LogFAQs > #947239752

I'm behind where I want to be, so I'm gonna do a little accelerated catching up today.

46. Endless Legend
Genre 4X

Gameplay: 4
Rest of Game: 4
Engagement: 4
New to Me: 4
Playtime: 5

Total score: 21/40

Endless Legend is what Civilization isnt. And often, thats a wonderful thing. You dont have to micromanage a billion units. City development is strangely organic. Every race in the game plays completely differently, in an even more extreme fashion than Alpha Centauri. There are about eight different ways to win the game. It brings a lot of interesting ideas to the genre, and eschews a ton of pitfalls and annoyances I deal with in Civ. The citizens in the game are used to bolster whichever resource youre lacking, but it isnt strictly necessary to focus on food, and you can actually have an outpost of a city that doesnt even produce any. (Or be playing a race that literally doesnt use food.)

But it also has some pitfalls. Animations are slower, artificially stretching the length of turns. Crossing the map is often more difficult due to the terrain. Combat is a gigantic black hole where either you have to learn all kinds of stupid stats and mechanics, or -- far more likely -- you just hit the auto button and let the game play for you. But then you never really know what makes a unit good or bad. Resources are often extremely limiting. The tech tree is just five tiers, and once you research enough from one tier, it unlocks the next, which is both good and bad. The game mostly shuts down on periodic cycles as winter strikes the planet. Naval travel sucks.

Amplitude Studios has, over the course of about four years, released a slew of DLC to add even more wrinkles to the game. The primary benefit of most of these is to add yet another playable faction each, which is fantastic. The other game mechanics are debatable, depending on how complex you like your games. But the fact that the developers lovingly supported the game for so long says a lot.

Overall, I like Endless Legend better, but I play Civilization more because the engine simply runs faster and I have a better sense of whats actually happening.

Should you play it?: If you like Civ, but are looking for an alternative, Endless Legend is a far more manageable product than anything Paradox will ever make.

Next: A platformer with so-so meovment

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