Found it odd that I couldn't find a thread like this.
What's your favourite custom faction?

Toss a list (or screenshot) of traits [includingaffinityandappearance], bit of lore, and the general way you like to play them!

Mine:
Tendara Sky Spirelings

• Traits:
• Pilgrims Affinity
• Harmony Appearance
• Builders ++
• Tolerant ++
• Optimistic ++
• Anarchists -
• Cloning +
• Micromanagers -
  

Lore:
The Tendara Sky Spirelings are an alien entity very similar to the Harmony in appearance. Though they rarely make landfall - preferring, instead, to remain in the skies; harvesting the energies and loose materials of a world and using them to grow and multiply. The Spirelings are attuned to Gas Giants, as there is great room for their kind on such worlds. Further from their phenotypical counterparts, the Spirelings are not an Empire... Rather, they're fauna. A hive mentality comparable to ants, easily outwitted.

Playstyle:
Isolationist / Population.
I role-play this faction. As they're not considered an 'Empire' they don't engage in trades, especially knowledge trades. Peace and the like are treated as declarations (automatically accepted) unless I give a resource, then they're just ignored.
As for declaring wars; the only time that will happen is if all planets are full of Pop. Then the Spirelings'll 'move in' to the neighboring system, no matter who owns it.

If they are attacked, however, they will muster multiple fleets and try to kill whatever attacks them. Then, they move to attack whatever system they came from and invade it until they own it. They don't discern between Empires, so a crafty Sophon could come from a Craver system adjacent to Spireling space and attack. The Spirelings will then attempt to kill the Sophons in their space, and then move to the Craver system that the Sophons came from, and invade it completely.

As for colonization - Always aiming for Lava, Gas Giants, and Barrens. Anything I colonize eventually gets turned into a Gas Giant (Methane Preferably). Thanks to Tolerant, Optimists, and Pilgrim's expansion tech, Gas Giants end up giving about +10 each. with the added bonus of the +20 on systems to begin with.
This is great fun when being invaded, because almost no one else can benefit from these systems - too little food, too much unhappiness for them.


And that's the Tendara Sky Spirelings. As them, I don't really play to win - It's all fun, and I usually end up a pretty good contender anyways, just because of the from the Gas Giants. But I do like to serve as an extra option for wars and such, having people invoke a Spireling assault on their enemies is great fun to watch.

So! I enjoyed sharing that, looking forward to seeing other people's customs! And let me know what you think too, always fun to hear feedback.

P.S. If War is declared upon Spirelings, they won't notice. They will only attack the systems from which the attacks originated (even if it's Unfettered Movement, They'll follow you home.)

Soviet Space Union

I ain't really doing roleplayin't with dem comrades except for making up proper casus belli(Aka calling the faction I declare war on facists or imperialists or plain old worker oppression' and explotin' capitalsits beforehand) but I got a fancy flag!



The setup is pretty standard though; I'm mostly trying to be expansionist to protect plenty off space against imperialist pigdogs.

Vaulters Affinity, UE Look

+

Mineral Rich for Dat Early Industry

Scientists III for Soviet Superscience

Dust Archelogy because Early Admin

Growth Plan I to put more People in the People's Republic

Optimistic III because Everyone is happy under Soviet Sinnaj or else...

Masters of Illusions II to bring space socialism everywhere ASAP

Headhunter Adminstrator to have more good comrades to help all the other comrades

-

Deep Roots II because forced resettlements takes a while but once the reactor we donated to the colony melts down everyone else will have an even harder time there!

Sheredyn Integrity because I'm no big conquerer anyway

Dust Impaired Because Comrade Heroes ain't need no filthy space money

Humane Weapons II because Everyone is Happy even the Guns or else...

Asceticism because Comrades need no Capitalist Monopolies!

Feeble Warriors because the Glorious Red Space Navy be gunnin' down all Imperialists before they can touch red soil, and if they do, it'll be red one way or the other

Sloppy Sawbones II because Comrades never die to begin with!

