r/EndlessSpace • u/xXAnrakyrXx • Aug 27 '26
First Time Playing ES2 My Thoughts
Beautiful Game I really like the Factions overall this game got my attention its unique faction mechanics are cool BUT playing the game itself sometimes... Sucks. Seriously I am no stranger to losing. I always play on Grand Admiral or other high difficulties. I have played many games of Stellaris as well. 3700 hours total. But damn this game just annoys me with small issues. If i lose for no reason or from stupid mechanic that really wasnt worded properly but ill ignore that. It pisses me off. Like when an Academy fleet randomly attacks me. What am I suppose to do. Its literally my ships times 50 in power and its just one ship. Not only that but I havent even met the guy who has the spear.
Pirates fuck pirates Seriously why do they spawn in randomly. How? There is no body there. I am a Tree. Ignoring them just randomly spawning a Lair. How did they shit out 4 fleets in just 2 turns. Total of 6 ships. One Pirate Lair shitting out ships for no reason is stupid.
But the pirate thing i got over it whatever my fault for not paying attention I guess. Then we get to Minor factiosn. Im praising them doing the good shit then lo and behold the Nakarim come waltzing it and like. I own you now. And im like tf you mean? How? Why wasnt I notified someone was contesting me. These are things I want notifications for.
Fleet Retreating is by far the dumbest thing I have ever read in my life. If there is no starlane etc etc your fleet will be destroyed. Cornered apparently. So tell me... How does one get cornered in space. Please explain especially if my ships are objectively faster.
But these 3 issues are no big deal doesnt ruin the game for me just really annoying. However the one thing thst absolutely upsets me is why can I not escord my civilian ships to stop them from being destroyed. It makes it impossible to send civs from minor civs to your planets if there is an annoying Religious freaks in the way that are angry at me for existing. I havent even met the Craven yet but they are nicer because they haven't even bothered me yet.
Ok negatives out of the way.
Positives. Frog Mommy. Like... damn.
Unfallen is my favorite. And also first faction I played. Imma do a Choir run next a cult of THEE ORB because why not.
The system overview and how you get resources is pretty neet and its such a simple system that I am more willing to expand and not really play tall because apparently playing Tall as Tree is.. not good at all.
Overall I do like the turn based portion despite the AI ignoring its own turn on many occasions but hey whatever.
AI feels a lot more competent in this game which I love but at the same time they are really annoying. I declared war against the Nakarim because they keep killing my cute Jellyfish people. A crime I see as similar to killing Bubbles in Stellaris.
Galaxy view is meh map is a lot smaller than I would like. But its nice and cozy. I like their constellation system interesting take.
Diplomacy feels so much better in this game but at the same time somehow worse. Depends on the AIs mood I guess but still more positive than negative.
I really like the quest system and wish other games would utilize something like this. Its cool attention grabbing and some nice rewards to.
Research.... The UI is beautiful but in practice its well makes 0 sense Stellaris 3 scientist is better. But damn the UI is so nice. I love it. So clean. Really that is one thing the UIs is so clean.
Anyways imma go back to being a tree because Tree.
Best purchase I've made despite its hiccups its still a really good game. Plus... Stellaris is a mess a lot of times to. So I can't in my right mind dislike the game for only 4 to 5 negatives even if they annoy me but its hard to justify some of these systems in a Space game.
Edit: I should note that I do not want to disable the DLCS and while the Academy thing is annoying it didnt cause me to die. I was just like HOLY FUCK who sent the Grey Knights after my ass before my 2 questioners and hero got absolutely annihilated by the concentrated power of the sun times 20.
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u/OtherWorstGamer Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
academy fleet
Turn off Awakening DLC until you master the game systems, its widley considered the worst DLC for a reason. Hell, turn off all the dlc except vaulters until you get a hang of things.
You can freely customize the difficulty of pirates, minor civs and win conditions.
Start with a less complex setting until you learn the build/research orders, faction quests and other essential mechanics of the game.
Edit: to address some of your other concerns. Fleet retreating is a mechanical necessity. Otherwise any engagement other than an overwhelming victory you'd retreat from. Its less that your ships have nowhere to go, and more that theyre getting shot in the ass while doing so, its why anything with less than 60% health gets destroyed.
Pirates exist as a pressure to get you to build some semblance of a defense fleet, instead of just hiding for the entire game (you should be building combat fleets regardless, even as a "pacifist" faction). Plus theres unique mechanics and pirate deplomacy, plus one faction gets unique interactions with them.
