Ships with probe modules have storage capacities for probes. They can spend all of their probes in a single turn, if the player wishes so. The ships do eventually build new probes and stock them. However, probes cannot be launched while ships are in transit to some place.

Sending out a probe costs movement points, by the way; these points are taken from every ship in the fleet, including those that do not have probes. The player can still launch probes after having the fleet use up all of their movement points, so it is wise to do so with actual movement before launching probes.

ANOMALIES:

Some planets in star systems have anomalies, the presence of which is revealed when the player comes across new star systems. The anomalies have named categories, which lead to some expectations about them. For example, anomalies that are mountains with peculiar geographies yield rarer kinds of minerals.

There are two ways to study anomalies. The first is to just spend probes on them; this is instantaneous, and grants some experience points to the ship that launched the probes. The second method is available after the player has claimed the star system; the player picks a project that initiates the study of the anomalies. This does consume some Industrial output, however, and requires at least one turn.

There is considerable variety in the rewards from the studies of the anomalies. Some of these are as simple as loose Dust or strategic resources. Some others are special modules for ships. Some of them even initiate quests.

The most disappointing of these rewards are ships. One would think that entire space-ships would make for great prizes, but many of these have designs that are fixed; the player cannot even change their load-outs. Indeed, unless they are particularly powerful, they are just trash to be sold on the galactic marketplace. (There will be more on this later.)

Not all anomalies can be studied from the get-go. The more complex anomalies can only be studied after the player has gained the technology to do so. This means that there will be anomalies to be discovered long after the playthrough has started; this is a notable difference that Endless Space 2 has compared to its peers in the space sci-fi 4X genre.

STAR SYSTEM INFLUENCE & CELESTIAL BODOIES:

The observant player might notice that coloured circles seem to project out of colonized star systems. The colours are there to indicate its ownership. The circle of influence that is radiating outwards from a star system also represents the reach of its authorities and its economy activities. This is of consequence if a star system is close to celestial bodies like nebulae.

These celestial bodies are implemented in the game like star systems, e.g. ships can travel to them. Whenever they are discovered, the player is informed about their existence and the benefits of capturing them. However, since they cannot be colonized like star systems, they have to be acquired by projecting the influence of an established star system onto them. This is easier than done, because the player needs to know about the factors that determine the length of the influence radius, yet the factors are not entirely clear.

(Observers have mentioned that the star system’s output of the Influence resource matters most, while some others have said that population numbers matter more.)

SHIP DESIGNS NOT IN THE PLAYER’S TECH CHART:

The player may acquire ships whose designs are not in the tech chart of the player’s chosen civilization. The most common of such ships are those gained from anomalies. These might be handy in the short-term, such as being used as cannon fodder in a nearby battle, but these are useless in the long-run because these ships cannot be upgraded at all. The option to change their designs is just not there in the user interface. Indeed, the CPU-controlled players sell these off almost immediately on the Galactic Marketplace (more on this later).

DIPLOMACY – OVERVIEW:

A 4X game would not be one if there are not rival factions or civilizations who compete – or cooperate – with the player for mastery of the galaxy. This also means that there is diplomacy to be had.

Whenever the player discovers other CPU-controlled civilizations or vice versa, the option to engage in diplomacy with them opens up. Their initial response to the player is usually that of wariness.

Afterwards, the game keeps track of what the player has done to or for them during a specific number of turns. During this period, the variety of interactions that the player can have with them is very limited. (Of course, declaring war on them is still an option.)

Once this number of turns is up, the other civilizations become familiar enough with the player to have a solid opinion about him/her, assuming that he/she has not done something drastic, like declaring war. If the player still has peaceful relations with them, more options open up.

In practice, there is a lot of waiting that has to be done before the player could even get into the proverbial meat of the diplomacy-related sections of the gameplay.

Before explaining the mechanisms of diplomacy, it should be mentioned here that the diplomatic relations between civilizations appear to be mainly bilateral, even in an alliance with more than two members. Furthermore, the diplomacy system is the main consumer of the Influence resource, for better or worse.

COLD WAR:

When players encounter each other for the first time, or after a truce/ceasefire has expired, they go into a “cold war” phase. They can attack each other’s ships, but they can also choose not to. Their ships will also not immediately siege each other’s planets whenever they enter systems with these planets; that can only be done during war. This “cold war” phase persists until the players either escalate, or foster better relations.

INFLUENCE/DIPLOMATIC PRESSURE:

4X – and grand strategy – games are notorious for having CPU-controlled civilizations that are either easy to manipulate or stubbornly indifferent or hostile. In the latter cases, the diplomacy element of the gameplay is often rendered useless.

Therefore, Endless Space 2 differentiates itself from the rest with the “diplomatic pressure” mechanism. It is not an easy mechanism to use, but it is one that the player can use to force the hand of the other civilizations. They will not like it, but since this occurs through diplomatic channels, it is not as severe as making threats or unpleasant demands.

Anyway, when the player has made contact with other players, a meter that tracks diplomatic pressure appears for each bilateral relation. The tracker starts in the middle, and moves depending on what the player or the other player has done. Players with high Influence income have a bit of an advantage, but if they want the meter to go all the way towards the other end, they need to spend Influence on whatever diplomatic options there are.

Incidentally, the most expensive diplomatic option consume a lot of Influence, in return for a considerable push on the diplomatic pressure in the player’s favour.

The aforementioned meter also shows the thresholds after which the player – or the other player – can make demands and have the other party acquiesce to them. The first threshold allows the player to get resources from the other, without having to resort to threats; presumably, the player’s diplomatic corps had been lobbying those on the other side and their associates to see things the player’s way.

With high enough progress down the influence meter, the player – or his/her rival – could have the other player (including the human player) acquiesce to a diplomatic deal outright; there is no way to refuse.

However, there are some very important/momentous deals that are exempt from this, such as declarations of war and entries into alliances. In the case of declarations of war, this can be done at any time – as long as the player believes that he/she/it could handle the consequences.

DISPOSITION OF CPU-CONTROLLED PLAYERS:

CPU-controlled players obviously do not have human minds and personalities, so they depend on scripting and conditional programming to determine the decisions that they would make. Many of these are decided right at the start, according to the major species/faction that has been chosen for them. Thus, the player can expect that certain CPU players would just play out more or less the same way in any playthrough, including how they treat each other.

