ES2 is one of my all-time favourite games. Not just because I love turn-based 4X games (which I do), but also becuase of the really fun mix of incredibly varied factions, deep gameplay mechanics, interesting battle strategies, and now with this update, an improved interaction with the Academy. This update is likely to breathe new life into the game for a fair number of people who felt that the Awakening DLC prevoously hurt the game more than it added.
1:01:20 - If you want to be able to move between systems without a warp line, you need the "Baryonic Shielding" tech. When playing as the Auriga, it's called "Aurigan Shielding".
The Vaulters have such a massive throughline story. I haven't read too much on it, but as far as I can tell, timeline wise starting off in Endless Dungeon, making their escape in Endless Legend, Reaching the stars in Endless Space 1. They've ascended the "generic human faction" through a continued plot.
Dungeon of the Endless, not Endless Dungeon. They were prisoners aboard the seedship Argosy (yes the same one) that left the planet Mezan. OpBot was actually a malfunctioning and murderous surgical robot on the ship and was a playable character in DotE. Endless Dungeon is some other part of the Endless Universe, either parallel with Endless Space (either) or sometime just before it.
It indeed is a complicated game to get into, but it is fun, interesting, has great music, a very good interface and quite a few mods that keep it as one of my favorite games
You can't make any decisions once combat starts, but you can make a lot of decisions before combat starts. The different weapons are more effective at certain ranges, and the tactics card you pick determines the range at which your ships will endeavor to stay at the longest. Some tactics are better for armor, and some for shields. Once you get enough ships to utilize multiple lanes, the combat can actually get pretty deep. Watching the battles is good for observing how effective your setup is. For example, if one of your two torpedoes are getting shot down, then your DPS is actually half of what the stats are telling you.
1:02:27 - So when a battle starts, like at this timestamp, you can see the default tactic card "Turtle". Every card shows three lanes. When you only use one lane, you always use the middle one. The Turtle card tells the middle and top lanes to rush into short range, while telling the bottom lane to rush into medium range and hang out there for a while. It also gives a bonus to hull plating absorption, which helps against enemy kinetic weapons. Especially autocannons. If you hover your cursor over the enemy ship, you can get an idea of what weapons and defense they're using, then choose your tactic based on what you're using and what they're using. You can also click on the Advanced button and have it show you which of the tactics you have available will be the most effective. It's best to equip your ships to match the tactics you want to use. For example, you could use autocannon ships in the middle and top lanes, and pulse laser weapons in the bottom lane, since they prefer medium range. Beam weapons work equally well at any range, but have less DPS than other weapon types. I often use them on my hero ship.
huh. funny that Wander plays Vaulters.... while my first game in Re-Awakening was with the Umbral CHoir.... I was reminded of how hard they are to play so I restarted with the Vaulters
They are super fun, but kinda hard to nail down if you dont jive with their style imo. Imo they are probably the strongest faction in the game if you can get around their weirdness. My fav faction personally
Maybe the Endless Space series is not the most complex and diverse in mechanics, maybe there are much more interesting 4x strategies from a purely gameplay point of view, but the feeling of throwing into an unknown dark abyss, which drives us as a biological species into Cosmos, could not be conveyed by any other game except this one.
ES2 gets pretty divergent in its mechanics, especially when it comes to some fundamental things, like colonizing. It's definitely a lot more diverse than Stellaris and, while I'm less familiar with it, I feel like it's also more diverse than Civ 6.
I have to get back into the Endless games. They are absolute masterpieces. Endless Legend is out for free for a bit and the rise in videos on it is pulling me back in. both all-time favorites. Vaulters are a favorite (id say Riftborn, Ubral Choir, Vaulter, Sophon....top 4 in order), but the Umbral Choir (design, play mechanic, the fact that they are NOT evil mystery darkbois!) is beyond brilliant!! Sophons were my first...just their firsts....first to reach space, first to harness antimatter, first to blow up their own moon 🤣🤣 ES2 is the first endless game to have a DLC that I actually disabled (The Hissho one...those supermassive generic ships are so lame after the wonder of them wares off), but otherwise, the whole endless series is so wonderful.
