Hello !



So, now that you have had plenty of time to think about your custom faction, would the community post their dear personalized factions to help the guys with no imaginations (like me) or the new people which are a bit confused ?



I may post mine someday ... maybe ..., I'll see if I find one ...



Thanks in advance



P.S. : Amplitude, let me know the custom faction of your Technical Director please ! (the one he is "inordinately proud of")



Again, thanks in advance.



À la prochaine !

I found the Drakkan bonus set to be rather lacking. They don't go beyond the 80 in stock, and none of their bonuses are always very useful:



- Well connected is hit and miss. It can affect your starting strategy, for example if you know you've got the cult or necros right next door

you'll have an easier time to prepare for the inevitable war. However it costs 15 points,

which is quite steep for an advantage that lasts only for the early game



- Advanced diarchy is cheap, but not very helpful.

The little influence I get early as Drakkan will be spent on diplomacy to get maps



- endless excavation is meh, as I tend to make tall cities - and ruins are just in the way



- the two technologies are useful, nothing to complain about. But I needed the points



My deadly combo of doom:



- Food efficient (25p, +1 food per food tile)



- industry efficient (25p, +1 prod per prod tile)



- naive (5 points, 4 approval for each peace and alliance)



The ressource boost is obviously ludicrous in early game, and still significant in late game. This allows you

to grow your cities at rapid pace, all the way through winter. The setback in research can be regained within

the first 20-30 turns without breaking a sweat, and you have lots of headroom to waltz through the lands with your hero,

picking the landscape clean and prepare future colonies well in advance.

In addition to that you can usually pick up a fiew friendships on the way, so you can make excellent use of the 5 points for naive.



Granted, I've had an excellent start with three near perfect provinces right off the bat, so my experience with its effectiveness is skewed, but the bonus from the efficient traits is largest

if you don't have access to convenient anomalies. I think this is definitely better than the default Drakkan, who are already quite strong because of the excellent units selection.



I considered taking the "make trade, not war" trait which prevents you from declaring war in order to keep one of the techs or pick another

suitable 10 point tech instead of "naive", but I decided that being able to preemptively kill off cult or necros or to intervene in a late game race to victory is more important.



edit: formatting

My custom faction is only a slight variation on the Wild Walkers. I called them the Greenguard - for obvious reasons.



I focused them on early expansion (city sizes and number of cities, but primarily the former) with the potential for aggression at all stages, and took the army size increase because it's relevant throughout the entire game and helps a massive amount early when you can abuse rangers to secure territory. I also took Cannon Fodder because it lets you field massive armies so easily while maintaining respectable Dust income as soon as you get the tech - I get it as soon as I reach the Era it's available in and produce four or five armies of half rangers half tenei walkers +1 walker (IE majority melee and tanky with extra damage from further back). Cannon Fodder combined with Winter Shelters lets you be pretty active as longer winters set in, so you can gear up for war while everyone else is bunkering in for the winter - that was unintended but it works great.



Make sure that you get heroes and max out the bonus movespeed as fast as you can, it is absolutely crucial for being on your toes and maintaining as much offensive/defensive potential with the fewest number of big armies you can.



Generally I go for a conquest or wonder victory. I know they're kind of all over the place, but I wanted versatility and I think I've managed to achieve that pretty effectively.





Affinity: Wild Walkers

Positive traits

• Cannon Fodder
• Cellulose Mutation
• Winter Shelters
• Big Armies
• Industry Efficient
  
  

Negative Traits

• Fragile Health
• Spendthrifts
• Dust Starved
  
  

[80/80]





I've had some success with them, but I am by no means an expert on min/maxing factions or anything. I'm open to improvement suggestions but I'd like to try and keep the playstyle the same. I love the versatility, too.

So, my faction is based on the Cultist of the Eternal End, and my goal was to maximize the number of district and unit strenght, to create a very strong city (since they have only one).

That's why I use the trait that let you build a district every 1 population (cellulose mutation), and since I have a lot of district, I'll also use "Cull the herd", which do, if I understand well, give +2 per opulation: per district on town (not sure about the "per district" part since I don't really know which icon it is), but if i'm right, it's an awesome synergy with the Cellulose mutation trait.



Of course, I use the "conversion" trait, to convert the minor factions villages for an obvious reason, and I also use "optimal defense (+20% defense)" and "offense first (+20% attack)", which will boost the units of the cultist/assimilated factions, but also the units of the converted minor factions village which can't be upgraded, and "a song of ice, only ice (+2 movement on units during winter + immunity to movement reduction during winter)" since I hate the low movement speed during winter.



As negative trait, I use "pitiless (unable to use diplomacy)", the only downside being that is cost 2 time more to convert minor village, but it's not really a problem since the influence is flowing in mass with that number of district, and the last one is "slow traveler (-1 movement speed)" which can be cancelled by equipping the item which up the movement speed of the units.



So, here is a recap :

Positive traits :

A song of ice, only ice (+2 movement on units during winter + immunity to movement reduction during winter)

Cellulose mutation (one population per district instead of 2 population per district)

Conversion (allow to convert minor faction village)

Cull the herd (+2 per opulation: per district if I'm right)

Offense first (+20% attack on units)

Optimal defense (+20% defense on units)



Negative traits :

Pitiless (unable to use diplomacy)

Slow travelers (-1 movement on units)



For a total of 84/85 points.

I had some success on normal, I'll have to give a try on a higher difficulty, i'll try to keep this post updated.

My Ardent mages setup (called Purifiers) focusing on dust:



Positive:

-Cellulose mutation - one of the most OP traits atm

-Dust efficient - more dust

-Businessman 2/3 - even more dust. Would like to fit 3/3 in, but no idea how to do it without sacrificing smth important

-Arcana of Matter - Starting spell, +science is good to get tech going early on

-Arcana of Authority - Best combat spell, + influence useful midgame

-Arcana of Renewal - Additional growth endgame

-Dust mechanics

-Dust purifier

-Painosphere



Negative:

-Dust starved 1/2 - Needed 1 extra point, with this trait setup you will compensate for it instantly

-Industry inefficient - You buy out everything, no need for industry. Can be a little bit painful early on



I've ditched arcana of speed since I didn't use it much and it costs whooping 8 points, arcana of materializing seems to trade dust for dust and is only effective at low number of rods, which isn't what you want. Sacrificial amplifiers are era 6, and at this point you might as well go for science victory, and the rest of the techs are more OP. The rest of the magic tech is in place. Dust seems like an obvious direction for the mages since spells cost dust, so with good economy you can throw them around freely. You can skip all the industry tech, which gives you enough space to research magic tech and other useful stuff.



Very simple wild walkers setup (got wonder victory with it around turn 130 when just messing around, pretty sure it can be done much faster):



The Shapers



-Cellulose mutation

-Living cities

-Industry efficient



Also very military oriented necrophages I'm currently messing around with. Not sure how well it will work yet:



Great Devourer

-Big armies 2/2

-Cannon fodder

-Industry efficient

-Weapons of the enemy



-Science inefficient

-Pitiless