My Endless Legend AAR (starts here) ended with a wonder victory as I constructed a huge temple after completing my faction quests. In the end I had no serious competitors, despite a few uncertain moments earlier on. I was classed as weak by the score charts, but felt fairly safe. Did I enjoy the game? Yes, though I wasn't fully enthused in the earlier stages, and I'm glad it didn't take much longer to earn my victory, to be honest. But that's a harsh summary, and there's far more contributing to those feelings than just the game itself. More below the line.
First, the overall score. The Necrophages (Dark Green) were very much in the lead, followed by the Wild Walkers (Orange), who in turn had a substantial lead on the Broken Lords (Blue). From here the differences are much smaller, with me (Purple), the Vaulters (Light Green) and the Roving Clans (Red).
Then we turn to the Military graph. You can see a little after the turn 151 marker where both I and the Necrophages suffer losses; that's when I'm fighting my way to Saradh and cleansing the area for my quest. I'm in the third place militarily, but not with much of a lead on those behind me for the most part, and not close to the top two. I don't know how much heroes are factored in here, but given the importance positioning and choosing your battlefields can be in Endless Legend, there's a substantial force multiplier from me being human and taking advantage of things that are tough for the AI to understand and exploit.
When I defeated the Necrophage armies, I had my entire army concentrated against what were mostly garrisons, and I suppose some kind of reserves? I didn't see a Necrophage hero until it was all over, and in the initial battles against the defenders of Saradh they came out from their defences needlessly and tried to fight me across a single hex chokepoint that negated their numerical advantage. If they had just waited inside the city and brought over a few more armies, I very much doubt I could have taken it. I don't expect AI in strategy games to be able to brilliantly handle these kinds of situations, and there's an undeniable thrill in defeating a superior force thanks to decent tactical play and poor AI decisions (the Total War series is also good for this). Still, it does mean that this military chart is not quite accurate because it doesn't take into account the advantage I have from being human.
When I defeated the Necrophage armies, I had my entire army concentrated against what were mostly garrisons, and I suppose some kind of reserves? I didn't see a Necrophage hero until it was all over, and in the initial battles against the defenders of Saradh they came out from their defences needlessly and tried to fight me across a single hex chokepoint that negated their numerical advantage. If they had just waited inside the city and brought over a few more armies, I very much doubt I could have taken it. I don't expect AI in strategy games to be able to brilliantly handle these kinds of situations, and there's an undeniable thrill in defeating a superior force thanks to decent tactical play and poor AI decisions (the Total War series is also good for this). Still, it does mean that this military chart is not quite accurate because it doesn't take into account the advantage I have from being human.
The next two graphs are Expansion and Population graphs. Obviously I was limited here by only having one city, hence the poor ranking. You see the Necrophages are miles ahead, but interestingly the Broken Lords have a lead on the Wild Walkers until near the end. I thought the Broken Lords had difficulty growing their population, but it seems not to have been the case here. Not really a lot more to say - having territory and population is nice, but how you develop your cities matters more to resource production than sheer numbers - pointless cities in wasteland areas might boost your Expansion rating, but won't necessarily help anything else that much.
In the Research graph I'm basically tied for fourth place with the Vaulters throughout the game. Not bad, but not exceptional. We see another large Necrophage lead, then the Wild Walkers and the Broken Lords behind, but there's not that much difference between the factions, except for the Necrophages being in the lead and the Roving Clans well behind. I don't know what they were researching, but I never particularly noticed myself being outclassed in any notable area. I suppose a more serious player would regularly check the diplomacy screen to see what the other factions have researched, but I didn't really care that much. The Science graph basically reflects the same thing.
The Food graph is a bit chaotic, but the regular dips do serve to demonstrate the increasingly common and increasingly long winters. I really like the two seasons in Endless Legend - they're very distinct and really impact the gameplay without becoming overcomplicated or irritating, and do an excellent job of reflecting a world gradually moving towards some kind of apocalypse. You can improve your prediction of the length and timing of winters with the right buildings, though I didn't really concern myself with that in this game. The effects of winter on armies can be negated if you have a high level hero with the right skills to lead them, so it doesn't have to slow your fighting, but it generally will. Anyway, going back to the graph you can see I performed very well on food production - I generally left most of my population in Citadel working on producing extra food, and if I hadn't perhaps my population would have been even lower compared to everyone else as the increasing costs for each unit of population in a single city keeps growing.
