Just finish play as Vodyani, they're seems very weak at first. But if you managed to survive till to 50 turns with 3 systems colonized, the galaxy is yours. If you found minor faction straight away brainwash them, you can take over their system later on. 

Provided you can somehow survive the early game, they actually become stupid strong later on.

Yea this is with all the buffs like Obelisk of All Space Time and Omnipotence reward from the Academy quest line and all, but their ability to pretty much break FIDSI late game lies right within their Arks - FIDSI support modules. You simply stack 8 of All Must Serve III and then bam! you instantly get 800+ industry on a system with just 1 pop and 1 planet. Of course that said bonus is multiplicative so as you build system improvements you get more and more out of those FIDSI modules.

So no they aren't weak at all if you ask me.

YertyL wrote: I think another part of the reason Vodyani feel weak ATM is also their faction quest that gives minimal rewards for relatively large investments (pirates at turn 5). 

Maybe they could also just spawn with 2 scouts ships to help early scouting and fights, both crucial for the faction.

Agreed. Few things are more frustrating than thinking you got a good start as the Vodyani by finding a Minor Civ relatively close by...only for one of the pirates from the quest getting randomly dumped on the exact system with said Minor Civ, potentially interrupting or delaying your early Essence flow. Again, none of the other factions have to deal with that level of combat that early on. Even the starting Craver quest only requires you to deal with one ship, if I recall correctly.

Starting with two scout ships would definately be one of the many things that could help balance out the Vodyani's weaker early game.

Having tried out the vodyani for the first time yesterday - I became trapped in my starting spaces by pirates spawning blocking off my acess to the rest of the worls - by turn 30 I had basically gained one population, about to gain a second and 20+ turns away from my second arc. It seemed thad a bad start could ruin the game - those pirates spawning completly screwed me. I'm going to try them again, but +1 for doing something to give them an opening game that makes me want to play them!

I agree with op here. the Vodyani is indeed one of the more challenging race to play in the early game, and even in the late game they are actually not that strong either, but at late game the essence problem basically goes away, because you will have many systems, and some of them will always be dedicated for essence production. 

I believe the big difficulty for Vodyani in the early game is that they heavily depends on essence sucking, but your empire could be relatively far away from minor civs, which takes the player awhile to get there, and once you get there, the minor civ is about to spawn their own fleet. secondly, man power is a big challenge for the Vodyani in the early game, because their pop grows very slow due to the food problem. 

After sinking 150+ hours into this game, I still could not find a good strategy to play the Vodyani. and in comparism, the Cravers are much easier to manage. 

Gzar wrote:

Vodyani have manpower issues making them very hard to play but they're far from weak. They are easily one of the strongest races because they have godly industry/science thanks to ark modules.

You can actually play them without leeching at all.

Here's victory on turn 80 on quick on endless difficulty wihtout building a single leecher over the course of the game. The ark essence modules are enough to sustain you.

Pirates should not be a problem since you can just roll them over with an ark if they get really troublesome but putting your hero as an admiral and giving him a fleet should be enough.

Thanks a bunch for the advice and the video link. I'll definately have to give that a try. I actually always wondered about just equipping a bunch of Essence modules on an Ark, but was worried that I'd be gimping the rest of my FIDSI too much, and that it still wouldn't be enough to make up for not having a Minor Civ to leech off from.

RadasNoir wrote:

Gzar wrote:

Vodyani have manpower issues making them very hard to play but they're far from weak. They are easily one of the strongest races because they have godly industry/science thanks to ark modules.

You can actually play them without leeching at all.

Here's victory on turn 80 on quick on endless difficulty wihtout building a single leecher over the course of the game. The ark essence modules are enough to sustain you.

Pirates should not be a problem since you can just roll them over with an ark if they get really troublesome but putting your hero as an admiral and giving him a fleet should be enough.

Thanks a bunch for the advice and the video link. I'll definately have to give that a try. I actually always wondered about just equipping a bunch of Essence modules on an Ark, but was worried that I'd be gimping the rest of my FIDSI too much, and that it still wouldn't be enough to make up for not having a Minor Civ to leech off from.

I've never built a leecher ship and only use the one given for scouting. For the Arks, I focus on mostly Essence, then science and industry and those generally keep me afloat. Also try brainwashing minor civilizations since it gives you 15 essence and a lil extra resources and act as a buffer state (they also can't be assimilated by other factions). 

Suis3i wrote: Also try brainwashing minor civilizations since it gives you 15 essence and a lil extra resources and act as a buffer state (they also can't be assimilated by other factions). 

Yeah, if I'm not gonna need to leech off from Minor Civs for Essence as a result of using the Ark module strategy, then I might as well still get some use out of them.  

RadasNoir wrote:

Suis3i wrote: Also try brainwashing minor civilizations since it gives you 15 essence and a lil extra resources and act as a buffer state (they also can't be assimilated by other factions). 

Yeah, if I'm not gonna need to leech off from Minor Civs for Essence as a result of using the Ark module strategy, then I might as well still get some use out of them.  

yuuuupppp

Awesome

So, I really dig the Vodyani aesthetically, but I often have a hard time playing as them, since they seem to struggle to hold their own against the other factions, especially in the early game where it feels like a bad start impacts them way more than any of the other races. I've noticed this with the Vodyani AI as well when I'm playing against them, as they tend to be the weakest faction the entire game, but especially early on.