MORE ENDLESS SPACE 2 LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOO You should try the Nakalim, as they got a rework in this patch, plus the academy rework goes well with it too! Though if you are not used to it, I would definitely skip the Penumbra DLC and the Umbral Choir faction as an enemy, since they use cloaking which can be very hard to deal with without knowing about it.
Counterpoint: Playing as the Umbral Choir is really interesting and fun. That's actually one of the things I really like about ES2, especially compared to Stalaris. The different factions aren't defined by slightly different numerical bonuses; some of them have completely different mechanics, so the way you approach the game each play-through is totally different. You're not just taking different routes to the same doom stacks.
Umbral Choir is my fav faction and its not even close. I have yet to find a 4x faction or playstyle that fit me as well as the Choir. Being able to just slip undetected surveying the whole galaxy without a soul even knowing you exist, all the while you spin up to an industrial powerhouse capable of spawning entire fleets in a single turn on any sanctuary you own. They are quite particular but super fun
@@vfrostbane225 You can explore undetected as other factions, you just have to follow a specific tech progression to make it happen. Your empire itself though, that's exclusive to the choir.
Thanks for showing me this game, i had totaly forgot about this one. I love this kind of games, sandbox 4x games and in space =) Now i will buy this shit as well and pile it with the rest of all games that i dont have time to play xD
I actually liked playing Choir and just stealthing around the galaxy and scanning planets for curiosities. Shame the enemy eventually gets in the way of that. I need to find me a good exploration/scanning type game.
Exploration and scanning without enemies? You should look for Slipways; that one is essentially a 4X without the "eXtermination" element, more of a number-go-up puzzle game where you join trade routes using limited resources that can't often cross over each other in a Z-direction.
Maybe I play UE the wrong way, but it seems for me that there are a bunch of other factions with higher potential to have astronomical industry levels. The obvious one being the Riftborn, but with Horatio you can basically create the most OP race possible, if you splice genes of as many population types as possible. There are also the Umbral Choir and Hissho, which are designed to be played tall, thus having astronomical in every way FIDSI on their Home system.
@@Rawkit_Surgeon Well, yes, UE is one of the "Early to Mid game champions", especially I terms of industry. However, I'd argue, that it looses it's appeal in the Late game, when it reaches the top of its productivity, whereas some other factions have room for farther growth, and eventually are able to overtake UE in industry.
@@Nazar_Melnyk I guess, I just love the theme of UE as a faction. I love that mid game spike because that's where I start snowballing. Potential means nothing if you can't get there. At least that's the way I saw it.
Great game, happy Amplitude fixed last expansions. Additionally, I hope diplomacy will be reworked (in terms of agreements upkeep, otherwise it too costly for what you get) and also some kind of endgame crises will be added
Watching new players struggle with Hacking is painful. My normal advice is to disable Supremacy/Penumbra/Awakening when just learning the game. The focus of this patch was Awakening though, so taking a new look at it and disabling Awakening would be counter-productive. But a base game with just Awakening added on would be viable.
What do you mean declaring war on you, stomping you into the dirt, extorting you for all your money for peace, only to do it all again in a few turns, is not intentional game design?
Also looking at the Beta notes Academy is fixed, nothing about behemoths. Promising though, it’s been a minute since I last played and I thought they were done working on the game.
@@malcador Their 'Stress" or Aggression levels were basically maxed out at the start of the game and its AI designed to hate. From what the notes said quote. "The Academy will no longer siege your systems while you have neutral relations with them, and their fleets should now be smaller and less aggressive in the early game, as we fixed a bug with the scaling of academy "stress" across the game."
I was playing ES2 for the first time. Didn't really understand what I was doing. Wasn't really hooked by the gameplay. After loke an hour I was like, "yeah the game isn't for me. Maybe I will come back to it later." And as I hit quit and my screen went black for a split second, I saw my reflection and realised I was crying. The music made me cry and I didn't even realise.
