For anybody interested, here is the full transcript of the interview with LeaderEnemyBoss.

Hey there, can you introduce yourself?

Hello, I'm LeaderEnemyBoss, main developer of the Endless Legend Community Patch. When I'm not living inside EL's code, I'm a social scientist and PhD student from Germany. I'm a huge gaming nerd since I was young, which may or may not be related with my modding activities.

How long have you been part of the Amplitude Community? Which of our games did you play, and which one is your favorite?

My history with Amplitudes starts far in the past, in the mythical year of 2018

Endless Legend was really my first Amplitude game, I picked it up after being interested in it for some time, and basically started modding within a few weeks.

Well, that's a quick turnaround then. If you only joined the Amplitude Community in 2018, tell us about some of your other favorites. Are there any recent releases or old classics you would recommend?

My taste in gaming is quite broad, I play almost anything pc-related except sports and (pure) racing games. Do you want general recommendations or something more for a 4x crowd?

Oh, any games at all, really.

Okay, among the more recent games I really enjoyed were Hollow Knight and Stellaris (although currently it’s a bit messy, due to a new release), but I'm not going to name these, because most people that will read this know them anyway I assume. I'm going to name 3 more unknown names.

1 . I enjoy Quake Champions, because I was actually a pretty good and competitive Quake 3 player in my youth, and it’s basically the only "modern old school" arena shooter out there that has a player base. It has its issues, but beggars can’t be choosers. ;)

2. I enjoyed the "The Sexy Brutale," an indie-adventure with a unique time travelling mechanic and an interesting story.

3. I love "Invisigun Heroes," a 2D-VS-Shooter with the twist being that everyone is invisible. It can be played local (on one pc!) or online with up to 4 players. It’s a great idea, good party fun while still offering potential to get quite skillful. The artstyle and music are great. Sadly, it has a low player base, so If you look for online players, you'll want to use the official discord, which has a small but dedicated community. There is also a free demo version which lets you test all the basic game features and is only limited in some aspects, like not having all the characters available, having no achievements and challenges, etc.

It's also one of the last games reviewed by Total Biscuit, who loved it.

Well, at least I have heard of all three of those games, and I remember TB's coverage (May he rest in peace). But let us swing back around to Endless Legend: When did you decide to work on the Endless Legend Community Patch, and what inspired you to do it?

When playing EL, I quickly noticed two things. First: This game is a great new take on 4x. Second: There are bugs, and the AI has many issues. It’s hard to describe, but in primarily single player focused games, especially in turn-based ones (where you have time to evaluate what’s happening and think about everything), I basically get this itch. I notice stuff in an otherwise enjoyable experience, that irks me, and I want to see if it can be fixed.

One of the first issues that I noticed where two now fixed bugs: the "idle army" buttons not working reliably, and the forgotten being willing to give you everything for a single tech.

I also knew the game was old, and I didn’t expect any further patches (which was wrong in hindsight, see Inferno and now Symbiosis), so I thought "why not try doing it myself".

Ouch, those are some harsh words, though perhaps justified. The community certainly seems to appreciate what you are doing, and seeing how soon after getting into EL you started work on your mod, I wonder if you had any prior experience in modding.

First of all: It’s not meant overly harsh, it comes from a place of love so to speak.

I understand that 4x are complex games and Amplitude is a small studio that only recently got bought out by a larger publisher, which is why modding is so important in my opinion. We nerdy modders can do things that are just not financially feasible for many companies. While the two I mentioned where very noticeable, many of the other ones I addressed over time will not be noticed by most players. I am a very methodical player that quickly stumbles over these kinds of things. Your average player that is content with hard or normal difficulty may not even care.

My previous modding experience is mostly limited to XCom 2, while I always did some small modding for other past games (like custom maps in Starcraft or Warcraft 3, modifications to the rules.ini in Command & Conquer for those who remember that). XCom 2 is the first game that I have played, that had in-depth modding support with modders being able to access large parts of the game's coding base.

