Recent reviews by Aronaar

Yes, you’ve seen the big red thumb. No, it’s not a sign to formally avoid this DLC- more an incentive to be cautious and I shall explain my point of view right away, examining each feature brought by retribution.

* ARTIFACTS

Like free candies needing some techs to be used, most inhabitable planets have one. Once you’ve met the requirements, you can use these boosts whenever you like : spawning an Overlord ship anywhere, terraforming an extra tile on a planet, giving +25% health to a fleet, gaining 1000 influence…
Of course, some are worthless, but a nice feature (not a game-changer, though).

* HYPERGATES

Unlocked by an early tech, allowing you to build ‘stellar architects’. Move one such ship where you want a gate, make a gate on another spot, connect the two, and voilà ! You have created an hyperspace link, a line where any ship travels at double the speed.
One gate can have multiple other gates connected to it, and the vessels aren’t locked in when they travel from one hypergate to another.
A very handy tool for warmongers, allowing them to bring fresh forces from their core worlds.
Constructors and freighters can be constructed quickly by worlds nearby points of interest, so hypergates won’t be as useful for more peaceful players.

* TWO NEW MAJOR CIVILIZATIONS

Sure, they each have specific designs and a special ability (war profiteers for Drath : +200% trade income with warring civs, and Exterminators for Korath : the return of Spore Ships), otherwise, I feel like anyone could have already created a Drath or Korath custom faction.
They don’t bring much to the table, honestly.

* SUPPLY SHIPS

Basically, you spend several turns constructing a ship who will transform into manufacturing points upon arrival on the planet of your choice. Rejoice, citizens, Stardock has finally realized how slow a new colony’s development can be !
Sarcasm aside, it is a very welcome novelty, turning potential idle time for your shipyards into productivity.

* NEW TECHNOLOGY TREE

To put it bluntly, I didn’t see or feel it. It doesn’t mean it isn’t there : I don’t play GalCiv III often, so the changes weren’t obvious to me, excepted the ones linked to the other features.
It certainly didn’t change much regarding my research choices.

* RETRIBUTION CAMPAIGN


‘The climactic final battle players have been waiting for.’ In all seriousness, this statement makes me utterly skeptical. It’s a tiring running gag, because this conclusion is as bad as the others…
Want to know why ? Here are the pointers :

Mission 1- you have to investigate a planet where crucial info could be found. What remains of the Drath can help you if you conquer the Drengi (who also occupy the target planet, anyways).
Your initial forces are enough to conquer one planet (for the range boost), then you just have to make a beeline for the (poorly defended) quest world. No defending legions, by the way.
Once you succeed, you learn that you need to retrieve a shard to nullify the Bane, otherwise this universe is toast.

Mission 2- the shard is on Altaria, occupied by the Yor. Now, someone at Stardock thought for a while and decided that just going to the target point would be too easy. So the Yor have thingies that drastically slow your ships when they travel in their ZOC.
The Yor actually fight back a little ! Taking the time to establish colonies might help. Still nothing exciting, though.

Mission 3- you must bring the shard to Bradley, busy with murdering the Drengi. But alas, the Thalans are near the hypergate you need to use, blocking your way ! Yes, the very same with their prophecies.
The ones who should help you. It’s another “go there to win” mission, and once again, your starting forces are enough. Conquer a world for range boost, and rush to the destination !
I guess there could be a fight if you choose to be malevolent, but what’s the point ?

Mission 4- that’s it. The big finish. An epic denouement to… Nah. Reorganize your fleets, conquer Drengi (the drengians forces are busy fighting the First Fleet of mankind), then rush to Bradley’s command ship. Then you impersonate him, using the Bane for a bad ending or using the shard for a good ending.
No challenge and almost no skill required !

Research War College, assign a commander to your main fleet, and each time, it will be a breeze. The story is still barebones and still uninspired. There are even some typos left, and the last line of the conclusion can’t be read properly !
I feel genuinely sorry for Stardock, because from start to finish all those campaigns seemed like an afterthought, an amateur work at best. Even for showcasing the new features, it’s not needed.