However, the human player’s actions are the main deciding factor in diplomatic relations with them. This includes the player’s deals with them, and the deals or interactions that the player has with the others. For example, having a trade deal made with the worst enemy of an existing trading partner is not going to make that partner happy.

This affects the diplomatic pressure too, so the player could use nice and friendly interactions in the long term to suck up to CPU-controlled players instead of spending a lot of influence. However, the magnitude of the positive interactions matters too; small gifts are not going to do much, but big ones or significant overtures would.

TRADING TECHNOLOGIES:

Endless Space 2 is a 4X title that lets players trade technologies with each other. For better or worse, like in other contemporary 4X titles, CPU-controlled players put a lot of value on technologies that the human player does not have, making it difficult to get any tech from them. Of course, getting techs is a lot easier if the player has leverage on them, or has built up a lot of trust (like giving each other techs when they are in an alliance).

CLOSING/OPENING BORDERS:

Taking a leaf from Stellaris, the option to close and open borders to non-allied and non-hostile players is there for players who want to control the movement of ships. Like in Stellaris, the ships of non-allied and non-hostile players cannot enter the territory of players that have closed borders to them. There are no other means to work around this, other than declaring war on these players or sucking up to them.

OTHER DIPLOMATIC ACTIONS:

There are other lesser diplomatic actions, such as trading resources around. One would think that trading resources would have its own user interface, but this is not the case, due to a certain gameplay element in diplomacy that will be described shortly. (By the way, there is an easier means of buying and selling resources, which will be described later.)

INFLUENCE COSTS OF DIPLOMATIC ACTIONS:

The elephant in the room in the matter of diplomacy is the Influence cost of every diplomatic action. This means that if the player has spent Influence elsewhere, the player might not have enough Influence to take a diplomatic action. This can be unpleasant.

Perhaps this limitation could have been better if there were two separate Influence resources, one of which is reserved for diplomacy. Indeed, this limitation could have used the mechanism of diplomatic pressure.

GALACTIC MARKETPLACE:

The Galactic Marketplace becomes available after the player has acquired the tech that unlocks it. It might seem odd that this feature is not available right from the start, but after considering how useful it is, gating it behind a mid-tier tech is probably a wise gameplay-balancing decision.

Anyway, the Galactic Marketplace is the place where the players sell their surplus and unwanted stuff, and where they buy stuff that they want. Indeed, the players are able to see what have been sold and bought; they can even see who did so. Meticulous players can use this information to keep track of their competitors’ plans. (The names of buyers or sellers will not be revealed if the player has not encountered them yet, but their names are still colour-coded according to whatever colours that the creator of the playthrough has chosen for them.)

Dust is the currency that is used for transactions; if a player does not have enough Dust, he/she/it can sell resources and other things to get some. That said, the Marketplace acts as the buyer and seller, and has unlimited Dust for any transaction. This can seem to be exploitable, but as mentioned earlier, there is the matter of Dust inflation.

PRICE FLUCTUATIONS:

As any veteran of strategy games with sophisticated economic systems would expect, the prices of things on the Marketplace can change, especially those for strategic and luxury resources. The causes of these fluctuations are told to the player too; these are the current conditions of the galaxy. For example, times of relative peace encourage lower prices for strategic resources, which are often consumed prior to war in building ships.

HEROES - OVERVIEW:

Characters that are larger than life being significant assets of entire civilizations is something that is not new in the 4X genre. It is a design that is quite gratifying for the player, and also gives the developer some additional elements to balance the game with.

Endless Space 2 has “Heroes” too. Amusingly, these are actual titles in the lore of the game. Heroes are individuals who have, through either their own will or some other incident, broken free of their servitude to the major factions. More often than not, these epiphanies involve exposure to Dust.

A certain major character in the lore knows about their potential. To harness their potential, he has established the Academy on a massive relic of a precursor race (that may or may not be the Endless). The Academy invites these “enlightened” individuals; those who come receive further education on the nature of Dust and training on its use.

Then, they are sent out again, to seek employment with the various major factions - again. This can seem ironic, but gameplay-wise, this means that the player can have a motley crew of characters, which can be gratuitous.

Each major faction gets a starting Hero that is always of the same species as the major faction’s primary one. Ultimately, their species do not matter; there does not seem to be any gameplay factor or element that considers their species.

Heroes do not actually die, but if they perish while under the employ of a player, they leave the player’s service. Anything that the player has spent on them is lost, as the player deserves; it is not easy to get Heroes killed.

HERO LEVELS:

Heroes can gain experience, just like regular units, but they benefit more from the level gains. More importantly, level gains give points to their owning player to spend on their skills and abilities (which will be described later). Generally, higher-level Heroes are more potent in doing anything than lower-level ones, so the player might want to acquire Heroes as early as possible and develop them early on. However, there are events that can power-level Heroes rather quickly, if the player is lucky enough to get them.

HERO COST:

Any hero under the employ of a player demands a salary in Dust per turn. His/her/its salary increases as he/she gains levels.

There is an option to dismiss a Hero from the player’s employment, but there is no good reason to. After all, the number of Heroes that a player can have has no hard limit. There are their salaries, but after these get high enough, they would be bringing in so many benefits and advantages that more than compensate for their salaries.

After gaining access to the Marketplace, the player can recruit additional Heroes – even copies of Heroes that had been around. The list of Heroes is randomized every once in a while, but generally, there are enough around to give any player a variety of choices. However, Heroes cost a lot of Dust to recruit, especially when Dust inflation is considered too. Most importantly, these Heroes join at level 1.

“FREE” HEROES:

Just so that players that do not have considerable amounts of Dust can have a chance, they can acquire a tech that lets them build a branch of the Academy somewhere on their planets. Afterwards, the branch starts a timer that shows when the player would gain a Hero for free. This one joins the player’s roster at a higher level than any rookie from the Marketplace, thus giving the player an immediate boost.

Of course, richer players could just build Academy branches of their own. The rich only gets richer in Endless Space 2.

HERO TYPES:

There are several types of Heroes, each of which is associated with one of the political groups. Their type determines the mix of abilities that they have. However, there are enough similarities between Heroes of different types that there is not much of a disadvantage in focusing on specific types of Heroes.

HERO ABILITIES:

The training and education that the Heroes have at the Academy has granted them abilities far beyond ordinary people. The abilities can be generally categorized into two categories: one that helps them lead fleets better, and one that lets them govern star systems better. These abilities will be described further when the two main roles of Heroes are described.

