Are you sick of being the tail and not the head in your game? Do you balk at your abysmal score whenever you mouse over that empire button on the top left of the galaxy screen? How do some players get 7 systems by Turn 20+ while you are waiting forever for your colony ship to build? Why is your population dismal? Why are all your planets on strike? What are you doing wrong? How did you enemy amass so many ships so quickly?



This guide will show you how to slingshot yourself into an early lead, and place you in a powerful position where you can influence and control the galaxy.



I will be introducing my favourite custom fraction, HarmlessPuppies! These guys are based on the overarching strategy of rapid system development and aggressive expansion. You will spam system improvements and colony ships like there’s no tomorrow. You will be the first to own your constellation, and in addition, your planets will grow quickly and be well-developed. Do not be mistaken, they are not war-based and may not survive in a small cramped map with the likes of Cravers prowling around (or they might). However, if you are playing a typical game where you have 10-12 systems per player, they will shine.



Sounds good? Read on.



Faction Traits



First off, you must have a overarching strategy, and your racial setup must support that strategy. Not the other way round. HarmlessPuppies excel at rapid system development and aggressive expansion and we want to pick the traits that can deliver that result. We want the traits to be well-calibrated. We don’t want to end up with too much research and not enough capacity to build, neither do we want to build too quickly and research cannot catch up. We want a nice growth trajectory where all aspects of your empire and improving as fast as possible.



Amoeba Affinity

Builders 3/3

Scientists 3/3

Optimistic 2/2

Mineral Rich 1

Dust Impaired 2/2

Dust Starved 1

Feeble Warriors 2/2

Micromanagers 1/2

Sloppy Sawbones 2/2



Development is Exponential



Key to this build is to maximize your system development by taking Builders trait at level 3. This gives you a whooping 30% discount on system improvements. The rationale is simple. Virtually every aspect of your empire can be improved by building stuff. Not enough food? Build farms. There are so many food improvements in your research tree that taking Cloning or Growth Plan is almost a sin. Not enough dust? The earliest improvement Xenotourism already gives you a substantial +8 dust per turn and the later ones ensure that you never need to worry about $$$.



Let me emphasize more, since Builders 3 is so important. You must understand that development is exponential. The critical improvement which all systems should start out on is the Heavy Isotope Refinery, which gives flat +10 industry and additional depending on your population. This speeds the development of all other improvements. With Builders 3, a newly colonised tundra will complete Refinery in say 3-4 turns instead of 5-7 turns. While 2-3 turns seem small, it makes a huge difference. The 2-3 turns which you save on the HIR actually allows you to build a Sustainable Farm and an Industrial Zone. This means that you get additional population earlier as well! Every additional population brings an +12 FIDS from the planet type, AND another +3 FIDS bonuses from the HIR, IZ and SF which you have already build. So effectively, within 5-7 turns, your colony will be operating at 150-200% the output for the same setup, even though Builders 3 “only” gives 30% bonus. Furthermore, this advantage grows exponentially as you build more improvements.



Research Supplements Development



In fact, you will develop so quickly that you will quickly run out of improvements to build (not kidding). This is where the Scientists trait at level 3 comes in. Your industrial juggernaut needs to be fed with a steady stream of improvements to build. This combination of fast research and fast development will quickly outperform a strategy of, say, taking pure racial traits to improve food or dust.



Research-wise, the top priority is the four basic improvements. These are the initial two on each side (right and left) of the technology tree - N-way Fusion Plants, Isolation Shields, Soild Xenobiology, and Xenology in that general order. However, if your home planet has Redsang, Bluecap Mold, Dustwater or Hydromiel, then take Xenology as a priority as you’ll be able to unlock their bonuses earlier. These four improvements give so much relative benefit at the start of the game it would be a mistake to do anything else.