All in all, Retribution is not a critical improvement to GalCiv III’s experience. I’d advise to wait for sales, maybe some “ultimate DLC” pack, because Retribution might be the last DLC (even if I still hope for the return of the doomsday device !).
Almost 4 years after launch, I still don’t know if paying 100$ to be a Founder was worth it. Stardock did improve the base game substantially, but it took a lot of time and mishaps, and the prices are always a bit too high as far as I’m concerned- although I must confess that part of the charm is a lost for me, as I have no interest in customizing the aspect of my ships or watching space battles unfold.

I'm avid reader of Gamebooks, and tried other stories by this author, but this one didn't click for me.
The combat system is still a mysterious mess, where you can slay with ease a humanoid opponent and be beaten to death by two measly ratlings. Sure, the old systems (like in Fighting Fantasy) were flawed and made many fights pointless if you had a high enough Skill score, but here, it appears random at times.
Plus combats in such a setting are not as lively as in "classic" videogames, and this basically being a dungeon crawler in Gamebook format, the sheer number of fights is a pit of frustration and unfairness.
Admiteddly I didn't get very far, but when you are easily killed even with perfect stats, one is not enticed to try again and again. I would have persevered, but the storyline is not very attractive : you're thrown into a nasty underworld and have, of course, to make your escape.
It's not worth 5€, buy on sale if you really want to try- or try out An Assassin in Orlandes. It's also quite unfaire at times, but with a stronger narrative.

Fallout : New Vegas is what Fallout 3 should have been and what Fallout 4 failed to be : a true-to-its-roots game upgrading the possibilities of its great ancestors while not mincing the RPG aspect.
As always you have a truckload of weapons to murder overtly or sneakily your foes, plus a good chunk of locations to explore (and, fortunately, not as many soulless caves/camps/dungeons like in Skyrim) and a ton of quests to complete, many of them sporting multiple interesting ways to achieve them (watch Mark Brown's 'Anatomy of a Side Quest : Beyond the Beef' for example).
The simplistic karma system from 3 switches for a more reasonable faction reputation and you gain perks on a sensible pace now. Different styles of play and different endings, plus a real freedom to travel through the Mojave gives New Vegas a great reaplayability value.
It even has some decent DLCs ! I'm looking at you, Old World Blues and Dead Money.

Sure there are some flaws (graphics are dated, clipping is all around, the skill checks are juste mandatory levels to reach, some bugs are still lying around etc.) but for that price, even if you don't know anything about the Fallout franchise, if you love open worlds, you should give New Vegas a try.

I’ll start off by saying that I wasn’t a huge fan of ES1. The game was competently done and had interesting unique features, like system management over single planets management.
But the diplomacy system was flawed, with lifeless AI contributing to a general lack of « soul », of personality. Hence I found the game to lack appeal in the long run !

Then ES2 happened, and before it Endless Legends, a rich 4x wich has an obvious (good) influence on this « sequel ». Of course you shouldn’t hope for a complete overhaul of ES1’s system, but then again it is not the point.
ES2 benefits from Amplitude learning from their mistakes, turning it into a deeper and improved version of ES1, well worth the money even in Alpha stage (I only encountered one real bug in more thant 10 hours of playing).
Here are some elements I consider to be important, both positive and negative.
I shall update this review after each significant change happening to the game.

IMPROVEMENTS AND NEW STUFF

* Galaxies are more beautiful to look at, same things for planets

* Colonizing a planet does not mean owning the system automatically anymore. A bit like Beyond Earth, colonization begins by installing an outpost, growing into a full-fledged colony after a few turns. You can spend manpower, Dust and Influence to speed up the process.
This way, if there is already an outpost in a system but yours outgrows the other, you gain the system- and the other outpost !
A great way to do early competition.

* Scouts now have probes, which can be used to explore space, or more importantly, explore anomalies for loot, quests and random events. Way better than juste popping out in a system and getting random stuff at your face.

* Freshly imported from Endless Legends, each faction (in addition to a better-crafted background) has a faction quest, many steps reaping different rewards based on your choice.
Makes the game more lively.

* Improved battle viewer, and no more tactics cancelling others ! Honestly I never watch battles, but I can understand the appeal.

