What is Endless Universe for?

Endless Universe is TA plus DA plus DL Campaign in a standalone version.

The expansion packs DA and TA where never in retail and always only available through Digital Download. The GC2 Gold Edition (DL+DA) is the exception. But that was only sold in the US as far as I know. So EU is the first retail version of the expansions that is also available outside the US.

Having just purchased Endless Universe myself and never seen the original Dread Lords, I don't know exactly what I am missing, by I suspect it isn't much. You named the campaign, and there are probably some choices in game options, race configuration, tech trees etc. for Dread Lords that cannot be exactly reproduced in the other titles.

Regarding the 'no bundle of all three games' for Europe and wherever: Dread Lords was originally issued through a different publisher, Koch Media. Endless Universe comes via Kalypso. This is only a guess, but I think Koch received and still holds some exclusive distribution rights for DL that may be in the way of bundling all three.

I wouldn't have minded to pay an additional 10 euros for a package including DL, even if I probably wouldn't have played anything of it. As it stands, DL goes currently for exactly that price at Amazon.

@sbach2o

DL is basically a completely different game from either DA or TA.

For one, there are no super abilities.
Secondly, anomalies don't respawn; you just work with what you've got.
Thirdly, your planets in general make more money.
Fourthly, the combat system is different-weapons on a ship are fired as a whole (each ship can only destroy one ship per round of combat, regardless of how many weapons are on it) and defense does not depreciate over the course of a round.
Fifthly, DA adds a few new techs, most notably being extreme colonization and its branches as well as the fertility clinic (and its prereqs).
Sixthly, obviously, DA adds extreme worlds.
Seventhly, stock races don't have inherent bonuses, they just have preselected bonuses.  There's a big difference-you pay points for a preselected bonus.  You can change it, but you'll lose the bonus.  As a note, some values in the bonuses aren't selectable values, and you don't pay for those, so it's more of a hybrid, but the point still stands.
Eighthly, engines both take up more space and cost more in DA than DL, which makes a large difference especially in colony rushing.
Ninthly, hull capacities and logistics were increased for DA, in general.
Tenthly, DL's spying system is civ-wide with no agents-you just throw money at the civ you want to spy on.  You also can't prevent someone from spying on you, as you used to be able to do in DA.
Eleventhly, the production output of labs and factories was reduced during DL via patches, reduced for DA, and has been reduced again for TA.  Maintenance has also increased along with this, in each version.

I think that just about covers it.  Most if not all of the DL-->DA differences apply to TA as well.

For what it's worth, my understanding is that Kalypso has since bought the rights to DL from Paradox (?), and is now offering a package called UE (Ultimate Edition) which has all three.  But if you've already got EU, then you probably wouldn't want to bother with it.

I was wondering what the Ultimate Edition is. So that means it is EU plus DL and not DA and TA as seperate expansions witch require DL.

I have DA and was about to buy ToA off here when i noticed endless universe on play.com for £4.99 including delivery.Bargain.Hope it is here for xmas