Daynen wrote:

They have GOT to break up the Riftborn/continuum sculptor traits in the editor...

Eh perhaps or they can be a little more forthcoming about changes they made when it comes to Gameplay Affinities. I mean to start the game with 250 Dust(a perk of Continuum Sculptors) allows me to plop an Engine and 2 Probe modules on my Sophon Counselor Hero, upgrade the Exploration Ship with 2 Guns and upgrade the Colonization Ship with an extra Engine and still have Dust left over. What I did find out though in my test run of my Sophon faction is that Xenolinguistics appears to be "bugged" with Sophon Visual Affinity. Namely I had it selected as a Faction Trait to have it researched and yet on Technology screen it appeared with it unresearched(would post a SS but I already made a new game with a tech change). Planetary Landscaping was just fine but Xenolinguistics was not. The kicker though was that I could build the Sophon improved version despite it apparently not being "researched" at game start. So in lieu of that I opted to just go with Xenobiology(which isn't bugged) for PPP and an extra movement point at game start. Also another thing I learned is that your Starting Planet type is available to you at game start, even if you don't have the colonization tech for it. Meaning if you select Atoll with Continuum Sculptors, you can colonize Atoll if you're lucky enough to find one in a system(including its Unique Teonha). Same deal for Steppes, Savannah, Snow and Arid(which latter two require Xenobiology/Rare Earth Foams on Continuum Sculptors). No FIDS penalty either...

Also for those wanting a replacement for Growth Plan III, you can go with the Behemoth trait that starts you off with an Economic Behemoth. Forget if it was 10 or 15 points(going on assumption its 10....) but this can sort of make up for the lack of a Food buff from the Colony base while also boosting Industry, Dust and Science at the same time. Remove Fledgling Traders and then plop down Deadly Weapons II to get an extra 20% Damage(not like you'll need it) or Optimal Defense II for +20% HP(now that would be solid). If its 15 points, you'll want to go with either a 10 or 15 point trait. Some solid options are Utopian Infrastructure(helps with Fertile malus and Snow/Arid planets), Corsairs(masking your ships as neutral), Crowded Planets(+1 slot), Ghosts(Permanently Cloaked Ships never hurt) or Ace Senators(-50% Law cost is something that will help you a ton in mid-late game with Deadly Intent and Mine's Bigger taking up 8 Influence/person combined. Would help even more if you were in a Federation since it'd also cut the cost to influence an Election).

Just started trying out a riftborn/ship bound combo.  It's interesting, to say the least.  Ship bound makes everything about the arks, but being riftborn also means your pops aren't affected by food so you can't starve out if you make an error early.  Also means you can either build pops with industry OR essence; a flexible advantage indeed.  Riftborn also have much better scout ships so finding minors is a bit faster.  Still mulling over what other traits would work best.

Daynen wrote:

Just started trying out a riftborn/ship bound combo.  It's interesting, to say the least.  Ship bound makes everything about the arks, but being riftborn also means your pops aren't affected by food so you can't starve out if you make an error early.  Also means you can either build pops with industry OR essence; a flexible advantage indeed.  Riftborn also have much better scout ships so finding minors is a bit faster.  Still mulling over what other traits would work best.

I've toyed with the idea of Riftborn with Shipbound affinity. Being able to get population quickly is actually a plus as opposed to having to wait eons on Vanila Vodyani or use Essence to pop a unit of population. Yet in a way that kind of defeats the whole core concept of Shipbound as you have to weigh the early game opportunity cost of grabbing that first Ark or getting that 2nd population asap. Being able to "produce" population sidesteps that dilemma entirely as you're able to get 3-5 people very quickly(and the production cost isn't much if memory serves). My only issue with Shipbound Affinity is your "Leechers"(aka Settler Ships) are equipped without an Engine module at game start(at least with the few test runs I've done). Basically forces you to re-tool them at game start so if your exploration ships are not up to spec, you'll be gasping on Dust early on.

If I had Awakening DLC, I think an Omniscience Custom faction with Forgotten Lore perk would be broken...

I always adjust my starting ships anyway; most scouts either have a weapon when I don't think they need one or have an open slot to be filled.  colonizers always have an open slot for another engine too so one way or another I'm always looking at my starting ship designs regardless.