Each ability has a few ranks of potency; its rank can be increased by spending more points in it.

Not unlike the tech chart, hero abilities are separated into tiers too. In order to access the next tier, a Hero needs to have already invested enough points into abilities on the lower tiers. This prevents the player from hoarding points for the higher-tier abilities.

FLEET COMMANDER:

All Heroes, including even the Pacifists, have been trained to be capable of leading fleets. When they are attached to fleets, they do not add to its total of CPs. In addition to whatever abilities that they have that bolster their fleet, each Hero has his/her own ship too.

This ship is one of a few types that are exclusive to Heroes; they are as mobile as the lightest ship classes, but also have the firepower and durability of the light-to-mid weight classes of ships. It can be upgraded with new ship modules, thanks to the user interface for ship designs that can be accessed from the Heroes’ info screens.

Heroes gain experience from having fleets do something each turn; they do gain a bit of experience if their fleets are floating around doing nothing, but it is a pittance. They gain the most experience if their fleets participate in and win battles.

SYSTEM GOVERNORS:

Heroes can be set as the governors of star systems. Preferably, they should have some abilities that contribute to the productivity of the star system, especially the abilities that are specific to their Hero type. For example, Scientist Heroes can increase the Science output of the star systems that they are governing.

System governors gain experience when their systems complete projects, or just do something if they are pursuing any projects. Interestingly, the experience gain is proportional to the magnitude of the project, so there can be an exploitative strategy of parking heroes in relatively young colonies that have developed the Industrial output necessary to quickly develop itself.

ASSIGNING HEROES:

Heroes can be assigned as the governors of any star systems whenever they are available for assignment. However, they can only be assigned to fleets when the fleets are in system. When the Heroes are assigned to fleets or star systems, they arrive immediately.

There is another limitation: Heroes that have been newly assigned to star systems or fleets are locked to their current assignments for several turns. The player’s only other alternative is to send them back to the Academy, which makes them idle.

HEROES BECOMING SENATORS:

As mentioned earlier, Heroes are affiliated with political groups. If there were not already any leaders for any political groups, the Heroes of the appropriate affiliation will lead them. If their political group gains a seat on the Senate, the Hero that leads it becomes a Senator. For the Hero to make full use of his/her/its position, he/she must already have skills that activate when they are Senators. These skills provide empire-wide bonuses, so it is worthwhile for the player to consider investing some points into these skills.

NAVAL BATTLES - OVERVIEW:

Sooner or later, the player will have to engage in space battles, if not against the other major civilizations then against common threats such as space pirates.

Understandably, naval battles are fought between ships, and specifically within star systems; space battles generally cannot happen while they are in hyperlanes. That said, only two sides can engage each other in any battle, because the user interface for space battles does not account for more than one side. If there are two or more hostile factions with fleets in the same system as the player’s fleet, the player has to select which to attack (if he/she has the opportunity to make the choice, of course).

ATTACK RANGES:

Other than the strength and power of the ships that are participating in a battle, there are their ranges. Every weapon module on a ship has a range rating, but for the purpose of grouping ships in battle, they are categorized into short, medium and long ranges. This is an important delineation, because the Battle Tactics that the player chooses (and which will be described later) will determine their effectiveness in battle.

FLEET GROUPING IN BATTLE:

All fleets on one side will attempt to participate in the battle, but there generally can only be three groups of ships that can fight for any one side. Each group can only have a total of CPs equivalent to the limit of CPs for fleets.

For better or worse, the game attempts to group ships into fleets with more or less the same weapon ranges, namely short, medium and long, regardless of the player’s own grouping of the fleets. However, it is not always optimal in doing so.

Therefore, it is in the player’s interest to form fleets of ships with similar weapon ranges, and have them move together so that they complement each other. Alternatively, the player could have ships, all of whom have the same range (though making use of a variety of Battle Tactics with homogenous ships might be difficult).

All ships start at long range; the ones in the medium and short range groups will attempt to close the distance, even if individual ships in these groups may not be optimized for such ranges.

The ones in the long range group will hang back and fire whatever long range weapons that they have. If they have any shorter range weapons, these are wasted.

COMMITTING TO BATTLE & RETREAT:

There should be a warning here that clicking on the button to have a fleet battle another one is an irreversible decision; there is no cancel button. This can be unpleasant to learn the hard way for players that are used to seeing the “cancel” button. Nevertheless, the player can examine a hostile fleet before committing to battle anyway.

The player can choose to have the fleet retreat, but this is not a “cancel” button. This causes the player’s fleet to take losses as it attempts to disengage. The fleet’s action point is also spent. Therefore, it is imperative that the player scouts out the enemy before committing to battle.

BATTLE TACTICS:

Before starting a battle, the player can choose the Battle Tactics that the player’s side would use. The other player’s choice is hidden, and likely vice versa too, even for CPU-controlled players (which tend to be omniscient to some degree in order to compete with actual human players).

The main element of any Battle Tactics is the formations that the three groups would take. Depending on the Battle Tactics that is used, the three groups attempt to maintain certain ranges away from the enemy. Groups at certain ranges obtain bonuses and/or penalties to specific factors of their combat performance. The game provides a convenient automatic tally of how effective the groups will be when the player selects any Battle Tactics.

Generally, it is in the player’s interest to select the Battle Tactics that work best. For this purpose, the first set of Battle Tactics that are available to the player tend to be the most general-purpose and reliable. The player obtains more Battle Tactics from techs and anomalies.

These other Battle Tactics are less effective than the regular ones, mainly because they are meant to be used when the player’s fleet have an overwhelming advantage against the enemy (assuming that they continue to stay around even when a Stack of Doom is in the same system with them). These other Battle Tactics have the player take some risks in return for a bit more reward from trouncing enemies, such as some Dust from each defeated ship.

CANNOT SEE ENEMY’S BATTLE TACTICS:

The player is not able to see the other player’s chosen Battle Tactics, which is perhaps for the better because they would have stalemated each other too readily. However, the player is shown the other player’s past choices, which give an idea of which Battle Tactics that the other player favours.

SPACE BATTLE OUTCOME:

If one side clearly has a bigger advantage than the opposing side, the outcome is all but certain. Sometimes, there are no survivors. However, at other times, the loser might manage to have some ships disengage and retreat to an adjacent star system under its or its allies’ control.

Alternatively, the space battle might end in a stalemate, in which both sides took losses. Their fleets remain in the star system in which the battle took place. The defender, however, retains its action point if it still has it, and can choose to initiate another battle to finish the fight.