Next, you want to take Xenobotany, Compact Fusion Reactors, and Applied Casimir Effect, ignoring the distractions along the way. Why Xenobotany over Arid Epigenetics? Tundra planets have +6 industry where as Arid planets give you +6 dust. Forget miniscule dust accumulation right now, it’s not for this strategy. Applied Casimir Effect is a key technology to have. Both benefits are crucial. As you will be expanding aggressively, approval is sure to go down the drain initially – this is where Colonization Program softens that impact. The wormhole travel gives you access to a wider range of systems to colonize, some of which can serve as strategic footholds. Compact Fusion Reactors is slightly preferable to Efficient Shielding because it gives you more planet types to colonize.



After this, possible objectives include High-Energy Magnetics for the industry improvement, or Botanical Scanning for the approval improvement.



Throw in Containment Fields and Nonbaryonic Particles when possible to unlock resource benefits. The suitable time to do this is when you start colonizing planets which have these resources. Given their research cost, exercise discernment when embarking on those projects.



At some point, you'll run out of planets to colonize. In which case, go back and unlock Arid and Desert colonization.



Somewhere along the way you might want to research HE Batteries and Unstable Isotope Manipulation (quite cheap) if you have a zealous militaristic neighbour.



Fine-tuning to make you a Spammer



We are almost ready to fill the galaxy with the colour of your ownership. Take Optimistic so that disapproval won’t put a damper on your expansion ambitions, and Mineral Rich (+3/person) makes your home planet a serious colony ship churner.



Amoeba Affinity presents several important advantages. Their omnipresent ability to see the galaxy allows you to move your colony ship on Turn 1. Remember, development is exponential, and that colony which you founded 1-2 turns early will mature much earlier and contribute actively to your goals. Besides colonization, more importantly, you can gauge the advance of other factions and know precisely when to convert from a “expand and develop” phase to a “military ramp up” phase.



You’re set to go!



Colouring the Map



Turn 1



Take food exploitation and queue industry-to-research on your home system. Food exploitation should be done in less than a turn and the remaining gets converted to research.



Follow the research plan laid out above. With this setup, N-way takes one turn to research (it will say 2 turns, but because you are plonking excess industry into research it will only take 1).



Send the colony ship to nearest system with Jungle, Ocean or Terran. Jungles are generally better for this strategy because of the industry bonus, but apply judgement and remember to look at their specific resources for added bonuses. Your colony ship will typically reach on turn 2 or 3 at which point you order HIR and food exploitation.



Turn 2



Food exploitation completed. With N-way researched, order HIR on home planet.



Turns 3-5



Hire hero! With the intent of bringing new colonies up to speed quickly, pick Administrators or Adventurers if possible. Train your Administrators to give industry and food bonuses, while Adventurers should learn approval bonuses. First hero goes to home system for early boost and experience gain, but can be reassigned to the needy planets later.



Queue the basic improvements as they come – HIR, Sustainable Farms, Public-Private Partnerships, and Xenotourism Agencies in that order. This applies to all new colonies which you will be founding. Note: SF does not benefit Jungle, Ocean and Terran, but is useful for Tundras (and Arids).



Turn 6



Completed all basic improvements and home planet is 1 turn from max population! I typically invest my home planet industry into research for 1 turn at this point.



Turn 7 and onwards



Start spamming colony ships at your home planet! Remember to watch the population! Intersperse colony ship production with new improvements to allow population to recover. I find that producing at most two colony ships in a row is appropriate.



By turn 9 or 10, your second system would have completed its basic improvements, and you can start to spam colony ships with it too.



Realistically speaking, these two systems will be responsible for most of the colony ships needed to own your entire constellation. This is because majority of your colonization will be completed by the time the third or fourth system is ready. Of course, distance may be an issue and you might want to use a nearer system to build the colony ship for that outlying system.



Please remember to hire the second hero when you reach 80 dust (if they have good specialities). And, purchase HIR for new systems when you can afford it.



As you expand, please watch your approval levels. Do not allow them to fall too low. Colonization Program from ACE should buffer the fall a little, so should Infinite Supermarkets. Unlocking resources also help. Reach for more expensive technology as necessary.