* The new political system and its parties allows different laws to be applied, with frequent elections- something to keep an eye on if you want your empire to stay the course you have decided.

* Systems are conquered via groud battles, not with fleets staying in orbit a certain number of turns

* Minor Factions make their entrance, to be conquered or assimilated


SOME ELEMENTS NEEDING TINKERING

* Buyout costs are not properly scaled

* You should have at least one basic option to convert industry into another ressource (dust preferably).

* AI make wacky calls. No, Lumeris, it’s not reasonable to declare war on my Cravers’ hive while I have a complete fleet fully upgraded and you don’t.
AI grow restless too easily and underestimate your power. Sophons, when the most powerful faction is your neighbour, don’t make silly hostile comments. It ends badly.

* Forced truce are just an Alpha thingie, right ? Even so, it’s quite annoying.

* Turns still take a bit long to process

* Some techs and buildings specific to a faction should be available without quests. Speaking of
buildings, I hope we won’t have to wait a DLC to build Galactic Wonders/ Special Projects.

* Some quests are unbalanced, leading to sub-optimal gameplay choices, or delaying/failing them. Yes, I look at you, «Those darn kids ». I can’t build only science improvements and have better things to do that stuff those hangars with vessels !

* The techs needed to colonize different types of worlds need to be reworked. Is it useful to have at the same time a different tech for snow, ice and toundra planets ?

* At present, the factions are unbalanced. Further analysis just below.

THE FACTIONS

- Sophons. Nothing much to write home about. They still do science and can easily lead the score if left at their own device. More probably, they are gonna be bullied by an aggro faction.

- Cravers. They enjoy a huge boost of ressources (+50%) but all their planets eventually become barren (-50% on all ressources). The depletion rate is slow enough, combined with huge fleets right at the start and no interest into diplomacy whatsoever, to make them quite menacing.
Keep eating other factions like a Craver should, and I think going Craver is the easiest way to win for now.
A bit bizarre to see them having conflicting political interests with a Hive Mind- but if they had free reign here, they would be definetely too powerful.
In other words : Cravers are still bad news.

- Lumeris, dust-driven. They don’t use colonization ships, instead magically buying outposts,
wich is more reliable and considerably faster. Dust is also used to ensnare minor factions instead of Influence- again, more reliable and faster. With the right law(s), Dust is overflowing with this faction. In addition to the previous advantages, you can quickly enough mass buyout stuff, like a complete fleet in one turn.
So, if they have a good start, Lumeris could be quite tough to be stopped. So much Dust can be useful for pretty much anything else !

- Vodyani. Clearly based on the Broken Lords from Endless Legend, with the major difference that they suck. See, they have those nice Arks- powerful ships needing to stay at a system to control it. The good thing is that an Ark colonize every planet in a system- provided you possess the adequate technologies.
The very bad thing is that a new Ark can only be created via Essence. And you can only gather Essence by leeching population from an enemy system. It forces you to build a very early fleet of fragiles ships to do some leechin’.
Even if you happen to have a faction not too far from your home system, they will not be terribly happy about your population theft and will attack as soon as they can. Yeah for diplomacy, right ?
Even in ideal conditions, colonization with the Vodyani will be delayed. They can convert their dust production to Essence, but it will cripple you for the duration of the process and you will lose money fast.
They desperatly need an early building to have a steady, if modest, income of Essence. Because the wound needs to be salted, each Ark costs more essence than the last one !
They have bonuses to all FIDS, except Food with a -50% penalty, but it is clearly not enough to compensate this Essence thingie.

 All in all, for now, I would recommend the early access mostly if you’re not new with Amplitude 4X. Of course you can enjoy it otherwise, but I would take more time to adapt.

Well, here we go again- a new 5€ DLC. Please consider the big red thumb more as a « meh » appreciation than an outright sign to avoid, and I shall explain why.

