Endless space save editor series#

IвЂ™ve played four games over the course of this review, each time as a different side, and as a result each time has felt like a substantially different game, with only a handful of core tactics able to carry over. Where most strategy games make their playable sides only a little different, distinguishing each with just a few perks or bonuses, Endless Space 2 goes to town, altering everything from the way sides handle currency to whether they can even colonise planets at all. You might be playing Endless Space 2 for a very long time, because in addition to being a very good strategy game, itвЂ™s also one with a lot of replay potential, because like Endless Legend, the factions here are so wildly different (and entertaining) that youвЂ™ll want to explore the nuances of each. YouвЂ™re not restricted to movement along those lanes, they just speed things up. As an example, I kept getting prompts from the United Empire to form an alliance, but those messages werenвЂ™t accompanied by a button to actually agree to it, or at least jump to the diplomacy screen. Worst of all were the constant diplomatic warnings and messages I got from opponents that seemed at odds with what was actually going on in the game, and which werenвЂ™t accompanied by a prompt to engage in action related to what was being said. I found throughout my review that computer opponents were incredibly passive, and whenever I did engage with them, it felt cold and distant. For such an integral part of the game, combat is extremely limited, your involvement relegated to simply amassing your forces then making a few basic tactical decisions before watching battles play out.ДЄI relationships are even worse. ItвЂ™s important for ES2 to have nailed its politics, because while trade and commerce is handled well through a marketplace and treaties, its combat and diplomacy are severely lacking. Your internal politics arenвЂ™t displayed here simply as a crude metric of happiness, theyвЂ™re an amorphous entity, an extra opponent in the game that youвЂ™re both fighting alongside and against at all times. This makes your faction, and by extension the entire game world, feel alive. This means you can tailor your approach to a certain extent, but also that events will dictate that you must concede ground to styles and opponents you may not have otherwise wanted to, creating a constant internal balancing act. Everything you research impacts at least somebody. A choice in a quest may be a boost to scientists. Certain buildings will lead to increases in militarism. And every empire can be home to any number of species, whether through assimilation, immigration or expansion.Д®very decision you make in the game alters the make-up of those factions. The game is built on the idea that every empire is able to be home to a collection of political movements/parties/factions, ranging from ecologists to industrialists to militarists. Politics is everywhere in Endless Space 2. Basically, politics is represented in the game exactly as it plays out in the real world. ItвЂ™s chaotic, and impactful, sometimes under your control, other times a spiralling beast of its own creation. This screen gives you an overview of how different political factions within your empire are growing, and whatвЂ™s influencing them in case you want to nip that in the bud.Д®ndless Space 2 features the finest strategy game implementation of politics I have ever seen. Exploration, research, ship design, diplomacy, trade, it ticks all the boxes, with the only things standing out a little being the quest system and presence of hero units, both of which will be familiar to anyone who has played Endless Legend. In terms of how ES2 lines up against its competition in the space strategy space, all the standard stuff is here.

Endless space save editor series#

ItвЂ™s better news for newcomers, though, because these types of games can seem daunting at first, so keeping things clean and simple will make slotting into the Endless Space series for the first time pretty easy. Everything you want to do in this game is rarely more than two or three clicks away, and nothing it wants to tell you is hidden.ДЇor experienced players, or those who will just be playing this game a lot, thatвЂ™s good news, since it will save you time getting around. You never get lost looking for a command, or overwhelmed with information. There are helpful tips explaining how almost everything works if you just hover the mouse over a button. Every command or button is sat next to other, similar things.

Everything in ES2 works as it looks like it should.