Alright, finally came back to do a new one.  Check this out:

This one uses slave drivers, but not for the bonuses of minor pops.  The idea is to colonize and populate--FAST.-- The amount of food they produce grows their pops faster than any other species and since they grow with such startling speed you should have no compunctions against liberally sacrificing population to either get manpower, dust or approval through a combination of observances, feeding pits or chain ganging.  Minor pops may be kept or eaten as needed, depending on how redundant they might be at the time and whether you're trying to go for some minor laws or not.  Once you make your way to some good sterile worlds, things get nasty quick as your pops grow every other turn--sometimes every turn.  Manpower is NEVER in short supply and drafting becomes an exercise in hilarity as your towering systems throw pop after pop at frustrated invaders who just never seem to breach your defenses.

Feeding Pits -> Kills Minor/Major Population that is not your own. It generates gobs of Food and Approval(albeit temporary). I did Cravers for a bit when testing out Slave Drivers so its their way of keeping system approval from getting really bad.

Chain Gang -> I assume its random(never used it) that generates manpower

Observance -> Never played Hissho so I wouldn't know lol.

I understand the negative drawback to Slaves with respect to approval but you have Ecologists in power where the mandatory law yields a benefit to system approval(unless the Wiki needs an update or clarification on whether its Government dependent... hah... never really played with Ecologists. Have been doing everyone but them lol). As for the Fertile penalty, you forget you have Democracy Government that gives +1/person. So rather than being -12 for Slaves on Fertile, its -11(-1 on Major).

If you do go with Continuum Sculptors though, remember that the Colony Base loses the Food buff so Agriculturalists with Efficient Farmers may be your only option if you do go with it. Btw, Extreme Foremen with Growth Plan beats anything

Hmmm...didn't really consider extreme foremen.  I'd have to do something about depletion though...or just take the appropriate collection bonus and roll with it.

Hey all, 

Great idea for a thread, just found this site and forums and am excited to see a community for ES2.  I love the game and making my own factions so wanted to share a few that I've had lots of fun with:  (sorry not sure how to upload pictures yet)

My fav race is Unfallen so I've made 2 custom races with them that have been entertaining:

The Aspen Grove - Growth Ecologist oriented unfallen.  The core element is +5 food per pop and +5 fertile.  Its 10 food per pop which obviously snowballs quickly.  Its gameplay hook is mostly just growing like a weed across the galaxy and having an insane growth curve.  I did +20% growth as well.  Its a very straight forward civ but can be played different ways.  For example, since your pop generates so much food naturally, you can actually skip most food production buildings which is an odd variant.  Or you can really lean into it for the quickest growth possible. 

The Redwoods - Religious Huge population - This race plays off of the Vodyani/Gargantuan pop of +4 FIDS (minus Influence) but -50% growth, with a +4 happy on fertile.  It borrows the +2 pop slots from Horatio,  +10% growth to help offset the penalty, and utopian infrastructure.  The idea was to create a super slow but powerful race that snowballs hard late game but takes a while to get rolling (similar to horatio).  The happiness helps you over expand, similar to standard Unfallen.  The religious ideology is fun to maintain only your custom faction spawning and to play on some fun lore of old redwood forests being ancient and spiritual.

Let me know what you guys think or if you need more info on the exact details of the races.  These were more just the thematic core elements of what I was going for.

Yeah, going for a theme in custom factions is part of the fun; sadly the current editor makes that...difficult for a lot of concepts.  I still hold out hope that this post-production "polish team" has some ability to mess with the editor's parameters because the game still has a lot of life in it with custom factions; it just needs some tuning.

Kind of wish the minor pops would show their population laws in the editor...I base my choices on their per pop bonus and I never end up getting 50 of any minor pop so unless I go look up the wiki those laws may never even be a factor.  Saw a mod reduce the threshold to 25 minor pops which I thought was a good idea.

Daynen wrote:

Kind of wish the minor pops would show their population laws in the editor...I base my choices on their per pop bonus and I never end up getting 50 of any minor pop so unless I go look up the wiki those laws may never even be a factor.  Saw a mod reduce the threshold to 25 minor pops which I thought was a good idea.

