Endless Space

[FriendlyFire]

I beg to differ.

Traditional RTS games do not most of the time involve an "exploration" phase. At best you'll do some scouting to determine the enemy's build order and/or race, but that's all there is to it.

"Expanding" in Starcraft involves building a few buildings after a predetermined amount of time has elapsed, which isn't really what "expanding" is about (ie conquering or otherwise taking over dozens of "nodes", be they cities, planets, etc.).

"Exploit" is similar, but happens immediately and throughout the game for traditional RTS games, whereas it's a clear phase in 4X games (the order of the terms does matter!).

"Exterminate" is the same for everything so I'll give you that.

I know we're just arguing semantics but I don't think it's wrong to lump Sins as a 4X game even if it might not fit the extremely narrow definition some people have of the genre.

[soldant]

Sins plays out the same way except you're limited in where you can move. You can do anything within gravity wells, and that's it. Otherwise you're basically placing structures the same as any other RTS. The "empire" development is very shallow, and the majority of it translates directly to military power. There's very little 'exploitation' in Sins.

What separates Sins from Starcraft for example is the map size and restrictions on movement. Otherwise it's like building lots of little bases to make fleets to rush the enemy. It's got a lot of Exterminate, but not much Exploit.

It does however force Expansion... so it still stands apart from traditional RTS games. But it's also very much separate from GalCiv2.

[vinraith]

As I've said many times, Sins is either an unusual and interesting RTS game or a piss-poor 4X game, depending on how you want to label it. Calling it 4X does it no favors, because it really only handles 2 of those X's well (expand and exterminate).

[c-Row]

Well, SotS apparently introduced a fifth X into the equation with "Extremely buggy". Glad that Endless Space seems to lack that particular X as far as I can tell.

[SlipOnShoes]

I never played SotS, but I played quite a bit of Sins. So far I like Endless Space more because of the traditional, turn-based style. I always felt rushed in Sins (and I know that's probably part of the fun for most players). I fell like I can relax a bit in Endless Space and enjoy the character that the game has. But, don't get me wrong: Sins was good fun for a while.

[vinraith]

Well, SotS apparently introduced a fifth X into the equation with "Extremely buggy". Glad that Endless Space seems to lack that particular X as far as I can tell.

That'd be SotS 2, everyone here is talking about the first one. Don't get me wrong, I think SotS 2 has enormous potential and the devs have been working their asses off to fix the train wreck that was it's launch condition, but I can't really vouch for it yet.

From what I understand Endless Space is on the opposite end of the 4X spectrum from both SotS games in that SotS is extremely combat-focused, and Endless Space is heavily empire management focused. There's plenty of room for both of them. In a lot of ways, I'm hoping Endless Space ends up being something akin to Gal Civ 3.

[FriendlyFire]

It's definitely on the right track. I'd say it could merely keep expanding on what it currently has and it'd be fairly close to a spiritual successor to Gal Civ 2 with a much better art style and UI.

Honestly, the UI in Endless Space is the one thing that distinguishes it the most. I wish every other 4X game put even half as much effort into it, as opposed to just cloning what came before.

[ASX]

One big point with combat that disturbs me - heroes feel like they gain too much experience from winning battles. With a single well equipped fleet that can take opponents until they research an equal tech counter, that fleet can gain a hero a few hundred exp - enough for 7-10 levels. That's enough for a 60-80% damage increase, multiple repair perks to fully heal a moderately damaged fleet back to full health, and a couple of speed perks to run around beating opponents to the punch. Due to the nature of hard counters completely deflecting damage, the fleet never takes damage until the opponent outfits ships to counter... At which point I send my ships back, pay to retrofit to counter their counters, and proceed back to wrecking fleets.

After romping around for a while, I do want to play SotS for combat. I have an AI that can terraform planets and travel wormholes... and yet it can't compute how to evade dumb projectiles in space combat. I want to grab the controls and get them out of convoy formation, instead of Napoleonic naval combat every battle.

[Batolemaeus]

Splicing SotS and Endless Space together would indeed be compelling. The combat side of SotS is compelling with its many details and counters and counter-counters. The UI is full of bugs and unresponsive, but there's a lot of depth to both research and combat. I'd love to have less micro management though.

To be honest, SotS enrages me with its bugs and clunky UI. But Endless Space bores me, and in a way that is far worse. The game is flashy and shiny, but very shallow.

[vinraith]

The UI is full of bugs and unresponsive, but there's a lot of depth to both research and combat. I'd love to have less micro management though.