At some point you will need to slow your expansion and build military defences. Upgrade the Defender and build a few to guard key systems so that the enemy cannot explore your constellation. Go for Baryonic Shielding to use the new hull and open access to lava planets.



Watch you score soar above the rest. The galaxy is your oyster now. Enjoy the game!

Gonna try this out tonight.

it looks to me that your heroes have major disadvantages and will be outclassed mid to late game.

if you have cravers in your game you will probably be in trouble.

@AB, thanks for raising the concern.



Every custom race needs to have a overarching strategy, and to achieve a stunning expansion rate, we compromised heroes slightly.



If we dissect the hero disadvantages, they are not crippling at all. In fact, you might be giving your heroes more opportunities for XP gain because of your high output level.



1. The increased dust cost of abilities from Dust Impaired is a drop in the ocean because you'll be producing hundreds to thousands of dust in mid-game. Ultimate Defense and Gravity Well at double cost is only 120. Cheap. In one of my games, Harmony declared war against me early mid-game. As you know, Harmony is a relentless tide of tough ships. I used 3 cards every turn with each of my military heroes to wipe his ships out. No issue with cost.



2. Sloppy Sawbones. Again, no issue with cost and if your heroes are getting kicked with your best fleets, you have bigger things to worry about. Hardly happens when you're an industrial juggernaut.



3. Micromanagers. This might be appear to be a concern, but in my experiences, it has not hampered my heroes much.

--> You are taking only a linear loss on your hero progression, for an exponential gain on your empire. Take military heroes for example, which seems to be your concern. The chief driver of military hero progression is number of ships destroyed/battles fought. As long as you are bringing heroes into battles, they'll level up quickly enough for you to enable UD and GW spamming. Furthermore, your exponential research and industry development will deliver better ships and increase your odds of winning substantially and levelling up fast.

--> The same goes for stay home heroes. You'll be building improvements at a higher rate and they have more experience.

--> To offer another argument, check out the experience table on the Wikia. At 80% less XP, you're about 1 level down. This is because levelling cost increases exponentially while experience loss is linear. Again, it may well not be the case because your higher output gives them more experience in the first place.



So no, you heroes will not be hampered as much as imagined initially.





On the other hand, this might be the one of the better non-militaristic race to deal Cravers.

1. Amoeba affinity allows you to see strategically Craver system progression. If they are busy with someone else, you still have time. When they start to get near, time to ramp your military.

2. High research and industry output allows you to quickly reach Tier 2 weapons and hulls and build those ships.



All said, there is little chance to survive Craver on a small map with any non-military race. So I'd say that if you're playing that kind of game, go for something else. This is for 10-12 systems per player and separated by wormholes.

I'll tell you where the disadvantages are. Because you are using amoeba affinity, your hulls suck. No military bonuses on your hulls and CP caps out at 16 or so rather quickly. There are ways to work around this, but this is the greatest disadvantage from my experience. This means that you must muscle your industrial power to kick off those late-game dangerous races early. Or, as HarmlessPuppies do, be friends and ally with them.

With this build you get hero too late and they develop too slow.

As you said, growth is 'exponential', that applies to your heros too. -Experience is bad when you are trying to get crucial +ind+food. You also hire them later than others, and when you hire them you don't have that much to build anymore.

Also I would say that most often when you "develop so quickly that you will quickly run out of improvements to build" is a bad idea. (Note science and dust improvement on outpost sucks most of the time). When you run out of things to build, you are forced to do ind->sci or ind->dust for most races, which kind of says 'rather pick a research/dust bonus'. Dust by the way, are amazing stuff.



So I say, don't take dust starved and micromanagers, pick up spray and pray.

I should play vs you with custom automaton. Most broken custom faction.

thanks for the challenge.



with the right amount of luck, automaton or cravers with the correct setup will net more production than this amoeba setup.