One decade has elapsed since the rather bland Rise of the Terrans. Humanity has expanded and the Hyperdrive is now a commun thing amon alien races. It’s time now to meet the Altarians and go BFF with them, during a three-missions campaign !
Should you be excited ? No, and here are the reasons (from my point of view, of course) :

1) Nothing new under the sun. Rise of the Terrans had a (dubious) claim for novelty with the former human faction, here you play the Terran Alliance, full-power. No special mechanic, no specific alien race. Yes, you do have new parts for your ships, but I’ll be blunt :they could be free. They had 0 depth to the game or the self-contained DLC.

2) « Do whatever it takes to overcome the Dominion of the Korx and their mysterious masters, the Drath »

- It doesn’t take much, honestly. Korx were not a dreadful race in GC II and they are not threatening here either (the fact that they had been demoted to extra in the main game is telling, no ?). In the first mission, you have many worlds to grab, the Altarians reward you with tech points and the Korx plainly don’t attack you.
It is a simple and mildly-slow process of developing the tech for medium shieldied ships outfitted with either missiles or kinetic weapons, plus the mandatory Planetary invasion.
You only have one planet to take, and that’s it. I really fail to undestand why the game want us to conquer a tiny colony in the opposite direction of the one needed to secure victory- even as an optional goal.

- Mission two : you start from scrap (no buildings on your two starter worlds), wich is beginning to be a chore. Allying with the Altarians demand no efforts and nets you good rewards. Again, you have a good number of worlds to colonize, including two size 20 planets ! But guess what ? Building a jolly swell little empire is not needed !
Because once again, you only need to conquer ONE planet to win. There is an undefended one near it if you need a boot to your range, or you can just build a starbase nearby.
I barely had to produce supplementary ships to defeat the Korx fleet. It was more of a matter to wait for Planetary invasion and Information warfare just to be sure.
Drengin are here, but they are a non-factor. If you want to squeeze every cent spent on the DLC, you can waste time wipin’them out- I didn’t.

- Mission three : here it is, the final showdown ! Humanity against the Drath, the Altarians being said to fight them but you don’t see any of it. They don’t even give goodies anymore.
You start from scrap and begin to do the usual routine… Except that after conquering a Drath fringe world, their homeworld is near- capture it and you win. Sounds familiar ?
The Drath have indeed more bulky fleets than the Korx, but really slow ones- 3 moves ! So,
like a running gag, your starting fleet is enough to win. Just wait for Planetary invasion and Information Warfare. And the assistant bot said I would need several transports and war fleets ! Well, no, tinman. Due to poor planning from the AI, Dratha was ripe for conquest.

3) The narrative. It is a bit more solid and enjoyable. Still, nothing to be amazed at and there is not enough work to justify its existence : if you are interested in GC lore, you already know the gist of it. You can see the lack of polish when the altarian Ambassador (same appearance as their leader’s, by the way) calls you « Matthews » whereas for the two last missions, you play as good ol’ Bradley.
Or when she warns you that the Drath are amassing a large military fleet. You know, the generic message displayed in non-campaign games…
No cheese, lady, I thought they were cosplaying as a Sontarian fleet for a Doctor Who convention !

=> Stardock confirms that campaign-making is not their forte. There is no shame in that, GC III shines elsewhere. I suppose this DLC was scheduled ahead, being the continuation of Rise of the Terrans.
But Altarian Prophecy is not challenging, not narrative-driven and doesn’t bring anything new to the table. The low cost shouldn’t entice us.
I only wish they’d stop providing us with hastily made DLC and plan for a solid one adding features to the core game…

"How the mighty have fallen", said Pius Augustus to Mantorok. I think the same applies here. The first FEAR was a "visceral" FPS, offering an honest challenge and a great atmosphere. FEAR2 was much less horror, more streamlined, but still OK.
Alas, a common plague in the video game industry is the need to make trilogies, when it's uncalled for or there is not enough substance for it- or both.

F3AR falls in this category. Sure, the fate of Alma was still hanging after the end of the previous game, but this one has nothing to tell. Story has not to be the strong point of a FPS, but when it's that shallow, it impacts the game itself.
F3AR is very short (5 to six hours) with only 8 levels, two of wich are fillers (the store after the first crash, the bridge after the second crash) and the last is an dream-like stage, glorified string of mini-cutscenes culminating with the destruction of Harlan Wade (wich, of course, is a giant abomination with a glowing weak point).
So the only goal is to rejoin Alma whose psychic contractions are bringing doom to Fairport and its surroundings. F3AR fails what I like to call the Teleportation Test : when a story can be resolved with just the protagonist(s) being teleported to a certain location.