That's the power of the Aurigan Wail for you. I unironically drive around every day to the Endless Series' soundtracks as well as Humankind, rather than any other tracks
DUDE! I was so upset at this game. :( The way you did ship battle from endless space 1, was so freaking unique and awesome, seriously loved it. I don't feel the same about endless space 2. I can't decide if it's warranted, or if I just have a biased from the first game - I wanted to love this game so bad.
There's a (somewhat) clear turquoise switch marked "Watch" that you can turn off and immediately autoresolve since it's an autobattler. But yeah, the diplomacy encourages hugboxes through their easy, low-stakes allying mechanics as long as each new member of the alliance loves you relationally
@@TwilightRage2099 "a Endless Space twist"? It is Endless Space, much more than a twist. It's also turned based, not real time. It's also not story driven unlike Stellaris. They're both 4X strategy games in space but that's about it really.
- hasn't actually played the released game a whole lot according to himself - calls it one of the best 4x strategy games Everything wrong with TH-cam in 2024.
One of the best space 4x ??? watched for an hour and no combat whatsoever. Just a bunch of discovery and politics. Not for me. X4: Foundations is the best space 4x out there.
It was very okay, but I just don't care about historical strategy. If it had been an alternate earth that told the story of the OG vaulters I would have loved it. But alas.
I'm just here to signal boost the game, not to be an expert in it. Even if I read the patch notes, I haven't played this game so long that it would mean nothing to me.
I hate to be the bad apple but i can't believe i just waisted all of that time watching you go from place to place looking down onto everything and i actually feel asleep many times waiting to see if there was going to be battles between ships and there was none i am sorry but i see now why this game is only $0.74 wow. I love action games flying ships and shooting at ships and this games has none of that and if it does you are looking way down on a battle that you cannot see but to each their own.
ES2 is one of my all-time favourite games. Not just because I love turn-based 4X games (which I do), but also becuase of the really fun mix of incredibly varied factions, deep gameplay mechanics, interesting battle strategies, and now with this update, an improved interaction with the Academy. This update is likely to breathe new life into the game for a fair number of people who felt that the Awakening DLC prevoously hurt the game more than it added.
it's the shame that not many 4x youtubers are playing it. it deserves more exposition
@@Gokudo01 It deserves more battle interaction pvp but as is no fun i feel asleep watching it.
auriga the planet mentioned that the vaulters come from is the endless legend planet so this happens after that game
1:01:20 - If you want to be able to move between systems without a warp line, you need the "Baryonic Shielding" tech. When playing as the Auriga, it's called "Aurigan Shielding".
The Vaulters have such a massive throughline story. I haven't read too much on it, but as far as I can tell, timeline wise starting off in Endless Dungeon, making their escape in Endless Legend, Reaching the stars in Endless Space 1. They've ascended the "generic human faction" through a continued plot.
Dungeon of the Endless, not Endless Dungeon. They were prisoners aboard the seedship Argosy (yes the same one) that left the planet Mezan. OpBot was actually a malfunctioning and murderous surgical robot on the ship and was a playable character in DotE.
Endless Dungeon is some other part of the Endless Universe, either parallel with Endless Space (either) or sometime just before it.
Looove this game - Vaulters are my favorite faction. I will give this a go again after this update for sure...
Man, I love to watch your videos while playing some game and chilling out. Great work! Got yourself a fan here in Brazil.
It indeed is a complicated game to get into, but it is fun, interesting, has great music, a very good interface and quite a few mods that keep it as one of my favorite games
You can't make any decisions once combat starts, but you can make a lot of decisions before combat starts. The different weapons are more effective at certain ranges, and the tactics card you pick determines the range at which your ships will endeavor to stay at the longest. Some tactics are better for armor, and some for shields. Once you get enough ships to utilize multiple lanes, the combat can actually get pretty deep. Watching the battles is good for observing how effective your setup is. For example, if one of your two torpedoes are getting shot down, then your DPS is actually half of what the stats are telling you.
