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Endless Legend is a scifi-fantasy 4X developed by Amplitude Studios of Paris as part of their "Endless" universe. It's pretty original in a lot of ways, and is a bit of a sleeper hit among goons. It's the third entry in the "Endless" set, the first being space 4X Endless Space and the second being realtime pseudoroguelike Dungeon of the Endless. A fourth game, Endless Space 2, goes into early access tomorrow.
Setting wise, the Endless were an arrogant progenitor civilization that spanned much of the galaxy, and long story short they fucked up and destroyed themselves. ES is about the civilizations of the galaxy vying to become the new superpower amidst the scattered ruins of the once-great empire, whose artifacts are everywhere from the mightiest orbital station to the nearly ubiquitous 'dust,' extremely versatile nanomachines that are used as the currency of the setting . EL takes place amongst that collapse, on the laboratory planet of Auriga. The Endless have abandoned their specimens, who now have to figure out how to survive on a dying planet as winters become longer and harsher.
The soundtrack is fantastic. Seriously.
The purpose of this LP is to show off some of the mechanics and gameplay. It's not designed as an expert-level showcase of the greatest depths of this game, because I am frankly terrible. I’m going to do multiple run throughs, since the various factions all play very differently, and so that I’m not introducing all the expansion mechanics all at once.
For the first run, it's going to be a Pangaea map with four total factions, and without the DLC enabled to keep things simple. I'm going to let you guys vote on a number of decisions, starting with which faction to play as.
The Wild Walkers are a group of psychic industrialist wood elves. Their economy is fairly straightforward, mostly having very significant production boosts, particularly on forests. One outstanding feature is that their questline is considered by some to be the easiest (or at least fastest), which makes them good at both quest victory and at wonder victory and gives them a number of freebie benefits. Their army tends toward ranged deathballing and they start with archers.
The Drakken are noble dragon-people who can force diplomatic agreements without the other side’s say-so. They're probably the most simple to play, having few economic bonuses and no maluses, but they have, again, the incredible ability to force-end wars. They start with pretty standard infantry.
The Vaulters are kind of the protagonist faction of the Endless universe. They're a science oriented faction, who also have teleportation between cities, extra strategic resources, and crucially extra benefits from strategic resources. Probably a good faction for new players to start with, since you're unlikely to fall behind in tech (not as big a deal as in Civilization, but still) while being able to port one mega army around your territory so you don't have to worry about positioning as much. They start with archers, and have an unsurpassed ability to create elite armies.
The Ardent Mages are the other human science faction. Their whole deal is that they're wizards who gain magical powers by torturing the shit out of themselves. This manifests mechanically as access to a bunch of techs called "Arcana," which allow them to drop pillars on the map that provide a variety of bonuses; the starting one, for example, gives a science boost to all adjacent tiles. This leads to Ardent Mages creating U or hexagonal shaped cities, unlike everybody else's city triangles. Their armies lean heavily on offense, and they have access to a ranged unit with area of effect damage 
The Roving Clans are a dust(money)-oriented human faction composed of tribal merchants who don't really like centralization very much and really don’t like war. They have a few outstanding features - much stronger trade routes, a kickback whenever another player uses the market, better mercenaries, able to move cities more or less at will, and being unable to declare war. Their armies are agile but fragile and they start with cavalry; most players forgo the native units in favor of hiring mercenaries.
The Broken Lords are semi-corporeal dust-vampire knights. They're pretty different from other factions; they're sustained by nanomachines, and thus ignore food. Their population is raised manually by spending dust. They start with infantry, with the twist (common to all their units) that they heal by spending dust, rather than by waiting, which has both benefits and drawbacks. On the one hand, it’s not free healing, on the other, you can keep up much more constant pressure than other factions.
The Necrophages are freaky bug people that eat everyone else and don't believe in alliances or peace. Their economy is somewhat complicated - they have a food penalty on terrain, but a food bonus on workers and for having villages. They also get food for killing enemy units, so it's kind of in your interest to be constantly sweeping the map, first of neutrals, then of anybody who crosses your path. They start with access to bad infantry and excellent flyers, and can either build a credible elite army or an utterly unrivalled swarm.
The Cultists are an artifact of the Endless who have gone mad in isolation and are now on a quest to destroy every trace of the Endless they can find and bring about the Eternal End. Their economy is even weirder. They have only one city, but can convert neutral villages to the cause. Neutral villages so converted provide a portion of their surrounding production to the home city, as well as workers and freespawn units. This can get rapidly out of hand, and an unpressured Cultist is liable to run away with the game entirely, either by drowning the world in freespawn or creating a city of unsurpassed power. Their offense is actually pretty scary - they immediately raze cities they capture, converting the city into science. They natively start out with the combat-incompetent Preacher support unit, so getting minor faction armies is a bit of a priority.