And it's exactly the case with F3AR. There is no need for character development, nothing to seek or activate, nothing to accomplish really, just go see Mother. Jin (who, because Plot, is now dear to Pointman's heart ?) is just needed to pinpoint a certain location and is discaded afterwards.
Now, of course, all this could be forgiven with brilliant gameplay. No such luck here. Using Pointman's slow-mo power is still fun, but kinda loses its edge after two games. Weaponry doesn't have anything outstanding, apart maybe for the impaler thingie, and even using mechas is not as fun as it could be.
The level-design is dull and makes for a very, very linear progression. Of course you gather ammo, otherwise, the only things to seek are corpses to "consume"... For points. Doing certain feats (headshots...) also grant you points, and every now and then you will "level-up" to gain new skills (that you can't choose, of course).

If you play in co-op, points also determine who will be the favorite son, hence deciding the ending. The first player is Pointman, the other one is Fettel, who can blast psychic rays and possess people, giving a bit more fun. This co-op option is a good thing, because I sincerely think it's the only way to get some real enjoyment from the game.
As far as I tried, multiplayer is dead and the campaign has little to no replay value.
My advice ? If you want a few laughs, wait for a -75% discount, find a friend to play it with during a rainy afternoon and call it a day.
Of, and course, even if the game tries to be creepy, forget about the horror feeling of the first game. Here, it's mainly Doomsday mixed with mad men, some gore and demons.

As an avid player of GCII, I decided to be a Founder fort its sequel : playing the beta and having all the future DLCs for free seemed quite nice !
I must admit though that I find a lot of the DLC to be disappointing (like the mega event one, wich could reasonably part of the core game) and Rise of the Terrans also falls in the mediocre territory.

Let's examine what we are promised.

1) New prequel story campaign. Stardock knows how to create interesting backgrounds and humorous quirks for technologies and diplomacy, but an actual narrative is not their strong point. When you see the trailer for the "standard" human campain and then actually play it, it's actually quite uneventful and not really challenging...
Here there is more substance to the narrative, but not that much. The birth of the Stellar Guild seems a bit hasty, casting doubt on Earth's governance right after the first colony !
As always, you can choose between the three ideologies to face this menace and other events.
As for the titular rise, I failed to really taste it, because the Alliance from 60 years ago has an extremely similar feeling with the actual Alliance. Same design, same techs, same gameplay.

2) Face down new threats. The first mission is not exciting about that. May be one of your colonies revolt if you act malevolent and adds to the challenge ; in my case I played benevolent and faced a lone, little planet acting as the Guild's stronghold. Even with many ships initially, they took a very long time to timidly attack one or two of my starbases.
It was just a matter of piling up ships, fell the defendind fleet and conquer them. Not complicated, not long, not very rewarding.
Then you have the Xendar menace in the second mission. They represent a larger threat, but it's painful to be able to destroy their outer planet's shipyard as often as you want, without any fear of retaliation. I didn't do the same to their homeworld (would have been cheesy), but in the end, it was just a bit longer to take them down.

3) Play as a new faction. Now that's debatable ! They fiddled with some traits, slapped a new name for the leader and called it a day. It's the prime problem of the DLC : it should provide an unique experience, not offering some core content slightly changed to fit the bill (the Guild and the Xendar hardly feel unique either).
Plus this 'new' factions does not use special traits, it could have been made with the base game. Hence the feeling that there wasn't a lot of work put in Rise of the Terrans.

Note that, as ever before, whatever you do in a mission, the next one will discard it. GCII was heavily guilty of this kind of thing and it shouldn't be seen again. I understand that a crazy-prepared player would have too many advantages for the next mission, but a little acknowledgement of past actions and choices would be nice.

In fine, I think Stardock should focus on what the studio does best, and that's not campaign missions. Even on sale, I wouldn't recommend this DLC, it really lacks originality.

