Endless Legend 2 Strategy Guide: Master All Factions & Mechanics

Introduction: Welcome to the Dying World of Saiadha 🌍

Welcome, strategists, to the shores of Saiadha, a doomed oceanic paradise on the verge of extinction. Here, amidst wonders and dangers, entire civilizations rise and fall with the turning of the tides. This is the world of Endless Legend 2, the highly anticipated sequel from Amplitude Studios, the master artisans of deep, narrative-driven 4X strategy. With a legacy forged in the stars of Endless Space and across the ages of Humankind, Amplitude has returned to its fantasy roots to deliver an experience that is at once familiar to veterans of the genre and yet breathtakingly unique.

This guide is forged for the ambitious strategist—the player who has commanded legions in Civilization, forged empires in Age of Wonders, but now stands at the precipice of the Endless universe for the first time. It is designed to be the ultimate companion on your journey from bewildered newcomer to legendary ruler. 📖

What is Endless Legend 2?

At its heart, Endless Legend 2 is a turn-based 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) fantasy-strategy game. Players select a unique faction and guide it to dominance on the ever-changing, procedurally generated world of Saiadha. However, to describe it merely in those terms is to miss the vibrant, beating heart of its design. The experience is defined by two revolutionary pillars that set it apart from its peers: radical Faction Asymmetry and the world-altering Tidefall mechanic.

Faction Asymmetry is not about minor bonuses or a single unique unit. In Endless Legend 2, each faction is a fundamentally different game. One faction may be a ravenous insectoid swarm that cannot engage in diplomacy and fuels its growth by consuming the dead 🐜. Another might be a race of cursed, vampiric knights who have abandoned the need for food, instead purchasing their population with cold, hard currency 🧛. Mastering this game is not about learning one set of rules, but about learning five (and eventually more) entirely distinct ways to perceive and conquer the world.

The Tidefall mechanic is the game’s dynamic pulse. Where the first game’s world was shaped by the coming of Winter, Saiadha is defined by its colossal, receding oceans 🌊. At set intervals throughout a match, the sea level drops, revealing vast new continents, connecting previously isolated islands, and uncovering ancient secrets and fresh resources. This is not a simple environmental effect; it is a fundamental disruption of the 4X formula, ensuring that the exciting age of exploration never truly ends and that no border is ever truly secure.

How to Use This Guide

This document is structured to be a comprehensive learning tool. It begins with the fundamentals, establishing a solid foundation in the universal mechanics of empire management and exploration that apply to all factions. It then dives deep into exhaustive, chapter-length analyses of each of the five starting factions, providing the specific strategies, build orders, and combat tactics needed to master their unique playstyles. Finally, it covers the advanced systems of war, diplomacy, and the multiple paths to victory, culminating in a look at the game’s future. Whether read cover-to-cover or used as a reference for a specific challenge, this guide contains everything needed to write a legend on Saiadha.

State of the Game (Early Access) 🛠️

This guide is based on the Early Access version of Endless Legend 2, which launched on September 22, 2025. As the game is in active development, mechanics, balance, and content are subject to change. Developer Amplitude Studios has a long and celebrated history of community-driven development, and player feedback during this phase will be crucial in shaping the final product.

The current Early Access version includes the core gameplay systems, five playable major factions, narrative quests, and victory conditions. According to the initial development roadmap, future updates and the full 1.0 release are planned to include major features such as a full multiplayer game mode, a sixth playable major faction, custom faction creation, and official modding support. This guide will be updated to reflect major changes as the game evolves toward its full release.

To begin your journey, the single most important decision is choosing a faction. The following table provides a high-level overview to help align your preferred strategic style with one of Saiadha’s unique civilizations.

Faction Name	Lore Archetype	Core Mechanic	Primary Playstyle	Recommended for Beginners
Kin of Sheredyn	Defensive Space Marines	Fortifications & Orbital Strikes	Tall & Defensive	✅ Yes: Straightforward mechanics that reward solid 4X fundamentals.
Aspects	Insidious Coral Hivemind	Spreading Diplomatic Coral	Wide & Diplomatic	✅ Yes: A forgiving, non-confrontational playstyle focused on influence.
Tahuks	Scientific Zealots	Science Generation & Glassification	Tall & Tech-Focused	❌ No: Weak early military requires careful defensive play and game knowledge.
Last Lords	Vampiric Dust Knights	Dust-for-Population Economy	Tall & Economic	❌ No: A completely unique economy that is difficult to manage without experience.
Necrophage	Ravenous Insectoid Swarm	Single City & Corpse-Fueled Evolution	Hyper-Aggressive & Wide	❌ No: Requires constant warfare and has no access to diplomacy, making it unforgiving.

