Cultists come back! The faction with one system only and special vertical development!

You got me at "CULTISTS COME BACK!" :D

I never played Endless Legend but here's a shameless self-promotion on my part. The cultists ought to be experts at psyops:

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/ideas/634-simple-psyops

havenphillip wrote:

I never played Endless Legend but here's a shameless self-promotion on my part. The cultists ought to be experts at psyops:

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/ideas/634-simple-psyops

You do not understand the idea, unfortunately.
You ought to play it before. There were factions with special diplomatic/spy abilities, and it wasn't the Cultists.

The glory of the Cult shall rise again; while lesser civilisations spread like cockroaches the Cult will create a beacon of majesty the likes of which would put even the endless to shame.

As much as I like the Cultists - and would like to see something similar in ES2 - I don't think that currently there is enough opportunity for vertical development to make a one-system faction viable. An extra system development level, extra population slots, or stronger improvements don't seem like enough to rectify this either, especially since currently none of the system improvements are visible. You don't end up with a massive, sprawling city, you just end up with the same few planets you started with, albeit with higher FIDSI numbers.

However, I feel that a faction like this could work well if other suggestions for various types of space stations and megastructures were implemented, provided these were modular and scalable enough to justify focusing on one. Start with a small space station, end up with a massive Dyson Sphere/Swarm or something of the sort. Instead of colonizing or conquering planets, they could disessemble them to provide raw material for this megastructure.

Well it would be cool if they would be the only ones who could use something like Infallible autority, but maybe as an improvement.

"One city" wasn't their only feature, they also had the ability to indoctrinate (can't remember the word used) minor races. So on top of having a super great starting system, or additional growth levels, they should also be able to obtain minor faction and benefit from them significantly more than other major races. They could also have a way of benefiting from the minor races of other major factions (like the actual minor pops), or else maybe they *can* expand, but not with cultist pops, only with minor pops. (Maybe cultist pops could be stupendously OPed, and are the main way of growing vertically?)

In an act of shameless promotion, here is another great idea I have encountered that might have strong synergy with both the idea of the cultists, and the idea of psyops as their main focus:

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/ideas/1878-demon-faction-and-the-cultist?page=1#post-3790

But how am I gonna get me my Quadrinix to build my lazzers and other modern essentials? They would need Vodyani Leecher-like ships to go out and harvest resources, but to avoid massive amounts of exploitation, would they need to be expensive, slow, and fragile like Unfallen Vineships? 

Perhaps that sort of tendril-web mechanic would allow them to transport resources from entangled worlds to their home. But the issue of harvesting a vast amount of planets at once would remain.

Denharte wrote:

But how am I gonna get me my Quadrinix to build my lazzers and other modern essentials? They would need Vodyani Leecher-like ships to go out and harvest resources, but to avoid massive amounts of exploitation, would they need to be expensive, slow, and fragile like Unfallen Vineships? 

Perhaps that sort of tendril-web mechanic would allow them to transport resources from entangled worlds to their home. But the issue of harvesting a vast amount of planets at once would remain.

Something similar to the Allayi Skyfin would be an interesting way to deal with that problem.

Shameless-ish plug to my idea and how it could tie into this.  The link to my idea will be at the bottom if you wish to read it.

Basically, my update suggested the Sisters of Mercy as a major faction, along with various population management and political updates.

The Sisters could definitely be this single planet race, with gameplay similar to cultist style gameplay!  Since the Sisters are hesitant of this new galaxy, they have only colonized a single planet, after leaving the Argosy they shared with the Vaulters.  But they still need to follow their holy charge of dealing out some juicy mercy, so to do that, they build "Missions"

Missions are holy stations of the Sisters, acting as a base of operations for mining, military actions, and diplomatic/civilian efforts.  Instead of a colonizer, the Sisters would have constructor vessel that has an ability to build a Mission after a certain number of turns.  These Missions could be built in any solar system, but to reap the benefits of systems any in any given system, they must have the requisite environmental colonization techs.  Defenses and other abilities of Missions can be unlocked via various techs.  The Missions would give a small amount of the FIDSI of the planets in the solar system to the Sisters' home system, as well as mining for a full value.

Because the Sisters have a lot of Vaulter influence, they have borrowed the eponymous structure of the Vaulters, the vault.  But instead of using it for purely defensive purposes, they use it to expand habitation quarters underground.  This allows the Sisters to have a vastly larger number of population on their home system than that of other factions.  Missions also hold a small amount of population.

Missions can be built on enemy planets, and they will provide additional manpower for an assault of the system.  Similar to a pirate base, enemies must overcome a small garrison to remove the Mission.

A trait would have to be added to the original Sisters of Mercy plan to make sure they are playable, especially in the late game.  That trait is "Holy Loyalty", which makes their home system have a permanent base influence/culture sphere.  As passive cultural takeover would be extremely easy against the Sisters, as they would have a single system.  This trait would give the Sisters a fighting chance because their cultural influence will inevitably be much weaker than their opponents.

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/ideas/2006-sisters-of-mercy-major-faction-and-accompanying-dlc-content

Are you kidding me? You perfectly got the idea, no need to repeat the same, you created this Umbral Choir. I love this faction as I loved the Cultists, the feelings through playing this faction seems similar to me, nothing to complain. Thank you very much!

Glad to hear that the Umbral Choir scratches that Cultist-itch for you. I know the faction and the Penumbra DLC as a whole can be a bit divisive in our community.