When an expansion for Endless Legends comes out, I'm like a sugar-starved child in front of a jar of cookies : I pick it up and munch on its content, no questions asked.
So please, do not consider this evil red thumb as a definite "avoid this content" sign, and I shall explain why.

The DLC can be broken down to two major additions : the new game mechanic (the Pearls) and the faction taking the most advantage of it, the Allayi.
Firstly, the pearls. New nodes of pearls appear after the beginning of each winter, awaiting to be gathered (if you steal pearls in another civilization's territory, as expected, they will really not like it- and in diplomatic exchanges, they value the pearls quite a bit too much. 1000 dust for ONE pearl ? No deal, man !).
Pearls have three functions :
1) Once you have constructed the Altar of Auriga, you can "pray" by spending pearls to choose one of three effects to be applied during the next winter. The choice with the most "prayers" will be active. A nice little tweak, possibly favouring yourselve and hampering the others !
2) You can unlock "blessings" by spending pearls- in other words, extra techs and buildings. On paper, more possibilities is neat. Ingame, what you can unlock probably won't make much of a difference. Accessories and armors made of pearls ? Quite weak, except maybe early game, and then only the Allayi shall gather enough pearls at this point in time. No vision penalty for buildings during winter ? Marginal bonus. The new towers providing "retalation effects" when ennemy armies attack on your territory ? Doesn't slow down a serious invasion. While they are on or two great innovations (like the building giving +10 industry on river tiles during winter), generally speaking, it doesn't motivate to pick pearls.
3) Linked to the blessings, some buildings and equipement need pearls to be made.

Now, for the Allayi. Quite a curious race, they are. For the bad part, they have 150% expansion disapproval and need 100% more food to go up a level in population. The catch ? Their units move normally during winter (when they shift form and are more combat-able) and possess high movement capability, they know exactly when winter begin and how long it will last, they know where pearls are on the map even without vision of them.
Plus, the very first part of their quest grant them the God of scouts : the skyfin. The skyfin has 8 moves, flies (no movement penalty due to land) and robs ruins of their content like it's nobody's business. Plus Allayi can find pearls in ruins !
Skyfins are fantastic, no doubt, allowing you to quickly map your surroundings and gather many goodies from ruins across Auriga.
Lastly, they have a special form of borough granting more bonuses, but needing pearls to be built, so, of course, they need loads of them.

Are they bad ? Nope. Even with said penalties, you can make them powerful, and in opposition to all other races, winter is the best time for them to go to war. I would even favor them over the Forgotten.
Now then, why the red thumb ? Well, as Redvolver said in his own review : " I feel it's absolutely optional ", a statement I agree with, but not to the same conclusion. Being optional is really not a problem. Being absolutely so is a bit sad.
Now, it's just my point of view (obviously) but I find that an expansion should bring something more substantial.
The problem is that the Pearl mechanic can be totally disregarded if you do not play as the Allayi. Its impact is just not significant enough.
" Well, sir, if you perceive it that way, just don't bother with it ! " you could say.
Yes, but, well, no. It's really bizarre for me to see that Amplitude made a brillant DLC (Guardians) adding several layers of depth to the game, and then see Shifters (with a higher price !) being so non consequential.

In fine, it is not a bad DLC per se, but I'm taken aback to see so many people writing that it's fairly priced. But I might be biased- I consider many DLC to be overpriced, and thankfully, Amplitude is not in that habit. Yes, I'm glaring at you, Paradox, Stardock...

As others, I'd wish there was more of a "neutral" option- do not take this red thumb as a recommendation to avoid this DLC. Now I shall explain why, for each change brought by Guardians.

- The Guardians themselves. They have a fancy look and can easily change the tide of a battle, with their combat abilities (mind control...), outstanding stats and worldmap abilities (like teleporting : hello, sudden reinforcement !). For these reasons, they can't join an army, as they are quite a little army of their own. You unlock 1 at era III, 2 at era IV and 2 at era V.
The downer side is, lore-wise, they do not fit in very well. One could have thought there would have been a need for special actions ; like a quest to take control of them. Instead, every civ can "build" them once they have researched the proper tech- wich is also a bit weird. No special prerequisites, apart from some strategic ressources to awaken the Guardian. It might have been more interesting to obtain a specific Guardian per civ, through an unique, optional faction quest. Like if there were dormant entities who could be reshaped...