Part 1: The Fundamentals of Empire

Before you can master the unique intricacies of a specific faction, it’s essential to understand the foundational pillars upon which all empires in Saiadha are built. This section is designed to bridge the gap for veteran 4X players, translating their existing knowledge to the unique systems of Endless Legend 2.

1.1 Your First 30 Turns: A Quick-Start Campaign Guide

The opening turns of any 4X game are the most critical, and Endless Legend 2 is no exception. A strong start establishes an economic and exploratory foundation that will pay dividends for the entire match.

The Golden Rule: Explore Before You Settle 🧭

Unlike many strategy games that encourage settling on the very first turn, Endless Legend 2 actively rewards patience and exploration. The game features a “Prepared Settlement” buff, which provides a significant bonus to the starting resources of your first city based on the number of turns you spend scouting before founding it. A common and effective strategy is to spend the first 3 to 5 turns moving your starting army around the immediate area. This serves two purposes: it reveals the local terrain to identify the optimal city location, and it maximizes the Prepared Settlement bonus, giving your new capital a powerful initial boost.

Capital Placement: The Three Pillars of a Strong Start 🏙️

The location of your first city will dictate the trajectory of your entire empire. When scouting the starting area, you should prioritize locations that offer a strong balance of three key elements:

High FIDSI Yields: The most important initial resources are Food and Industry. A capital placed on or adjacent to tiles with high base Food output will grow its population faster, while high Industry will allow it to construct its foundational buildings and first military units much more quickly. A useful UI toggle in the bottom left of the screen displays the resource yields of every tile on the map—an indispensable tool for this process.
Proximity to Anomalies: Anomalies are special tiles that provide exceptionally high resource yields and, crucially, a bonus to a city’s Approval rating. Settling near a cluster of anomalies ensures a powerful and happy capital city, which will be more productive from the outset.
Defensible Terrain: While less critical in the first few turns, considering the long-term defensibility of a location is wise. Placing a city in a chokepoint, surrounded by mountains, or with its back to the ocean can make it significantly easier to defend from early aggression.

Opening Build & Research Order 🏗️

While faction specifics will eventually diverge, a universal opening build order focused on establishing a strong economic engine is effective for almost every faction. A strong initial queue in your capital should look something like this:

Mill Foundry (or equivalent): The foundational Industry-boosting building. Getting this up first accelerates the construction of everything that follows.
Seed Storage (or equivalent): The foundational Food-boosting building. This accelerates population growth, which in turn provides more workers to assign to other resource outputs.
Public Library (or equivalent): The foundational Science-boosting building. This begins the process of unlocking new technologies.
First Military Unit: Build at least one additional military unit to augment your starting army. This will be crucial for exploring ruins and dealing with early roaming armies from Minor Factions.

Your initial research path should focus on unlocking these key Era 1 buildings as quickly as possible.

First Encounters: Dealing with Minor Factions 👋

During initial exploration, you’ll inevitably encounter roaming armies from nearby Minor Faction villages. These armies are initially hostile and can be a threat to a lone hero. It is wise to keep your starting army grouped together for safety. Upon discovering a Minor Faction village, you will have several options to pacify it and stop it from spawning hostile units, which we’ll cover in detail in section 1.5. For the first 30 turns, your primary goal is to identify these villages and, if possible, complete a simple pacification quest to secure the region and gain a valuable ally.

1.2 Mastering the World: Tidefall, Monsoons, and Exploration

The world of Saiadha is not a static map; it is a living, breathing entity in a constant state of flux. Mastering its rhythms is key to long-term victory. The primary driver of this change is the Tidefall cycle, the game’s signature mechanic and a brilliant solution to a long-standing problem in the 4X genre.

The Tidefall Cycle Explained 🌊

Three times over the course of a standard game, the world is wracked by a cataclysmic event known as a Tidefall. During a Tidefall, the massive oceans that cover Saiadha recede, dramatically lowering the sea level. This process reveals vast swathes of new, previously submerged land. Islands merge to become continents, new land bridges form between existing landmasses, and the strategic geography of the entire world is irrevocably altered. These newly revealed lands are not empty; they are rich with undiscovered ruins, fresh resource deposits, and the villages of new Minor Factions that have been waiting beneath the waves.

Strategic Implications of a Changing World 💡

The Tidefall system is more than just a novel feature; it is a deliberate and ingenious piece of game design. A common pitfall in many 4X games is the “mid-game slump.” After an exciting early period of exploration and expansion, borders solidify, and the game can devolve into a predictable and often stagnant process of economic optimization, with the leading empire simply “snowballing” to victory.

Amplitude Studios explicitly designed the Tidefall mechanic to counteract this. By physically expanding the map and introducing new frontiers at regular intervals, the game ensures that the “eXplore” phase—often the most engaging part of a 4X experience—remains relevant and exciting throughout the entire match. A player who felt secure and isolated on their starting island might suddenly find themselves sharing a long, contested border with a rival after the first Tidefall. An empire that felt boxed in may suddenly have a new continent ripe for colonization appear on its doorstep.

