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You’d be hard-pressed to find a more unique 4X strategy game thanEndless Legend.With its stunning blend of fantasy and sci-fi as part of Amplitude Studios' Endless Universe, it lets players experience the last days of the planet Auriga and maybe - just maybe - find hope for their civilization.
Even if you’re a veteran strategy gamer, Endless Legend has a lot of mechanics to learn that can make it a daunting task for newcomers. Whether you find yourself stymied by Auriga’s harsh winters or getting devoured by the Necrophages, these tips will help you pick up the game.
Start With A Simple Faction
Wild Walkers, Vaulters, And Drakken Are Good Choices
Like other games in the Endless Universe, your choice of faction goes far beyond a trait or two and a unique unit.Every faction in Endless Legend plays differently from the others, so it’s best to start with one that keeps to the core mechanics of the game. TheWild Walkersare a great all-rounder faction, while theVaultersandDrakkenexcel at science and diplomacy, respectively.
Picking a more advanced faction for your first game is setting yourself up for problems down the road. Some, like theBroken LordsorNecrophages, require a different approach to your economy - learning the game as them essentially means you’ll have to relearn your basic strategies and build orders when you try a new empire. Others - notably theCultists- feel like playing an entirely different game.
The wildly different natures of each faction are part of what makes Endless Legend so fun, but you’ll be much better off if youkeep it simple to start.
All Five Basic Resources Are Important
Max, But Don’t Min
The basic gameplay in Endless Legend will see you managing FIDSI -Food, Industry, Dust, Science, andInfluence.These are all critical to your success; while you’ll need to focus on two or three based on your faction and chosen victory condition,you can’t afford to neglect any of them.
Unless you’re playing as the Broken Lords, you need Food togrow your citiesand get more workers. A city’s District limit is also tied to its population, so no matter your faction youneed to maintain a healthy population growth to stay on-curve.
Industry is essential for every faction, as it’s what lets youbuild new improvements to your cities.This is doubly true if you’re racing to finish a Wonder or need to train lots of troops quickly.
When in doubt, improve your Industry output.
Dust is the currency of the Endless Universe. It’s used for many things, but its primary function is topay your unit and city upkeepsand tohurry production in cities.Your costs will fluctuate throughout the game, so try toalways maintain a healthy, positive balance.
Science lets youdevelop new technologies.You’ll be hard-pressed to research every available tech, but the more Science you generate, the easier a time you’ll have staying on pace and getting the abilities that you need for victory.
Influence is used toengage in diplomacy with other factions. If you don’t have Influence, you can’t propose a deal or declare war. Influence is required in large amounts to set yourEmpire Planevery 20 turns, unlocking powerful bonuses and specializing your civilization. It’s also necessary forassimilating Minor Factions(see below).
Assimilate Minor Factions
Get More Workers, Plus Unique Units And Stat Boosts
Each region on the map hasone or more Minor Faction Villages.They spawn hostile armies until they’re pacified through diplomacy or conquest, but that’s only half the story,. Once you’ve pacified a village and settled its region, you canspend Influence to assimilate the Minor Faction into your empire.
Assimilating a Minor Faction gives youaccess to its military unit, which can fill holes in your roster and provide customization options for your armies that you wouldn’t otherwise have. You’ll also get afactionwide bonusfor each village of that Minor Faction that’s within your borders. Finally, each assimilated villagecontributes a worker to the city in its region.
You can assimilate Minor Factions from theEmpire Screen, accessed by the button at the top left. Assimilation is on the bottom left of the Empire Screen. At first you can only assimilate one Minor Faction, but you canunlock up to three slotsvia research over the course of the campaign.
Follow Your Faction Quest
Even If You Aren’t Going For A Quest Victory
Each faction has a unique quest that expands their lore and details the struggle for survival as Auriga declines. Completing your Faction Quest unlocks the Victory Quest, which lets you win the game byrestoring an ancient spacecraft and leaving the doomed planet.Even if you don’t plan continue to the Victory Quest, you should at least finish out your Faction Quest.
Faction Quests offersome of the best rewards in the game, including unique Heroes and buildings that you can’t get anywhere else. This makes them an essential part of securing a win.
Settle Near Anomalies
The Approval Bonus Alone Is Worth It
Picking a new location for a city in Endless Legend is easy, sincehovering over a potential site shows you its starting yields at a glance.You’ll quickly discover thatAnomalies- tiles with fantastic locations like Moss Pearls or Dragon Trees - offer thebest city yields in the game.