NO CONTROL OVER PROGRESSION OF BATTLE:

Space battles are not decided with mere RNG rolls. Rather, there is a simulation that shows the progression of the battle from start to the end.

As mentioned earlier, both sides start at long range. The ships then move according to their formations as stipulated in their Battle Tactics. Any ships that happen to have enemies come into range will shoot at them. If there are multiple targets, they fire on targets that are most vulnerable to them.

As the battle wears on, the ships attempt to maintain their designated distances to their enemies. This can result in them being taken far away from their fellow ships, or worse, get ganged up on. Conversely, this can also happen to the other side.

Ultimately though, the player has no control over what happens during battle. The ships make their own decisions, sometimes not always for the better.

BEHEMOTHS:

Every major faction has access to the Behemoth ship design, which can, curiously, be obtained rather early in a playthrough. However, without the other techs that are associated with it, the Behemoth starts out as little more than an oversized, slow ship with many hitpoints but little in the way of firepower. With the other techs, the Behemoth grows stronger and more capable of doing its thing.

Speaking of its function, there are three types of Behemoths. The first is meant to be a big bruiser, capable of taking on fleets on its own after it has been tricked out with Behemoth-only armor and firepower.

The second is a mobile industrial complex. It is meant to be parked in a star system, preferably one owned by the player, to augment its economy. Alternatively, it can also be sent elsewhere, such as star systems that have yet to be colonized, in order to extract some resources.

The third is a science ship. It can be parked within an owned star system to bolster its science output, or sent around the galaxy to study anomalies and investigate spatial phenomena, like celestial bodies.

The player can only have one Behemoth, initially, so the player should carefully select which of the three to make first. The player can have more afterwards with the right techs, though the later ones of course start at an experience level that is lower than that of the first one.

SHIP CREW:

In addition to its skeleton crew, a ship has additional personnel that allows it to function at full performance. Ships lose crew as they take damage, though there are some Battle Tactics that specifically cause more losses in crew. Ships that lost all of their additional personnel can still function, however.

Ship crews can be replenished by parking ships at the player’s star systems, or those of allies (presumably their allies allow movement of personnel through their territory or transport system). The replenishment draws from the player’s reserves of Manpower, so heavy losses can take a toll on the reserves. On the other hand, complete replenishment occurs over a turn, which is certainly faster than ship repairs.

SIEGES:

If a fleet manages to occupy a hostile star system, it automatically begins sieging it. This causes the garrison to eventually die off, mainly because it is prevented from being replenished. Furthermore, the economy of the star system is stifled, and its populations begin to starve. Sieging multiple star systems in the short term is viable method of stifling an opponent’s response.

The size of the sieging fleet, in terms of CPs, determines the attrition rate of the sieging. However, if the player only wishes to suppress star systems, a single ship is enough. On the other hand, besieged star systems can still produce things, such as ships, so the sieging ship can be ambushed with a couple of ships that the system’s owner has cunningly queued such that they are produced in the same turn.

GROUND BATTLES – OVERVIEW:

In addition to being the crews of ships, ship crews also act as ground forces for deployment on star systems (and for boarding and counter-boarding in space battles). This means that any attacking fleet can immediately invade a star system after driving away (or annihilating) its defending fleet. This also means that the player does not need ships that are dedicated for transporting ground forces (though there are modules that allow the player to design ships for such a purpose – which the player should).

That the ships have to send out their personnel as ground forces means that they are vulnerable to counter-attacks while they are invading star systems. Therefore, the player might want to have other fleets covering the approach to the star systems that are being invaded (preferably by occupying adjacent star systems).

Ground battles occur between the invaders and the garrison of the star system. Relatively undeveloped star systems have small garrisons, but the developed ones tend to have huge garrisons. Furthermore, garrisons replenish almost immediately as soon as the siege of the system is lifted.

Unless the player has designed ships that are dedicated to ferrying hundreds or thousands of ground units around, the garrisons of defending star systems often outnumber the invading forces. Therefore, more often than not, the attacking fleet has to resort to sieges to thin out garrisons; this makes them vulnerable to counter-attacks in space.

Regardless, the invasion initiative lies with the attacker. The defender rarely has the opportunity to force a ground battle if it has the advantage.

INFANTRY, ARMOUR & AIRCRAFT:

Before ground forces are deployed on either side, the players choose the ratios of infantry, armour and aircraft for their ground forces, if they have the techs for armour and aircraft. This is an important decision, because armour and aircraft act as force multipliers and combined-arms forces generally do better than thematic ones.

However, the allocation of Manpower is different for infantry, armour and aircraft. Each unit of infantry is allocated at a one-to-one ratio, whereas each unit of armour takes more. Aircraft units take the most. (Presumably, the rationale behind this is that the logistics support for these force multipliers require more personnel – but really, this is just a gameplay balance design.)

There are upgrades for infantry, armour and aircraft, though these are segregated to their own screens. They cost Dust and strategic resources, but they are implemented immediately.

INVASION STRATEGIES:

As mentioned earlier, the invader has the initiative. Part of this initiative manifests in the form of options for the fleet to provide support for the ground force.

The first and most brutal of these is straight orbital bombardment. This inflicts considerable damage on the defending side before the ground battle even begins, thus giving the invader a bit of an advantage if they happen to be outnumbered. However, the orbital bombardment has a high chance of destroying infrastructures in the star system and can kill populations too, thus diluting its value.

The other options give the ground forces fewer bonuses, thus leading to greater potential losses. Of course, the rewards for taking these losses is a relatively more intact star system.

Like Battle Tactics, more strategies for invasions appear as the player gains more techs from research or anomalies.

POST-INVASION:

When star systems change ownership due to successful invasions, they take massive penalties to their Approval ratings. If the enemy counter-attacks and counter-invades during the time of ownership change, they gain bonuses from the still-loyal elements among the populations.

MINOR SPECIES - OVERVIEW:

Before explaining the major species/factions, the minor ones would have to be described first.

These minor species/factions function like the city-states in the Civilizations series (specifically the fifth official entry and onwards). They will undertake developments of their holdings, build fleets for self-defence and such other insular activities, but they will not expand. They always start with the ownership of one star system, and generally only ever have this one.