This has profound strategic implications. Long-term planning in Endless Legend 2 cannot be about creating static, perfectly defended borders. Instead, it must be about maintaining strategic flexibility. Successful players will anticipate the coming of a Tidefall by stockpiling Influence (the resource needed to claim new territory) and positioning mobile armies near the coastlines, ready to surge into the new lands the moment they are revealed. The Tidefall is an engine of chaos, and those who learn to ride its wave will emerge victorious.

Monsoons and Other Phenomena ⛈️

In addition to the grand Tidefalls, the world of Saiadha is battered by more frequent, smaller-scale events. Regular Monsoons sweep across the land, which can alter tile yields or create temporary resources. These, along with other potential cataclysmic events, force players to remain adaptable and responsive to the ever-changing world around them.

1.3 The FIDSI Engine: A Complete Guide to Your Empire’s Economy

The engine that drives every empire in Endless Legend 2 is the FIDSI resource system. Understanding and balancing the generation of these five core resources is the fundamental task of empire management. While some factions have unique interactions with these resources, the basic principles apply to all.

🍞 Food (F): This resource is generated by cities and is essential for population growth. A surplus of food fills a city’s food stock; once full, a new population unit (a “pop”) is created. More pops mean more workers, which can be assigned to generate other resources. For most factions, Food is the primary driver of early-game growth.
⚙️ Industry (I): This is the measure of a city’s production capacity. Every building, district, and military unit has an Industry cost. A city with high Industry output can construct its infrastructure and raise armies far more quickly than one without. Industry is the engine of expansion and military might.
💰 Dust (D): The universal currency of the Endless universe. Dust is generated empire-wide and is used to pay the per-turn upkeep costs of armies and certain buildings. It can also be used to instantly “buy out” the remaining production cost of an item in a city’s construction queue. Furthermore, Dust is the primary currency for trade and many diplomatic negotiations.
🔬 Science (S): Generated empire-wide, Science is spent to research new technologies from the technology tree. Technological advancement unlocks new buildings, more powerful military units, new faction abilities, and access to higher-tier resources. A strong Science output is critical for staying ahead of the competition.
👑 Influence (I): This resource represents a faction’s political and cultural capital. Generated empire-wide, Influence is the currency of expansion and diplomacy. It is spent to establish new Camps in unclaimed territories, to attach those territories to existing cities, to assimilate Minor Factions, and to propose treaties or make demands of other major factions.

Beyond the core FIDSI resources, the map is also dotted with Strategic and Luxury Resources. These are exploited by building special Extractor improvements on their deposits.

⚔️ Strategic Resources (such as Titanium and Glasssteel) are primarily used to equip military units with powerful weapons and armor, granting them significant combat bonuses.
💎 Luxury Resources (such as Dyes or Spices) can be activated to provide powerful, temporary empire-wide “booster” effects, often granting large bonuses to FIDSI generation or, most importantly, to city Approval.

Both resource types can be traded with other empires or bought and sold on the global marketplace, a key tool for acquiring a resource that an empire does not have within its borders.

1.4 From Camp to Metropolis: The Art of City Building

Cities are the heart of your empire, the primary generators of FIDSI, and the production centers for your armies. The city development system in Endless Legend 2 is a unique and rewarding puzzle that encourages careful long-term planning.

The Expansion Loop: Camps and Territories 🏕️

The world map is divided into distinct territories. To claim a new, unoccupied territory, you must spend Influence to establish a Camp within its borders. This Camp serves as a foothold, claiming the territory and its resources for your empire. Over time, or with further investment, this Camp can be upgraded into a full-fledged City. Alternatively, an established City can spend a large amount of Influence to “attach” an adjacent territory containing one of its Camps, incorporating it into the city’s domain and allowing it to exploit its tiles.

Foundations, Districts, and the Power of Adjacency 🏗️

City growth follows a “hub and spoke” design. The city center is the hub. To expand, you must first spend a small amount of Influence to place a Foundation on an adjacent hexagonal tile. Once the Foundation is placed, you can then spend Industry to construct a District on top of it. This district exploits the resources of its tile and extends the city’s borders.

The most critical mechanic to master in city planning is the concept of adjacency bonuses. When a district (or the city center itself) is completely surrounded by four other districts, it levels up to Level 2. A Level 2 district provides significantly greater resource yields and, crucially, removes the Approval penalty associated with expansion. This transforms city building into a geometric puzzle. Sprawling, chain-like city layouts are highly inefficient and will quickly cripple your empire with low Approval. The optimal strategy is to build in compact, geometric clusters—like Tetris pieces—that allow multiple districts to be leveled up simultaneously, maximizing efficiency and maintaining high Approval.

