Endless Legend | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Amplitude Studios |
Publisher(s) | Iceberg Interactive (formerly) Sega (current) |
Engine | Unity |
Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X |
Release | 18 September 2014 |
Genre(s) | 4x, turn-based strategy |
Mode(s) | Single player and multiplayer |
Endless Legend is a turn based4X fantasy-strategy game developed by Amplitude Studios and published by Iceberg Interactive for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X in September 2014. The purpose of the game is to dominate the world of Auriga with one of the eleven races/factions through either diplomacy or war while developing new technologies, exploring new lands and founding new cities.[1][2]
Endless Legend is the second game made by Amplitude Studios in their Endless series of titles, following Endless Space.
The game was later published by Sega after they acquired Amplitude Studios.
- 1Gameplay
Gameplay[edit]
Endless Legend is a turn-based 4X strategy game, in which players take control of a fantasy faction to establish an empire through exploration, conquest, diplomacy and research.[3] The game is set in the land of Auriga, with the layout of its landmass and ecosystems being randomized per game, represented on a model-like map made up of a hexagonal grid.
The map is populated with a variety of terrain, each made up of biomes within the world which have effects on the player's units. Tiles and their layout are all randomly generated to create a unique playable world with each separate playthrough.
Fog of war covers the play space requiring exploration by the player's units to find resources, minor factions, and races that players must utilize and exploit to benefit their growing empires.
However, unlike other 4X games, the world map of Endless Legend is formed of separate regions. Once a city has been established within the borders of a region for the first time, the entire region becomes part of a faction's territory and control. At the start of each game, each faction begins with a settler unit to establish their first city and region. Regions can only host one city each within their borders.[4]
Faction[edit]
Players can choose from one of the fourteen available factions, each with their own unique characteristics including appearance, units, abilities and play-styles:[3]
- Wild Walkers: Former forest dwellers who have harnessed magic to control and shape the natural world.
- Broken Lords: Knights of honor and chivalry who have lost their humanity, remaining as specters within their suits of armor.
- Vaulters: Great smiths and craftsmen who have lived in solitude underground for most of the history prior.
- Mezari: Space settlers who must adapt the best they can to Auriga's terrestrial conditions due to a loss of their ship and technology.
- Necrophages: A great hive mind of insectoid creatures that can spread plagues while infecting and controlling others.
- Ardent Mages: Sorcerers who warp their bodies and minds to achieve great magical power and sustained life.
- Roving Clans: Travelers and merchants from distant lands of a nomadic tradition.
- Drakken: An ancient dragon race whose longevity has made them a wise race of scholars and diplomats.
- Cult of the Eternal End: A fanatical cult that spreads influence on lesser races, mechanical in their appearance and thought, who wish to destroy the relics of the Endless, the advanced alien race that once counted Auriga among the planets under their possession.
The following factions have been added in game expansions (denoted in parentheses):
- Forgotten(Shadows): Survivors from a 'thought to be extinct faction' embracing the shadows by specializing into deception, infiltration, and sabotage.
- Allayi(Shifters): Ancient beings from the time of the Endless who change form with the seasons and hold a tight bond with Auriga.
- Morgawr(Tempest): Ancient underwater folk who rose from the depths of Auriga.
- Kapaku(Inferno): Emigrants forced from their volcanic homeworld who seek to transform Auriga into a 'paradise of ash and fire'.
- Mykara(Symbiosis): A race of fungal humanoids who arose with the newly awakened Urkans.
Resources[edit]
Faction controlled cities are used to generate resources, construct buildings and recruit armies. There are five different key resources each faction requires to remain stable and grow: food, industry, dust, science, and influence.
- Food is used to increase and sustain the population.
- Industry is used to produce units and buildings.
- Dust is the standard currency in Auriga.
- Science is used for research.
- Influence is used for empire level actions, in which the player gains boons like a boosted attack on units or additional resource gain. Influence is also required for diplomatic proposals with other factions.
Resources are gained through the properties on game world tiles within a city's border, buildings the player has constructed and research. How much of a resource a city can gather is dictated by a city's workforce, gained by its native population, which can grow.
Workers are the main tool for gaining resources. They are placed to collect certain resources for the player, with more workers on a certain task gaining more resources.
