Peace Trees and the End of the Universe

4x games always were a bit of a soft spot for me. I find them extremelly relaxing. Sure they -have- combat but that is not the main focus. Instead the multiple facets of building up a civilization has many things which I I personally find very "Zen" and soothing. From organizing the scientific advancements, buildings of each city (or planet) and dabbling in diplomacy and military customization grips my multitasking stressed out mind with enough things to focus on at the same time, but at a pace that actually brings my entire senses down.

The Endless universe 4X games are my favorite, as they combine my love for Sci Fi and apply it even in a fantasy setting, viewing magic not as a mystical supernatural thing, but as something that is natural and just part of the world that you simply have not understood and explained yet. Add to that the plethora of unique and interesting races to pick from as well as an overarcing story your people go through in the form of quests, it gives purpose and meaning to your gameplay.

In Endless Space 2, they took it one step further and added a "world wide" quest, that when triggered, it will affect -everyone- no matter how progressed or weak you are. Alliances shatter, Galactic empires are wiped to dust, planets razed, you get the gist of it, it is glorious.
Unfortunately for me, the triple-A industries bullshit has had me not really believing all that hype. After all, they usually talk big and deliver small, so I was woefuly unprepared for what was about to happen.

So there I was. With my custom empire modeled after the "United Empire", the Mezari ready to have some chill hours of gameplay to wound down the day. I have decided to be adventurous today, so I set the difficulty to normal, and put one of each empire the game has to offer as enemies, and see what happens. So, as we begin, let me give you a rundown of the players in this galactic game of Battle Royale

1. Me. The Mezari: A sub faction of the United Empire, based on scientific discovery. The Good Guys (Obviously), a custom civilization I made
2. The United Empire: The space commies. Their emperor Stalin Zelevas (or whatever) wished to be an immortal emperor to rule forever via brainwashing, propaganda and dust vodka (most likelly)
3. The Vodyani: space inquisition vampires. They want to spread the word of their "LAWD ALLMIGHTY" via sucking the living essence out of lesser races (including me) to reach ascention or whatever
4. The Sophons: Science surfer aliens. They are pretty chill, they mostly want to advance -all- the science while their diplomats use terms like "Dude" and "This is cool man". Like those guys
5. The Cravers: Space robot zombie insects. They want to eat everyone. Literally. They do not do the diplomacy, unless by diplomacy you mean bombard your planet and swarm it with four armed giant assault robo-insects. HATE those guys
6. Horatio: Ugly ass Trump-wealthy alien isolated himself, went crazy, created an entire civilization out of clones of himself and now wants to "beautify" the galaxy by making everyone Horatio. I uh, f..No arguments there!
7. The Lumeris: Space Fish Mafia Traders. I know. Yes it is as awesome as it sounds. Though sneaky and wealth oriented, I have a soft spot for those guys. 8/10 times they are my most loyal allies even though they are branded as scheming backstabers.
8. Unfallen: Sentient tree people. They are supposed to be Tree-Ghandi peace loving pacifists. They are grade-A assholes. Fuck those trees man, Saruman was right.
9. Riftborn: Another "peace loving" race of robots from another dimension. They are generally ok dudes, unless you piss them off then they start playing with time to annoy the fuck out of you before they send their ships packed with enough firepower to Democratize the universe

Stage is set. Players in possitions. Lets go

There I was folks. The game had begun, I had my personal faction story. Things were pretty chill. As usual I kicked back, got myself some tea, focused on creating a scifi utopia for my people.
"Whats this? Endless Supermakets? My people gots to have that". Things were looking good on all aspects.
"Oh whats this? Work as a hobby? My people need not work unless they want to!". My people loved me. The only minor thorn in my side were the occasional pirate raid which my people managed to fend off easilly, I mean common.

Then we entered the mid game. I had started to explore the galaxy, found the other empires. First note of worry was that I was relatively small compared to every single empire in the game. I had but a handful of planets, not to mention a measly semi-non existant military, but still. I secured an alliance with the Lumeris (Fish-Mafia), and aside from the Cravers who constantly shook their fist angrily at me, giving out public announcements like "IMA EATCHU" were met with laughter from my people. To do so they would have to cross 2 other empires that they were already at war with. No biggie.