Population, Vocations, and Approval 😊

As a city generates surplus Food, its Population grows. Each pop unit becomes a worker that is automatically assigned to a Vocation (a job) to generate one of the FIDSI resources. You can manually reassign these workers at any time to specialize a city’s output—for example, moving all workers to Industry to quickly produce an army, or to Science to rush a key technology.

Approval is the measure of a city’s happiness. High Approval (described as “Fervent”) provides substantial percentage-based bonuses to a city’s Food and Industry output, while low Approval (“Unhappy” or “Mutinous”) incurs crippling penalties. Approval is negatively impacted by the number of districts a city has, making the aforementioned strategy of leveling up districts to remove this penalty absolutely vital. Key sources of positive Approval include building specific city improvements, settling near Anomalies, and activating Luxury Resource boosters. Managing Approval is a constant balancing act that is essential for maintaining a productive empire.

1.5 The Inhabitants of Saiadha: A Guide to Minor Factions

The wilds of Saiadha are not empty. They are populated by numerous Minor Factions, smaller civilizations with their own villages and unique cultures. These are not mere “barbarians”; they are a core strategic layer of the game, and leveraging them effectively can be the key to victory.

Pacification Methods

Initially, Minor Faction villages will spawn roaming armies that are hostile to all major factions. To stop this and interact with the village, it must be pacified. There are three primary methods to do so:

💰 Bribe: The quickest method. You can spend a lump sum of Dust to instantly pacify a village. The village will cease spawning hostile units and will gift you one of its unique military units.
📜 Parley: The most common method. You can send an army to the village to receive a quest. These quests are typically simple, such as exploring a nearby ruin or defeating a specific roaming army. Upon completion, all villages of that Minor Faction within that territory are pacified.
⚔️ Attack: The aggressive option. You can attack the village directly. If victorious, the village is destroyed, but it can then be rebuilt under your control, which also pacifies it.

Assimilation and Protectorates 🤝

Once a Minor Faction village within your empire’s territory has been pacified, that Minor Faction can be assimilated by spending Influence. This establishes them as a Protectorate of your empire. Assimilation is an empire-wide action; once a Minor Faction (e.g., the Blackhammers) is assimilated, all pacified Blackhammer villages across the map become part of your empire.

This provides three powerful and distinct benefits:

Empire-Wide Bonus: Each assimilated Minor Faction provides a unique, stacking bonus to your entire empire. For example, one faction might grant +5% Industry for every one of its villages under your control.
Unique Military Units: Your empire gains the ability to construct that Minor Faction’s unique military units in any of its cities. This is a crucial way to supplement your major faction’s army, covering its weaknesses or enhancing its strengths.
Specialized Population: Your empire gains the ability to grow that Minor Faction’s population type in its cities. These specialized pops often provide better yields in certain vocations than your faction’s standard population.

Choosing which Minor Factions to assimilate is a major strategic decision. A peaceful, diplomatic faction might assimilate a warlike Minor Faction to gain access to powerful front-line soldiers, while a science-focused faction might prioritize assimilating a Minor Faction that provides a bonus to Science generation. The following table details some of the known Minor Factions and their strategic value.

Minor Faction Name	Empire-Wide Bonus (Example)	Unique Unit Role	Strategic Synergy
Blackhammers	+% Industry per village	Heavy Infantry (Tank) 🛡️	Excellent for factions with weak front lines like the Aspects or Tahuks.
Foundlings	+% Dust per village	Support (Healer) ❤️	Their Occultist unit can heal adjacent units, providing valuable sustain for any army.
Sollusk	+% Defense on units	Defensive Infantry 🧱	A solid choice for any faction needing to bolster its defensive capabilities.
Consortium	+5% Industry per village	Economic Support 📈	A high-priority assimilation for any faction aiming for an economic or production-heavy strategy.
Unseeing Seers	+5% Science per village	Ranged Support 🏹	Essential for any faction pursuing a Scientific Victory, especially the Tahuks.

Part 2: The Major Factions of Early Access

This is the heart of the guide. The radical asymmetry of Endless Legend 2 means that mastering the game requires a deep understanding of each individual faction. The following chapters provide an exhaustive analysis of the five civilizations available in the Early Access launch, detailing their lore, unique gameplay systems, military forces, and optimal paths to victory.

