For what it is and offers, custom factions are a really interesting way to change up the game and give it replay-ability, same as in Endless Space. And if you haven't tried it out in either game I'd suggest you give it a try, regardless of your thoughts on EL's compared to ES's or in general, it's still fun.



That being said, plenty of options are available for you to build your faction as you see fit, more or less, and the factions have a surprising amount of synergy in most cases. However at the same time I personally feel a... lack, of "negative" options to select. Diplomacy only has two, and those are faction based, leaving the bulk of them in economy and military. Economy being mostly the same thing for each of the FIDS, and military for certain stats, army size, and movement. All of which makes general sense to be fair. But even among those options I can't help but feel a slight imbalance from them.



Take Dust Inefficient (-1 dust from terrain, for -10) and Spendthrifts (-10% dust on cities, for -5. Can be stack three times for -30% dust on cities for -16 total, yes -16) for instance. Now generally speaking, -30% dust on cities is much worse then just -1 dust from terrain, mostly because you just can't fix that as well with buildings and bonuses. And mind you that only nets you an extra -6 for trait selection for something that is more or less double, if not triple, as bad in my eyes. even if you don't think -30% dust on cities is bad, its still seems to be much worse in comparison. Now I can understand that it offers more of a challenge, which some people could want, but then why not add "challenge" traits?



Challenge traits could of added a very interesting twist to faction creation for those who would use them. You could let a player take on any negative trait for no benefit, increase negative affect for the same cost, or all the player to set how much worse the affect is. Beneficial traits for increased cost, and less beneficial effects, set increased rates or let the player decide as long as it is more costly then base value.



Now this is running a bit long, so I'll just add my custom race here for fun and close out.



Hive Superior: The coming of the cultists, although unexpected, is inevitable. However upon meeting the Necrophage they were met with failure. And now their city and bodies are simply another tool for the hive. (The ability for longer descriptions in-game, although trivial, would of been nice.)

Affinity: Cultists

Traits: High Seat of The queen (affinity), Conversion (40), Walls of Faith (20), Weapons of the Enemy (20), Cellulose Mutation (20), Cull the Herd (10), Will of the Hive (5) Agriculturally Challenged (-10), Dust Inefficient (-10), Industry Inefficient (-10), Science Inefficient (-10), 2/3 Spendthrifts (-10)

Starting Technology: Mill Foundry (10)

Technology: Cannon Fodder (15)



I doubt I'm the only one who thought of combining Cult level 3 districts with Necrophage reduced borough costs, but it's fun. It uses the minor faction armies in place of proliferates, the quest to make ultra faction units, the HUGE city size to make up for the inefficient lifestyle, and insta city razing to terrorize people. Regardless of if you thought about it or not, here's the build and feel free to have fun with this either way.



BUG EDIT: Found a bug where removing faction tech from the list of currently used traits (far right side) will not allow the same tech to be seen under trait selection. EX: Selecting New vaulter faction, then add (to make custom), then after removing tech like deep Generator the tech won't show up so you can put it back on.

Well, the Custom Faction feature lack of features, its not ambitious at all and really disapointing.



I will make some suggestions about it in another post...

Just out of curiosity, how would you go about starting the game with your Superior Hive custom build.

I would love to see more negative traits myself-- although it seems like making too many negative traits leads to factions that lack theme and just try to take a bunch of negatives to fit in every underpriced postive. So new negatives have to be added very thoughtfully. Maybe:

• Amphibious: May only settle on coasts and rivers
• Intolerant: May not assimilate minor factions, may not research assimilation techs
• Ferrophobic: May not equip units with iron/dust equipment higher than tier 1
• Lifeleak: All units take damage each turn they end outside of garrison
  
  

Traits like that should give serious pause to anyone trying to minmax to fit in Industry Efficiency.

So far, the greatest enjoyment for me in the Endless games is experimenting new trait combinations with custom factions.

Check out my Youtube channel for the 3 Custom factions that I made Let's Plays about: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5QyzrWUMEpKLGtCYhfNEsA

You can find them in the Custom Faction Gimmicks section in the channel. I would love to hear your feedback!



Briefly, I'll explain the concepts:

Collectors: Improved Broken Lords who can easily achieve Economic Victory. They have a bunch of traits to improve Dust including Merchants for extra trade routes

Dark Elves: an extremist military Wild Walkers who rely on quickly killing the enemies from a distance before they can reach them. Large Armies, Fast Movement, Offense First, Science Inefficient, Pitiless etc...

Fremen (based on the Dune universe ) : They are improved Roving Clans with greater Dust bonuses. They can easily win any victory type especially if they focus on the faction quest to get hidden powerful technologies. They rely extremely on Mercenaries and Market mechanics.



I would like to see more positive and especially negative traits added to this game so we can customize even more! In addition to the examples given by natev in the previous comment, here are my ideas:



1- Slothful: Your cities produce 10% less (3 ranks, can be up to 30%)

2- Corrupt Bureaucracy: Unit and Building buyout with is 30% more expensive in your cities.

3- Nomads: Your cities have 25% less Fortification Points. Districts cost 25% more to build.

4- Bloodlust: Gain 5 for 10 turns in your cities every time you kill an enemy unit. Does not affect Privateer armies. Maximum effect stack +35

5- Pessimistic: Lose 5 for 10 turns every time you lose a unit in battle. Does not affect Privateer armies. Maximum effect stack -35

6- Concentration camps: Captured cities recover 20% ownership per turn instead of normal 8%. Cannot be taken with "Weapons of the Enemy"

7- Hereditary Amnesia: Your units gain 50% less experience (except heroes)

8- Native Reservations: Minor Faction Assimilation bonus will always be considered as 2 pacified villages regardless of actual number of pacified villages.