I have made a number of mods for XCom 2, some UI tweaks making the game easier to use, some new enemies that address some (from my perspective) issues of the late game difficulty curve, some QoL changes.

None of my mods are amongst the most popular ones, but I am not completely unknown either I would say.

Oh, don't worry. The bugs only bite because we love the game too. We are happy that we have passionate fans with plenty of modding experience to pick up the torch where we had to put it down. That said, what was the greatest obstacle you faced creating the Endless Legend Community Patch?

Well the greatest obstacle is basically that what I do isn't really the intended way of modding EL, which is why it's not a workshop mod.

I first tried it with the intended method of editing .xml files, and while its impressive what some other modders create with this (shout out to Cornebre/GATC and his faction mod), it is very limiting in a way, and sometimes it feels like pulling teeth.

So I quickly began to wonder "man wouldn’t it be great if I could access the games core files, have no shackles, no restrictions"

Well turns out I can!

The next biggest obstacle was learning C#, and gradually understanding the undocumented code of Amplitude (because it was never intended for my eyes)

Oh, one last thing: there apparently are some great modding tutorials and examples done by amplitude and uploaded in their forums ... well their old ones at least. They are mostly empty in the current (new) forum system.

So that didn’t help either. ;p

Oh, seems something was lost to time... With mountains like that to climb, what are you most proud of in the ELCP?

I am watching youtubers like "SB" and "TheNosePlays" play the game with my patch. SB had to tune down the difficulty from Endless (which he beat handily previously most of the time) to impossible after several demotivating losses. While I don’t want to see the man suffer, I can’t help but feel pride. Both SB and TheNosePlays also had many positive comments about my reworked diplomacy AI, which (for the most parts) acts more proactive, offers deals and treaties on their own more frequently, and tries to actually build "peace/alliance-blocks". My goal was not only to boost the economic and military aspects of the AI, but also make the diplomatic landscape feel more alive.

It took some time and many iterations, but I think I finally succeeded.

I can understand that would feel like quite the achievement. What are your future plans for the mod?

After the surprising release of Symbiosis, I will mostly focus on improving the AI's management of the new mechanics. Mykara need to be taught how to use their tunnels for fast travel, the AIs currently dont use Urkans in army form and tend to be a bit overaggressive when attacking them. I also plan to make the AI able to solve the Wings of ruin quest.

Oh, Can I name a second thing for the "proud" category?

Of course. Go right ahead.

I taught the AI to solve some of the game's quests. Not all of them, because that would be too much work. Mainly some of the global ones like "From Dust to Rust" and most importantly the victory quest!

While it doesn’t happen every game, the player may actually have to guard the relevant quest ruins, if he doesn’t want the AI to win this way.

Which can be pretty interesting in the later game stages

I may need to keep some bandages on hand when playing with your mod in the future. Yet even with all you have already done, it sounds like you still have ambitious plans. Are you entirely focused on EL, or do you have other cool projects you'd like to tell us about?

No, because to be honest, while its fun, coding ELCP is sometimes like a second job (next to me writing my PhD thesis), so even more projects would be just too much. There has to be some time to actually play games (EL and others) ;).

Well, we're looking forward to seeing the fruits of your labor. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer our questions, and all the time you put into your mod.

Thank you for playing! I wanted to give a shout out. While I am the main developer, there are other modders that made some significant contributions, and they shouldn’t be left unnamed. There is Morgoth, who made some improvements to the battle-AI, figured out how to alter the world-speed of armies, and introduced the zoom-detail setting, Cornebre/GATC who made many small contributions and is in general very helpful when it comes to modding .XML files, and Celtik, who did lots of testing regarding the AIs tech and equipment decisions.

nice interview. I sometimes amazed how i even loved endless legend before this mod. Cant wait to lower the difficulty. 

The dude should help with ES2.

The best mod by the best modder ! Everyone should playtest ELCP.  :)

Great read ^^ I can't wait to try the mod.

Hire them for Endless Legend 2!

nicely designed

Long life to EnemyLeaderBoss!

EL Community Patch sounds very interesting. Thank you for promoting it, i am definitely going to give it a try!