2.1 The Aspects: The Harmonious Hivemind 🧠

Lore & Playstyle: The Aspects are a living paradox: a faction of serene diplomats whose methods are deeply insidious. They are a symbiotic fusion of organic life and crystalline machinery, bound together in a collective consciousness known as the Chorus. Their stated goal is to bring harmony and unity to the fractured world of Saiadha by rebuilding their great coral network and allowing the Chorus to “sing” once more. In practice, this means slowly and methodically extending their hive-mind influence across the globe, pacifying and subverting other empires not through force of arms, but through a creeping, irresistible psychic and economic pressure. Their playstyle is one of patience, manipulation, and indirect control. They are militarily one of the weakest factions, ill-suited for early aggression. Instead, they excel at diplomacy, economic growth, and a unique form of territorial expansion that blurs the lines between their empire and their neighbors. Playing as the Aspects is to play the long game, weaving a web of influence that will eventually ensnare the entire world.
Unique Mechanics – The All-Consuming Coral 🌿: The Aspects’ entire strategy revolves around their unique resource: Coral. This living network is their primary tool for expansion, diplomacy, and economic dominance.
- Coral Spread: Unlike other factions that establish Camps to claim territory, the Aspects begin by placing Coral Spores. From these spores, the Coral network grows automatically every few turns, spreading across adjacent land and shallow water tiles.
- A Diplomatic Weapon: The true power of Coral is revealed in diplomacy. When Coral spreads into the territory of another major faction, it gives the Aspects a massive discount to the Influence cost of forcing treaties upon that empire. An empire that is heavily “infested” with Aspect coral will find it nearly impossible to refuse peace treaties, trade agreements, or alliances.
- An Economic Engine: Coral is also a source of wealth. Tiles covered in Coral automatically generate Dust for the Aspects’ treasury, even if those tiles are deep within another empire’s borders.
- Pacification and Vision: When the Coral spreads to a tile containing a Minor Faction village, that village is instantly and automatically pacified, at no cost. Additionally, all tiles covered in Coral grant vision to the Aspects, effectively removing the fog of war.
Unit Roster & Combat Strategy 🐙: The Aspects’ native military is unimpressive. Their strength in combat comes from synergy and defensive tactics. Their faction ability grants a stacking damage bonus to all units for every friendly unit that is currently in the “defend” stance. This dictates their entire combat doctrine. The optimal strategy is to form a defensive line or a corner “castle,” placing their frontline units on defend to generate a massive damage buff for their ranged units in the back. A successful Aspects player must rely heavily on assimilating powerful martial Minor Factions to provide the durable infantry needed to hold the line.
Strategy & Path to Victory 🏆: The path to victory for the Aspects is clear: diplomatic and economic dominance. In the early game, spread Coral as widely as possible. In the mid-game, use the Coral network to force a lucrative alliance with a major faction. Your primary goal is a Diplomatic (Stature) Victory. Use Coral to pacify and assimilate at least six Minor Factions, securing their loyalty. The combination of these protectorates and one major ally is often enough to meet the threshold for victory.

2.2 The Kin of Sheredyn: The Stalwart Fortress 🛡️

Lore & Playstyle: The Kin of Sheredyn are the last remnants of a proud martial tradition, descendants of the elite personal bodyguards of the Emperor from Endless Space. Stranded on Saiadha, they have been forced to adapt, digging in and fortifying their positions. Their culture is one of discipline, faith, and defense, encapsulated by their motto: “We are the wall.” Their playstyle is the epitome of “building tall.” They are a straightforward, powerful, and defensively oriented faction, making them an excellent choice for new players. They excel at creating a small number of impregnable, highly productive cities and then projecting power from this secure core.
Unique Mechanics – Fortifications and Holy Commandments 🏰: The entire gameplay of the Kin of Sheredyn revolves around the interconnected systems of Fortifications, Holy Commandments, and their elite Chosen units.
- Strength of Zeal (Fortifications): The Kin’s central mechanic is a global resource called “Fortification.” This value is increased by constructing military districts and a unique improvement called a Keep. As the Fortification value crosses certain thresholds, it unlocks powerful passive economic bonuses and active abilities.
- Holy Commandments: These are game-changing abilities that can be activated for a cost of Influence, unlocked at specific Fortification thresholds. They include Rejuvenation (move an army twice), Blessed Earth (instantly gain strategic resources), and Wrath of the Skies (a devastating orbital bombardment 🛰️).
- The Chosen: The Kin can only build a very limited number of their elite unit, the Chosen. These powerful warriors act as mobile targeting beacons, allowing Holy Commandments to be used anywhere in their line of sight, deep in enemy lands.
Unit Roster & Combat Strategy ⚔️: The Kin of Sheredyn’s military doctrine is to stand together and hold the line. Their units gain significant defensive shield bonuses for each adjacent friendly unit. This encourages players to keep their armies in tight, “shield wall” formations that are incredibly difficult for enemies to break.
Strategy & Path to Victory 🏆: The strategy is to turtle, boom, and then strike with overwhelming force. The Kin suffer from a doubled Influence cost for new cities, so focus on developing the capital. Spam Keeps to accumulate Fortification points. The most straightforward path is a Wealth Victory. By repeatedly using the low-cooldown Blessed Earth commandment, the Kin can hold 20 units of every strategic resource with surprising speed. Their second path is Military Conquest, using their powerful armies supported by devastating Holy Commandments to dismantle opponents.