Yeah I find that getting 50 of any minor population is a sheer pain in the arse to get, even when I'm painstakingly propagating them so I can Gene Splice them. Propagating them only to keep them... yeah that's like shooting yourself in the foot in many respects. Thing is a mod shouldn't be the solution to this but rather an update that cuts the threshold on each stage from 10/20/50 to 5/10/20 or 25. That would be more fitting as I see it, especially if you're Horatio/custom Gene Hunter and weighing the mid to late game opportunity cost of gene splicing(which almost always is a yes but you never know).

@barf  

hmm very interesting!!  I'll try to answer in the order you responded:

I def agree that we could use more faction editor tools, I hope they at least do something minor in a patch or an addition in an expansion.  It'd be nice to play Empire / Humanity with a different narrative angle.  Either way I still try to have as much fun with it as we can!  I play affinity and visuals true to the core races (vines/unfallen visual for example).  There is a mod that has changed visual skins for the ships, I think I have that installed and I use different icons to help me differentiate but there could be more.

Hmm the race you made seems like a combo of redwood / aspen haha.  What is the core theme of the faction though?  Better Unfallen?  Hybrid Unfallen?  I like the ideas though and was thinking of possibly pushing them into more of a science unfallen?  I liked your ocean start idea and maybe playing on an "aquatic" unfallen theme?  Seaweed? Kelp? Lilypads?
They could be food/science oriented with ocean start / desires and science / eco laws.  I've never done too many science races besides standard Sophon so it could be fun to test out.

I find it super interesting that you play Unfallen Tall and not Wide?  I play them very wide but I find them weak to the RNG of the starting systems around their home planet (since I basically colonize everything but terrible systems).  With standard unfallen you can abuse the happiness laws of pacifist / guardians to easily go over the cap without any issues.  I can go up to +10 usually before starting to slow.  With Redwoods, I did Utopian to mimic this since they run religious laws so they can go a little over cap but not necessarily double the cap.  Aspen runs democracy but its not as much so they're the weakest to Wide but since they grow their initial systems faster I suppose I play them "taller."  I like the idea of a more focused Tall Unfallen though as I've never tried that playstyle.

Meritocratic is prolly my fav custom trait.  It's just so good to have flat FIDS bonus on your pop.  I use it for half my custom factions haha.  I suppose it can be a crutch in a sense but its hard to ignore.  I never thought about the extra influence allowing you to pass an early law so that's a great idea!  Hmm let me go create it and try to figure out how to insert a screenshot haha:

LillyPads - 

I did science and growth with +food/sci modifiers on pop.  I kept your strange but good, core worlds, crowded planets and then gave them boosted sci and food production.  They'll still have an issue getting their first vine fleet out the door, exploring and long term expansion but it presents an interesting new playstyle.  I picture it playing similar to the vaulters where you're trying to cherry-pick really good systems but you don't have portals to jump around.  I dropped food/off-world since you're right, unfallen don't need minor factions or the extra food since its on their pop.  I picked up xenobiology to get science off the ground but that can be switched around for xenoindustrial if you didn't want to hamstring their production so much early.

@daynen

I agree it could be lowered.  I've only had high minor pops when I created a custom race called the "delicate diplomats."  They basically were meant to be a pacifist puppeteer where you spammed influence and took over the universe through sheer diplomacy.  I created a variant rule for myself where I didn't research or create any military at all and it created a very interesting game.  It ended up being the strongest game I've ever played though so I think they game could not be balanced around mass influence haha.  But since they are able to assimilate a ton of minor civs early they ended up having the highest pops of minors that I've ever achieved.  I hit a lot of the pop thresholds in that game but it was also because I didn't care about my starting population as much and was creating a "federation / coalition" thematic. 

Satchmo333 wrote:

@barf  

hmm very interesting!!  I'll try to answer in the order you responded:

I def agree that we could use more faction editor tools, I hope they at least do something minor in a patch or an addition in an expansion.  It'd be nice to play Empire / Humanity with a different narrative angle.  Either way I still try to have as much fun with it as we can!  I play affinity and visuals true to the core races (vines/unfallen visual for example).  There is a mod that has changed visual skins for the ships, I think I have that installed and I use different icons to help me differentiate but there could be more.

