Now Playing: Supremacy (DLC)

I said at the end of my review of The Vaulters DLC that I hoped the next major DLC for Endless Space 2 wouldn’t just introduce a new faction, but new gameplay mechanics which would change the way the campaign plays for every faction. And with Supremacy, I kind of get my wish . . . but also kind of wish I hadn’t.

Let’s begin with the new faction – the Hissho. As far as unique faction mechanics go, I can’t say I found them as interesting to play as the Vaulters, but they’re still pretty fun. They’re very war focused, and fighting – and more importantly winning – battles isn’t just key to maintaining high public order throughout your systems, but also your expansion.

As you’d expect, the Hissho get some lovely new ship designs, heroes and their own faction quest chain. They also get access to some unique boosts to both fleet performance and system development which are tied to the new Behemoth content – but it’s the Behemoth content where Supremacy runs into trouble.

The Behemoths are a new ship type which can be constructed to focus on 3 specialisations – military, science and economy. They’re very powerful – though not invulnerable – and can be used (when upgraded by various technologies) to support your fleets, mine resources and even terraform worlds you’ve not yet colonised.

 

Regardless of your chosen specialisation, every Behemoth can then be upgraded into one of three classes – Obliterator / Juggernaut (offence) or Citadel (system defence). Although you’re limited to a single Behemoth at the start of the game, you can rapidly expand your fleet with hero skills and system upgrades. How powerful (and important) these ships become as the game progress cannot be understated.

The Juggernaut has the ability to wipe out entire fleets, whilst the Obliterator has the ability to wipe out an entire star system in a single missile strike. This strike may cost significant resources, but can also be fired for free simply by orbiting a friendly star for several turns.

Using my own Obliterators constructed during my campaign, I was able to wipe out three enemy systems on a single turn. I can’t say watching all those enemy planets go Boom! wasn’t particularly fun, but it became clear to me then just how ridiculously overpowered the Behemoths are and when I began a second game, just how much they change the dynamic of the campaign.

 

If the Behemoths were restricted to say, 1 of each type, and were ridiculously expensive to produce, that would help, but they’re actually pretty cheap considering how deadly they are. They’re also not limited to the Hissho – any faction can construct them.

I really think I’d have preferred it if the Behemoths were faction unique to the Hissho. They’d need to be rebalanced, but it would give the Hissho a pretty cool, unique mechanic. Instead, everyone gets access to Behemoths. This is disappointing not only in a gameplay sense, but a visual sense as well, because the Behemoths all look alike regardless of who constructs them. And one of the best things about Endless Space 2 is the unique visual styles of each faction and their ships.

Although I enjoyed playing my Hissho campaign, it was only when I began another game playing as the Empire against several other factions that I realised how much of a negative impact the Behemoths were having on the overall campaign. Within thirty turns I’d encountered four Behemoths – two from the same faction.

I hadn’t constructed any, not because I didn’t have the resources, but because I’d decided not to. But as I quickly realised, I’d need to construct them in order to remain competitive – they’re just too powerful not to use. And then the campaign felt more like a race to construct and upgrade my Behemoths before the AI, so I wasn’t at a disadvantage.

 

To put it simply – the new Behemoth mechanics had completely taken over the campaign. I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily a bad thing, because as I said, I did enjoy playing with them, and I did want to see new content added which changed the campaign dynamic. But as they’re currently implemented, Behemoths become far too much of the focus of the campaign, and because they all look the same, you lose some of that cool uniqueness that makes Endless Space 2 so fun to play.

And here’s the other problem – although you can disable the Behemoths before starting a campaign, they’re unfortunately tied to the Hissho faction mechanics, so if you want to play as or with the Hissho, you’re getting the Behemoths along for the ride. Which means if you don’t want to play with the Behemoths active, you can’t play with the Hissho.

I don’t think the Behemoths are a terrible idea, but I do think they need to be drastically rebalanced. I’d also love to be able to toggle them on and off without losing access to the Hissho, or maybe just making them Hissho exclusive. And if we could get unique Behemoth skins for every faction, that would be pretty great.

Overall, Supremacy is a decent DLC pack with some good content, I just think it’s been poorly incorporated into the campaign. From what I’ve seen, a lot of other people share my concerns, so hopefully the developers will take steps to address these issues.

6/10