2.3 The Last Lords: The Cursed Financiers 💰

Lore & Playstyle: They are the Broken Lords from the original Endless Legend, now adrift in a new world. Afflicted by a curse that turned them into spirits of pure Dust trapped within armor, they must drain the life force—or Dust—of others. Their playstyle is one of the most unique and challenging. They are a pure economic faction whose every action is dictated by their Dust treasury. They completely ignore Food, instead using Dust to power their growth and heal their armies. A wealthy Last Lords empire is an unstoppable powerhouse; a poor one is utterly helpless.
Unique Mechanics – A Dust-Based Economy 🧛: Their faction affinity completely rewrites the rules of economic management.
- No Food, Only Dust: The Last Lords do not consume, produce, or interact with the Food resource in any way. A food-rich paradise is useless to them.
- Purchasing Population: To increase a city’s population, the Last Lords player must spend a lump sum of Dust. This instantly adds a new pop to the city’s workforce.
- Dust Healing: Their units do not regenerate health naturally. Instead, they can be healed instantly at any point by spending Dust.
- Lords’ Estates and Soul Repositories: In a pacified Minor Faction village, they can build a Lord’s Estate to generate Dust or a Soul Repository to consume the village and create a powerful, unique Primordial pop unit in a nearby city.
Unit Roster & Combat Strategy 💀: On the battlefield, the Last Lords are exceptionally durable. Their core combat affinity is a powerful life-leeching ability: whenever any unit on the battlefield dies—friend or foe—all adjacent Last Lords units instantly recover a portion of their health. This makes them incredibly resilient in large, grinding battles, often allowing them to outlast opponents through sheer attrition.
Strategy & Path to Victory 🏆: For the Last Lords, the economy is everything. The absolute priority is to maximize Dust income. The most natural path is an Economic Victory, which requires amassing an enormous amount of Dust. However, their powerful economy can also fuel a devastating military machine. A late-game Last Lords empire can sustain a war of attrition that no other faction can match, making a Domination Victory a very viable alternative.

2.4 The Tahuks: The Scientific Zealots 🔬

Lore & Playstyle: The Tahuks are a deeply spiritual and technologically advanced civilization of saurian beings. They are driven by a dual purpose: a zealous faith and an insatiable thirst for scientific knowledge. Their playstyle is that of a classic “tech rush” or “glass cannon” faction. They can achieve a scientific output that far outstrips any other civilization, allowing them to race ahead in the technology tree. However, their military is heavily weighted towards ranged units and is quite weak in the early game, making them vulnerable to aggressive neighbors.
Unique Mechanics – The Pursuit of Knowledge 🙏: The Tahuks possess several unique mechanics designed to accelerate their scientific progress.
- Holy Ocularium and Observatories: They can build a unique science-boosting district, the Holy Ocularium, and can construct Observatories on any mountain ridge tile on the map, even in neutral territory, to generate a steady stream of Science.
- Glassification: The Tahuks’ most powerful ability is Glassification. This allows them to transform an entire territory into a crystalline glass desert, which massively boosts the Science output of any city within it.
- The Called: When using certain powerful empire-wide abilities, they generate a special population unit known as the Called. These religious zealots can provide unique bonuses but can also generate unrest if too many accumulate in a single city.
Unit Roster & Combat Strategy 🦎: The Tahuks’ military is defined by its overwhelming ranged firepower. They rely on a key combat mechanic: Illuminated Strike. Certain Tahuk ranged units apply a “marked” status to their targets. The next time that marked unit is attacked, it takes a massive amount of bonus damage. Effective Tahuk combat is a rhythmic dance of “painting” targets and “cashing in” on the bonus damage.
Strategy & Path to Victory 🏆: The Tahuks play for the late game. Survival is the only goal in the early game. Avoid direct conflict and build Observatories on any available mountain ridges. In the mid-game, use Glassification on your most productive city to create a science powerhouse. The ultimate goal is a Scientific Victory. By leveraging their immense science generation, they can research the final-era technologies far faster than any other faction. Once their advanced artillery is online, they also become a formidable military power, making a late-game Domination Victory a possible alternative.