- Legendary deeds. The title is partially misleading, unless you judge that, for example, having a really profitable trade route is the stuff of legends. Likewise, the boosts obtained are more or less significant. Being the first to pacify eight villages to obtain an unique tech giving +10% initiative to your units is noticeable. Being given a nice armor for having three high-level heroes probably won't make a difference, as it happens in the late game.
It also adds some inequality : you will naturally have hard time to be the first to accumulate a set quantity of titanium and glassteel if you do not have both in your starting region...
At the very least, it spices up the game by providing more optional goals, albeit not always neither very rewarding nor really legendary.

- Global events : for a few turns, a boost or a malus (more influence, less dust...). A pity that you can't modify the outcome, like in... Endless Space. That way, it is difficult to "make the most of it".

- Cooperative and competitive quest : in the two playthroughs I did with Guardians enabled, the AI didn't seem interested in those. The rewards seem nice, but I cannot truly judge that.

- Legendary buildings : one per era, barring the sixth. They double as districts and are seriously powerful : for instance, the industrial megalopolis adds a whopping 25 to industry, wich can go further if the district goes up a level. Like wonders in Civilization games, they are an interesting feature- more than five wouldn't hurt.

- Unique buildings : resembling national wonders from Civ IV, except no prerequisites with other buildings. Allows to specialize a city's production or to help a city crippled in one domain. Pretty neat !

CONCLUSION

Guardians do not change the core way of playing EL. It is a decent DLC, for a just price- but let's not be engulfed by the tendancy of overpriced DLC, more than 10€ wouldn't be quite worth it. Some features could be better implemented (guardians...), some could have been in the base game (like global events), others work well : in my opinion, the result is a bit mixed.
Still, it makes an already great 4X a bit better in the end !

EL was worth playing since its initial passage in early access, nowwith all the improvements made, I think it might be useful to review it and explain why, if you like 4X, you will be in for a treat with this game.
Warning : long read ahead.

While EL is set in the fantasy world of Auriga, players of Endless Space won’t feel too disorientated. You start out with military units, a settler, and explore your surroundings to find if it is suitable for the cornerstorne of your future empire.
Like Civilization, if it is not to your taste, you might want to start over. One minor complaint here : there is no “regenerate world” feature.
Unlike Civilization though, you won’t battle for borders. Why so ?
Because here you own one region (the map is divided in a number of regions depending on its size) of the map by having a sole city in it.
The catch is that you can only have one city in a region. A nice tweak, inducing interesting aspects :
- You don't need tons of cities, an empire with four regions is already considerable, wich makes the game more streamlined, but not less rich in possibilities.
- More than ever, you need to colonize fast and carefully. Sometimes, it will be be better just to leave alone a region.
- Cities can grow. At the beginning, they only take the six hexes surrounding them, but you can build districts on one hex to exploit up to three more hexes. So it can be a decent tradeoff to colonize a barely average spot in order to grow to better but “badly” placed spots. You will find a wide array of anomalies, grantind diverse bonuses.

The base ressources are the same as in Endless Space : FIDS (Food, Industry, Dust, Science) where the dust is like gold, only with mystical properties.
In Civilization, you use your units of population to exploit tiles or to become specialists.
Here, the system is different and, in my humble opinion, more interesting : you can allocate any number of population to one of the FIDS, in order to boost its output.
Of course, various buildings will enhance the FIDS production, giving greater bonuses.
It allows you to perfectly balance the production for the current needs, on a macro or micro scale
When you start, you will be interested in a quick population growth, if you’re at war, boosting the industry might be needed, if one of your cities becomes idle for a lack of interesting things to produce, why not allocating most of the citizens to produce dust, or influence ?