1:02:27 - So when a battle starts, like at this timestamp, you can see the default tactic card "Turtle". Every card shows three lanes. When you only use one lane, you always use the middle one. The Turtle card tells the middle and top lanes to rush into short range, while telling the bottom lane to rush into medium range and hang out there for a while. It also gives a bonus to hull plating absorption, which helps against enemy kinetic weapons. Especially autocannons. If you hover your cursor over the enemy ship, you can get an idea of what weapons and defense they're using, then choose your tactic based on what you're using and what they're using. You can also click on the Advanced button and have it show you which of the tactics you have available will be the most effective. It's best to equip your ships to match the tactics you want to use. For example, you could use autocannon ships in the middle and top lanes, and pulse laser weapons in the bottom lane, since they prefer medium range. Beam weapons work equally well at any range, but have less DPS than other weapon types. I often use them on my hero ship.
huh. funny that Wander plays Vaulters.... while my first game in Re-Awakening was with the Umbral CHoir.... I was reminded of how hard they are to play so I restarted with the Vaulters
I almost played as them, and then decided it was a terrible idea.
@@wanderbots its an interesting playstyle, but yeah, without the tutorial or knowing what you actually have to do, the Choir REALLY is a bad idea
They are super fun, but kinda hard to nail down if you dont jive with their style imo. Imo they are probably the strongest faction in the game if you can get around their weirdness. My fav faction personally
I started my first game as them and yeah I've no idea what I'm doing. It's neat tho.
Maybe the Endless Space series is not the most complex and diverse in mechanics, maybe there are much more interesting 4x strategies from a purely gameplay point of view, but the feeling of throwing into an unknown dark abyss, which drives us as a biological species into Cosmos, could not be conveyed by any other game except this one.
Alpha Centauri would like to have a word with you in its office.
ES2 gets pretty divergent in its mechanics, especially when it comes to some fundamental things, like colonizing. It's definitely a lot more diverse than Stellaris and, while I'm less familiar with it, I feel like it's also more diverse than Civ 6.
It's one of the more b diverse that I'm aware of
@@ChaoticNeutralMatt I still compare it with games like Sword in the stars and Aurora 4x
I have to get back into the Endless games. They are absolute masterpieces. Endless Legend is out for free for a bit and the rise in videos on it is pulling me back in.
both all-time favorites.
Vaulters are a favorite (id say Riftborn, Ubral Choir, Vaulter, Sophon....top 4 in order), but the Umbral Choir (design, play mechanic, the fact that they are NOT evil mystery darkbois!) is beyond brilliant!! Sophons were my first...just their firsts....first to reach space, first to harness antimatter, first to blow up their own moon 🤣🤣
ES2 is the first endless game to have a DLC that I actually disabled (The Hissho one...those supermassive generic ships are so lame after the wonder of them wares off), but otherwise, the whole endless series is so wonderful.
MORE ENDLESS SPACE 2 LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOO
You should try the Nakalim, as they got a rework in this patch, plus the academy rework goes well with it too!
Though if you are not used to it, I would definitely skip the Penumbra DLC and the Umbral Choir faction as an enemy, since they use cloaking which can be very hard to deal with without knowing about it.
Counterpoint: Playing as the Umbral Choir is really interesting and fun. That's actually one of the things I really like about ES2, especially compared to Stalaris. The different factions aren't defined by slightly different numerical bonuses; some of them have completely different mechanics, so the way you approach the game each play-through is totally different. You're not just taking different routes to the same doom stacks.
Umbral Choir is my fav faction and its not even close. I have yet to find a 4x faction or playstyle that fit me as well as the Choir. Being able to just slip undetected surveying the whole galaxy without a soul even knowing you exist, all the while you spin up to an industrial powerhouse capable of spawning entire fleets in a single turn on any sanctuary you own. They are quite particular but super fun
@@vfrostbane225 You can explore undetected as other factions, you just have to follow a specific tech progression to make it happen. Your empire itself though, that's exclusive to the choir.