The only real viable threat to me was the Space Stalin empire on the north, which so far was giving passive aggressive comments like "Hmm your military kind of sucks" and "Good thing you stay out of our bussiness, else we might have to shoot you". Worrying, but nothing major

To the south, I had the Space Trees. I mean common, they are peace loving people constantly praising me for my peace loving ways, there was no need to worry about that. Right?

It would all change in the very next turn

To be fair folks, they -did- warn me. They said, "alliances will shatter". They mentioned "The world quest will alter the global face of politics and borders in our game". Did I believe them? No. Who's fault was it? Mine!

There I was, minding my own bussiness, just now starting to invest to some military tech because fuck me the pirates were getting stronger. Then just as my turn started, I get 4 diplomatic allerts. FOUR

The United Empire declares "You are weak. We will come for you soon".
Sorry what?
The Lumeris Declares "Hey, we might attack you, no hard feelings, its just bussiness".
Excuse you?
The Cravers declaaaah fuck em, who cares they do that every round at this point.
The Unfallen declare "We will be the cleansing fire that will burn over your empire".

I AM SORRY. WHAT DID YOU JUST FUCKING SAY TREE GHANDI?

Before I even had time to react, another message just hijacked my entire screen. Isyander, the leader of the Academy has decided to blow up the universe by awakening some old ancient universe eating monsters in a form of religious cleansing so evil is purged and the universe gets a reset. Do you join him or oppose him?

I barelly have time to pick oppose (obviously) when I get THREE WAR NOTIFICATIONS. My alliance is broken due to the fact of the Lumeris declaring war at me. Space Commies decide it was time to spread their borders over mine and the fucking space trees decided I am the root of all evil and wanted to kill my face's face.

Naturally the next twenty or so rounds were me spamming furiously wave after wave of my weak as hell military units to halt the tide of invasions from, well literally everywhere. I lost a couple of planets, my chill zen evening was ruined by fucking Tree people and it got a bit too personal. (As you might remember, I get -way- into roleplaying games)

My scientific/ecological pacifist agenda was tossed out of the window for a militaristic look on things as my army, now boosted with -ALL- the science propeled forward like a puppy high on sugar at dinner time.

With my new, advanced fleet of class-A murder ships I managed to halt, push back, reconquer my territories and establish my perimeter with the force of ships wielding mega tons of nuclear democracy missiles.

But I did not stop there. The floodgate was open. I had to deal with three war fronts, a mad man wanting to end the universe and civil unrest, because APPARENTLY as it turns out, people do not like it when three empires declare war on them and proceed to bomb the shit out of their summer condos. But, with patience, generocity both to my people when it came to gifts, and my enemies when it came to murder, I managed to stabilize my small little empire.

Oh did I say small? HA! With things stable and more warships being birthed out of my industrial planets faster than beers consumed in Sharokopeio, I launched a counter attack. My targets?

Lumeris for betraying me, and Space Ghandi for, fucking existing at this point.

After I got four to five planets from my former allies, they got the message and send me a message roughly saying "Ok. I see your point, we were wrong, please resume bussiness before you wipe us out? Please?" To which I replied with "Yes, but do that again I will be eating your people for sushi....And I -hate- sushi"

The Tree People on the other hand were not so lucky. Waging war to me based on opportunism and good bussiness? I can forgive. Its politics, I get it. But saying you will be the fire that cleanses my people? MY PEOPLE? Nuh uh.

I hammered on them with vicious lust, claiming planet after planet, eventually anexing their precious capital, to which I turned into fucking, paper making factories or something and then promptly have them sign a peace treaty in which they would PAY me for war reparations as the losing side. The only reason I stopped? Ten e-mails on my computer by my people saying
"Hey, we are pretty tired of bombing things, can we stop? also we got the crazy universe ending dude? k thanks"

Naturally, sporting the most scientifically advanced fleets in the universe at this point, fighting a defencive war to hold on to my borders and tackle Isyander the crazy universe terrorist was not as hard.

The game went on for  days more as now I could finally focus back on my science and planet building zen gameplay, fending off the occasional tree person trying to recapture their planets or whatever.

And that, ladies and gents, was the time when in the span of a single turn a zen evening was ruined.

Bellow is the cinematic trailer for the video game. Like 4X games? I strongly reccomend it. Might do a review for it when we are done over Oldies But Goldies!
(In the trailer, the dude in white is Isyander. Fuck that guy)