Thinking that I may have just been missing something, I decided to go browsing around for guides and such. Some of the guides I found were quite old, dating all the way back to early access, and it seems that even back then the Vodyani's early game often decided whether or not they had any shot at all for the rest of the game. I also recently went browsing around here, and came across this thread promoting a Vodyani rework mod on Steam, which seems like it has some good ideas for fixing some of their problems. So, it definately seems like it's not just me, but something the rest of the player community has long since acknowledged as well.

So, have the devs themselves ever talked about how the Vodyani seem weaker compared to the other factions? And if they have, have they ever talked about any plans to make them more consistent? 

Hi,

As you can see the issue causes debate; the Vodyani are definitely an advanced faction to play. However some problems do have a consensus (like manpower for them) and we are working on improving those.

Best,

They are definitely not weaker than other factions, they just get some time to get used to as some of the their traits run counter to other factions. In my playthroughs at least, early science modules are more important than industry to get those important techs. You can specialise later, but for most of the game you'll want to have arks completely decked out with science. You industry comes from population and buildings. 

Population is more important getting more colonies. Two rounds of pop is cheaper than an ark in terms of essence for your first ark, and gets you more essence faster, meaning the downtime is less than you might think. For later arks, it becomes even more efficient to get the population asap.

Unlike other militaristic factions, you'll want to play defensively for a good amount of time, never leaving an ark exposed (especially with pirates) until you have a few system upgrades. Use the population boost luxury constantly for double the FIDS on your population, buy it on the market if you need it. Basically, you can stay competitive on 3-4 high planet systems for a good amount of the game. You'll eventually have more essence than you really need, which makes manpower hardly an issue, even if you were struggling before.

In terms of getting essence early, put an engine on your first leecher. They move exceptionally fast and you only really need enough essence to get your first population and ark rolling. After that, leecher designs are better used as siege ships or long range scouts if you really need them.

The only place I think Vodyani could get some love is in regards to pirates and to some degree early manpower. Arks are just a little too vulnerable early on to pirates, and it's not always so easy to get out a defensive fleet in time to stop them from rolling you over. Half of this is the damage nerf arks get before they are upgraded, and other half is their hull weakness. Reducing hull weakness before upgrades would go a long way in making them defensible. Reducing the cost of the essence to manpower conversion to 150 rather than 300 would help with that.

There's no question they are an 'advanced faction', but they are hardly skill capped. The fact is even if you play optimally, there are many concerns that just cannot be worked around. Show me the Vodyani player who can survive an early Endless Cravers rush next door and still win the match, or the Vodyani who can survive an invasion by an experienced player. AI is nowhere near confident nor creative enough containing Arks, while humans can do it comfortably and shut down the entire faction in a few turns.

This high end potential we see is only ever a consequence of passive AI.

The only matter of debate is whether you take into account their late game potential as a balancing factor. I would be inclined not to, since it in itself is out of proportion and requires attention just as much as their downfalls. I think it is telling that in order for us to consider Vodyani a credible faction, they require the ludicrously overpowered exponentially stacking All Must modules. That alone should highlight the eminence of the other concerns.

Regarding matters on which there is consensus, would you not agree that the fact the Vodyani can start with between 1 to 4 colonised planets is a hugely disruptive variable? It cannot be modded, and setting that to a default value would alleviate early game disparities meaningfully.

In fairness, most people don't survive a Craver rush next door. Even with no tech lead, their fleets are 1/3 better than yours. It's not often that a Craver AI just storms at you, but if a human does it in MP, chances are you're toast. That doesn't change the point about arks being a bit too vulnerable in the early game though, and I do think this is something that should be looked at.

In terms of bad starts - nearly every faction suffers badly if they get a bad start. I don't think this is exclusive to Vodyani, nor do I think they suffer any more than anyone else. If the Tchinomy system is bad, and every nearby system is bad such that you can't pack up and move there, then I don't see how that kind of start wouldn't be awful for everyone else as well. That's a general, and genuine, issue with starting balance that maybe could do with another look, but not really Vodyani specific. It is true that they benefit more from an excellent start than anyone else, but that's a point in their favour - if you get unlucky then you're no worse than anyone else who gets unlucky, if you get lucky, you storm out of the gates.

jhell wrote:

Hi,

As you can see the issue causes debate; the Vodyani are definitely an advanced faction to play. However some problems do have a consensus (like manpower for them) and we are working on improving those.

Best,

Yeah, I'm thinking that I may have wanted to start off just asking for advice first, before questioning the faction's potential as whole. That being said, it is good to hear that the Devs are indeed aware of some of the more persistent problems players currently have with the Vodyani.

Aitarus wrote:

Regarding matters on which there is consensus, would you not agree that the fact the Vodyani can start with between 1 to 4 colonised planets is a hugely disruptive variable? It cannot be modded, and setting that to a default value would alleviate early game disparities meaningfully.

Something that I've been thinking about, is that it's kind of weird that the Vodyani really need colonization tech at all, since they are Shipbound, after all. Maybe, as apart of their unique Faction affinity, they should have a weaker version of the Ecologist law that lets them colonize all non-gas planets? Weaker, as in they get an ever greater penalty for possesing planets they do not currently have have the colonization tech for?

The biggest balance issue is the player.Every race becomes overpowered in their own field mid to end game when the human is in charge..The issue is the A.I cannot do the same.