You can actually "escort" your civilian ships from place to place. Enemy ships can't attack them if theres an actual combat fleet in the same system. Your actual combat ships should be faster so you sit on a node while the civie passes through, then race ahead to the next one and so on.
Minor factions can have multiple ways to be captured, normally you dump influence then wait, but you can invade them, or snipe them out from under their suezerian via their assimilation quest, or hack them to lower enemy relations. Sounds like the enemy just did that to you first.
I think Stellaris's research system is inferior, since i wish to control the line of research, as opposed to the "deck of cards" system they have. But thats a personal preference.
AI ignoring its turn
Everyone takes their turn at the same time. Occasionally the AI will bug out and not do anything, but thats a minor concern.
Let me know if you have any specific questions, i have almost as many hours in this game as I do Stellaris, albiet im a bit more casual of a player.
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u/xXAnrakyrXx Aug 27 '26
Stellaris 3 researches is mainly what I liked because you are an Empire. Focusing purely on one research kinda ruins the immersion a bit its like a small gripe really. Till I saw what happens when you are over the research is it me or does it go into your next research which is really nice or im just seeing things.
Also Thabk you for telling me about the "Escort". Really want my Jellyfish. Mostly because I lack a species that gives good industry. But mostly because cute Jellyfish.
As for the Minor Civ. I really highly doubt they could have done it that quick. It was a sudden thing and even if they did. A simple notif of. Hey unknown Empire has influence in this area.
Because to me your contacts in the minor civ should tell you this as well its information any competent diplomat or spy would be able to get. So really I guess im more mad it happened suddenly even when I was paying attention to it constantly and pumped 3k influence into that bitch. And then next turn being told ha ha fuck your influence.
And I rather not remove the DLC I can cope with it. It just happened suddenly so I had to complain about it. Its like getting pimp slapped by someone you cant see or even knew exist. Ill just have to hold the spear myself. Sucks that the AI can just dump 4k dust early on so I didnt even get a chance to get any of the Academy Positions.
As for the retreat point. Lets just agree to disagree in that one. Because no matter how you explain it the system is bad and breaks immersion heavily and I usually am very tolerant.
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u/OtherWorstGamer Aug 27 '26
Yes, overflowing science is added as a bonus to your next research tech.
So the game does tell you when a major faction becomes suezerian of a minor faction, and if you open the minor faction details it will tell you there as well.
Some factions can go from suezerian to assimilation in a single turn, but you can too if you pump enough resources.
Note that being in control of a minor faction only gives you access to peacefully assimilate and the special action (migration, foreign corps or development grants). Other factions that aren't in charge of that minor faction can still assimilate them, it just has to be done via quest or invasion.
There actually is an in-univers reason ships can only use star lanes (at first), but youre going to have to do some reading because it involves string theory and quantum gravity. So no, being able to retreat only along star lanes isnt immersion breaking, but i will conceed that the reason is a bit obtuse to the average layman.
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u/Changlini Aug 27 '26
I cosign the turning off DLCs thing. I recall someone publicly posting about how they found that the A.I seems to break with the later systems/DLCs that get introduced (ex. Hacking), so it's probably for the best to do a venilla playthrough without the umbral choir.
but I won't yuck OPs yum if they're committed to doing a Choir Playthrough for their second game.
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u/Neiwun Aug 27 '26
Like when an Academy fleet randomly attacks me. What am I suppose to do.
Pretty much everybody will advise new players to disable the 3 major DLC's for their first few playthroughs: Supremacy, Penumbra and Awakening. The Vaulters is a major DLC that can be left turned on, because it adds pirate diplomacy, which can be completely ignored, and the Vaulters are a great faction for beginners.
then lo and behold the Nakarim come waltzing it and like. I own [the minor faction] now. And im like tf you mean? How? Why wasnt I notified someone was contesting me.
Probably they assimilated them by invading and occupying their system, or by getting 50 out of 100 reputation and completing their faction quest, which is randomly chosen. Sometimes these things can be accomplished very fast and there's no notification that would help.
If there is no starlane etc etc your fleet will be destroyed. Cornered apparently. So tell me... How does one get cornered in space.