The star system of the minor faction always has at least one strategic or luxury resource deposit, often more. This makes them lucrative for conquest, but there is an even more lucrative option of dealing with them. If a major faction can curry favour with them, they eventually align themselves with the major faction and grant them exclusive benefits, such as additional resources and certain other bonuses.

However, the other major factions can still peel them away, typically through counter-influencing them. The costs of doing so are higher if the minor faction is already well under the wing of a major faction, but allegiances are never set in stone. The major faction that has already dominated them can still invest resources and effort to maintain their allegiance.

As for the ways to gain the allegiance of minor factions, one of these is always an option to spend Influence on them. It is expensive, but such is the cost of the long con, to use a term of confidence trickery. However, certain major factions have other means of gaining favour, which will be described later where pertinent.

Eventually, a major faction that had gained enough approval from a minor faction would gain the option of “assimilating” the minor faction. This is where the major faction’s theme or culture would come into play. Some are nicer in their approach, some are insidious, and some are just outright brutal. Whatever the means, the star system is added to the major faction’s holdings, complete with the population units of the species that once dominated the minor faction.

PIRATES:

Some star systems are initially controlled by pirates; these are often chokepoints that connect one segment of the galaxy to another. Any unclaimed star system also eventually spawn pirates.

Pirates prevent the colonization of the star systems that they have set up in. They also have stiff garrisons, and they do not count as being inhabited with regards to certain gameplay elements that concern inhabited systems.

More importantly, they eventually spawn marauding fleets that go around wrecking star systems. If these fleets succeed at occupying an inhabited star system, the pirates inflict a toll on its productivity and populations. Furthermore, as time goes by, their fleets and garrisons become bigger and more formidable.

Generally, the player will want to get the pirates out of the way, or prevent them from appearing in the first place. This is easier said than done in the early-game phases, and may still be so later, because of their aforementioned growth in strength over time.

Pirates can be negotiated with, though they do not function like minor factions at all. Indeed, the most that the player can offer them is to buy “marks” from them, or contribute to their growth so that they produce stronger fleets and garrisons. Marks can be placed on the star systems of other players that the player does not like; the pirates prioritize raiding those star systems.

MAJOR SPECIES – OVERVIEW:

Endless Space 2 is one of those 4X games that clearly delineate the main “sides”, one of which the player would pick and guide to victory. In its case, the main sides are the major species in the galaxy.

These major species are the stars of the space operas in Endless Space 2. In addition to whatever gameplay-affecting properties that they have, they also have quest-lines of their own that the player can pursue to make it easier to win a playthrough with their strengths and advantages.

Speaking of which, the capabilities of specific major species will be described in this article, if they are significant to the gameplay.

(By the way, the game and its developer calls them “main factions”, but for the purpose of this segment of the article, they are called “major species” for the sake of differentiation from other gameplay elements that rely on the term “factions” too.)

THE VODYANI:

The Vodyani are the primary protagonists and antagonists of Endless Space 2. Among the major species, they are the most influenced by the Endless. Their entire civilization revolves around a religious struggle to maintain the legacy of the Endless, which includes Dust – and of course they believe that the only rightful stewards of that legacy are themselves.

However, one among them, whom they call the Heretic, has split away after learning of the truth behind the Endless. Incidentally, he happens to be one of the leading figures of the Hero Academy.

Anyway, the Vodyani has developed a culture of emigrating wholesale across the stars, due to the relative paucity of resources on their home planet and the bounty of technology that they have learned from the Endless.

Gameplay-wise, this means that they function like space-faring nomads, never seeming to settle on a star system permanently. This function is represented by their colossal Arks.

VODYANI ARKS:

Arks house their populations and even star system infrastructures. Indeed, an Ark can just pack up any modular star system infrastructures and leave to another star system, at which it unpacks them.

However, packing up and deploying Arks take a while, so it is not so easy to abuse this feature. Furthermore, since the Vodyani do not permanently settle in any star systems, they cannot implement planetary specializations, thus preventing them from making the most out of any planet.

Arks can rival Behemoths in durability and firepower. However, it is far riskier to use them for offensive strategies, because Arks contain Vodyani population units that can be outright lost if their Arks are destroyed.

Arks are too big to be permanently destroyed if they are wrecked. They can be restored, though at great cost that might be too high to justify letting one get destroyed in the first place. Still, it is better for the Vodyani to recover their lost Arks, rather letting the other civilizations benefit from the wrecks (which grant them bonuses when they secure the star system that the Vodyani lost them in).

VODYANI “VIRTUALIZATION”:

The Vodyani are quite enamored with Virtualization, an ability that is granted by Dust that allows them to control machines remotely. This allows them to exploit planets from the relative safety of their Arks, after their Arks have deployed the necessary infrastructures onto the planets.

Gameplay-wise, this allows each population unit of Vodyani to count as one additional population unit on each planet in a controlled star system.

To balance against this, they do not care much for the planets that they exploit. Therefore, they lack terraforming or anomaly mitigation technologies. These limitations also make the Vodyani rather difficult to coexist with other species – which is narratively just as well, because they have a low opinion of the other species.

ONLY THE CHOSEN ONES:

Speaking of which, other species fare poorly under the rule of the Vodyani, which is to be expected when an entire species consider themselves the “chosen ones”. In fact, the Vodyani’s response to the presence of population units of other species is to either enslave them or consume them for Essence (more on this shortly). When the Vodyani gains control of an inhabited star system, the original inhabitants are quite doomed if a counter-attack does not come.

“ESSENCE”:

The Vodyani has a resource type that is unique to them: “Essence”. Despite its elegant-sounding name, the source of this resource has a heinous origin. Essence is the life-force of sapient beings, and the Vodyani’s preferred source is that of other species.

The Vodyani gain Essence from occupying the star systems of other major species/factions with an Ark. They proceed to hunt for sapient beings to harvest their Essence, causing gradual loss of population units. They also scavenge and dismantle system infrastructures, eventually erasing any trace that the star system was once inhabited. Alternatively, the Vodyani can enslave minor factions/species, which then provide them with a relatively low but consistent income of Essence.

Essence is needed to create new Vodyani individuals, though it is not needed to sustain them; Food is needed for that, as is usual. (The Vodyani is terrible at producing food however, mainly because they believe that this is beneath them.)

LEECHING:

There is a quicker but more dastardly way of gaining Essence. The Vodyani can send out “Leeches”, which are special ships that are unique to them. The Leeches can mount leeching modules, which practically suck the life out of inhabited star systems that they are draining from just to convert them to Essence for the Vodyani to use. The leeching also saps the food output of the star system. Obviously, this makes just about everyone else quite angry.

