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So I'm fresh off my first extremely embarrassing loss in Endless Space and I need a little guidance so I don't repeat the showing. I mainly researched the exploration and expansion tree and I found myself horribly under-equipped weapons-wise. So after watching ship after ship get shredded under the guns of the enemy, I figured I needed to spend some time on the military tree. That didn't work in time. Which was bad.

SO... how much do I need to divide up my researches to maintain a viable balance? I also noticed that I go some military hardware on the tree I was traveling down, mainly increased ship sizes, but I hadn't grabbed them as I went past. Are those the things meant to keep the tech tree viable?

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The magic is in the combition of bigger hulls (bottom tech), higher grade weapons (top tech), bonus volume (right tech), and bigger fleets (left tech). Unless you are playing as a research bonus race such as the Sophants, this can be challenging to have all of this ahead of your opponent factions.

Bonus volume allows small ships to pack more weaponry, making them better at killing everything. Large ships take longer to build, but they can pack in effective defense (against the AI) while still managing a good weapon punch.

To break into Endless Space, I'd recommend playing on a low difficulty level as the Sophants. They research fast, and their ships travel fast. This allows you to explore the tech tree, and use less fleets to attack and defend.

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  • so you have to split your tech up among the tech tress?
    – user4139
    Dec 2, 2012 at 23:58
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    Yes. The tech tree is designed so you will need to grab a variety of techs from the tech compass points to be competitive. Without better weapons, bigger hulls with bonus volume won't do you much good. Without bigger fleets, even your ships with the mightest weapons won't be able to stand up to the masses of cheap ships that can attack them. So you need the stuff from all directions. It is a game that makes it difficult on starting players because the key domination techs are scattered in the 4 tech trees. But the Sophants make it easy to research quickly, so they are best for new players.
    – StarPilot
    Dec 3, 2012 at 0:15
  • do I need to grab every single tech? or is there stuff that I can afford to miss/ignore? and does the tech you grab affect what kind of victory you can secure?
    – user4139
    Dec 3, 2012 at 0:54
  • You don't need every single tech. Get what you need. There are tech/research victories. Not every tech tree has a tech/research victory.
    – StarPilot
    Dec 4, 2012 at 5:53
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I tend to go for the fleet size (left tree) and ship tonnage (bottom tree) first, bonus ship tonnage (right tree) third and only upgrade the weapons themselves (top tree) when I feel there's a pressing need. I do this mainly because in that order, the incidental upgrades I get benefit the whole empire, (such as unlocking better planetary facilities, colonization tech, and so on), whereas upgrading missiles ... just gives me better missiles.

Plus, I once watched a fleet of destroyers with a single dreadnought flagship tear through a fleet of dreadnoughts and cruisers of equal fleet cap and near-equal weapons tech. It was very scary.

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