Research[edit]
Another aspect of Endless Legend is the progression of research. Research is cut into four areas within multiple eras. The four areas of research are military, science and industry, empire and expansion, and economy and population. Each aspect is intended to tailor the experience to the player and pushes toward that player's specific goal of victory.[5]
Cities[edit]
Cities are where armies are raised. Armies are composed of individual units spawned by the player, with different units types having their own abilities and uses in combat. Players move armies through an action points system. Each movement and interaction subtracts one action point until the counter hits zero, at which point no further actions can be taken.[3] The units are used for exploration, combat, diplomacy, and questing. Units in an army can be outfitted with different equipment researched and purchased by the player or found. Acquired equipment can change the statistics of a units to the player's liking. Armies can also include a hero, a powerful unit with the ability to gain skill points to temper the character to a player's playstyle.[5]
Quest[edit]
Endless Legend also has a quest system where quests are found in the game world. Many of these are completed through the use of armies. Quests differ between factions and are the main source of story content throughout the game.[4] Completing all of the player's chosen faction's quests is also one possible victory condition for a player. Armies can accomplish quests given by other faction for diplomacy points. Diplomacy is used to gain favor with other faction, and if enough influence points are gained alliances can be formed.[4] On the other hand, a declaration of war between the player and another faction can also occur if a player helps that faction's enemy. Outside of both peace and war, all players begin in a state of 'cold war'.
Win conditions[edit]
There are nine win conditions in the game:
- Quest Victory: complete all of the faction's quests and the epilogue quest.
- Elimination Victory: No other faction is left alive.
- Score victory: having the highest number of overall points at the end of the 300th turn in a normal game.
- Expansion Victory: 80% of the map is claimed by a player.
- Economic Victory: in a normal game, 555.500 Dust has been collected by a player.
- Diplomatic Victory: in a normal game, collecting 3000 Diplomatic Points.
- Wonder Victory: complete all of the faction's quests and build the associated Wonder.
- Scientific Victory: the player must discover five of six technologies in the 6th era.
- Supremacy Victory: be the only remaining player in control of their starting capitol.
Reception[edit]
Reception | ||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Endless Legend received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Metacritic gathered an average rating of 82 out of 100 based on 35 reviews for the PC version.[7] and GameRankings gathered a score of 83% based on 19 reviews.[6]
PC Gamer US gave it an 89 out of 100 stating,'Amplitude Studios has created another astounding story-driven game, that really has taken the best bits of RTS, RPG, and 4X, drawing much from Endless Space, and spun it differently for every faction.'[4]IGN commented, 'It combines style, substance, and setting into a marvelous overall experience for both empire management and tactical combat.' giving it an 8.3 out of 10 [10]GameSpot warned of passive and weak AI but remarked, 'Endless Legend's driving forces are so thoroughly executed that it serves as an imperfect, but well worthwhile step in the series, and hopefully a sign of things to come.' giving it an 8 out of 10.[9]
Rock, Paper, Shotgun named Endless Legend Game of the Year in 2014.[11]
References[edit]
- ^Barret, Ben. 'Endless Legend's Early Access Not Endless, Ends Soon'. Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
- ^Kaiser, Rowan. 'A Cartographer's Dream'. IGN. IGN. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
- ^ abcCampbell, Colin (22 July 2014). 'Endless Legend seeks the perfect imbalance to keep players exploring and exterminating'. Polygon. Polygon. Retrieved 16 November 2014.
- ^ abcdeGriliopoulos, Dan (14 October 2014). 'Endless Legend review - PC Gamer'. PC Gamer. Future. Retrieved 16 November 2014.
- ^ abParrish, Peter (6 May 2014). 'Endless Legend Early Access Preview'. incgamers. Retrieved 16 November 2014.
- ^ ab'Endless Legend for PC - GameRankings'. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
- ^ ab'Endless Legend'. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
- ^'Endless Legend - Test'. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
- ^ ab'Endless Legend Review'. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
- ^ abKaiser, By Rowan. 'Endless Legend Review'. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
- ^'The Bestest Best Game Of 2014: Endless Legend'. Rock, Paper, Shotgun. 24 December 2014. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
External links[edit]
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Endless Legend |
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Endless_Legend&oldid=902866822'
The Lumeris are Endless Space 2's trading faction. They're masters at generating Dust—nano-elements created by an ancient race, now the currency of the galaxy's more primitive inhabitants. An hour into my session with Amplitude's 4X sequel, I'm generating hundreds of Dust per turn. How to create mods for darkest dungeon. An aggressive minor faction sends a fleet of ships in my direction. In retaliation, I bribe them into subjugation.
