Wha. No love for the Cravers? ):

ES1 Horatio will always be my favorite though.

Zennock wrote:

Wha. No love for the Cravers? ):

They used to be my favorite faction back in ES1 i have a thing for omnicidal bugs but in ES2 the cravers doesnt feel like cravers to me which is really sad they cant eat enemy pops and have to deal with their rebellions and now they have the whole friendly craver vibe which i dont like and its sad even the horatio and vodyani feel more craver for me than the actual cravers and because amplitude did a great job with the necrophages and i feel i was playing an actual horde of man eating bugs the whole cattle thing and the foodstack system it was really good for immersion i hope amplitude does something similar with the cravers in the future.

Cravers aside the horatio are my favorite race its one of the most original sci fi concepts i ever seen and their ship design is beautiful. 

Vodyani: Lore, of basically being sentient dust + data, is awesome. Their hierarchy makes me feel like I'm really leading my people into a brighter future (in that regard I was especially disappointed with the Horatio, where it's vague, at least early on, that you're even the first Horatio). And most importantly, I really love the arks and their civilization being ship-based. On the downside I find they're too dependent on their start position, are too vulnerable to neighbours colonizing fast, and are too vulnerable to unlucky ship losses early on (build one military ship to fight off pirates, multiple pirate fleets engage you, wandering from nearby minors randomly in your direction, lose it, can't drain essence, can't expand, can't build new ships fast, rinse and repeat).

Riftborn after, because they're mechanical and pure, but have to make hard choices to save their people. That and I enjoy industrial/science civs the most usually, and I find it easy to leverage their industry for fast fleets, or lots of science, equally well. I do find it irritating that the AI is willing to get very aggressive over your colony choices though, while if you do the same you risk your score and colonization efforts to build a fleet and wage war to wipe out a few colonies, leaving you at risk for any other AI who comes along: at the moment it feels like they don't care about other AI as much as they do a human player (example: I colonized four worlds in a constellation I shared with UE and Lumeris. One of my colonies was on the UE doorstep, so they get angry, I understand that. But Lumeris pokes into them from the north, and they flank Lumeris on the east, both have more colonies than I do, yet they both end up declaring war on me, not each other, though thankfully not on exactly the same turn or anything as blatant as that).

I used to love UE, because of their strong industry and influence generation (assimilating minor factions early is fun), but now I'm more of a Craver player. Moving Craver population from almost depleted systems to new fresh ones gives me a real feeling of a ravenous all-consuming horde. It also really pushes you into war with other factions, so you can "harvest" population for your old systems and I've always been an aggressive player, so yeah :) . Cant wait to try them out in multiplayer once it gets stable.

Anyway, I can see myself playing most of the races, except for Sophons (boring one dimensional trait - what use is all that scientific advantage if you cant apply it?) and Vodyani (religious fanaticism = meh - totally personal).

The United Empire just kind of hits a sweet spot for me, where they have great industry and tough ships, but also care about sustainability rather than the use up and move on of the Cravers or the 'we need to keep a neighbor around to drain' Vodyani. I find the Lumeris and Horatio a bit too fragile and under-equipped in comparison. Other good choices are the Riftborn who leverage the same industrial strengths with a bit more of a glass canon than tank angle, and the Sophons who can get the higher tech toys to win with fewer elite ships. What tips the UE over for me is that I don't find myself using the law system much due to the downsides, so I like being able to direct my influence toward other priority researches or builds.

Horatio is Horatio. We are Perfect and Beautiful and Genius, and all the univeree will be like Us.

Splicing genes is a fun mechanic and lets me get rid of those pesky minority populations without fussing around with the starport. It gives me a serious drive to be aggressive early game and collect enemy systems, because the benefit to doing so (anywhere from a +1 Science to a +2% FIDS) is just so important.

Vodyani might come second for me, although I truthfully haven't played most of the races.

Zennock wrote:

Wha. No love for the Cravers? ):

The Cravers have the best music for when you first meet them. The fact that planets get depleted gives me anxiety.

Sophons and Horatio, and maybe the Unfallen when they come out.

I just love Science and Ecologist factions.

Title says it all. I'll add my favourite race/faction later on.

Vodyani. They play unique. They look unique. Their lore is unique.

Riftborn are a good second choice, but suffer from the sin of not being Vodyani.

Riftborn for me. Deep gameplay. Tons of possible game plans.

I don't think I could pick just one.

I love the UE storyline.  I love playing as the Lumeris and engaging in ridiculous business shenanigans like making a peace treaty and then hitting my opponent with unmarked pirates, or buying up all the systems on a border with an Empire, and then selling them to another Empire, and watching them either go to war over them, or being hemmed in by patchwork and intertwined their empires are.  I love the idea of the Vodyani, but I can't get them to work well for the life of me.

If I had to pick, I'd likely pick the Vodyani, but I think I enjoy the Lumeris the most.

Lumeris and Vodyani are my two favorites thus far. Lumeris mostly for the playstyle, Vodyani largely because of the ships and lore.

Zennock wrote:

You know, that part about pacifism is pretty ironic because a lot of people think of the Lumeris of Space Mafias. 

Just because you're smart enough to know open warfare is bad for business doesn't mean you're a goody two shoes. Roving Clans in EL was the same way. Sure, their faction traits outright prevented them from declaring war, but they were also the best at hiring bannerless mercenaries that could do all sorts of horrible, warlike things for them instead.

I love the Horatio mechanic, pretty much because I love expansionists, population oriented factions, but their motivations scare me. I want to like the Riftborns, but I find their gameplay clunky and weirdly slow.

Vodyani, because I like their graphical design and because of how they "reproduce".

The Riftborn come as a close second.

You know, that part about pacifism is pretty ironic because a lot of people think of the Lumeris of Space Mafias. 

I like the Lumeris the most. IRL I'm a sucker for pacifism and trade and such, so I can kind of identify with the Lumeris from a lore perspective. 

In game mechanics terms, they start on a temperate + fertile planet so early public private partnerships and Xenolinguistics give me busted amounts of science and industry. They start with two scouts, each with 3 probes, so exploration is a cinch. Micromanaging colony ships is a pain for me, so being able to simply purchase outposts simplifies things and allows me to be somewhat flexible. The only things I'm not overly fond of are the fact that they start with Gashgnasts (sp?) and the fact that they start with a seeker hero. Just give me a guardian or overseer please!