A Guide to Victory and Factions in Endless Space 2

If you're like me, you never envisioned yourself as a 4X Space Game expert. Once your thrown into the pool, though, it's either sink or swim.

In this guide, we'll help you navigate space in the most efficient way possible, ensuring the best route to victory in Endless Space 2.

Note that this guide is based off the Early Access build, but how to play each of the two factions we cover will still be relevant well past the Early Access period.

 

Essentials

Victory Conditions

In the current build of Early Access, there are only two available win conditions. The developers have promised six total by the time the game releases, but for now they're only giving us the two. While this may be disappointing to some, it actually helps narrow our focus.

The first type of victory condition is the Score Victory. Your score is influenced by your population, by the number of systems you control and by the number of heroes you've successfully recruited throughout the game.

The other available victory condition is the Military Victory. Military Score is determined by total manpower, total fleet unites and total number of battles won.

For the moment, since there are only two ways to win, you cannot turn off either victory condition. But still, only having to focus on one or the other makes your job really easy, especially in regards to picking your starting faction.

Choosing a Faction

Given that the only two types of victory are Military Victory and Score Victory, you don't have to waste your time tinkering with factions like the Sophon's, who specialize in scientific research. That's not going to get you anywhere in the time being, and you'll soon find yourself some military dictatorship's bitch for your troubles. No, the only two factions you should be considering if you're focused on victory are the Cravers and the Lumeris.

The Cravers are a society of aliens that eat all life forms and hunger for war. They get several bonuses in regards to military, such as larger fleets and the ability to declare war at zero cost (a declaration of War normally costs around 100 influence points, which may not be so easy to come by).

The Lumeris are the real estate moguls of Endless Space 2. They have the most money, and, rather than building a colony ship and landing on a planet, they can simply buy up planets as they become explored. This of course makes expanding incredibly easy, so long as you focus on economy early, and this contributes quite nicely to your overall score. This strategy allows you to pivot into a military-focus in the mid-to-late-game stage once you need to go through another empire to continue expanding.

The Tech Tree

Essential Upgrades

Each race will be working from the same tech tree in terms of research, but it's all about the order in which you research them. There are certain upgrades in Endless Space 2 that you'll want to consider essential no matter what race you're playing. I call them the Three Xenos. They are Xenobiology, Xenobotany and Xenology.

Xenobiology is mainly important because it gives you the ability to negotiate with minor factions – these are neutral third parties who exist only in one system, but can still produce aggressive fleets. Negotiating with them is good to do whether or not you're going heavy military. If you should decide to invade their planet early only to find you're outmatched, you can bet your ass you'll be hoping there's a negotiating table.

Xenobotany not only gives you access to another type of planet to colonize, but it also increases the movement speed of your ships by 2. Trust me when I say this is absolutely essential. If you don't think so, have fun inching around the galaxy.

Finally, Xenology may seem like it's mostly military-focused, and it is. But the essential strategy when going heavy score strategy is to shift your focus to military when the time is right. This upgrade gives you access to more industry and will eventually allow you to trick out your ships with new titanium weapons. Titanium is everywhere, and you're going to need military one way or the other, either for attack or defense.

The only other tech that is essential for playing Endless Space 2 in any style is the Survival Suits. It's actually a tier-2 upgrade, but you will not be able to invade every enemy planet, which is essential for both expansion (score) and battle (military).

As a side note, you do have the ability to queue up research, and there isn't any penalty for taking it back, but you should allow yourself to be more flexible as the game goes on to change your research path depending on the circumstances.

Lumeris Upgrades

Yes, I know they both work from the same tech tree, as I said above, but you will, of course, need to upgrade them differently.

The Lumeris starts with Fluid Nanodynamics and Multi-Thread Management already researched. These are essential to exploration and economy, but we'll get there later. You might be able to afford skipping Xenology for now, but after you've taken care of the Three Xenos, you'll want to focus all of your research in the upper right corner of the tech tree screen. Almost every one of these not only provides essential ship upgrades, but also unlocks a new type of planet for colonization. Scout the galaxy as you explore it to see what type of research each planet requires so you can focus your efforts.

Leave the military corner (bottom right) completely alone until you absolutely need it, so long as it isn't holding you back from the next tech tier.

Cravers Upgrades

The great thing about the Cravers is that they start with Xenology pre-researched, so that takes away one essential upgrade and let's you focus on the ones that matter. They also start with efficient shielding, which opens up an offensive ship type turn 1.

As any good war monger will tell you, you need money to finance a war, so try to split your efforts evenly between the bottom two boxes, which are economy and military focused. You may be able to skip out on Xenobiology for the time being, but you should always get Xenobotany.

Quick note: do not get Specialized Isotopes before getting Plasma Metallurgy. Specialized Isotopes will allow you to infuse your weapons with Hyperium to make them better, but you won't be able to produce any Hyperium without Plasma Metallurgy.

How To Win

Lumeris Strategy

The Lumeris will start out with two exploration ships. Feel free to hit the "auto-explore" button with each of them after you've probed the planets in your starting system. This will send them along the nearest tracks to nearby systems. Try to explore far and wide as quickly as possible. Most enemies won't have offensive capabilities this early in the game, so you can freely roam even if you do run into someone else.

You'll notice that a variety of upgrades or ships can be built our of your starting planet. First, you'll want to select the Cerebral Reality. This will provide you a quick boost to your Dust intake (money). Since the Lumeris started with Multi-Thread Management pre-researched, this will allow you to modify your starting planet with Intergalactic Super Market. Although this may not catch on and have a huge impact until later, it's good to get it out of the way early, as it takes a whopping 23 turns to complete, and it's better to lose those turns early on.

While this is building, you should be focusing on finding new planets to buy, by researching the tech to colonize those planets and flying around with your exploration ships.

You'll notice that you expand pretty quickly. Once your expansion has reached the edge of other factions' borders, this is when you'll want to pivot into military. By this time, your economy should be well-equipped to produce ships at a much faster rate than your opponents. Win battles, buy their now-vacant planet, and you'll be well on your way to winning in both Score and Military (but mainly score, since this is helping you expand).

Craver Strategy

The Cravers are military badasses, and, as such, they start out with a colony ship, an exploration ship AND an attack ship (because they already start with attack ship technology).

Now is a good time to tell you that each faction will start out with one hero looking to join their team, and you can assign them to either a planet or a fleet. As a Craver, you should immediately assign this hero to a fleet, as the hero will bring his own ship with him, immediately doubling your attack and defensive strategies. Again, set your exploration ship to auto-explore, and have your colony ship do the same. If anyone gives you trouble, send your fleet after them.

Just like the Lumeris, you should start out with the Cerebral Reality upgrade on your home planet (and all subsequent planets). After this boost to your economy takes effect, you should jump start your fleet production. You'll want to have a good mix of colony ships and military ships, just in case you find a planet in a contested area. This will make it so you're already prepared to colonize a new planet, and thus seize the system, rather than waiting the three turns necessary to build a colony ship on the fly.

Once you find a reliable source of titanium, go ahead and research Unstable Isotope Machining to give you access to titanium weapon upgrades. Then alter your ship designs and watch your enemies crumble beneath you.

 

Author's Note: Once Early Access is over with (or at least further along), we can do a more thorough examination of the other factions, as they will become more viable with the other win conditions.