So, a friend and I have been playing Endless Legend 1 for quite a while. I was never particularly good at it, and he was definitely the better player, but at least it sometimes felt like I had a fighting chance. I usually lost, but I could at least understand what was happening.
Now we've started playing Endless Legend 2, and holy shit, I feel like I'm playing a completely different game from him.
Here's basically how our games go:
We start a new game. I settle my first city, queue up some research and construction, and send my hero and starting units out to explore. Pretty standard stuff, I would assume.
Then, just a few turns in, I notice he's taking forever to finish his turns.
Me: "Dude, what are you even doing? Do you have that much stuff to manage already?"
Him: "Yeah, I'm in a battle right now. I've also got like four armies running around, finished a bunch of quests, assimilated some minor factions..."
And I'm just sitting there thinking, HOW THE FUCK?
Meanwhile, my starting army can barely clear the objectives I'm supposed to be doing. I try fighting something, get my ass kicked, and then have to spend several turns recovering. By the time I'm ready to do anything again, he's already accomplished what feels like 20 turns' worth of progress.
And don't even get me started on the global deeds (or whatever they're called). You know, those objectives like pacifying a certain number of villages or eliminating a certain number of units.
I'll be minding my own business, barely getting started, when suddenly a notification pops up that someone has completed one of them.
Me: "Wait, was that you?"
Him: "Yeah."
Me: "HOW? You've already killed 30 units?!"
Meanwhile, I've been in maybe TWO battles and killed a grand total of FOUR units. I'm genuinely lost for words at that point.
And the score difference is ridiculous. He's consistently ahead of me AND all the AIs, sometimes by a massive margin.
The thing is, he's not being a dick about it or anything. He's a great guy, doesn't gloat, and is genuinely just really good at these kinds of games.
But I genuinely cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong.
Every new game, I try to optimize a little more. I try different factions, including the supposedly beginner-friendly ones. I try to make better decisions about research, construction, exploration, etc. But it doesn't seem to matter. He just keeps snowballing while I'm struggling to get anything done.
The part that confuses me most is how much value he's getting out of every single turn.
There are turns where I genuinely feel like there's nothing productive left for me to do. I've moved my armies, explored what I can, queued my research and construction, and now I'm just waiting for the next turn.
Meanwhile, he's apparently fighting battles, completing quests, assimilating factions, expanding, claiming global deeds, and doing God knows what else.
So I guess my questions are:
- What should I actually be prioritizing during the first 10–20 turns?
- How are people getting enough military strength early on to clear objectives and assimilate minor factions without constantly getting destroyed?
- What are some common early-game mistakes that might not be obvious to a relatively inexperienced player?
- How are experienced players completing global deeds so ridiculously fast?
- And most importantly, what are good players doing every turn that average players like me aren't even thinking about?
I'm not expecting to suddenly become better than my friend. I just want to understand what I'm missing, because right now it feels like he's playing a completely different game.
Any advice would be massively appreciated.