Endless Difficulty Tested & Approved.



Overall Theme: Roving Cities & Traits that offer synergy with them.

Play-style: AGGRESSIVE EXPANSIONISTS

Victory Conditions: Expansion & Military.



Lore:



The Slaver Syndicate is hardly as organized as their name implies; they are better described as an unruly gaggle of nomadic tribes, black marketeers, slavers, and mercenaries. They are notorious for their extensive abuse and reliance on slave labor and a hedonistic indulgence of all manner of blood sports. While they do not possess the know how or sustainability to forge a lasting empire, the Syndicate does manage to sustain itself with a heavy reliance on slaves and forced labor. As such, their armies are masters of mounted combat, preferring to use their speed to throw nets over ...potential acquisitions.



It seems they are destined to expand only to collapse from the incessant ceaseless infighting.

Let us hope they meet their end sooner than this comes to fruition, for Auriga's sake.



-=Slaver Syndicate=-



Traits:



Affinity: Roving Clans



+Food Efficient

+Cull the Herd

+Veins of Auriga

+Goods of Auriga

+Demanding Gods

+Alchemist's Furnace



-Pitiless

-Brace Yourselves!

-Spendthrifts 1/3



Synergy and Strategy Explained:



Riddle of (Glass) Steel:



Roving Cities + Veins of Auriga + Alchemists Furnace.

"The Syndicate's Lancer Corps. is known for their ability to work metal, especially glass steel."



Did you know that Roving Cities will leave a FREE extractor on top of a node if you have the corresponding technology?! With Veins of Auriga and Alchemists Furnace you can start gathering precious metals FAR before anyone else does! Simply found your city on a node, then pack up and move to your favored location.

-raises a sword in the air He-Man style- Setseke Hooooooooo!



Forced Labor: Chain Gangs & Plantations.



Roving Cities + Food Efficient + Cull the Herd + Veins of Auriga + Goods of Auriga.



"With slaves working the mines, the fields, and the plantations the Syndicate's material wealth is hard to rival--even if their ability to manage Dust is lackluster."



This combination of skills are the fabric of your empire. These skills all revolve around the theme of using your ability to move your cities to your utmost advantage.



The synergy here-within will assure success! Be warned, however, you will be very active in your city management. It's imperative that you take your time and plan your city-transitions accordingly. Also, never end a turn without deploying your cities/settlers/setseke. You can have that population work towards food, dust, or science between turns while you're changing spots! The whole idea here is that you generate a lot of food and gain population fast. When you have about four-five population you pick your city up and move it to tiles with the FIDS that you want, and you put our ill-gotten population to work! Your empire will eventually spiral out of control if you take the aggressive expansion approach. Even the vaulters will be jealous of how well equipped your soldiers are! Ok.. Ok. Maybe not the Vaulters, but at least everyone else!



Managing your cities and learning when and where to transition to can take some practice, but is required for optimal play of this build!



Blood Sports



Demanding Gods + Spendthrifts



"Ah. Blood Sports. Arenas. Two men enter, one man leaves. It's a favorite pass-time of the Free-Peoples within the Syndicate. Not so much fun for the slaves who fight each other to the death. Unfortunately for you they also tend blow their dust on booze, betting, and other such hedonistic behavior during these events!"



Demanding Gods will give you breathing room regarding expansion disapproval techs so that you can grab Extractors first. The only concessions to this rule is Bread and Circuses, since you don't actually have to build it to gain the advantage.



Black Marketeers



Veins of Auriga + Goods of Auriga

"While not as manipulative as the Roving Clans due to their sullied reputation, the Syndicate still maintains at least some measure of influence."



These skills ensure your soldiers have top-of-the-line equipment and that your massive empire stays swimming in Luxury-Boosters. Sometimes it will also allow you to crash the market mid-late game by flooding it with a massive sale of stocked up resources! This can obviously become very obnoxious to other empires!



Lancer Corps: Taking Prisoners.



"The Lancer Corps. are the blood hounds of the Syndicate. Masters of mounted combat, tracking, and --most importantly-- taking prisoners."



Your military, as previously stated, is well going to be well equipped for most of the game. Kasai can kite all day and Dervishes are fantastic line breakers. Yirmaks provide your meat shields.



Favor imitative and damage boosting armor and weapons. Use Dervish as "line breakers" use their movement to tie enemies up by wasting their action on a retaliation. This will allow your Kasai to do the damagez! Yirmaks can provide Kasai with meat shields or Dervish with muscle. Remember that a Dervish will usually not win in a standup fight against similarly equipped foes. It is imperative to take advantage of charge. One strategy I find effective is to charge different enemies to lock them up so that they waste their action on retaliate and you get that nice Charge spike damage. The let the Kasai's and Yirmaks finish them off.



You have Roving Clans units! So if someone retreats from you? Chase them down. Because they can't out run you!



Finally, the Roving Clans Heroes have a class trait that lowers expansion disapproval and ownership recovery. Stationing him newly conquered cities after he has this trait will help with it's 'rebellion' status! Much more useful to war-like peoplez.



Main Quest: It Actually Helps! XD



Despite the military/expansion nature of this custom faction, the earlier stages of the main Quest really help your goal. The Roads of Dust, acquired VERY EARLY, add +8 industry. This is fantastic since you'll plant your city down in the highest food locations, usually. High Towers is also great if you end up getting it!

Alternate Builds & Tweaks



You could take a negative trait of your choosing to replace Alchemists Furnace with Landscapists. This would still fit in with the plantations/slaver theme, I suppose, and it would provide better long term bonuses. Alchemists Furnace provides a great synergy with Roving Cities and getting those extractors up fast---which provides a great short term advantage, and decent long term advantage. Alternatively, both could be kept and Demanding Gods could be switched out if you are sheepish about saccing population! Season to taste!



Assimilation Priorites:



Silics = ALL THE RESOURCES! And a great home defender (but he isn't good at keeping up with your other dudez)



Bos = MORE FOOD! Great synergy with your other traits. Unit is also good at keeping up with your troops and a pretty good bridge between dervish and Yirmak.



Rumbler = Industry bonus is pretty good, and the units are again ideal for city defense.