PriusCians (Pree - OOO - she - uns)



Description: C stands for Clones. Smart clones. Powerful clones. Good luck stopping them, not that luck will even help!



Home system: Toyota



Horatio Affinity - Five leaders early in the game and eleven late in the game.

Metallic Waters - Gives the home system a nice boost.

Dust Archaeology+ - I want to have a leader on the first turn.

Snipers+++ - Long-range kinetics are our weapon of choice. They work better when they hit something.

Headhunter - Pilot - Pilots are all powerful when it comes to space battles.

Optimist++ - We want to tax our people high so we have the dust to clone our great leaders.

Scientists+ - Would like to put more here, but our great leaders will make up for it.



This race suits my play style of building up until I'm powerful and then steamrolling the competition. I'm usually swimming in dust by mid-game, which allows me to keep my fleets upgraded and clone high-level leaders as new clones become available.



The name came from the car I drive: a Prius C. If everyone drove a Prius, there would be no energy crisis. This race takes that concept to a universal level!

Oh good call, a newer one of these threads. I'll jump on and post a few of mine here soon, most are battle tested at higher levels of difficulties and do quite well. I tend towards science or military victories, but have build outs for economic, eco/military, and diplomatic victories as well. If anyone has a request as to which they want first let me know.

Ok, so we'll start out with some good old fashioned world eating Cravers. I'm an old MOO fan so I call these the Klackons after that oh so hated race in MOO1.



Craver Affinity - We're going for early game expansion, into middle game slaughter, into late game domination.

Positives:

Big Fleets ++ We want to swarm the enemy and make sure that our ships are always able to outnumber them, and shoot them down.

Builders + We've got places to be and people to eat... No time for sitting around building stuff on planets, so let's hurry that up eh?

Cloning ++ The level 2 cloning gives us +1 for Arid and more importantly Tundra planets. This is a 50% boost to the normal 2 early game. More people, more faster, more killy.

Deadly Weapons +++ Here we get to the real synergy that we're trying to set up. and I'll discuss this below.

Knowledge Gathering ++ This gives us some early/mid game boost to our science to make sure we can rocket into where we need to early.

Militarists +++ As with deadly weapons I'll discuss this under play style below.

Xenobotany Tundra planets are our best friends. 3 food 6 industry early means we can quickly fire off some colony ships and research N-way instead of this important tech.



Negatives:

Dust Impared -- Don't need no stinking hero abilities! Need more drones to send into the slaughter!

Dust Starved - Small penalty to help with extra points.

Feeble Warriors -- We're attacking... not being attacked... So let's worry about taking their planets and killing their fleets in the air, not on the ground.

Micromanagers -- This one hurts, I'm not going to lie. Your heroes will be a bit behind, but since our goal isn't to have 1 "super system/fleet" and instead to have many systems/fleets, it works out.

Offense First --- Our ships are about murdering the enemy first, no need to defend, leave that to the puny races trying to slow us down.

Sheredyn Integrity - oooooo not endless war? Explained below.

Sloppy Sawbones -- Extra points for a very minimal impact.



Play Style

Ok, one big thing to note that is different from the "standard craver" - no endless war. Reasoning? That's 5 points (difference between it and Sheredyn Integrity), which we can make up elsewhere and for that 5 points we instead have the ability to negotiate with enemies and pick them off 1 at a time. No point biting off more than you can chew at once. In harder games take a look at who the other AIs dislike and single out that person first. Or single out the person beside you. Genocide them 1 at a time, or if they offer you a bunch of systems, then you can stop and redirect depending on if you would be able to get those systems within the 15 turn waiting period or not. By being able to negotiate you can offer the resources that you don't need for extra $$$$$ and tech. This is often overlooked, and is a HUGE advantage in the game. The AI likes to have open borders, if they offer you open borders and 2 hyperium, tell them to shove off and instead offer THEM open borders, for 1 tech and 80% of their dust/turn. Some things to keep in mind: if they run out of dust and cancel the treaty it doesn't hurt your relations, doesn't proc the Sheredyn penalty, and you can just put it back next turn (and it also gives you a chance to get another tech). This kind of play style will give you a chance to keep some members of the galaxy happy while you eat the rest, and secure the entire galaxies fate as eventual lunch. Keep in mind I commonly play on Huge, with 8 people. If you wanted to do a 1 on 1, or even a 4 person game, you could benefit from this, but endless war doesn't become AS bad.