HOWEVER, with amoeba you eliminate the risk of sending ships out in the wrong direction / send them out on turn 1. additionally, there are approval benefits playing as amoeba which help with the expansion.



you can argue the risk-reward and in the end it boils down to preference. mine is with amoeba and has never failed to put me in a leading position.



in one of my games with a custom automation, he was leading me, so your comment has some credit.

BUT that was because I gave him colonizing tips (he had no colonisable planet in his constellation and had to rush technology)

so yes, it boils down to preference.



and to correct myself on an earlier post, amoeba caps out at 19 CP, not 16. 16 was mid-game cap, the last 3 CP is at the end of the diplo tree.

@anomal: thanks for the comment but I disagree that hero development is exponential wrt their current level. hero development depends on the opportunities which you throw at them, such as faster rate of buildings or more battles fought.

as described in my response two posts above you own, you will have more opportunities to level them when you are an industrial juggernaut.



and to address your specific comment on hiring heroes too late: first hero in this setup gets hired on turn 3, by which time your home planet is ready to churn 3 improvements in the next 2 turns. not too shabby.



interesting point you have on taking spray and pay instead of dust starved and micromanagers. must confess that I refrain from taking any disadvantage from the fleet traits section. but your suggestion might work, have to give it a try.

emoPuppy wrote:
@anomal: thanks for the comment but I disagree that hero development is exponential wrt their current level. hero development depends on the opportunities which you throw at them, such as faster rate of buildings or more battles fought.

as described in my response two posts above you own, you will have more opportunities to level them when you are an industrial juggernaut.



and to address your specific comment on hiring heroes too late: first hero in this setup gets hired on turn 3, by which time your home planet is ready to churn 3 improvements in the next 2 turns. not too shabby.



interesting point you have on taking spray and pay instead of dust starved and micromanagers. must confess that I refrain from taking any disadvantage from the fleet traits section. but your suggestion might work, have to give it a try.

I think you misunderstood me. A more clear statement for what I was trying to say is: getting hero bonus to food and production earlier will get your colonies developing faster, which also translate into 'exponential' growth.



Also, I didn't say pick hero OVER industry, I just think that those penalty to heroes are not worth the measly points it saves. Maybe pick up other penalties like combat instead, if you are looking for fast growth.

yes, that makes sense. nice tip.

in a way it is true that combat penalties can always be offset by fast research for the better part of the game.

I prefer making custom factions that are more unique in their gameplay...



Like taking - approval trait, blockade breakers, and trade bonuses with Sophons, and trying to play them at 0% tax rate relying on Dust from trade.



Or an empire similar to this as custom Sowers with black thumbs (because you still could take that back then) and everything focused on maximizing the efficiency of their industry like Builders and the ship cost reducing traits, using ind to science conversion, and especially ind to dust a lot. Worked pretty well even though the conversion factor was 25%...

emoPuppy wrote:


I will be introducing my favourite custom fraction, HarmlessPuppies! These guys are based on the overarching strategy of rapid system development and aggressive expansion. You will spam system improvements and colony ships like there’s no tomorrow. You will be the first to own your constellation, and in addition, your planets will grow quickly and be well-developed. Do not be mistaken, they are not war-based and may not survive in a small cramped map with the likes of Cravers prowling around (or they might). However, if you are playing a typical game where you have 10-12 systems per player, they will shine.

[...]

Watch you score soar above the rest. The galaxy is your oyster now. Enjoy the game!

Before this, I used a custom build based on the Sherydin, and up to Serious level in a mid galaxy, I could win without too much trouble.

However, I got my ass ended over as soon as I tried serious on a huge galaxy, I was always lagging behind.



Now, with your build, it made things interesting. I'd say the hardest part is the 1st war, when 2-3 ennemies start attacking you and you're still in your expansion phase and don't have enough money to sustain a large fleet, this is a tough war, and I could only conclude it by signing seperate peace with each factions for a stalemate.



