I've been playing the United Empire, and I absolutely love them! The lore, the ship design, the affinity etc.

But, somehow I think their affinity is a little bit too... strong? If you play as the Empire, if you manage to grab enough colony and assign counselor-type UE heroes to the colonies, you'll get enough influence to buy almost anything you need (And gulp other empire's systems with you influence area. I managed to gulp 4 systems with the influence area of my home system alone!)

Is the United Empire truly overpowered because of that? I don't think so, as every civ in Endless Space 2 needs the correct playstyle and strategy to unlock their true potential (Esp. when it comes to the Vodyani, where it comes to make-it or break it when playing them. Kudos to Amplitude for making a civ with a truly unconventional and interesting playstyle!)

However, related to that "not-OP" argument, what do you think is the weakness of the United Empire in Endless Space 2? Personally, what I think as one of their chink in the armor is their lackluster science? I played as the Cravers and researched faster than the UE! (Even considering the fact that I assimilated the Deuyivans (Bless 'em!) in both playthroughs with different affinities, Art of Science (-10% research cost) in the UE playthrough and that affinity I forgot that makes systems produce more science in the Cravers playthrough)

So, what do you think?

Currently the factions lacks more distinct mechanics imho. Another issue is that for other factions, getting influence requires using the SPIN projects mostly. There is less occuring ways to grab influence than other FIDSI, hence why heroes and the affinity are so strong. 

Since the factors to develop your empire don't vary much, many factions are bound to have no "apparent weakness". 

The devs can't at the moment put some arbitrary barrier to expansion because all factions need to perform roughly the same in the long run. If the sophons are for a rough start, it's mostly unintentional. 

XR17 wrote:

I think the problem is that there isn't any sink for influence, so they can tap on a resource that is mostly useless during the game. They don't "sacrifice" influence, just spend it while others factions cannot

True this. A sink might help control UE, but would it add to the "fun" factor? It might be just and fair to put but in the eyes of the player might be a hindrance.

Well their only weakness is that they keep crashing, at least for me.

shrike81 wrote:

Well their only weakness is that they keep crashing, at least for me.

That and atrocious facial hair...