Thanks for showing me this game, i had totaly forgot about this one. I love this kind of games, sandbox 4x games and in space =)
Now i will buy this shit as well and pile it with the rest of all games that i dont have time to play xD
I actually liked playing Choir and just stealthing around the galaxy and scanning planets for curiosities. Shame the enemy eventually gets in the way of that. I need to find me a good exploration/scanning type game.
Exploration and scanning without enemies? You should look for Slipways; that one is essentially a 4X without the "eXtermination" element, more of a number-go-up puzzle game where you join trade routes using limited resources that can't often cross over each other in a Z-direction.
So good to see there is still content and interest in this game and community.
woooo endless space! love the game!
I just love playing as the UE because "INDUSTRY GO BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
Maybe I play UE the wrong way, but it seems for me that there are a bunch of other factions with higher potential to have astronomical industry levels. The obvious one being the Riftborn, but with Horatio you can basically create the most OP race possible, if you splice genes of as many population types as possible. There are also the Umbral Choir and Hissho, which are designed to be played tall, thus having astronomical in every way FIDSI on their Home system.
@Nazar_Melnyk I spend most of my Influence to jumpstart my industry or steal wonders fast. With UE, you don't build ships, you build fleets per turn.
@@Rawkit_Surgeon Well, yes, UE is one of the "Early to Mid game champions", especially I terms of industry. However, I'd argue, that it looses it's appeal in the Late game, when it reaches the top of its productivity, whereas some other factions have room for farther growth, and eventually are able to overtake UE in industry.
@@Nazar_Melnyk I guess, I just love the theme of UE as a faction. I love that mid game spike because that's where I start snowballing. Potential means nothing if you can't get there. At least that's the way I saw it.
what the hell i didn't know this game was still active
Still love this game made fanfic on the bird race before space travel
I have clocked a thousand hours on this game since it came out to this day! 😁
I really love that they reworked the last dlc there are still some things i dont like but its alot better than before
Enjoy, es2 is a fantastic experience following faction stories for the first time.
Great to see the game getting an update.
I just stated playing this a week ago. I still don’t what I’m doing, but I’m really enjoying this game.
Was just looking at this in my library last night. Miss this absolute gem
How can you miss something you have?
Good god this game came out in 2017...
This seems something a little different. And I like it! 🙂Would love to see you dive deeper into the Saga.
Great game, happy Amplitude fixed last expansions.
Additionally, I hope diplomacy will be reworked (in terms of agreements upkeep, otherwise it too costly for what you get) and also some kind of endgame crises will be added
Love ES2, love to see a series from you with reading all the quests aloud:) but it will be lengthy so I understand it might not happen
Been meaning to replay this for about a year. Seems like a grea ttime to do it. Because only Horatio can make the galaxy great again.
All their games are special .
There is nothing more satisfying that steal some resources to pirates 🙂
Looks like its time for the Horatio to rise again!
I asked you to play more endless dungeon in your recent community post but this counts too lol
Unbelievably fun game. Theres too much replayability
The Wonder score includes quests.
Btw, game runs on steam deck.
Wait, they escaped on the "Argussy"??? I'm sure she's a fine vessel.
Watching new players struggle with Hacking is painful. My normal advice is to disable Supremacy/Penumbra/Awakening when just learning the game. The focus of this patch was Awakening though, so taking a new look at it and disabling Awakening would be counter-productive. But a base game with just Awakening added on would be viable.
Unfortunately you just have to disable the Penumbra DLC to disable hacking because hacking is boring and tedious. Otherwise, this game rules.
I always wanted to get this game but idk if id like it or not. God it looks beautiful tho.
did they fix the academy and behemoths?
What do you mean declaring war on you, stomping you into the dirt, extorting you for all your money for peace, only to do it all again in a few turns, is not intentional game design?
Also looking at the Beta notes Academy is fixed, nothing about behemoths. Promising though, it’s been a minute since I last played and I thought they were done working on the game.
