Like, It's turn 200+ and I have 20+ fleets of different sizes and purposes at my disposal flying somewhere and then there's some lone stealthy planet crushers mixed in that pack of idle fleets number across the system and I need to check their shot cooldowns as they shoot at different times and there are many of them and I can't remember them all

So, doing many clicks and mouse movements each round in order to check all of this is pretty mentally draining and tiring, I wonder if there is a mod or macro that simply does "I press (MB 4 for example I would like that) and the "next idle fleet" button presses ?

Why no button for those in the first place? We have every hotkey in the world for all the interface but simple "advance" and "next fleet" is missing for all these years? like, why ?

So yea if anybody knows the solution aside from "deal with it", I would very appreciate that, perhaps a mod I missed or a ready-made ahk code

I was trying to do that trick when you play Horatio to put all other pop types in a spaceport to guarantee one of your minor pops grows and it didn't work. Has anyone else experienced this?

It is still possible to get this content

While reading the new book I have noticed this weird symbol at the top of the pages 72, 90 and 238. While the symbol looks like the glyphs which are used to announce the different chapters in the book I have noticed that it isnt matching with any of them (even though I looked through the whole book and most of ES2). Does anyone know what it means or why it appears on these specific pages? I have finished the book so dont worry about spoiling me.

Hello there

Is the average IQ of AI on hard difficulty lower than the room temperature?

https://preview.redd.it/jzfvxx74euzd1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=df26ffe738fda69dbe114afce980d34786d47f77

All 3 ships of AI have no weapons and he keeps attacking me second turn in a row. This seems stupid.

The only reason to attack me without weapons is to farm xp for hero which either some quite clever thing or totally dumb ineffective.

What do you think?

Hey guys, I see that there are quite a few settings I can change before starting a game, do you know what are the best settings to make the game very difficult for me and have strong AI? Ive learnt the basics of the game and I really like having a difficult challenge and make my faction persist even if I end up losing in the long run. Also my favorite race to play is Unfallen.

Reading the Shadow of the Endless, I got to an idea-is there any related quest after conquering/integrating Pilgrim minor faction as UE? To my knowledge, there are always a quest for population when it's amount achieves 10. But is there some unique quests?

Like in the title, i only have like half the sounds

for example when i put a turret on my ships, i don't hear the mechanical sounds of them moving and only the projectiles turrets makes a sound, lasers one don't

same for the solar sysrtems. i have the general msuic but when i click to build somethings no sounds effects.

any ideas?

So I'm at about turn 90 or so as the cravers. My fleets are mainly medium ships with blue missiles and (forgive me I can't remember the name) advanced shields (blue from quest). All in all my fleets attack is over 100k and defense is somewhere around the 30-40k mark quite heavy on the shield side. To top this, the hero is LV 19 who leads the fleet. Tramples everything....until...

This one vodyani fleet with stealth appears with 30k attack and 10k defense and deletes my fleet. They have a hero. Their makeup a few small ships mixed with mainly medium ships. They have gone hard on the physical dmg and their defense is balanced.

What could be going wrong? When I say deleted I mean deleted, hero and one ship escapes while only 2 of their small ships go the distance.

Shadow of the Endless came out a few weeks ago and I'm wondering how everyone is liking it? I can't find many reviews online, and I'm debating on whether I should get as a fan with an already extensive book backlog. How do you like it as an extension of Endless lore? How do you like it as a standalone sci-fi book? Also, no spoilers, obviously.

Hi everybody, kinda my first post. I played this game years ago and recently started an Unfallen campaign. I think the Riftborn are the strongest faction but I like the Unfallen cause trees in space are cool. Also the greed and optimism of the Lumeris is neat. All the factions are built and fashioned nicely lore wise and balance wise, arguable I know. What’s all your favorite factions and the most powerful if they’re not the same? This game is great, is there word on Endless Space 3 and what do you all look forward to in that? Have a good one!

Hey, I started playing Endless Space 2 with a friend. I picked Craver cause they looked the coolest to me. How should i play early, what should I aim for? Also general Tipps for the Faction would be cool.

Edit: Thanks for all the advice guys.

I and a couple friends bought and played the game for like two years, then dropped it with the release of a certain DLC (mostly because we kind of did everything we wanted to). Now we started playing again, and after all those years, I realise I don't really know anything anymore (if I ever did). I enjoy playing vaulters and want to get into nakarim. Can anyone give me a few tips on how to research after the first few levels and how to build ships? I looked up quite a bit of stuff, but they rarely go into detail on what to research and why, and many guides (4x Alchemist) that were helpful back then seem to be outdated by now (according to the comments). Thanks in Advance

Well. Basically as the title says. I have played for a short time now, really liking it, and in the beginning it was quite manageable, but as I have filled out more of the tech trees, the handling of it all is clunky as something that is extremely clunky.. To decide which tech should be the next, there is so much clicking/dragging/zooming that it's starting to wear me out.

Zoom in on one side of the tree, mouse over the techs/benefits, zoom out, zoom in on the next part, mouse over, zoom out, zoom in, mouse over, zoom out, zoom in, mouse over. And by then you have forgotten what it was you looked at when you started...

Is there a mod to make it more manageable? I have looked but haven't found any. Or should I bring up some webpage/excel sheet on my second screen and check everything there? Or am I just missing something obvious?