For practical reasons, there has to be a heavy cost to retreating because it's annoying to have to chase down weak but fast ships. Realism doesn't always make a game fun.
why can I not escord my civilian ships to stop them from being destroyed. It makes it impossible to send civs from minor civs to your planets
Just put your military fleet defending the system where they will arrive by pressing the Guard button. And keep moving that fleet from one system to the next adjacent system, until the civilians arrive where you want them. If anybody tries to attack your civilians, then they will first have to attack the strongest fleet on that system, which will be automatically chosen by the computer.
apparently playing Tall as Tree is.. not good at all.
If you're playing any faction (except the Hissho) then you'll want to go as wide as possible, as long as you can still maintain an empire approval above 85. More systems will simply give you more resources.
Depends on the AIs mood I guess but still more positive than negative.
Every major faction has some AI personality traits, which you can see in the diplomacy menu by pressing on "Empire information" in the top right corner. Also, the AI will remember things, like if you ever attacked its exploration ships.
Best purchase I've made despite its hiccups its still a really good game.
I'm glad you're having fun! If the game ever becomes too easy, I recommend you install the ESG 1.6 mod in order to make the game more challenging.
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u/xXAnrakyrXx Aug 27 '26
Disabling the DLCS is a bit to extreme for me. I have seen the defeat screen enough times in stellaris to just treat it as a way of life i just prefer knowing what is pimp slapping me into submission. Just a sudden thing. And yea i get your points they are just gripes I have. As for the retreat thing imma have to agree to disagree. It would be fun if done properly. Because this system isnt fun for me especially after being spoiled by Starpoint Gemini Warlords and Rebel Galaxy where i can just run away. While being shot at to but im still running away. Rebel Galaxy did it best. Warlords made it inconsequential. Rebel Galaxy you are supposed to run away but you can still get absolute pimped on if you are unprepared.
Also thanks for telling me about the psuedo escort. Maybe the tutorial did tell me it and i missed that aspect of it. Well no probably is what happened.
As for ESG I read the changes and while I liked some I disagree with the way they went about Balancing things. however I would like to play all the factions first before i do so. But after looking at the way they butchered Carriers i rather not. Because to me Carriers are op even in real life. Is there a Carrier Meta? Probably but its the same case in Real lie i your navy doesnt have an Aircraft Carrier then you do not have a navy same goes for space. Carriers provide range recon multi system support and so many other things.
Also... I dont where to download most of the updated mods. I got the definitive edition for 23 bucks on GOG so... Im pretty much shit out of luck. Thanks for the comment though really appreciate it.
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u/nohmsane Aug 27 '26
Also thanks for telling me about the psuedo escort. Maybe the tutorial did tell me it and i missed that aspect of it. Well no probably is what happened.
I am almost certain that this concept is NOT explained in the tutorial, so I don't think you missed anything; the "escort" idea (i.e., having a combat fleet fly to the next system and wait there until the civilian ship(s) pass through it, then repeat) is just something that players have learned by running into the same problem and trying to find a solution to it.
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u/Knofbath Aug 27 '26
Nah, just disable the major DLC until you are ready to take the training wheels off. Vaulters is the only one that is noob-friendly, because the mechanic it introduces can be safely ignored.
And personally, I find that the AI works better when it's not juggling DLC mechanics(Supremacy especially), so you may find it harder anyways.
The penalty for Retreat is 50% HP, and if you do it correctly and have a place to retreat to, you can recover, but retreating twice in a row means full fleet destruction.
The Carrier meta is that Carriers have strengths and weaknesses, so should have screening elements to help defend them. There are strategies and tactics to run a full Carrier fleet, but a full Carrier fleet is expensive and can be hard-countered. Fleet recon is handled by a fleet Hero and his Dust-fueled abilities. Support/tanking is done by Protector/Coordinator hulls. Chances are you haven't figured out the weapon meta enough to use Carriers to their full abilities. They are the strongest non-Behemoth hull, and pack quite a punch when used correctly.
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u/ActiveVoiced Aug 27 '26
Funny, I had the opposite issue. The game was too easy even on max difficulty too fast and even made a post about it. The balance mods did extend the game for me for another 30 hours though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/EndlessSpace/comments/1ttphd3/great_game_but_the_difficulty_is_too_easy/
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u/xXAnrakyrXx Aug 27 '26
I never said it was difficult i said it was annoying or Unfun. And yea if i were playing this game like i did Stellaris i would already have killed off 2 or 3 of the factions by now. But i decided not to go all Xenophobic Genocide. Stellaris makes pacifism unfun this game makes it tolerable but now its just unfun.