If you've played Endless Legend, you'll be familiar with Amplitude's asymmetrical approach to factions. The differences go beyond units and bonuses—each has its own specific purpose, ideology and systems. For instance, the Lumeris don't send big ships filled with millions of people to colonise planets. Instead, they spend Dust to instantly construct an outpost, staking a claim to the world. From there, it's a case of growing the outpost's size until the planet is declared fully colonised. If another species starts construction of a colony ship destined for that planet, or another Lumeris faction builds a rival outpost, it's a race to see who can claim it first.
The Vodyani are the second new faction of Endless Space 2's early access release. Uplifted by the ancient and powerful Endless, they live in giant Ark ships that can leech resources from the planets they orbit. In a way, they're extreme environmentalists. Their terrestrial home was destroyed by the overexploitation of its resources, and now they're keen to prevent the same from happening elsewhere. Luckily, planets tend to have a more renewable resource that they can harness: the populations of other factions.
The Vodyani are strong, but few in number. Amplitude wants losing even one of them to be a big deal. They're on a crusade to annihilate intelligent life, but will also harvest lifeforms to increase their own population—a process that can lead to the new citizens inheriting traits from the people they've absorbed.
'We all agreed that it would be better to have an unbalanced game with crazy faction all being different, than to have a perfectly balanced game with all the factions looking alike,' says Romain de Waubert de Genlis, creative director of Endless Space 2. That's not to say Amplitude /wants/ an unbalanced game, but they're using early access as a means to discover how far they can push each faction. 'It's a time to experiment,' says de Genlis. 'It's not a time when your game should be finished.'
Two returning factions from Endless Space will join the Vodyani and Lumeris to complete Endless Space 2's early access roster. The Sophons are pacifists, dedicated to science. The Cravers are machine insects, bred for war and consumption. It's a disparate bunch, destined for conflict. And, each faction will have an accompanying questline based on their culture and ultimate goals. 'Each storyline you have for each faction branches out several times, and that leads to, of course, different stories, but also to different gameplay that you unlock,' says de Genlis.
As in Endless Legend, Amplitude uses quests to add texture to the underlying strategy—fleshing out the world, and making each campaign different. Amplitude is pushing its quest design even further for Endless Space 2, and now have a dedicated designer working full time on creating new missions and events.
'The other day we looked at the number of words, and we couldn't believe,' says de Genlis, 'it's closer to an RPG than a strategy game. It's pretty unbelievable.' Quests can come from multiple sources: exploration, population, and galaxy wide events. Each quest could also be part of a chain—something that you won't realise until, some turns later, the next step is triggered.
Each quest decision will have underlying strategic benefits, meaning that, even if you're not playing to progress the story, there are still benefits for completing missions. Amplitude is even using its quest design to shake up the political landscape of your playthrough.
'We're working on cooperative and competitive quests,' says de Genlis. 'You have people banding together to obtain a common objective, or competing to reach another objective.' The hope is to make alliances more fragile, but also encourage temporary ceasefires against rivals. 'Maybe a friend of today could be an enemy of tomorrow, but another friend for something else,' says de Genlis. 'It's very interesting all these links and bonds you can create, especially when they're multi-empire quests.'
Much of Endless Space 2's design is an evolution of systems from Endless Legend. 'We have some strong common links with Legend, but then we add a layer of modification to take that idea to the next step,' says de Genlis. 'That's one of the things about our games I really like, is we're building layers of 4X and trying to inherit from the good stuff from one game to the next.'
For Amplitude, developing the original Endless Space was a process of figuring out how to make a 4X game. Now, they're returning to the concept with more knowledge, experience and, crucially, distance. 'At the end of Endless Space … all we had in mind was Endless Space and how to make it better,' says de Genlis. 'With the few years that have passed, we can look back from a distance and look at the mistakes we made and the good things we did.'