@@matthewmiguel2319 fixed how? At this point I disabled that DLC altogether because I don't like anything about The Academy being in the game
The academy rework is the main meat of this update, with significant changes to the Nakalim as well.
Not sure about Behemoths.
@@malcador Their 'Stress" or Aggression levels were basically maxed out at the start of the game and its AI designed to hate. From what the notes said quote.
"The Academy will no longer siege your systems while you have neutral relations with them, and their fleets should now be smaller and less aggressive in the early game, as we fixed a bug with the scaling of academy "stress" across the game."
I see they never rectified the mistake of the academy stealing worlds it doesn't need or actually use.
Oof. Gonna keep that DLC disabled then.
I was playing ES2 for the first time. Didn't really understand what I was doing. Wasn't really hooked by the gameplay. After loke an hour I was like, "yeah the game isn't for me. Maybe I will come back to it later." And as I hit quit and my screen went black for a split second, I saw my reflection and realised I was crying.
The music made me cry and I didn't even realise.
That's the power of the Aurigan Wail for you. I unironically drive around every day to the Endless Series' soundtracks as well as Humankind, rather than any other tracks
Is there a static servers with permanent space to play like MMO?
DUDE! I was so upset at this game. :( The way you did ship battle from endless space 1, was so freaking unique and awesome, seriously loved it. I don't feel the same about endless space 2. I can't decide if it's warranted, or if I just have a biased from the first game - I wanted to love this game so bad.
what were battles liike in 1?
Soooooooo..... space church soul vampires still rule because "fck you my colony ship colonizes you"
I thought this game died out
Took me days to learn how to play crusader kings 3, and these shit looks more complicated than that lmao I don't even want to try 😂
I just bought both those games and frostpunk during steams sale. crusader kings seems like it will be fun. Except for the typhoid
The game definitely is promoting peaceful solution, because no battle in this game is engaging or unskippable.
Wdym? The battles are pretty cool and skippable?
There's a (somewhat) clear turquoise switch marked "Watch" that you can turn off and immediately autoresolve since it's an autobattler. But yeah, the diplomacy encourages hugboxes through their easy, low-stakes allying mechanics as long as each new member of the alliance loves you relationally
Is this a update for Stelaris or a standalone game?
You know there's more than one game set in space, right?
@@Derzull2468Yes, but this looks like a exact one to one copy of Stelaris just with a Endless Space twist.
@@TwilightRage2099 "a Endless Space twist"? It is Endless Space, much more than a twist. It's also turned based, not real time. It's also not story driven unlike Stellaris. They're both 4X strategy games in space but that's about it really.
@@TwilightRage2099Endless Space 2 is nothing like Stellaris
After like 8 attempts, I still don't really know how to play this game lol. I always seem to just die.
I like watching endless space 1&2 content but man when I try to play them myself it’s just so boring idk why
- hasn't actually played the released game a whole lot according to himself
- calls it one of the best 4x strategy games
Everything wrong with TH-cam in 2024.
One of the best space 4x ??? watched for an hour and no combat whatsoever. Just a bunch of discovery and politics. Not for me. X4: Foundations is the best space 4x out there.
Notice you didn’t say humankind. God that game was crap.
It was very okay, but I just don't care about historical strategy. If it had been an alternate earth that told the story of the OG vaulters I would have loved it. But alas.
Why mention the update in the title if you know nothing about the changes? Scummy move imo
I'm just here to signal boost the game, not to be an expert in it.
Even if I read the patch notes, I haven't played this game so long that it would mean nothing to me.
Eh stelllaris is still 100x better after watching this. I thought I'd like this game, but looks like it's extremely limited
I hate to be the bad apple but i can't believe i just waisted all of that time watching you go from place to place looking down onto everything and i actually feel asleep many times waiting to see if there was going to be battles between ships and there was none i am sorry but i see now why this game is only $0.74 wow. I love action games flying ships and shooting at ships and this games has none of that and if it does you are looking way down on a battle that you cannot see but to each their own.
Ah yes.. 4x. The genre with copy paste titles and zero innovation.