Endless Space 2 has just released its first major update in its Early Access period, and the major addition to the game is the return of the United Empire faction. The United Empire is, in many ways, your standard propagandistic ruthless regime that emphasizes swift economic and military progress while de-emphasizing the condition of their own people.
The United Empire was added as part of "Update 1," which is the first of three planned major updates before eventual release out of Steam's Early Access program.
Update 1 isn't quite live yet, but here is a list of changes developer Amplitude Studios hopes to have implemented:
- New Major Faction content and gameplay
- Minor faction quest: the ability to interact with minor factions with quests. Not sure all the content will be there for Update 1 though
- Marketplace system & screen
- Manpower and ground units management : allows you to customize your ground troops and their breakdown between soldiers / tanks / strike crafts
- Advanced star system list: population management, colonization shortcuts, etc
- New Major Faction content and gameplay. I know speculations are high but I cannot disclose yet what Faction 5 will be!
- System razing
- Improved Forced Truce system
- Improved System ownership (as in ES1)
- Pacific System Conquest
- Population collection bonus (empire wide bonus when you reach a certain amount of population of a type)
- Mercenaries (privateer units)
- Population migration visuals (ships actually appear on the map), and manual migration system
- Deeds: competitive objectives unlocked by era. Not sure the whole content will be ready for Update 1
- Cooperative / competitive quests: update on the UI to handle this type of quests
- Technology Era 4 (some visual content may be missing in Update 1)