2.5 The Necrophage: The Ravenous Swarm 🐜

Lore & Playstyle: The Necrophage are the stuff of nightmares. They are a voracious, insectoid hive-mind driven by a singular imperative: to fight, to feed, and to propagate. They are a living plague, viewing all other life as biomass to be consumed. Their playstyle is the most aggressive and uncompromising in the game. They are incapable of peaceful diplomacy—their only options are “truce” and “war”. Their entire economy is fueled by constant warfare. To play the Necrophage is to embrace the role of the villain.
Unique Mechanics – The Endless Horde 🔥: The Necrophage’s mechanics are designed to facilitate a hyper-aggressive, snowballing playstyle.
- One Hive to Rule Them All: The Necrophage cannot build multiple, independent cities. Instead, they have a single capital city, or Hive. To expand, they create an outpost structure called a Burrow. These Burrows can be attached to the main Hive, allowing the Necrophage to create a single, sprawling mega-city that can span the entire map.
- Burrow Network: A Necrophage army can enter any Burrow and, on the same turn, instantly teleport to any other Burrow in the empire. This gives them unparalleled strategic mobility.
- Corpses and Larvae: The Necrophage economy runs on death. They use a unique resource called Corpses, generated by winning battles. They produce a single base unit, the Larvae, which can then be evolved into specialized soldiers by spending Corpses. Furthermore, every time they win a battle, they automatically spawn a free handful of Larvae units.
Unit Roster & Combat Strategy 💀: Necrophage units are “agile but fragile”. They rely on speed, debilitating debuffs, and sheer, overwhelming numbers. A Necrophage army will often take heavy casualties, but this is an acceptable part of their strategy. Every dead enemy is a source of Corpses, and every victorious battle replenishes their stock of Larvae.
Strategy & Path to Victory 🏆: The Necrophage have only one strategy: attack. The game begins with an immediate hunt for Minor Faction armies to start generating Corpses and Larvae. Since they cannot parley, Minor Faction villages must be conquered by force. By the mid-game, they should be in a full-scale war with at least one major faction. The Necrophage are designed for two victory conditions: Domination Victory and Expansion Victory (controlling 80% of the map). The game is a race against time: they must conquer the world before other factions can reach their powerful late-game states.

Part 3: The Arts of War, Statecraft, and Ascension

With a firm grasp of the foundational mechanics and the unique nature of each faction, it is time to delve into the universal systems that govern interaction and conflict. This section provides the advanced knowledge needed to master the tactical battlefield, develop powerful heroes, navigate the complex web of diplomacy, and ultimately achieve victory.

3.1 The Art of War: A Complete Tactical Combat Guide ⚔️

One of the most significant evolutions from the original Endless Legend is the complete overhaul of the tactical combat system. The previous semi-automated system has been replaced with a deep, tactical, and fully controllable battle system.

From General to Commander: A New Combat Paradigm

This new combat system is heavily inspired by Amplitude’s work on Humankind. The era of giving orders and hoping the AI executes them correctly is over. In Endless Legend 2, you are given direct, granular control over every unit. Each turn, you will manually issue movement and attack commands to each of your units. Success in battle is now a direct test of tactical acumen. Mastery of positioning, flanking, ability usage, and target prioritization is the new key to military victory.

Battlefield Fundamentals

When two armies meet, you can either Auto-Resolve or enter a Manual Battle on a hexagonal grid representing a zoomed-in section of the world map. A battle lasts for a maximum of eight rounds; if one side hasn’t been eliminated, it’s a draw.

⛰️ High Ground: Units attacking from a higher elevation than their target receive a significant damage bonus.
🌲 Forests: Tiles with forests provide a defensive bonus, especially against ranged attacks.

The Zone of Control (ZOC)

Every melee unit projects a Zone of Control into the six adjacent tiles. Any enemy unit that attempts to move out of or through this zone will be subject to a free “retaliation” attack. This makes disengaging from melee costly and allows you to use durable units to “pin” enemies, protecting your vulnerable backline.

Unit Attributes Explained

❤️ Life: The unit’s health points.
💥 Damage: The base damage inflicted with a successful attack.
🏃 Initiative: Determines the turn order in a combat round. Higher is faster.
🎯 Attack: Represents a unit’s accuracy and chance to land a critical hit.
🛡️ Defense: Represents a unit’s ability to evade or mitigate incoming attacks.

The ratio of the attacker’s Attack to the defender’s Defense determines the probability of a critical hit, a normal hit, a partial hit, or a miss.

3.2 Heroes of Legend: A Guide to Generals and Councilors

Heroes are unique, powerful individuals who can be recruited to lead your armies or govern your cities. Their proper development and deployment can turn the tide of a war or supercharge your empire’s economy.

The Dual Role of a Hero

🦸‍♂️ General: When assigned to an army, a hero participates directly in combat as a powerful unit and provides passive bonuses to the entire army. Generals gain experience by fighting.
🎓 Councilor: When assigned to a city, a hero provides massive percentage-based bonuses to the city’s FIDSI output. Councilors gain experience as the city they are managing completes construction projects.

A common strategy is to have your first hero serve as the Councilor for the capital city, while the second becomes the General of your main army.

Skill Trees and Specialization

As heroes level up, you spend skill points in their skill trees. To be effective, you should specialize them in either military prowess (for a General) or economic management (for a Councilor). Hybrid builds are significantly weaker.