THE UNITED EMPIRE:

The United Empire is the humans, albeit a segment of humanity. Humanity has expanded to the stars, but their ability to keep in touch with each other has not caught up. Indubitably, humanity has split apart, carving out their own territory among the stars.

The United Empire is what became of such a splinter. It has advanced to a dictatorial dystopia. Nonetheless, it has enough strength to expand out into the stars, but the distance between the worlds is making it difficult for the central government to control everything. In a move of compromise, the governors of star systems are allowed to rule them like their own fiefdoms.

Due to this decentralization, the United Empire’s great leader must resort to subtle means to control things. Despite his seemingly brutal reputation, the great leader is a masterful statesman and confidence man.

Gameplay-wise, this means that Influence is a particularly important resource. This major faction consumes a lot of it, and generates a lot of it too. Influence is used as currency to purchase technologies, star system improvements and some other things from the Galactic Marketplace; only the United Empire can do this, and this advantage gives it a lot of versatility in its build-up. Unfortunately, the United Empire player is not expected to do much diplomacy, because he/she/it would be spending Influence on insular activities.

THE RIFTBORN:

The Riftborn are abstract extra-dimensional entities, who would not otherwise have bothered with the dimension in which Endless Space 2 takes place. However, an intrusive corruption has seeped into their dimension, messing up their homes. Thus, in an attempt to discover its source, these entities have tracked it back to the origin dimension – and just in time, too, because the corruption has damaged their home dimension so badly that they could not stay.

The Riftborn settled on a planet that looks the most like their home dimension: a snowy, pristine home planet, where the ice crystals create formations that remind them of their highly polygonal home.

Since the Riftborn are beings that are not entirely shackled by time, they can place time-warping singularities on star systems and even fleets. These can do things like increase the output of star systems and resetting the movement points of fleets. This advantage is necessary to compensate for some of the Riftborn’s drawbacks, such as the blanket penalty on the movement points of their ships.

PROLIFERATION OF THE RIFTBORN:

The Riftborn does not need any sustenance because they are extra-dimensional things. However, the proliferation of their “species” is an entirely different matter. The Riftborn exist in the current dimension as floating shapes, which could not do much other than to flit around. Therefore, they have to use machines to give themselves a semblance of form.

Since they incorporate themselves into machines, they need to build the machines in order to increase their functional population. This means that making new population units of Riftborn require Industrial output, which in turn means that they use a resource that could have gone into improvements for the star system that they are living in.

However, the Riftborn are also exempt from the aforementioned mechanisms on growing population units and influencing which species would be picked. In other words, the Riftborn player has more control over the growth of his/her/its primary species.

THE UNFALLEN:

War never changes, so there would be war among the stars, and detritus would inevitably fall on unsuspecting worlds. One of these worlds is the Unfallen’s.

The Unfallen are sentient plant-life that generally prefer peace and harmony, and have recently realized that the galaxy “badly needs” both, to quote the official description of them. Thus, they have brought it upon themselves to bring peace and harmony to the stars – as impossible as this would seem.

Gameplay-wise, being sapient plants, they produce considerable Food if they manage to get fertile planets. Indeed, they can get a surplus that they can use for trade. Speaking of which, they would like to trade, if only because they try to reach out to everyone and foster peaceful relations.

Besides, they get considerable happiness bonuses from peaceful relations and alliances; they confer these bonuses to their friends too. Consequently, in any playthrough with them and any major faction that is inclined towards diplomacy and peace, they often reach for victory by fostering an extensive alliance, often starting with initially Pacifistic major factions, like the Lumeris.

GUARDIANS:

The Guardians are minor species that generally can only appear when the Unfallen is a player in a playthrough. Somehow, the Unfallen is capable of discovering sentient plant-life on just about any planet, and these are Guardians. Guardians cannot be moved from their home planet (being plants and all), but they provide considerable benefits to the planet and its inhabitants. In a pinch, their owners can sacrifice them to somehow temporarily fill the hearts of the other populations with hopeful determination, which translate to a massive approval boost.

Incidentally, discovering Guardians on the planets of other players happens to make (most of) them happy, making it easier for the Unfallen player to foster good relations. Furthermore, the benefit of having many Guardians for the Unfallen player is that they gain a considerable discount to the Influence cost of making peace treaties.

On the other hand, the Guardians are practically spies for the Unfallen. Enemies of the Unfallen that have Guardians will find that they will sap the Influence output of their planets.

COLONIZATION FOR THE UNFALLEN:

The Unfallen proliferate by spreading their seeds, which are carried by a special ship that is unique to them.

Unlike regular colony ships, which are dismantled when they are used to colonize a star system, this special ship – called the “Entwiner” by default - can be reused. However, it is substantially more expensive than regular colony ships. They also lack weapon slots, so they have to be protected with other ships. Still, this is a small price to pay for the convenience that it provides to the goal of expansion.

When an Entwiner reaches a star system that the Unfallen wants to colonize, the Entwiner begins literally growing vines onto the planets in the system; presumably, these vines plant seeds onto the worlds. There can be more than one Entwiner involved in the process, which speeds things up.

When the seeding process is complete, the Unfallen can immediately make an outpost in the star system. Overall, this means that the Unfallen take longer to capture star systems than other major factions, but they do so more economically.

THE CRAVERS:

The Cravers are an artificially-made species that were made for one purpose: stripping worlds of resources. One would think that they are yet another example of a hive-minded devouring swarm like Warhammer 40K’s Tyranids, but they are actually sapient and are composed of individuals (albeit most of them are too dim to have their own thoughts). To perpetuate their purpose of stripping the galaxy clean, there is a caste of pseudo-religious leaders known as Bishops that drive them to fulfil their purpose.

The Cravers have next to no options for diplomacy, other than to declare war and ceasefires with other major factions. In most playthroughs, their game plan is the conquest of everyone else.

They are also an outright xenophobic species. The population units of any other major faction/species are outright enslaved, which increases their productivity at the cost of their happiness (as is often the case for slaves, when they are implemented in 4X games).

The Cravers, however, are not above hard labour themselves; indeed, they have a low opinion of other species’ ability to work hard. Anyway, Craver population units exploit the heck out of the planet that they are on; this is represented in-game as massive bonuses to the resource output of a planet. However, the planet can only be worked so much before it is depleted. Eventually, it will be exhausted, and its productivity sky-dives. From then on, only the star system’s infrastructures and the population units on the planet are producing anything.

