**Edit 10/2/2014: A bit of information on the tech tree and my feelings on it added.**

Having played an ungodly amount of Endless Space, I of course was looking forward to Endless Legend. And overall, I'd have to say my experience has been a positive one-- but not without numerous potholes.

First, the positives: The graphics are gorgeous. Just totally amazing for a 4X game. Units move fluidly, resources sparkle invitingly, and the transition from summer to winter and back again is just lovely to watch. Then there's the level of customization you can get into with your armies.

It's basically the massive level of outfitting you could do with your ships in Endless Space... but with people! Mix-n-match older tech with new, or just put everyone in the shiniest stuff you can find, and upgrading is nice and easy (if ludicrously expensive sometimes). And the game is definitely engaging; my first playthrough was of the "okay, one more turn and THEN I go to bed-- oh, wait, I just won a score victory. Huh. That was 300 turns?" variety.

The quest system keeps things fairly fresh throughout the game as well, as it gives you something to actually work towards instead of just the standard "build stuff, build armies, kill everyone" or "build stuff, research things, wait for end of game" ideas. You have a series of tangible goals, with rewards, and can even get massively advanced technology through them. And it can make pacifying those locals with parley much more of a rewarding endeavour than just beating them until they stop moving.

However, there are a fair amount of balancing negatives to look out for: Remember those gorgeous graphics? Yeah, I'm going to be turning those down for my next playthrough. The transition effect for the season change is lovely, true, but it also causes some lag when you've got the graphics maxed out. And maxing the graphics also doesn't help with the next complaint...

There's no mini-map. At all. You would think that a mini-map would be standard for a 4X game, yes? Well, you don't get one. In order to move around the map, you can either drag the viewpoint around (which, on high graphics settings, causes the aforementioned lag), or zoom all the way out to the 2D map representation, scroll to where you want to be, and then zoom back in. A total waste of time that could be avoided with a simple mini-map somewhere.

Battles are also...odd. After playing through several of them, I fail to see why anyone would use anything other than ranged units. For any battle. Ranged units with high enough initiative, on high ground, can slaughter anything else. Even if not on higher ground, they're still going to take out most of the opposing army before anyone else even gets a turn. It just seems fairly broken. I acknowledge this may need more playtesting on my part, though.

Then there's the problem that Endless Legend has with giving you information on how to actually PLAY it. Don't feel like reading the manual? Then you, my friend, are going to have a VERY hard time playing this game. "But the tutorial will tell me everything I need to know, right?" Wroooong. The tutorial completely leaves out several important things, not least of them the highly important district/city center upgrade procedure, how trade routes happen, how to use ANY of the special abilities for the various races (And no, they're not particularly self-explanatory. For instance, the Vaulters information in-game just says that they can designate a Holy Resource. Several techs say they need a Holy Resource. Nothing bothers to tell you that you have to activate a booster effect on a resource to designate it as "holy".), and the rather important bit of information that only one city can be placed per region, so you'd better be dang sure that you're putting it in the right spot. Or even what a "region" is, other than just referring to them.

And if you try to open up the Archives in-game, thinking it's the equivalent of the Civilopedia? It minimizes the game and takes you to the Endless Legend Wiki. And that may or may not have anything useful for you.

There's one more major thing that I've decided counts as a negative, and it's enough to warrant an edit to my original review. I originally just thought that the tech tree idea was "original, but a bit rubbish", and not terribly impressive, but after further thought and a few more tests, it is my opinion that it really does need an overhaul. Now, I realize that many players treat the tech tree as an afterthought, merely a way to get their new weapons to beat other civs over the head with, but to me the tech tree is one of the main parts of the game. And Endless Legend downright punishes you for using it.

The tree is split into six ages. You start in Age 1, obviously. After nine technologies are researched, you advance one age. This seems all well and good, but there's a catch; it's not just "nine technologies from the previous age." It's ANY nine technologies. Research nine technologies from Age 1, unlock Age 2, and then want to get the rest of Age 1 that you haven't researched yet? Congrats, you're progressing towards Age 3! That may not seem so bad at first, but then you hit the second catch: every time you advance an Age, the technologies from the PREVIOUS ages become MORE EXPENSIVE. Yes, that's right. Suddenly, in the more advanced ages, it becomes harder to learn how to make more primitive things.

Now, I'm guessing they put this feature in to make sure that people couldn't rush to the Sixth and Final Age just by researching lower-end techs, but you know what would've been an even simpler fix? Make it so that the nine techs you have to research to advance an Age can only come from the Age directly prior to it. Not particularly difficult to implement, one would think. And it would allow you to have a little more time to actually get all of the techs your civilization needs, rather than having to rush through and try to pick out nine per Age before they skyrocket in price.

Now, you may have noticed that one of those negatives is fixed by reading the manual, another is (potentially) fixed by turning the graphics down, and another may not be a problem if more playtesting reveals other strategies to work better than just all-ranged-all-the-time. So yes, overall I'm rather happy with Endless Legend. It's no Endless Space, and it's no Civ V, but it is something sort of halfway between the two. I'm not terribly impressed with how they messed up the technology tree, and I'd like quite a bit of refinement with things like starting position and a few other minor gripes, but overall it's a good way to spend the time until Civ: Beyond Earth comes out.

...c'mon, you know we're all thinking it.

