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So the beta of this game has sucked up the last 3 odd days of my life. I'm a huge fan of 4x games, and this compares pretty well with say Sins of a Solar Empire (although it is turnbased instead of real time). Its kinda like Sins had a baby with Master of Orion. The gameplay is pretty slick, though I've noticed a fair bit of slowdown late in the game, which I assume is an issue with the beta build 'cause it sure ain't my computer. I like the battle system, although fleet sizes will hopefully get buffed a bit, because it is fairly hands off. There are 3 phases, long range, medium range, and short range, at which your missles, energy weapons, and mass weapons respectively get buffs. You can basically issue one special order per phase, basically anything from retreat, to maximizing damage of one class of weapon to the detriment of others. If you assign an admiral (one of a very limited number of heroes you get, who are also used to buff individual star systems), you can also gain more powerful special orders.



The game isn't totally balanced right now - The Sowers (machines programmed by an ancient alien race to go around terraforming planets for their settlement) start with the ability to colonize any type of planet, which is a huge buff, and the Hissho (Avian warriors whose heroes will straight up leave if you retreat from a battle) are at a disadvantage whenever they aren't actively fighting someone. The other races that stand out to me are the Horatio ( a trillionaire industrialist from the Terran Empire went off and settled an independent colony, went crazy, found some cloning machines left over from those ancient aliens, and made a whole race of clones of himself), and the Consumers (basically bug people who need to constantly expand or eat themselves to death -not necessarily original, but I love the look of their ships). My major concerns are, as I mentioned, balance, making the fleets and maps larger, and differentiating the tech trees a little more. Other than that, a great game. Oh yeah, I feel like I ought to mention the soundtrack - flipping great, 'specially for a beta.

Here's the Website of the company making it.
http://endless-space.amplitude-studios.com/

and some videos

Trailer



Battle Scene

Been keeping an eye on this. Liked Sins, but I'd like it better turn based

Is the combat also turn based?

Nah, but you don't have direct control over the ships, either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You 'play' as the leader of the faction, so they wanted combat a bit hands off, apparently.

Is it similar to Galactic Civilizations? A straight number cruncher with some video animation to go along with it?

I would say it's more cinematic than GC, but without the awesome craziness of their ship designer. This one limits you to weapon/gear loadouts, not making your own from the ground up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jesus God, I just spent a solid 15 minutes laughing my ass off, and I gotta share. Here was the scenario - I'm playing Sowers, and I'm currently the number 2 power in the galaxy, thanks to me spreading out quick early and taking two full arms and a solid chunk of the center for myself (go little robots go). So, i'm peacefully allied with the Terran Empire, the Amoebas, and the Pilgrims, and fighting a two front war against the arrogant Hissho and the backstabbing Horatio.

I've taken a couple border systems from the Horatio, but the Hissho and their damn combat buffs are holding me off - until I roll out my new Missle Dreadnought (Annihilator Class). My basic strategy is to build barely armed but exceedingly tough battleships and cruisers as escorts, because the enemy AI tends to try to pick off your lighter ships first, while loading down my dreadnoughts with very little in the way of defense, but about 30 missile tubes. It's a fairly effective alpha strike sort of tactic, and I had 3 heroes specced for fleet ops, and was basically just rolling around Hissho space snapping up their fleets - my allies were making worried noises about me expanding too fast, so I wasn't taking many more systems. So, out of the blue, the Pilgrims, who I trapped in their one measly arm of the galaxy back at the beginning of the game, declare war on me - the same turn the Horatio sue for peace (running scared).

So, I gracefully accept, start consolidating my fleets that were in their space, and decide to send one over to the Pilgrims and see what they are up to.
I go to assign one of my fleet admirals, and screw up, accidentally sending one of my administrators, who has only rudimentary combat skills. I figure, whatever I'll swap him out in a couple turns, since there is a cd for reassigning them. So, I don't want to just sit there for four turns, and I jump into the nearest Pilgrim system to test the waters. What do I find waiting for my one fleet of 3 Dreads, a Battleship, and a Cruiser?

Fourteen goddamned full fleets. I'm about to lose my gak, cause at this point of long, drawn out warfare, I have maybe eight, total, and I'm still busy hammering those Hissho butholes into the ground.

So with great trepadition, I go into a manual battle.

Then I find out.

These backwards sons of bitches are about two full tiers below me, techwise.

I proceed to demolish 14 fleets with my one, with a goddamned glorified clerk in charge. I ended the last battle with full hitpoints. My guy went from level 13 to 20.