More 4x gaming: Endless Space

[OJsDad]

Looks like a release date of July 4th. 

http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2012/06/endless-space-releases-on-the-4th-of-july/

[Martok]

Wow, that was fast.  I was under the impression they were still about a month away. 

[Nefaro]

Wow, that was fast.  I was under the impression they were still about a month away.

Same.

I kept hearing that they had some AI tweaking to do still.  :o

[Gusington]

I can't handle this right now...too much in the gaming queue. How dare they.

[OJsDad]

I can't handle this right now...too much in the gaming queue. How dare they.

Good thing it's over a long holiday weekend.  Unfortunately, I'm going to be camping with a large group of friends, so just getting my turns in for the Armada game I'm in is going to be tight.  On the bright side, it'll give the devs time to work on a patch before I buy.

[Gusington]

^I have to work next week!!

[Huw the Poo]

OK I am REALLY enjoying this game.  I've put about 31 turns in so far and I'm very, very impressed.  I don't know if the designers are inherently good at the job or whether it's a function of democracy-led design, but it's absolutely bursting with great ideas.  The UI is fantastic, easily one of the best I've ever seen.  All the information you need is just always right there, with no need to click around.  Get this:

You're looking at your (sortable, of course) colony list.  Along with all the food, research points etc that each colony is producing you can see stuff like which ship/improvement is being worked on.  Click this cell, and you get to see everything else in the queue without having to "go" to the colony in question!  It just appears at the bottom and you never have to leave the colony list.

It's such a little thing, but it really does make the game easier to play, and that's just one of a thousand little touches.  It's very, very well made.

As for the battles...I needn't have worried.  Admittedly I've only had little skirmishes yet, but from what I've seen they're hardly the rock paper scissors affairs that some have described (not here, but around the net).  The cards are only modifiers.  Some are significant, yes, but a lot depends on your ship design and fleet composition too.  +40% to a weapon that only does 5 damage in the first place is nothing.  And let's not forget that the more powerful cards have costs associated - and must be researched, too.  It's all fair in love and war.  The cinematics may get old at some point, sure, but they're still a lot more than you get with plenty of other 4X games.

Loving the game so far.  I hope it doesn't disappoint me in the long run, but I can't see it happening!

[Barthheart]

Oh man...... Now I'm gonna have to get this too......  :P

8)

[Huw the Poo]

Barthheart, the best thing you can do is watch some videos, like the combat one I posted a few posts ago - that's what finally tipped me over the edge and I had to buy it.  30 minutes or so of "let's play" will probably show you what you need.  But so far I can say that it's easily one of the best 4X games I've played.

I think I read there's a faction designer coming soon. \o/

[Gusington]

Faction designer? Sweet.

[Huw the Poo]

It feels like a next-gen game.  Remember how we were all wowed by the strategic zoom of Supreme Commander?  Well, Endless Space has more than one of those moments.  Every single part of the interface has been designed to allow you to get the most info, and perform the most actions, by using the fewest clicks.  Tooltips abound, and there are little icons and colour coding used everywhere to save you reading reams of text when you're in a hurry to do something.

Another good example.  When a fleet is in a system, you can designate it as a defender, meaning it will intercept any ships entering the system.  Well, the colony list shows you at a glance (by means of a little coloured dot) which systems are defended in this manner.

Looking at the fleet list, one of the columns will of course tell you where each fleet is located.  But the little icon accompanying the system name shows you whether it's your system or not, and whether it's colonised.

As I said earlier, there's a thousand little details like this all throughout the game.  It's just the best interface I've seen.

[Barthheart]

Stop! Stop! I'm weak enough as it is......   :P

Sigh......


Alright, tomorrow while my wife is working and I'm home I'll take another look.


Just what I need... another 4X space game.... Gotta retire soon so I can at least try to play everything.  :P

[Huw the Poo]

I've only scratched the surface with my gushing, too. ;)

[Barthheart]

I've only scratched the surface with my gushing, too. ;)

....groan....

[Nefaro]

As I said earlier, there's a thousand little details like this all throughout the game.  It's just the best interface I've seen.

That was my biggest praise - the excellent interface.