I'm a little surprised at the Industry graph, I kind of expected to do better here. Then again I suppose all my production was concentrated in one city, compared to the Vaulters and Roving Clans who had many. You can see my late game total focus on production throw me into the lead for a bit, but when the Necrophages and Wild Walkers put a bit of effort in they seem to overtake me without too much trouble. Of course, one of the advantages of the Cultists is that they don't need to spend production on military units to have a decent force if they rely on units from their converted villages. I didn't find out how well these village convert units would fare later in the game against fully upgraded regular military units, but the few I had in the armies fighting in Saradh performed well.
Later in the game when most of my villages were full, I could have raised probably something like 20-30 units in a single turn if I'd wanted to. It would have tanked my economy, and some of them would be weak support units that couldn't form a fighting force on their own, but it's a real strength that I don't think I fully exploited in this game. I was also lucky that generally I got friendly with most people so that no-one was raiding and destroying my villages, otherwise I would have needed to station armies in the areas far from Citadel to protect the most distant villages.
Later in the game when most of my villages were full, I could have raised probably something like 20-30 units in a single turn if I'd wanted to. It would have tanked my economy, and some of them would be weak support units that couldn't form a fighting force on their own, but it's a real strength that I don't think I fully exploited in this game. I was also lucky that generally I got friendly with most people so that no-one was raiding and destroying my villages, otherwise I would have needed to station armies in the areas far from Citadel to protect the most distant villages.
For the Dust graph I also do okay. The Broken Lords are in the lead, and I think they need Dust to grow their population, which probably explains that. You can see the winter dips again here, and they get very expensive for me and the Necrophages later in the game, though I also had a full treasury with around 5000 or so in reserve, and I was selling excess converts for around 300-500 Dust, so even with -150 or so per turn I was probably still earning overall. If I'd really needed more money I could have switched citizens in Citadel from farming to Dust production without too much trouble.
I should have done well on the Influence graph, since it was vital for converting villages, but it looks like I didn't put as much effort into that as I should have. The Necrophages are hugely in the lead again, which I find bizarre since I don't really see what they'd be using it for. Expensive Empire Plans with lots of bonuses I suppose - I don't see them making too many complex trade deals.
For Approval it took me a while to get up to 100%, but I pretty much maintained it once I got there. I think this was mostly down to luxury resource boosters, and of course I had no problems with the large empire penalty, having only one city. This approval boosted my production of other resources, but I assume that's factored into those other graphs, and everyone else wasn't too far behind later on, so I wouldn't call it a big advantage for me.
I'm not quite sure what the Diplomacy graph is actually measuring, but it makes sense I was in the lead here based on the deals I made. The alliance for resources/cash/tech deals were especially good - I still don't know why they were so eager to ally with me. If they hadn't, a lot of things might have been tougher. In particular, allying with the Broken Lords so they stopped raiding my converted villages was important. Having to raise a third army to defend those areas would have made my trip to Saradh more expensive.
Finally we have the Quest graph. This must only cover the faction quests since it goes up to eight, and it answers the question I had in the last entry about what triggers the victory quest - it is indeed finishing your faction quest. This means that the Wild Walkers could have tried for a wonder victory like I pulled off, but they didn't go for it.
You can see I got delayed at my third quest while I figured out just how I was going to conquer Saradh, but then rocketed through the remaining steps with ease, having already completed most of the requirements beforehand. I was quite surprised at the quest focus on Saradh, since it was so far away - the other ruins and such that I had to search were generally near Citadel, so it seems like a huge jump in difficulty compared to other things I had to do. Still, it made the game far more interesting, and without being given the challenge of fighting my way there it would have been a much less fun game.
I was going to include more words here about how I actually felt while playing the game - what parts were fun, when was it dragging a bit, and so on - but just talking a bit about each of the graphs has already ended up being a pretty large post, so I'll split that stuff out into a separate entry.
I was going to include more words here about how I actually felt while playing the game - what parts were fun, when was it dragging a bit, and so on - but just talking a bit about each of the graphs has already ended up being a pretty large post, so I'll split that stuff out into a separate entry.