This might seem unsustainable, but this gives the Cravers a tremendous advantage in the early game.

HORATIO:

The Horatios are perhaps the most entertaining faction in the game, because it appears to be entirely composed of clones of an exceedingly rich individual. Presumably, Horatio is a human with a peculiar cranial abnormality, which granted him considerable genius and considerable ridicule from his peers. Being treated like a freak while growing up and realizing that he is far smarter than most others has the effect of giving him a serious inferiority/superiority complex though. Therefore, Horatio has decided that the only way for him to fit in the galaxy is to remake the galaxy in his own image – literally.

When cloning is of such importance to this faction, Food to create new clones and sustain them is important. Incidentally, Horatio population units specialize in making Food.

However, the Horatios retained the extravagance of the original; things tend to be more costly to them because they are so obsessed with getting the most beautifully gilded things.

HORATIO SPLICING:

Genetic enhancements are important to Horatios too; they are never satisfied with their own “perfection”, and have a good eye for knowing what to copy into themselves to make them even more monstrously beautiful. There is emphasis on “monstrously”, because this process consumes the population units of the target species. In return for this price that the Horatios are all too willing to pay, they gain some of the positive qualities of the target species.

This means that over time, each enhanced population unit of Horatio in the Horatio major faction becomes more valuable to the faction. However, enhanced Horatios consume more food (as to be expected of a higher form of being), and they become even more lucrative to poach.

LUMERIS:

The Lumeris are amphibians that have evolved into sapient humanoids. Supposedly due to their island-dense world, they have organized themselves into Mafia-like families. (Not everyone who knows about this game accepts this narrative excuse to have a species of frog-fish mobsters in a 4X game.)

Consequently, they prefer backroom dealings and insidious scheming to outright aggression in their relations with each other and anyone else. They are pacifistic, but only because there is more profit to be had from peace-time.

Gameplay-wise, the Lumeris are particularly adept at developing economies, especially to produce Dust. They are also very good at getting along with other species, knowing that the other species can produce wealth when they are convinced to use their capabilities to their fullest – the best way to convince them is, of course, through their greed. Consequently, the Lumeris gain bonuses to their diplomatic efforts, and where cheaper means do not work, they can always spend Dust to get things done their way.

LUMERIS DO NOT NEED COLONY SHIPS:

Perhaps the most notable advantage that they have is that the Lumeris do not need any colony ships to colonize star systems. Rather, they outsource this to someone else; paying Dust allows them to immediately set up an Outpost on a star system that they have found. They can also attempt to purchase the Outposts of other players, but this, of course, rarely works.

This means that the player has to look out for any other Lumeris player, just in case they set up shop a little too close to where he/she is. The Lumeris player also shares the reconnaissance information of allies, so this player can exploit the alliance to set up an expansion far away from the homeworld.

SOPHONS:

The Sophons appear to be perpetually clad in their high-tech void-sealed suits; this is the result of having evolved in a high-radiation star system that gave them short lives, which they use to the fullest to pursue scientific advancements. That they are clad in such suits is just as well, considering how curious they are and how that curiosity frequently gets them into trouble. They are pacifistic, but war also gives them an excuse to build outlandish weapons.

The Sophons have a considerable advantage in scientific research. Indeed, any playthrough tracks what techs that the Sophons and their rivals have obtained. If the Sophons are ahead, they gain bonuses to maintain that momentum. However, it is all too easy for the Sophon to get carried away pursuing scientific advancements and thus neglect other things. Considering the caveat on research that has been described earlier, this risk is very much significant.

Sophon ship designs happen to be among the most versatile, thanks to the presence of many utility and hybrid slots on their ships.

CUSTOM FACTIONS:

Thanks to player requests, there is the feature to create a faction from scratch. This faction can have the main trait of any of the major factions, but would count as a different faction, which can be exploited in quite a few ways (especially for a major faction that is a knock-off of the Horatio). The other traits of the primary population unit can be selected too, though there are limitations in place to prevent the player from simply creating an overpowered species.

QUESTS - OVERVIEW:

Most of the gratification that 4X games provide is only obtained in the long-term, after the player’s long-game plan has been realized. However, Endless Space 2 has a system that gives quicker gratification, with rewards that would be useful for short-term, mid-term and long-term plans, if the player can keep them all in mind.

This system is the pursuit of “quests”. Quests are scenarios that appear whenever certain conditions are met; there are many conditions that lead to many quests. The player is given goals, which are mostly clearly defined. Achieving them gives rewards, which are also clearly shown to the player. This means that the player can juggle the pursuit of multiple quests such that the things that he/she wants can be had at the right times.

QUESTS CONCERNING MAJOR FACTIONS:

Each major faction has an agenda, which is implemented in-game as a string of quests that is unique to that faction. More often than not, the canonical leader of the major faction is involved too.

Pursuit of these quest lines eventually culminate in the player having to take one of several mutually exclusive choices, typically involving the direction that the player’s major faction is going to take. This can result in significant changes in playstyle.

QUESTS CONCERNING THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ENDLESS:

The mysteries of the Endless are the main element of the narrative of Endless Space 2, so it is appropriate that there is an entire line of quests that concern them, or rather the people who are pursuing them. These people include the founder of the Hero Academy, as well as his followers who have discovered the true origin of Dust.

Unlike other quests, which grant rewards that would help the player get one step closer to achieving one of the usual victory conditions, this line of quests does culminate in a decision that can end the entire playthrough. To elaborate on this would be to describe a spoiler, so it should suffice to say that Endless Space 2 is a rare 4X game that lets playthroughs end in an unorthodox manner.

QUESTS WITH TIME CONSTRAINTS:

Some quests have timers, which are measured in numbers of turns. The timer is always updated turn by turn, thus giving a sense of urgency to the player (as long as the player is paying attention to the quest of course).

Some timers are triggered as soon as the quest starts. These timers are usually part of fail conditions, i.e. the player needs to do something by a number of turns. Some other timers are only triggered after meeting certain conditions, e.g. having a fleet enter and guard a star system for a certain number of turns. It can take a while to get used to this variety in the implementation of timers, but they are still satisfying to learn.