However, by the time the 1st ceasefire expires and I'm ready to defend myself again, I have the economy to sustain a fleet, I have the technology to beat my adversaries and I have the will to crush them. So, one at a time, beat them back, sign a peace for as many planets as I can.



Early on, I allied myself with the Automatons who where in their corner of the galaxy. It paid off later on as they were trusted allies, until I inevitably betreayed them.

Sadly, it was the only way. I could only achieve domination and expansion victory, so it was one of us.



Now, for my first war with them, it wasn't so bad as I was still ahead in the tech race. However, after our 1st peace, I regrouped and expanded my fleets, they also developped newer builds that were much more effective than before.



I only managed to beat them because I used my human intelligence and played on the AI weakness. I sent two non-hero fleet to a system, one invasion fleet, one attack fleet, and set them to guard. As it was a strategic point, ,any AI ships were there. At some point, I tied 62 AI fleets on this planet. The Automatons couldn't destroy my fleets and I couldn't destroy them, half the battles ended with zero losses on each side. Using this reprieve, I sent my other fleets to defenseless systems to conquer them one by one.



I did make a few strategic mistakes, wich could (err, make that 'would') have been fatal against a human opponent, but I managed to recover and finally destroy them.



Bottom line is, this race is really weak at the start and you need to scram ships as soon as you can and concentrate on defense for the 1st war after the big expansion boom. Once there, up 'til you reach the very end where everyone eventually lands, it's fairly easy, up to the serious level of difficulty (haven't tried above, will on my next play). Once there, it requires a lot of microplay, it's not exactly a walk in the park, but it can be done, and you need to use at least 4 dreadnoughts per fleet rather than smaller ships, with lots of defense and lots of attack. And even there, you got to be careful about wich card you're going to use, and you need to be prepared to constantly replace your losses and cram new fleets to attack the ennemy everywhere. In the end I have 6 invasion fleets and 12 attack fleets, 6 to protect my invaders, 6 to screen forward planets of incoming fleets before they could regroup.



Ideally, this race would be used for a big rush mid-game, while you're still in advance over everyone. Declare war to your neighbours one by one, build fleets, attack constantly, even if you don't have an invasion fleet ready, use your attack fleets to blockade ennemy systems. Don't sing peace until you got all their planets minus 1. I think this is how I will play next time. I'm really more of a turtle than a rusher, and with this race, it doesn't pay off very well.

@Everyone in the thread



I haven't even played the game yet, but this thread was so filled with intrigue and awesome that I have decided to pick up Endless Space and the DLC. Even though I don't fully understand the stuff being explained in the OP, I found it so interesting to read such a detailed strategy that I continued on and read through this whole thread. Pretty entertaining. Thanks for the encouragement. Maybe I'll even come back here later and pander for advice. See you out there!

@Mort: welcome! endless space is a great game and i will say that it is the best 4X i have played in years. enjoy!



@viper: glad that you gave it a shot.



against AI, i have managed to deal with 2 of them at impossible difficulty with some breathing room to spare. at higher difficulties, you can sure that the AI will attack you very early. I noticed that two factors can make you really appetising:-

1. vs military faction AI, it's almost programmed into them to wage war on the human.

2. when you set up a lot of outposts. it's like a buffet spread laid out for them.

because this race is so good at expanding, the temptation is to go for "one more system". but one must exercise restraint.

at higher difficulties you need to sacrifice some expansion and so that defense doesn't fall behind too much. this applies to all races which you may play, not only HarmlessPuppies.

a crude way to gauge your war readiness is to check you fleet ranking. if there are 6 players, a fleet rank of 3 or 4 gives you a decent chance of staying alive (with the right ship designs).



with enough game experience and the amoeba ability, you will be able sense when the attacks are coming and be prepared. usually AI attacks are too early for comfort.

i will say this again. AI at higher difficult WILL attack you early. practice will give you a good idea when.



against humans, most people seem to prefer turtling so the threat of early war is reduced, especially if you have a high score. even if there are aggressive players they try to pick on the weaker ones first. HarmlessPuppies shine here.