I wanted to try an Endless difficulty game but I noticed that my ships were attacked by the AI whereas previously on hard they were safe from any faction besides other Vodyani

I have Awakening, and I have the Academy quest turned on. It is turn 145, and I have conquered most of my rival empires, just camping fleets on top of the systems of the two remaining enemy empires. I'm waiting for the "choose a side" Academy finale to pop up, I am tired of these two enemies but I feel like the game is more likely to bug out and crash in the finale if there is only one active empire (mine). How do I get Isyander to get off his ass and start the final parts of the metaplot quest?

So, I love that Zelevas's outfit changes based on which side you pick at the end of the UE quest, but I can't find any images of Zelevas in his Mezari variant, my understanding is that the ai will always choose sherayn, so you rarely see it
However, I'm really curious what it looks like, and as a solo player I'm not sure how to see it since when playing AS a faction you just get that little picture instead of the full image

does anyone here happen to have a screenshot of it?

I'm looking to learn more about trade companies. If I have a really beefy capitol system, is it best to put my three trade companies there and in the two adjacent systems, and then put the subisiaries in the most built-up cluster of three touching systems as far apart as possible? I'm talking in terms of profit optimization, not necessarily practicality. Pretend for a moment blockades and such are not an issue.

Tldr: this post is just Endless gushing about this game I love.

Every year I go back and play some Endless Space 2.

I've loved 4x games since the first time I played Civ 3 as a kid, but as I got older I usually just buy one, play two runs and feel satisfied, I simply get bored easily. A part of me is understanding that as I got older computer games started to lose my interest...

But ES2 is different man, it just scratches every itch I look for. I've played every faction through, and my favourite factions 2 or 3 times. For comparison, I've played 2 empires on Civ 6 and I'm pretty sure I didn't even finish the second one, and I doubt I'll go back. It didn't call me back over the years.

ES2 pulls me back in time after time, and hits every part of my brain all over again. It's almost everything I could want in a game like this. Every year it starts with me looking for games that I can play instead of ES2 and ends with me just playing ES2.

Even things that people criticise ES2 for are positives for me. Example: people don't like how simplistic the combat is but for someone like me who tries to only fight pirates, barbarians and minor factions in 4x games, I love that I don't have to give much thought or resources to the thing I find boring - ES2 lets me focus on the 3xs I like most.

Another thing I see is "oh it's too streamlined like a board game" and I'm thinking... Is that a bad thing? I don't really have the time nor brainpower for micromanaging dozens of systems anymore. I enjoyed that at one time, and even when I get the urge to do that I'll go to something else like Anno, EU4 or Cities if I want to work harder to watch the numbers go up. I love building the nodal network whereas others might find it limiting. The ES2 experience is exactly what I want from ES2. It gives me all the feelings I play 4x games for and it doesn't feel cheap.

I'd say the one point that makes me think just how good this game is - I don't even care for SciFi. It's not a genre I care at all about, I'd even say I dislike it. But this game immersed me and sold me on the ideas despite only buying it for the mechanics. The writing is easily some of the best I've seen in games, and I'm a snob who typically looks down on video game storytelling. I'm not easy to please but this game pleased me. I remember the first time I played Riftborn I couldn't believe how much I cared about their plight.

Do I have a point to this post? No not really. It's just the cold, dark, English months and I'm cooped up so I'm looking for games to play. And the quest for a game like ES2 has arisen once more, but I'm realising that the quest will likely end up full circle as it always does. Every year I think "I can't play that again" but then I do.

I will say that today I bought Endless Legend finally, and it's downloading now. I'm genuinely excited to give it a go as I'm sure it's as beautiful mechanically and aesthetically as ES2 and I'm looking forward to seeing the design ideas on a Civ-style map. And of course my first game will be Vaulters :)

But I'm also willing to accept that I'll end up back on ES2, and this time I'll explore the mods more.

Thanks for reading.

I know how to download mods from steam. But where to put them for the game to be picked up? There is no empty "mods" neither in installation nor in "documents\my games\es2"

The in-game "how to mod" points into the void :-(

Alright, so I have a plan for a silly, unusual game. Basically, I want to tune things to have the strongest possible late-game vs 12 stock race AI in the largest galaxy size. I'll play a custom race with Gene Hunter trait (Horatio) and try to get as many faction assimilation bonuses as possible. I'll play on normal or hard or something because the point is to be stupid OP at endgame, not to actually have a reasonable challenge.

I'm playing without the Umbral Choir and Nakalim/Super Academy expansions because they're a buggy mess that seriously destabilize the game, after three games ending at turn 120 I'm sick of them, as adding hacking and an insane expansionist academy weren't fun even without the bugs.

I've tried this a few times, but I've run into a problem. The biggest galaxy is BIG. The AI poses no real threat, but the AI does end up being able to gobble up minor civs long before I can reach most of them. I don't have nearly enough influence to compete with everyone at the same time, so I think I need to build a few fleets strong enough to conquer minor civs and send them out early. Especially with early game tech, traveling takes forever.

Can you offer any tips on this? Just writing it makes me think the ridiculous Nakalim "all tier 1 and 2 techs for free" thing would be a huge help, but I'm nervous about turning back on the final expansion. I'm also a bit unsure what I should be doing with the minor civ planets I conquer- having a bunch of undderdeveloped planets spread throughout the galaxy sounds like more of a liability than an asset since I want to use Gene Hunters instead of the Vaulter warpgate thing.

So, any advice for how to more effectively do this?