Welcome to Endless Space 2

#endlessspace2 #amplitudestudios

We’ve been talking about it for a loooooong time on the channel, but the hour has finally arrived- the “final” patch for Endless Space 2. For those of you who enjoy Age of Wonders 4, you are in for a real treat. What is Endless Space 2?

Endless Space 2 is a sci-fi 4X by Amplitude studios, but it shares more than simply the genre with Age of Wonders 4. ES2 and AoW4 are both, in a certain sense, also wargames- a lot of your thinking goes into what your military can accomplish, as enormous portions of your economies can be made from conquering the (stars/realms). Endless Space 2 also boasts an insanely good soundtrack and art direction (pretty obvious strengths of Age of Wonders 4), and most importantly, I want to bully some of my irl friends into a Multiplayer game of Endless Space 2 where we get to play as evil robots and act as the crisis from day 1 (I wrote a little short story for it and everything!).

We’ll be playing with Horatio this time, per the results of our poll. Horatio is probably one of the weaker factions in the game, but not one without some really interesting tools. Asymmetry is the name of the game when it comes to Endless Space 2, with factions behaving in meaningfully different ways, and Horatio’s quest for perfection (via splicing in the genes of the entire galaxy) is certainly a unique one. Can we avoid spawning next to Cravers and dying brutally on Turn 25? Can we do the unthinkable and attempt to *conquer* a fellow empire as Horatio in the early game? Probably not, but hey, maybe we hit Jadonyx.

This is just me struggling with OBS for the first few minutes, skip this unless you just love the sound of my voice: (0:00)
What is Endless Space 2?: (0:58)
Horatio, resplendent: (8:45)
Turn 1 (or, how to play this game): (13:00)
Turn 2, and Minor Civilizations: (33:13)
Faction Quests: (38:51)
Academy Considerations: (42:52)
The Galactic Commodities Exchange (is the most important early game technology for everyone): (48:05)
A Governor, and a brief look at system development: (51:21)
Xenobiology is also an insanely important early game tech, you know: (55:01)
Help! A pirate has appeared!: (1:00:53)
Politics, a primer: (1:05:46)
Ship Design Basics: (1:09:13)
Genesplicing: (1:16:52)
Incorporating a Minor Civilization: (1:19:18)
How to steal a colony: (1:25:08)
Let’s get a navy researched ffs: (1:30:43)
Laws, an introduction: (1:39:51)
Cravers, a primer: (1:48:58)
Well, you *still* haven’t really found any luxury goods: (1:53:38)
“Unsurprisingly, when you take carbon-based life forms and ask them to live on a lava planet, they get pretty angry”: (1:57:26)
The Sophons don’t like it when you steal their colony, turns out: (1:58:53)
A Unique Planet: (2:04:53)
Let’s design a real Tool: (2:09:32)
Mid-tier Strategic Resources: (2:18:17)
“Are we going to try to take the fight to the Sophonity?”: (2:26:01)
Ground Army Considerations: (2:39:34)
Crucial Infrastructure – Predictive Logistics: (2:46:56)
Don’t neglect sending probes into space: (2:53:58)
What to do with a Sector that is full on pops: (2:58:20)
How to colonize a high quality system: (3:06:17)
Let’s solve some quests: (3:12:15)
Deploying a Behemoth: (3:22:06)
Sometimes, it’s okay to throw in the towel on a colonial race once you’ve denied the land for long enough; or, How to be an Intergalactic Jerkwad: (3:28:44)
Let’s Design some Medium Ships: (3:37:47)
Battles 101: (3:45:31)
Impactless Sites and Fleet Heroes: (3:51:21)
BEHEMOTH BATTLE: (4:00:20)
Always keep some influence on hand when you are winning a longer war so you don’t show up on reddit complaining about a core mechanic where the AI can peace you out: (4:09:21)
The Sophon Homeworld: (4:19:17)

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