The core focus of Endless Legend was the terrain. 'In Legends, the planet is the hero of the game … she has a soul,' says de Genlis. 'We created a whole storyline around a living planet.' A space 4X can't utilise terrain in the same way, but it was important for Amplitude to have a core idea that informs the a player's decision making. 'The way we do it in Endless Space 2, we still want that strong focus and unique thing, and that's population,' says de Genlis. 'The population is the hero of the game. We always try to take population into account. Population should always be at the heart of your decisions.' In most 4X games, population is simply the measure of your empire's size.
In Endless Space 2, population has a political aspect. Each population cluster has a political alignment, and these ideologies have a voice in your senate. Choosing which party to support will be an important aspect of your empire's strategy. It's possible to pass laws that can give bonuses to certain play styles – such as significantly reducing the cost of military ships – but doing so requires the support of the relevant ideology. Should you find yourself the victim of Vodyani aggression, for instance, it may be in your best interest to support the militarists and enact their laws. But doing so will upset other voices within your empire.
'I think in many ways it is what an emperor should feel,' says de Genlis. 'If you have no population, you're the emperor of nothing. You need to have a big population to be the biggest emperor in the universe.'
In my session, I get a bit carried away with buying out minor factions. Once assimilated, you gain a minor faction's planets, ships and, most importantly, population. Pretty soon, my senate—once perfectly pacifist—is filled with different ideologies. My session isn't long enough to see the fallout from this, but it's clear that internal diplomacy is going to be a big thing. Having the right party in power at the right time could give you a great advantage. Conversely, the wrong party could be disastrous.
Diplomacy between factions will function similarly to Endless Legend, with one major new feature: pressure.
'The idea with the pressure system is how can you conquer without drawing a gun?' asks de Genlis. 'How can I intimidate you into doing what I want? Whether you are an AI or a player—it should be the same.' The plan is to focus on the disparity between factions of different strength. 'I reach a point where my economy is strong, my army is strong, my science is strong, and you look at me like a demigod,' says de Genlis. 'I can come and build pressure over time until you tell me, 'OK, whatever you want to leave me in peace'. I may take a planet, maybe something else. Then the pressure goes down and we're friends again.' In order to mitigate building pressure, factions will need to find friends to counteract the stronger faction.
Many of these systems won't be fully implemented in time for Endless Space 2's early access release. But there's a strong framework, and much of what's to come is reliant on the feedback Amplitude gets from the community.
Endless Space 1 Endless Hero
'Sometimes we see the community reacting and we'll change our priorities,' says de Genlis. 'And we want that. We want to know what's good for them.' As for what's to come, de Genlis lists some of the major milestones, including four additional factions, improved space combat, improved AI and diplomacy. There's a long way to go, but, after Endless Legend's success, I'm hopeful Amplitude has another great 4X in the making.
Endless Space 2 will launch on Steam Early Access in September.
The characters in this game are buisy people. Hadri Lenko (1) during peacetime runs one of your systems (2) and commands the fleet (3) during war.
Special heroe units are at your disposal. Those are unique agents of your empire, who offer a range of services and have special skills (1). They can improve the performance of your systems (2) or take command over fleets (3). They can also represent the Party in the Senate. As the admins/governors of your systems, they can improve production per capita, per planet or just boost the FIDSI factor (happiness). They have their own ideologies that influence their choice of parties and the way the inhabitants of their system think. As admirals, they improve mobility and sensor range. They can increase number of health points of units or make certain kinds of weapons more efficient. Each of the heroes has their own ship which also takes part in battles. After every assignment, a couple of turns have to pass in order for you to be able to reassign them. Transportation is instantenious, but they can only head to friendly systems or fleets within them. They are absolutely loyal, their race - even if you're waging war with that race - has no detrimental effect on their work or reliability.
Hadri Lenko, apart from running different systems and fleet, also runs his party - the Militarists. The Party currently holds the power, but Hadri has no skill to take advantage of this.
Each hero has their own ideology, which he adheres to, same as the citizens of the empire. The heroes become political leaders, i.e. the representative of the given part (if it doesn't already have a leader!). It's pretty important, because some of the most powerful skills only work if the hero who's running a part is in the senate or his part is the Leading Party. Example: you get your first hero. They are a militarist and become the leader of their party. In time, you may get another militarist hero, but he won't become the leader, for obvious reasons. The third hero is pacifist. You don't have any pacifist hero yet, so he becomes the leader of the pacifists.