**Edit 10/2/2014: A bit of information on the tech tree and my feelings on it added.** Having played an ungodly amount of Endless Space, I of course was looking forward to Endless Legend. And overall, I'd have to say my experience has been a positive one-- but not without numerous potholes. First, the positives: The graphics are gorgeous. Just totally amazing for a 4X game. Units move fluidly, resources sparkle invitingly, and the transition from summer to winter and back again is just lovely to watch. Then there's the level of customization you can get into with your armies. It's basically the massive level of outfitting you could do with your ships in Endless Space... but with people! Mix-n-match older tech with new, or just put everyone in the shiniest stuff you can find, and upgrading is nice and easy (if ludicrously expensive sometimes). And the game is definitely engaging; my first playthrough was of the "okay, one more turn and THEN I go to bed-- oh, wait, I just won a score victory. Huh. That was 300 turns?" variety. The quest system keeps things fairly fresh throughout the game as well, as it gives you something to actually work towards instead of just the standard "build stuff, build armies, kill everyone" or "build stuff, research things, wait for end of game" ideas. You have a series of tangible goals, with rewards, and can even get massively advanced technology through them. And it can make pacifying those locals with parley much more of a rewarding endeavour than just beating them until they stop moving. However, there are a fair amount of balancing negatives to look out for: Remember those gorgeous graphics? Yeah, I'm going to be turning those down for my next playthrough. The transition effect for the season change is lovely, true, but it also causes some lag when you've got the graphics maxed out. And maxing the graphics also doesn't help with the next complaint... There's no mini-map. At all. You would think that a mini-map would be standard for a 4X game, yes? Well, you don't get one. In order to move around the map, you can either drag the viewpoint around (which, on high graphics settings, causes the aforementioned lag), or zoom all the way out to the 2D map representation, scroll to where you want to be, and then zoom back in. A total waste of time that could be avoided with a simple mini-map somewhere. Battles are also...odd. After playing through several of them, I fail to see why anyone would use anything other than ranged units. For any battle. Ranged units with high enough initiative, on high ground, can slaughter anything else. Even if not on higher ground, they're still going to take out most of the opposing army before anyone else even gets a turn. It just seems fairly broken. I acknowledge this may need more playtesting on my part, though. Then there's the problem that Endless Legend has with giving you information on how to actually PLAY it. Don't feel like reading the manual? Then you, my friend, are going to have a VERY hard time playing this game. "But the tutorial will tell me everything I need to know, right?" Wroooong. The tutorial completely leaves out several important things, not least of them the highly important district/city center upgrade procedure, how trade routes happen, how to use ANY of the special abilities for the various races (And no, they're not particularly self-explanatory. For instance, the Vaulters information in-game just says that they can designate a Holy Resource. Several techs say they need a Holy Resource. Nothing bothers to tell you that you have to activate a booster effect on a resource to designate it as "holy".), and the rather important bit of information that only one city can be placed per region, so you'd better be dang sure that you're putting it in the right spot. Or even what a "region" is, other than just referring to them. And if you try to open up the Archives in-game, thinking it's the equivalent of the Civilopedia? It minimizes the game and takes you to the Endless Legend Wiki. And that may or may not have anything useful for you. There's one more major thing that I've decided counts as a negative, and it's enough to warrant an edit to my original review. I originally just thought that the tech tree idea was "original, but a bit rubbish", and not terribly impressive, but after further thought and a few more tests, it is my opinion that it really does need an overhaul. Now, I realize that many players treat the tech tree as an afterthought, merely a way to get their new weapons to beat other civs over the head with, but to me the tech tree is one of the main parts of the game. And Endless Legend downright punishes you for using it. The tree is split into six ages. You start in Age 1, obviously. After nine technologies are researched, you advance one age. This seems all well and good, but there's a catch; it's not just "nine technologies from the previous age." It's ANY nine technologies. Research nine technologies from Age 1, unlock Age 2, and then want to get the rest of Age 1 that you haven't researched yet? Congrats, you're progressing towards Age 3! That may not seem so bad at first, but then you hit the second catch: every time you advance an Age, the technologies from the PREVIOUS ages become MORE EXPENSIVE. Yes, that's right. Suddenly, in the more advanced ages, it becomes harder to learn how to make more primitive things. Now, I'm guessing they put this feature in to make sure that people couldn't rush to the Sixth and Final Age just by researching lower-end techs, but you know what would've been an even simpler fix? Make it so that the nine techs you have to research to advance an Age can only come from the Age directly prior to it. Not particularly difficult to implement, one would think. And it would allow you to have a little more time to actually get all of the techs your civilization needs, rather than having to rush through and try to pick out nine per Age before they skyrocket in price. Now, you may have noticed that one of those negatives is fixed by reading the manual, another is (potentially) fixed by turning the graphics down, and another may not be a problem if more playtesting reveals other strategies to work better than just all-ranged-all-the-time. So yes, overall I'm rather happy with Endless Legend. It's no Endless Space, and it's no Civ V, but it is something sort of halfway between the two. I'm not terribly impressed with how they messed up the technology tree, and I'd like quite a bit of refinement with things like starting position and a few other minor gripes, but overall it's a good way to spend the time until Civ: Beyond Earth comes out. ...c'mon, you know we're all thinking it.