Beyond offering a ton of extra FIDSI beyond what you’d normally get,most Anomalies provide an Approval bonusfor the city that exploits them. Easy Approval is hard to come by, so take the opportunity. to settle or expand to an Anomaly whenever it presents itself!
If there are no Anomalies, attempt to settle in locations withlots of similar features. Large forests are great for Industry, while rivers and coastline excel at producing Dust with the right buildings!
Micromanage Your Workers
A Minor Change Can Save Multiple Turns
Each worker in a city is assigned to produce one of the FIDSI resources. In general, it’s best tospecialize your citiesby having the workforce focus their efforts, thenuse buildings and Governorsto increase the per-worker production of the resource in question. Sometimes, though,moving one or two workers to a different taskcan shave several turns off a key objective.
If you’re waiting on an important technology or Wonder, or just need some extra Food, Dust, or Influence to speed things along,move workers one at a timeand watch how this affects your income. If you canhasten a project by two or three turnswithout impacting the city’s primary focus in any meaningful way, do so. The number of turns you’ll save over the course of a campaign by doing this can be the difference between victory and defeat.
When a city’s population increases, the new worker will automatically be assigned tothe last resource to which you manually assigned a worker.
Unlock Features Via The Tech Tree
Everything Is Earned In This Game
A big surprise for new players is that many gameplay mechanics that are a given in other titleshave to be unlocked through research.At the start of the campaign, most factionsdon’t have access to the Market, nor can theypropose Peace Treaties with other empires.
While unlocking new mining technologies and unit types are still critical,don’t forget to research these basic featuresonce they’re available. If you need to make a timely purchase from the Market, the last thing you want is to find that you can’t do so until you’ve finished the appropriate tech.
Garrison Troops To Save On Upkeep
Armies In The Field Cost More
One of the biggest drain on your Dust treasury will be military upkeep; you need soldiers to defend and expand your territory, and they get expensive fast. However, there are some tricks that can help youminimize the cost of maintaining a standing army.
Units garrisoned in a cityhave a lower per-turn upkeepthan those in a field army, If you don’t need a unit for exploration or combat, send them to a city for guard duty. If the city has some military buildings, they’lleven gain XP each turn, slowly but surely leveling up so they can be at their best when you need them.
When it’s time to go on the march,group your units into a few large armiesrather than several small ones. Not only does this ensure that they’ll be well-equipped to handle any opposition they come across, but it also saves Dust. There’s aflat upkeep per army in the field, so fewer armies means a lower cost overall.
Keep Your Loadouts Up-To-Date
New Era? New Loadout!
There are comparatively few troop types in Endless Legend - each faction has onlythree units, with Minor Factions and mercenaries making up the rest of your roster. Upgrading units is done byaltering their equipment loadoutson the Military Screen (the fist on the toolbar).
If you’re short on Strategic Resources, you can simplyequip your troops with the highest-tier Iron gearavailable. This will let them handle themselves adequately in most situations, keeping to their core strengths. However, it’s always best touse the best available materialif you have it. New gear becomes available with every era, though you may need to research some technologies to access the best kit.
When you create a new loadout, your existing troops need to be manually retrofitted at a cost of Dust and Strategic Resources.
Look for percentage-based boosts that complement the unit’s natural stats when building a loadout - if a unit has a high defense, giving them a percentage-based boost with Titanium armor will make them nigh-impenetrable in early-game combat!
No, I Won’t Quote Game Of Thrones
Auriga is quickly descending into an ice age, sure to destroy any civilization that isn’t prepared when the big freeze comes.Every few dozen turns, Winter arrives, and if you’re not prepared it will collapse your empire as surely as a barbarian horde.
WInterseverely reduces Food,Industry, and Dust income. It alsoreduces the movement speed, vision, and healing factor of units, potentially leaving armies stranded in hostile territory or unable to respond to a siege. You can always seean estimate of how long until the next Winteron the bottom right of the screen, near the End Turn button. It’s not exact, but it’s better than nothing.
Every Winter is longer and inflicts harsher penalties than the last.
If the Winter timer descends into the single digits, a little preparation goes a long way:
If an army is too far from home to reasonably bring back, try sending them topillage enemy infrastructure.It’s risky, but Winter can be a great time to strike since your enemy’s economy will be experiencing the same troubles as yours.
Surviving a late-game Winter is one of the biggest challenges in Endless Legend, but if you’re able to do it then you deserve to rule over what’s left of Auriga!