Each hero has three skill trees, to which you can allocate skill points, gained with every level. Every active hero (assigned to a system or a fleet) uses up the Dust, in quantities corresponding to their level. During battles, the heroes cannot die, and they cannot be dismissed. They can, however, be unassigned - then, they'll get back to the general pool of heroes, where they're inactive and don't get paid in Dust. The information about them can be found in the Hero Management tab.
Every playthrough begins with one hero, but sometimes, you'll get access to new ones. There are a couple ways of doing that:
- Discovering the technology that allows constructing the Academy Embassy;
- Discovering the technology that grants access to the Marketplace, where heroes can be obtained for some Dust;
- Finishing quests - some of them yield a hero for completing them;
- Performing basic tasks, such as discovering new systems, waging battles, building ships, etc. All of these add to the Hero Unlock bar in the Hero Management tab (more about that below).
Additional info about what sort of heroes can you expect can be found in the Hero Management. The side tab contains three important indicators.
(1) The first one is the bar. (1)This is the Hero Unlock bar. Everything you do grants you a certain amount of points added here,for example discovering new system, establishing an outpost, building a ship, diplomatic negotiations, bribing a faction, combat, destroying ships, etc. When it fills up, you'll be able to choose one of three heroes. They races are random, but their classes are based on your actions.
(2) Another important thing - Hero class probability. There are four bars, each is related to a different class. The actions mentioned above also add up in here, but they're distributed between the four. The more technology you discover - the better the chances of getting a scientist hero; the more you fight, the more warriors will spawn, and so on. Your playstyle influences your empire and determines what kind of heroes you get.
(3) The last one informs about the location of the Academy in the galaxy, as well as indicates the initial level of your heroes. Next to the name of the system, there is a button that allows you to instantly get to that location. If you control it, your men will gain experience more quickly. Besides that, you can also see how many heroes are there in other empires.
There are three tiers of heroes' skills:
The green one are general skills, which can be accessed by every hero. They can help with many different things, and can be chosen if other, more specific skills, don't seem to meet the requirements dictated by the circumstances.
The orange ones are race skills. Every hero of the given race will have the same skills available here. There are many of skills particular to a single race.
The blue tree, are class skills. Those are dependant on the specific playstyle or a domain. These skills include skills of commanding fleets as well as managing systems. These skills can even influence the Senate of your empire.
The heroes can be ascribed to one of the following classes:
(1) Seeker. Focused on exploration and sciences. His ship has an equal ammount of weapon and support modules. Unlocking seekers can be done mainly with discovering systems, factions, etc. |
(2)Guardian. Those heroes are focused on combat and industry. Their skills mostly aim at improving the fleet they command. Their ships have more weapon modules. Combat, war activities and some industrial actions help to unlock warriors. |
(3)Overseer. Responsible for developing systems and fleets, overseers are focused on defense. Their ships have more defense modules and can divert the attention of the enemy and withstand a barrage of fire. Any development you make in the empire increases the chances of unlocking overseers. |
(4)Counselor. Focused on diplomacy and gathering resources from systems. Their skills allow obtaining more Dust and Science - as commanders of fleets, they can decrease the upkeep costs. Their best skills allow to set the system's happiness to the highest level possible, regardless of the circumstances. |
With barely a month gone since its launch, Endless Space 2 is getting some free content with its latest update, version 1.0.18. The Stellar Prisoner will be available from 17:00 BST today (that’s 09:00 Pacific), and will add a new quest, new heroes, and a number of general improvements.
Plan your future conquests with our list of the best strategy games on PC.
As you might infer from its title, the Stellar Prisoner’s new questline concerns a mysterious figure who is literally imprisoned in a neutron star. It also appears that neutron stars will be objectives in a battle arena mode, conferring special bonuses to whomever controls them.
Features include:
- Neutron Star: a battle arena that provides bonuses to players who control this special node.
- A new quest triggered upon the discovery of the Neutron Star.
- A new Endless Virtual hero.
- A new Cravers Prime hero, unlocked by the community during an ARG.
- Two new, unique planets.
- Modding improvements, including the ability to edit visuals (hero, quests, events) and textures (planets, ships).
- General performance and AI improvements – there’s a full set of patch notes here on Steam.
The Stellar Prisoner update will be applied for free later today. Endless Space 2 is available on Steam here. It’ll cost you £34.99 ($39.99) for the standard edition and £44.99 ($49.99) for the digital deluxe.
Buy Now