Hmm the race you made seems like a combo of redwood / aspen haha.  What is the core theme of the faction though?  Better Unfallen?  Hybrid Unfallen?  I like the ideas though and was thinking of possibly pushing them into more of a science unfallen?  I liked your ocean start idea and maybe playing on an "aquatic" unfallen theme?  Seaweed? Kelp? Lilypads?
They could be food/science oriented with ocean start / desires and science / eco laws.  I've never done too many science races besides standard Sophon so it could be fun to test out.

I find it super interesting that you play Unfallen Tall and not Wide?  I play them very wide but I find them weak to the RNG of the starting systems around their home planet (since I basically colonize everything but terrible systems).  With standard unfallen you can abuse the happiness laws of pacifist / guardians to easily go over the cap without any issues.  I can go up to +10 usually before starting to slow.  With Redwoods, I did Utopian to mimic this since they run religious laws so they can go a little over cap but not necessarily double the cap.  Aspen runs democracy but its not as much so they're the weakest to Wide but since they grow their initial systems faster I suppose I play them "taller."  I like the idea of a more focused Tall Unfallen though as I've never tried that playstyle.

Meritocratic is prolly my fav custom trait.  It's just so good to have flat FIDS bonus on your pop.  I use it for half my custom factions haha.  I suppose it can be a crutch in a sense but its hard to ignore.  I never thought about the extra influence allowing you to pass an early law so that's a great idea!  Hmm let me go create it and try to figure out how to insert a screenshot haha:

LillyPads - 

I did science and growth with +food/sci modifiers on pop.  I kept your strange but good, core worlds, crowded planets and then gave them boosted sci and food production.  They'll still have an issue getting their first vine fleet out the door, exploring and long term expansion but it presents an interesting new playstyle.  I picture it playing similar to the vaulters where you're trying to cherry-pick really good systems but you don't have portals to jump around.  I dropped food/off-world since you're right, unfallen don't need minor factions or the extra food since its on their pop.  I picked up xenobiology to get science off the ground but that can be switched around for xenoindustrial if you didn't want to hamstring their production so much early.

The Unfallen faction I came up with above is basically a custom Unfallen, utilizing its core Gameplay mechanic in Celestial Vines and the Unfallen Visual affinity which utilizes their ships, quest line and starting hero(which is a Pacifist Seeker... pretty strong Exploration Hero at game start). Unfallen are a Tall Empire because their colonization mechanic takes "turns" and requires taking adjacent systems to form a vine network. Wide Empires aren't limited by what systems they may colonize(they can grab w/e system they want right away, Unfallen can't) and can do several systems at once(see Riftborn or the ultimate Wide Empire to really get what I mean). Unfallen would need like 20 Vineships to do several systems at once and the production necessary to acquire that many Vineships would take at least 50-60 turns depending on your gameplay speed(I do Normal).

As for an Imperial custom faction, try this one on for size. Its a custom faction that I've really come to love over the months I've been playing but is only viable as a Human controlled faction. The AI is notorious for not keeping their population as is and hence completely overwrites the population to that of Sheredyn(every damn time... i dont know why lol). Keep in mind that you can pick a different Visual(like Sophons or Vaulters)

Gameplay Affinity: Gene Hunter(Horatio)
Visual Affinity: Imperial(United Empire)
Starting Planet: Atoll

Starting Government: Republic

Population Ideology: Science + Automatists(Science -> Industry)

Population Buff: Extreme Foremen + Planet Menders

Population Collection Bonus: Peer Reviewed

Faction Traits:
Xenolinguistics

Plasma Metallurgy

Strange But Good

Stay at Home

Price of Perfection II
Sowers Minor Population

Crowded Planets II

Big Fleets II

The United Empire quest line is frankly easy to go through and I've found that a Science/Industry combination is straight up unbeatable with Petra and Dmitri in the Senate. You will need Industry to complete the UE quest line so if you find Science to be inadequate or you want a different ideology, by all means go with something else. What ideology that is, I don't know(Ecology or Military perhaps) but I find Science to mesh really well with this for several reasons. Firstly, you get 10% reduction to Science Tech costs and access to level 2(or 3) Techs from the start via Science's Mandatory law. Combined with Population collection bonus, you'll eventually get 30% reduction(40% with ITER Wonder which shouldn't be too hard to get). You get access to Dirty Hands law from Turn 2 onward which cuts production costs by 15%(via Republic). That production savings applies not only to improvements but also colonizing planets. Mid to late game this law saves you quite a bit of production. As Science remains in power, you can boost ship movement by 4, buff Food production by 40%(basically Growth Plan without needing it) and eventually Ship Weapon damage by 50%. The other ideology at game start will be Religious but you won't be needing it since you want minor populations to flourish and eventually will be replaced by Industry(which you have Dmitri on hand to represent in the Senate at game start).