Recruitment and Equipment

Heroes are primarily recruited from the Marketplace for a significant Dust cost. They can find and equip weapons, armor, and accessories to boost their personal combat stats or provide further passive bonuses to the army or city they are leading.

3.3 The Diplomat’s Handbook: Mastering Trade, Treaties, and War 📜

For most empires, navigating the complex web of international relations is a critical component of survival and victory.

The Diplomacy Screen

All interactions are handled through the Diplomacy Screen. Here you can monitor Public Opinion, propose Treaties (like Trade Agreements or Alliances), and issue Declarations (like Declare Friendship or Close Borders) by spending Influence. You can sweeten deals by offering gifts of Dust, Influence, or resources.

The Calculus of War 💣

War can be declared in one of two ways:

Justified War: If an empire’s Public Opinion of you drops to “Very Low,” they can declare war with no Influence cost.
Unjustified War: Declaring war on a faction with high Public Opinion costs a large amount of Influence and immediately inflicts your empire with War Fatigue.

War Fatigue is a critical mechanic that simulates the strain of prolonged conflict. As a war drags on, it applies a growing Approval penalty to all of your cities, which can collapse your home front even if your armies are winning.

War Score and Resolution

The progress of a war is tracked by a War Score, gained by winning battles and capturing cities. Once you have a high enough score, you can force the enemy to accept surrender terms, typically involving a large tribute.

3.4 Forging Your Legend: A Guide to Every Victory Condition 🏆

Victory in Endless Legend 2 can be achieved through multiple paths, allowing you to tailor your strategy to your faction’s strengths.

⚔️ Domination Victory: Be the last faction with its original capital city still standing.
🗺️ Expansion Victory: Control 80% of all regions on the map.
💰 Economic Victory: Generate a specific, very large amount of Dust over the course of the game.
🔬 Scientific Victory: Be the first to research a certain number of technologies from the final (Era 6) tech tree.
🤝 Diplomatic Victory (Stature): Maintain an Alliance or high public opinion with a majority of the other empires for a set number of turns.
📈 Score Victory: If no other condition is met by the final turn, the player with the highest overall score wins.

The Narrative Victories

Beyond these standard paths, each major faction has a unique, multi-stage quest line that delves deep into its lore and ultimate goals. Completing the final objective of your faction’s story grants a unique Narrative Victory. These story-driven paths are a hallmark of the Endless series, blending rich storytelling with strategic gameplay and offering a uniquely satisfying way to win.

Part 4: The Horizon of Saiadha

Having mastered the fundamentals, the final step is to elevate your strategic thinking to the highest level. This concluding section explores advanced concepts and provides a look at the future of Endless Legend 2.

4.1 Advanced Strategies & Pro Tips 💡

Faction Counter-Picking: Understand your matchups. Use early aggression against the Tahuks. Starve the Last Lords’ Dust economy. Blunt the Necrophage’s initial rush with fortified chokepoints. Don’t let the Aspects’ Coral spread in your territory. Use mobile armies to raid the Kin of Sheredyn and draw them out of their fortresses.
Economic Specialization: Don’t try to make every city good at everything. Specialize them. Designate one city for unit production, another for science, and another for Dust generation based on its local terrain and resources. This is far more efficient than a generalized approach.
Tidefall Exploitation: The Tidefall is not a random event; it is a predictable opportunity. In the turns leading up to a Tidefall, move armies and camp-laying units to the coastlines and stockpile Influence. The moment the waters recede, a prepared player can surge forward and claim the most valuable new territories before rivals can react.

4.2 The Road Ahead: A Look at the Development Roadmap 🚀

Endless Legend 2 launched into Early Access as a robust experience, but it is still in development. Based on the official roadmap, players can expect several major additions during the Early Access period:

A full multiplayer game mode.
A sixth playable major faction.
A custom faction creator.
Official modding support.
Ongoing balance patches, stability fixes, and UI/UX overhauls based on player feedback.

Conclusion: Your Legend Awaits

The world of Saiadha is a canvas, and the factions are the vibrant, unique colors with which to paint a saga of conquest, diplomacy, or survival. Endless Legend 2 continues Amplitude Studios’ tradition of creating strategy games of immense depth, rewarding narrative, and breathtaking artistic vision. It challenges you not just to optimize an empire, but to truly inhabit a different way of thinking—to see the world as a fortress, a web, a stock market, a laboratory, or simply as a feast.

This guide provides the map, the compass, and the foundational knowledge needed to navigate this complex and beautiful world. But the path itself is yours to forge. The tides are turning, new lands await, and dark secrets lie buried within the planet’s core. Go forth, and write your own legend.

Disclaimer: This is an unofficial fan work, all trademarks and copyrights for Endless Legend 2 belong to the developer AMPLITUDE Studios.

Find the game here! https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/AmplitudeStudios/sale/EndlessLegend2