QUESTS THAT ARE SPECIFIC TO STAR SYSTEMS:

The goals for some quests concern the conditions of a star system. For example, the player has to increase the economic strength of a star system to achieve something. Usually, the goals are already inherently beneficial to a star system. However, sometimes, typically as part of a chain of quests, the player may have to do something drastic, like destroying certain infrastructures in a star system.

MULTIPLAYER VOID:

Endless Space 2 has a feature for multiplayer sessions. Unfortunately, the 4X genre has always been a niche one, and its followers are generally more interested about gameplay pacing and complexity instead of playing with other people. Therefore, the multiplayer scene for this game is as empty as the void of space.

Nonetheless, the game’s use of peer-to-peer connections means that the player could have a session with another player without having to deal with a third-party server, if he/she could find a pal to play with.

VISUAL DESIGNS – IN GENERAL:

The visual designs of Endless Space 2 were already showcased in their promotional materials. The game uses considerable spliced and animated 2D sprites, especially for the animations of characters in cutscenes and the diplomacy screens. There will be more elaboration on this later.

Space ships are 3D models. They are well-detailed, but not heavily-animated, as is often the case for ships in sci-fi space 4X games. There are turrets, of course, but turrets being turrets, they just swivel about. Nevertheless, the ships are not terrible to look at – if the player is looking at them at all.

Besides, the 3D models for ships only ever appear if the player chooses to spectate the recording of a space battle, instead of just skipping to the end results. Still, the player can watch the recording, and change camera perspectives to better see where and what went well (or wrong). That said, the default camera perspectives are not very good at informing the player about what is happening, and they are not great at giving a cinematic view of the battle either.

Perhaps the most peculiar visual design is the lit-up wire-frames of ships that are used for the galactic view (which is the default view in the game). The wire-frames retain enough of the silhouettes of ships such that most of them are recognizable at a glance. Coloured lighting is also applied on them, so the player knows which major factions that they belong to.

The models in ground battles also happen to be wire-frames too, interestingly. This is perhaps just as well, because ground battles are sparsely animated and much simpler-looking than space battles.

SPRITE-SPLICED ANIMATIONS:

Amplitude Studios make it quite clear from its in-game presentation that Endless Space 2 has plenty of hand-drawn artwork. The game uses sprite-spliced animation to animate characters, but it perhaps relies on this a bit too much.

Most of the animations seem appropriate, but then this is because the characters that are shown are not doing much other than standing around. The problems become noticeable when the characters have moving mouth-parts. The lip-synchs are just lousy. Of course, one could argue that they might be talking in completely inhuman languages and that the player is just listening to a human-friendly translation, but that is just an excuse that makes use of the sci-fi setting.

Furthermore, some of the animations result in undulations and warping that can dip into uncanny valleys. This is especially so for the Unfallen, whose wooden bodies look all the more inhuman as they sway and wave. In the case of humanoid characters, their animations do sometimes make them seem a bit awkward, especially when they tilt their heads.

USER INTERFACE VISUALS:

One problem in the 4X (and 4X-lite) genre is that there are a lot of things for the player to know, and not a lot of on-screen space to tell the player about these. If a game puts too much information on-screen, the game gives a pedantic impression; if it puts up too much pizzazz, it gives the impression that it is neglecting emphasis on the gameplay. Fortunately, Endless Space 2 manages to achieve a balance, by using slickly animated UI’s that use simple 2D layering and a mix of tool-tips and immediate labels.

COLOUR-CODING OF RESOURCES, OR LACK THEREOF:

Each type of resource has its own unique icon. This goes for strategic and luxury resources too. However, luxury resources do not have their own unique colour codes, unlike strategic and primary resources. Rather, luxury resources are all white. The tutorials and in-game documentation do not make this clear, however. Observant players would eventually learn this, of course.

The deficiency in colour-coding for luxury resources is likely due to concerns about colour blindness among players, as well as the difficulty of discerning hues when the icons are so small. Of course, the true underlying course of this problem is that there are so many types of resources.

MUSIC:

Amplitude Studios is big on first impressions. To make a good first impression, they have the first thing that the player hears from the game to be its music. In this matter, Amplitude Studios has secured the service of indie composer FlyByNo for its Endless franchise.

The music in Endless Space 2 utilizes orchestral instruments alongside tunes of electronic origins, as well as chorus vocals. Most tracks elicit a sense of wonderment and/or raises the hair on one’s neck, which is perhaps befitting of the themes of the game. There are situation-specific tracks too, such as the tracks that play whenever the player decides to watch a battle.

Conveniently, the license for the game includes access to individual files for the game’s soundtracks. The soundtracks are also available on Bandcamp.

USER INTERFACE SOUND EFFECTS:

Pressing just about any button emits a pleasant chime, and alerts have thematic inflections to emphasize their urgency. Interestingly, these sound clips play rather smoothly, strongly suggesting that they are small in file size and/or there are in-game scripts that alter them further for effects like reverbs.

VOICE-ACTING:

Characters speak during cutscenes and in the diplomacy screens. All of the characters talk in human languages, even if they do not have humanoid mouths or any mouths at all. This is of course, for the sake of the human player. Some of them even have accents, such as the Gaelic one for the leader of the Unfallen and, curiously, French for the leader of the Vodyani. Most of the voice-acting is competent at delivering inflections, especially during the cutscenes.

BUG-FIXING OVER THE YEARS:

Followers of the game have complained about all kinds of bugs occurring for them; these bugs are not even pervasive ones too, and seem to be unique to specific permutations of circumstances that are not always replicable by the developers. Nevertheless, Amplitude Studios has been very diligent in finding these bugs and quashing them, apparently through feverish devotion to stress-tests of their game.

CONCLUSION:

One-upping peers in the 4X genre is not an easy task. A 4X game may try to raise the bar of complexity, but also runs the risk of introducing tedium, annoyance and/or frustration by having the player jump through many hoops.

Endless Space 2 comes close to doing this. Its many types of resources hold back the player from enacting the next step of his/her plan. Furthermore, this complexity seems to be there to mask the lack of ability on the part of CPU-controlled rivals at keeping to plans.

Therefore, the complexity of the gameplay can only be an appeal for so long before the player becomes tired of the single-player experience. Fortunately, the first time around with the game can be fulfilling, thanks to the emphasis on the pursuit of quests in the gameplay.

The splendid artwork and writing for the game also makes it many steps above its peers in the genre, such as Stellaris, in the matter of presentation. If there is any bar that Endless Space 2 has raised, it is the balance of style versus substance in a 4X game.