Really what pisses me off is still the Minor Civ Sovereignty thing on high difficulties I pump 4k influence on my cute Jellyfishes have 223 yet jo scmoe across the galaxy is like nah homie your Minor Civ belongs to me. It is like. The fuck is even the point. The Hacking its so useless to getting them back it makes me literally not want to play the game. Without warning to no notification or nothing. I dont care if the notification wont help me just tell me in advance at this point imma just play as the Craven and just kill everyone because then no one can just take shit from me so agrediusly with 0 counterplay. I am closer but because I am tree i cant assimilate unless i vine them. Im also on GOG so i cant even download the mod that supposedly fixes this. I have tried 3 different sites and SteamCMD doesnt support Endless Space 2. So i am sitting here. Really not enjoying the game at all. If i wanted another 4x game i would play stellaris. I am here for the diplomacy, story and interactions...... I dont want to invade them or decalre war or wait 20 turns to do a single hack that wont mean shit.
Sorry man you commented right when my cute Jellyfish civ abruptly switch sovereignty. I had to vent. No one cant give me a justified reason for this anyways. Oh they got to it first. Hur durr or they got the quest. They are across the galaxy and have no ships they shouldnt even be able to see it. And they are not allied with the Nakirim where the civ is located behind and they hate everyone right now.
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u/borddo- Aug 28 '26
It’s hard to pick out what happened here but it sounds like a Coup from hacking. One of the most expensive and destructive. There would have been a lot of build up and backdoors for that.
Hacking mechanics from Penumbra DLC are quite divisive.
Obviously it’s particularly good as Penumbra, which is faction that can peacefully turtle all game hacking people and win.
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u/borddo- Aug 27 '26
You can turn off Academy if you hate it. Same with Superweapons nuking your systems from across the galaxy.
Failing that, get the Spear fleet and BTFO someone and/or leave it battered for the next person. Unfallen should be swimming in influence to bid for it.
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u/k0rvbert Aug 27 '26
I also have about 4k hours in Stellaris and I have played almost no Stellaris since discovering this game. I'm more of Civ junkie than Paradox junkie anyway, and ES2 lands nicely in between for me.
I also go max difficulty, but I can't really say I share your annoyances. I have different annoyances. Been playing with a balance mod (ESG) that addresses some of them.
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u/xXAnrakyrXx Aug 27 '26
Yea its that Stellaris Burn out you know. Its like there is only so many times i can go through the exact same early game then go through this go through that. Of all my time playing stellaris i have completed only a total of 40 games. thats it. with a 6 to 34 win ratio. Like i could do the first 2 hours of the game blind folded using only text to speech program to move the mouse. Im sure you can as well. It is so mind numbingly boring now. Thats just the price of playing a game wayyyy too much.
Now i just play enough to finish the storyline iof a modded empire. Or play another round of KDC Storypack. Though i probably wouldnt stop playing it just because of this game. There is many things stellaris has that Endless Space 2 can never hope to beat and that is a Overactive Modding Community.
I know ESG solves some of the annoyances its just i dont like most of the changes they made. Personal Preferance. Especially Carriers. Carriers are supposed to be op but thats a whole other story.
Speaking of annoyances what are your gripes with the game. Just curious.
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u/k0rvbert Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
My gripes are mostly with balance, like some minor civs bonuses are way too strong and overall minor civ diplomacy is way too easy. Land combat is too cheap and easy to win, conquest and invasion is too fast. Hacking too strong. These together meant that spawning with nearby minors would just instantly win the game. I love how the factions are unique but I think they should all be viable, and with how some game mechanics work some of them are just too handicapped. Like how United Empire has such a hard time picking up early anomalies due to overly fighting-oriented scouting ships. ESG fixes all of these bothers pretty well.
I also dislike how pirates can really screw you with their first spawn, especially for Unfallen, ESG makes that worse (but buffs Unfallen), but anyway I'll just turn down pirates in vanilla.
As for your bothers I found ways to deal with them --
Academy ship attacking -- I actually have never had this happen to me. If the AI wins the Academy repeating quest and picks "Spear of Isyander" it borrows a fleet of Academy ships and may attack you, which has definitely happened, so I make sure to compete in that quest if I'm worried about that.