The thing is that influence can't exactly be harvested and only be gained via buildings and some quests.
Influence dictates what you can do in two ways : diplomacy and empire plans.
Every diplomatic action (treaties, technologies exchange, trading...) requires influence points to be done. So no nasty stuff like capturing a city very early game, you must have enough influence to declare war.
And if you feel like accepting a truce just to viciously attack again, know that the cost in influence will go up the roof !
So, you need to think carefully about spending your precious influence, wich is not as easily
gained as FIDS, but not less precious.
What about the empire plan ? It is a bonus, that can be decided every 20 turns (on a normal speed game) in one to four disctint areas.
For example, the first bonus in the economic area grants +3 dust for each population unit. Of course, the more advanced the bonus and the more bonuses you choose, the more influence points you have to spend.
It’s not permanent- you can change each time, and might have to because the cost goes up and must paid again if you want to keep the boosts.
It allows a nice flexibility (having +4 movements obviously helps in time of war !), wich makes up for the absence of an Ideology feature.

Endless Legend also shows its fantasy side with the quests. It is a nice touch, each faction having its own main quest, with background and rewards each time you complete a step. The different factions are nicely differenciated, be it “RP” and “GP : the Broken Lords are souls living on in suits of armor, vying to find a more noble purpose than to feed on mortals, they do not need normal food anc produce more dust than others (the only way to make their population grow is to spend dust), the Wildwalkers are tribes united in organic-like cities, able to sense any ennemy in their regions, the Roving Clans cannot declare war, but have trading buffs and can use privateers to attack others, unbeknownst to them, etc.
The custom faction feature is not implemented yet, but the seven factions available are enjoyable.
For now, I would just say the Necrophages may be weaker thant the rest (-1 food on every hex doesn’t help) and the Drakken are a bit overpowered, with an easy way to the Diplomatic victory.
While I’m at it, the victory conditions are the usual ones - wonder, science, conquest, domination, economical.
In addition to main quests, you can discover sidequests by exploring ruins on the map, with various benefits, like luxury ressources (spending a certain number of it gives a temporary boost to your whole empire), dust, equipment.

The heroes are back, and most useful to lead armies. No gigantic battles : you cannot design units, each faction has no more than 4 unit types, and the maximum number of units in one army is 8- and you can only achieve that late game !
So, early on, two armies of four units each is a serious threat. I found the battle long and boring, the autoresolve works fine most of the time.
Just be wary not to engage a battle in a difficult spot, like down a cliff...
Heroes can also beappointed as governors, wichever you choose, they will gain XP, levels and abilities to make them better warleader or city managers (bonus for units’ defense, boost in industry production...).
Pacifists will strive to keep a decent army : roving armies are loose, threatening cities. As bribing minor faction villages becomes costy, one solution is to just raze them, then rebuild to get +1 population, and if you assimilate them (through influence points), you will get their unique unit and a special bonus.
Each region can have between one and three minor faction villages, and it’s useful to deal with the ones just outside your borders, the longer they stay unchecked, the more dangereous they are.

One last “big” thing in EL is seasons. Summer is the “normal” season, while during winter, food and dust production are crippled, industry is slightly paralyzed, people are less happy, movement and vision on the map are greatly reduced.
You only have a rough indication as to when the season switch will happen, but this must be
factored in : if you’re planning a war, doing so in winter will be rather... Unpleasant.

Well, I think that covers most of it. You can see the lacking parts (two technological eras are lacking) but you have the main meat.
Of course, there are problems. Early game, you can only have few influence points.
Luxury ressources aren’t such a big deal. Mayhap too many technologies are devoted to gear (4 for each era) knowing that their impact is far less noticeable than, for example, having +2 slots in your armies.
For now, my main gripe would be with the AI. I know it’s in development, but after seeing ES' AI in action I am a bit worried.
On normal difficulty you stomp your foes, and even on hard the AI is fairly incompetent : slow to colonize, quite behind technology-wise, having troubles fending off the roving armies in its regions, most of the time unable to muster serious forces...
Plus, witnessing cities placed in a corner of a region or in mediocre spots is a bit jarring.

Well ! I have to thank you if you kept reading till this point, if you are still on the fence, I do not know what to write. EL, albeit not totally complete as of now, is a very solid 4X with some really interesting twists for the genre.
I would say it is superior to ES, wich I find enjoyable but bland compared to Galactic Civilizations II.