For starting world, I opted for an Atoll start. Atolls yield the strongest Food/Industry combination in the game and with Strange But Good faction trait, this can be buffed even further or shore up the Dust and particularly Science shortfalls that Atoll has. Our starting Government is that of a Republic since the amplified laws can really have an impact in not only the early game but especially mid to late game when you get the Potent Laws in the Senate. Population was buffed with Extreme Foremen or that of the Cravers. Cravers are incredibly strong in the early game due to their productivity and a custom faction that utilizes it will eventually beat any custom faction that doesn't. The only issue with Extreme Foremen is the depletion malus. To offset this, the secondary trait of Planet Menders cuts it in half. Oh but how to outright remove it? That's where our Gameplay Affinity comes in. Horatio's Gameplay Affinity in Gene Hunter can take traits of other population to enhance your own. I chose Sowers as the starting minor faction for a very specific reason. Their population produces +2 Food but also -0.5 Depletion points per turn. When Gene Spliced, they add +1 Food and -0.5 Depletion points to your custom population, thereby removing Extreme Foremen's depletion malus for the remainder of the game but leaving its massive +150% production bonus on undepleted worlds. Since that will be every planet you will have in your Empire, Extreme Foremen takes an Atoll world(8/6/4/2 and turns it effectively into 20/15/10/5. That's not factoring in anomalies, strategic/luxury deposits and system improvements that buff per person yields(which are amplified with Extreme Foremen)).

For starting techs, I opted for Xenolinguistics and Plasma Metallurgy to unlock both Titanium and Hyperium mining(as well as their production improvements). I recommend opening with Off-World Agribusiness(to unlock Minor Civ Diplomacy) before doing Science(Xenobiology and Rare Earth Foams). Big Fleets II is another trait of the Cravers I've come to really like in that you gain +2 CP(which means more ships) but also -25% Ship upkeep(something that is invaluable in the early game). With Big Fleets II, you can more easily afford a sizable military that you will need to hold off the aggressive AI. I then took a trait from the Horatio in Crowded Planets but rather than going with just +1, I opted for +2. That means our starting Atoll will have 10 population slots at game start and all planets you colonize gain this benefit. More population you have, more output from Extreme Foremen. To offset the faction traits, I opted for Price of Perfection II. With Extreme Foremen, you won't notice the ship production malus so its basically a free 10% Damage buff that can stack with Punisher Drives in UE Quest line to give you a nice early game damage buff. The other malus is Stay at Home and while the malus forces you to watch it on colonizing/occupation, United Empire has a unique perk of being able to colonize one extra system(via Xeno Anthropology). The other perk is having strong Manpower modules earlier(Tier 3 as opposed to Tier 5).

Basically you choose Petra as heir and grab her excellent Exploration perks(and the fact she's a Seeker Hero, making her a prime Fleet Admiral) while keeping Dmitri as a Governor. Try to prioritize Z'Vali, Sisters of Mercy, Horatio, Kal'Tik'Ma and Kalgeros for splicing. Why you ask? For the +Happiness of course. Each one yields +2/+2/+1/+3/+3 respectively(with Z'Vali yielding +1 Science, Sisters yielding +25 Damage to Attackers and Horatio +2 Food). Gene-Splice all of them and your population has +11 Happiness or more than enough to overcome any planet malus in the game(and then some). The game will eventually give you 2 Kalgeros and 3 Horatio so you're basically guaranteed +4 over the course of any game. All you will need is to get one more and you won't have to worry about +Happiness improvements despite having an improved Luxury Lottery variant(+10 per Luxury as opposed to +5).

LMK what you think.

A fairly well thought out build, though I do wonder why HIssho?  Remember your visual affinity determines your hulls, starting hero and quests/rewards.  I've never really played Hissho through to their main quest completion so I don't know what they provide to the build.