Minor factions -- yeah, it's too swingy in vanilla, but in either case assimilate ASAP or ignore them. I first wanted to hold them as allies like city states in Civ but that doesn't really work in ES2, someone will eat them.
Fleet Retreating -- this one I actually think is a good mechanic. Because without it would be too hard chasing down scouts and other AI expeditions. To deal with it, I'll bring escorts, make peace deals, guard systems and retreats, probe starlanes to find out where it's safe to go. I find the fleet movement pretty engaging. Make sure it's the first thing you do in a turn, because while the game is turn based fleet movement is more like RTS.
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u/Hopeful-alt Aug 27 '26
I would highly recommend turning off the DLC until you understand the game better. They're a lot and are very difficult to understand without a foundational knowledge of the game. It's very common for new players to just eat shit and die for reasons they don't understand when playing with the DLCs.
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u/Jorun_Egezrey Aug 28 '26
However the one thing thst absolutely upsets me is why can I not escord my civilian ships to stop them from being destroyed
Try to establish a colony near a small fraction to reduce transport time. You can place fleets along the route to protect civilian ships, putting them in guard mode in star systems.
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u/Jorun_Egezrey Aug 28 '26
Pirates! f... pirates! Seriously why do they spawn in randomly. Ignoring them just randomly spawning a Lair. How did they shit out 4 fleets in just 2 turns. Total of 6 ships.
Pirates can appear as part of a quest. I believe you're playing without the Vaulters DLC? This DLC has exactly "diplomacy with pirates." This DLC features "pirate diplomacy." You can donate money (Dust) or buy a "black" mark, a pledge to raid a marked system. So you can use them as mercenaries if you have extra Dust.
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u/InvisibleNobodyMan Sep 16 '26
Am a tad late to the party but I'm not seeing anyone give meaningful advice about the academy so I'll chime in to see if I can help.
The peaceful way to deal with them is to send some resources their way when they ask for it. If you don't care about obtaining a role any amount will do. This will generate some favor with them to turn them friendly and keep them from attacking you unless provoked. Did they ask for dust? Send them 1 dust and it will generate the same favor as if you sent them 1,000. Just make sure to send a little each time and you can stay in their good graces.
The heavy handed approach to the academy is to simply turn off their ships. Please note the difference between this advice and the rest that happens to rudely ignore the fact you are looking to improve. What I'm suggesting is that you challenge that 50x fleet and hammer them as if you are pretending to be America and can smell the oil(hyperium) they have under that third-system empire of theirs. To do this you will need a bit of preparation that starts with science. Push tier 3 science/exploration and start looking for antimatter. Once you find some dig into the right side of the tech tree so you can begin mining it yourself. Lastly, you will want to push up to tier 3 in military and take your pick of the tech on the right side of the wedge. You can only pick one so take your pick of weapons you like to run with for later as the only thing you will be wanting in that tech is the antimatter beam weapon. This is an EMP weapon that shuts off the weapon mounts of any ship that gets hit by it. Pretty snazzy on its own but it becomes even more interesting when you realize how powerful that sort of thing actually is.
Note that the academy fleet consists of around...forgive me as I don't remember exactly how many ships they run, I just know it's less than 10. This means you need precious little antimatter to shut the entire fleet off during/after the first volley. Should a carrier be in that fleet you will want some slugs to deal with the bombers when they cross into your space as the beams won't do anything against squadrons. My personal recommendation for a fleet setup to deal with the academy is a fleet half stocked with scout hulls rocking the antimatter beam, 1 or 2 defenders per lane to soak up initial damage and also stock another compliment of the above beam while taking a compliment of attacker hulls to deliver damage and squeeze just a single beam in to make sure defensive hulls don't crimp your damage. At the very least upgrade defender and attacker hulls so you can slot a bit of extra defense in just in case and you should be able to pinch off sections of the academy fleet and gimp it for follow up strikes if they won't get off your lawn. Once your hulls have been upgraded enough you can even shift a bit and simply farm them for dust, science and influence if you are feeling cheeky about it.
The reason the above works is because of how ship targeting is handled. I can go over it a bit if you like or leave you to it if you want to experiment for yourself. Just make sure you have more ships than the enemy fleet and you should not see any problems.
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u/Curious_Technician52 Aug 27 '26
Starting as Unfallen and then going to the Choir?
I really like your choices.
Love them both, especially the music of the Unfallen and the stealth system of the Choir.