Our ship style:

Our goal is to be able to produce small ships very quickly that do a lot of damage. Early game the extra ships with Big Fleets, and the extra damage will help to make sure this is the effect. I will generally get up to Kinetic 2 and load ships up with Long Range Kinetics and very minimal shielding if any at all. This let's you take out enemies first, fast, and without relying on any special resources.



Tech goals/gameplay:

Tech is key, tech is love. Even on a race that seems very built to do everything BUT tech, keep in mind that tech is all important in all 4x games as it gives you huge advantages. So with that in mind what are our tech goals?

Early: Expand, get your N-way plants and your early tech and food upgrades and build those when you are waiting on population to move back up after a colony ship. Then I normally rush for Casimir to get out and get into the rest of the galaxy. If you find an enemy that hasn't expanded in his area fully, go get up in his face, he'll be your first victim. Once you have Casimir, start working toward Nonbaryonic Particles (that +15 per system is love). You may be able to immediately rush this, or you may have to go get Tier 2 Kinetic first, but in either case, pick up 1 and then the other quickly. After that it's time to look down the left tree at fixing your approval. During this time you should be able to build a ship that costs you between 60 and 108 depending on in you are using tier 1 or two, etc. You should be able to pump these out in most systems in 1-2 turns, and can begin your fleet. I generally find in this time that I'm fighting someone off first and securing my borders.



Mid: (We hit this point fast, but basically I count mid game as the time when you are getting / maxing out Groupthink) Now you should be turning your attention towards Groupthink. This is the all important tech for cravers. Once you get it you can keep pumping out ships like candy and your fleet strength will increase your happiness, which then allows you to increase your taxes to pay for more ships, to increase your taxes more, which... yeah you get the point, a nice little feedback cycle of awesome. After you have Groupthink you can start looking to jump up to Tier 3 weapons, and also make sure that you grab up every increase to fleet size that you can find. Also keeping on top of Tech increasing Techs is important. Just because everyone thinks you are stupid doesn't mean you should be, with your 25% bonus to fids, knowledge gathering boost, and keeping up on the tech increases you can rocket past even the Sophons.



End: Once you get about 5 or 6 worlds that are depleted, start looking to your next big boost. Down the bottom tree pick up Extreme Extraction in order to give you another boost to your damage. By the time you research it you'll probably have 10-12 depleted and more on the way, that's another 50%++++ bonus for your damage, which means your little ships can pack SUCH a huge punch. And if they try to counter your defenses, normally a simple focus fire will deal with it. I've had PLAYERS not AI try to counter Kinetic with their dreadnaughts, but simply focusing them down blew them all out of the sky (sure, he got several of my ships, but 4 dreads that take 1200+ (4800+ total loss) industry to build vs the 8 of mine that he got which cost me about 120 (960+ total loss) to build at the time = big win for me.) Once you are in this stage of the game you should be laying siege to 10+ planets at a time, or have at least 4 or 5 groups of troop transports at different systems taking them (then going back somewhere to repair the troop population). You have 100% tax rate, and you've spiraled so far out of control that you are probably leading FIDS, Science, and are so far ahead on sheer military might / numbers that even if they do all ally against you they are too late.



This race has been tested up through Serious AI and against other players and I'm sure will work great for impossible / endless, but lately I've been playing with some friends on hard/serious so just haven't gotten around to it yet.