To be honest, SotS enrages me with its bugs and clunky UI. But Endless Space bores me, and in a way that is far worse. The game is flashy and shiny, but very shallow.

You should clearly specify which SotS you're talking about. I'm assuming it must be 2 (which is still having its issues worked out), given that I've never experienced a bug or UI problem of any sort in 1 under 1.8.

[Batolemaeus]

Err, yes, SotS2. The first one is nearly perfect in my opinion, but the second one is more of an expansion on the foundation with immense growing pains.

[vinraith]

Err, yes, SotS2. The first one is nearly perfect in my opinion, but the second one is more of an expansion on the foundation with immense growing pains.

Yeah. They're certainly working their asses off to try and fix it, I hope they're able to make something of it when all is said and done.

[Vicious]

SotS itself was also incredibly buggy at launch and took a long time to get anyway stable (wasn't really in a release condition until after second expansion imo). The UI has also aged terribly, I found it shocking going back to it recently after not playing in ~3 years.

[vinraith]

SotS itself was also incredibly buggy at launch and took a long time to get anyway stable (wasn't really in a release condition until after second expansion imo).

Yup, I just hope SotS2 is able to see that same kind of expansion and support.

The UI has also aged terribly, I found it shocking going back to it recently after not playing in ~3 years.

To each their own I guess, I absolutely love the UI in SotS 1.

[soldant]

I played SotS following the recommendations here and while I like the general idea of the game I find the UI to be too clunky to be of any use. I hate the camera the most, particularly in fleet battles. I also find it's too heavy on micromanagement, especially with fleet design. The first 5 or 6 times I designed my own ships I thought it was cool, but then I stopped having fun upgrading lasers etc only to never build that design because it'd be obsolete very quickly anyway.

[FriendlyFire]

SotS's UI is okay (it's also very ugly, but at least that's not really problematic). It doesn't do anything particularly wrong, even if some functionality is hidden away pretty far.

SotS with a few polishing touches and Endless Space's UI would be most amazing. I also have to say I quite appreciate Endless Space's more logical/realistic depiction of space; SotS's "one planet == one star" thing is really just plain weird, even if their planet classification model is more flexible and interesting in terms of gameplay than Endless Space's more straightforward planet type model.

[soldant]

I also have to say I quite appreciate Endless Space's more logical/realistic depiction of space;

Yes! It's wonderful to see a 4x game that acknowledges that planets orbit stars and that planets aren't all rocky spheres. I also like how it acknowledges that there's more than one type of galaxy in the universe. It seems like the last game to do this was MOO2; everything else either has the SotS "one planet to rule them all" system or has planets placed haphazardly around a star in entirely illogical arrangements. Or in SoaSE you have planets pretending to be star systems orbiting a star along with random things like asteroids or plasma storms.

[vinraith]

Yes! It's wonderful to see a 4x game that acknowledges that planets orbit stars and that planets aren't all rocky spheres. I also like how it acknowledges that there's more than one type of galaxy in the universe. It seems like the last game to do this was MOO2; everything else either has the SotS "one planet to rule them all" system or has planets placed haphazardly around a star in entirely illogical arrangements. Or in SoaSE you have planets pretending to be star systems orbiting a star along with random things like asteroids or plasma storms.

Ascendancy properly handled planets orbiting around stars, actually, though I suppose it was contemporary with MOO2. It was always pretty cool, because planetary defense satellites couldn't always cover the warp points into the star system, what with the planets moving.

Distant Worlds does this as well. Full solar systems with moving planets, but then Distant Worlds is more of a space empire simulator than just about any 4X game I've ever seen.

SotS 2 has multiple planets per system as well, though I've not played it enough to see how that pans out.

And yes, SoaSE's lack of basic physical sense drives me quietly insane.

As to SotS 1, I'm generally willing to buy the idea that if there turn out to be any habitable planets in a system, there will probably only be one. It's an abstraction, but at least the terraforming system makes sense. Every race has its own habitability band, sometimes hugely far apart, an planetary bombardment does ecological damage. Good stuff.

[archonsod]

SotS 2 has multiple planets per system as well, though I've not played it enough to see how that pans out.

It's working incredibly well. In fact I faced my first visit from Sparky the other week which really demonstrated how nice the system worked. Even if he did ultimately win.

[Batolemaeus]

It takes time getting used to, especially since random encounters can spawn near any planet, but you never know where. I've had several colonies hurt because of it, which is frustrating when you do have a few defense fleets around but you spawned on the other side of the system.

Btw., is it just me or do planets actually orbit their star?