Hi everyone,



after playing quite a lot of "Endless Space" in the last few days (and not doing much else), I was beginning to wonder how final the different factions and their traits are. At the moment they seem pretty unbalanced to me. Let me explain in a bit more detail.



The Ravagers seem to quite overpowered, but the Locust-Mechanism is a very nice and unique trait (although it is quite weird if you capture their planets and permanently benefit from the improvement, as the count does not increase or disappear). But combined with the increased population, larger ships, bonus to weapons and extra research after destroying enemy CPs they sometimes appear almost unstoppable.



The Hissho-Bushido ist great fun as well if you get it rolling and keep up the bonus. Also their abilities are useful from the beginning and even allow you to defeat some pirates in the beginning. Could we maybe get an obvious indicator while Bushido is active though (i.e. listing the bonus and time when it will disappear)?



Cloning provides Horatio with a very cool and useful ability, but compared to the Ravagers and Hissho I am little underwhelmed - the larger population is a nice bonus as is the improved food production but is it really enough?



The United Empire has tons of money and very robust ships (which is admittedly nice), but they lack unique mechanisms that make them stand out - as most game-play atm seems to center on having low taxes and therewith ecstatic population. Also the negative anomalies on the home planet can have too much of an impact: "Mineral Poor" will slow you down a lot, "Hostile Fauna" will only be a slight deterrent.



Last and definitly least are the Sophos IMHO: The increased speed is nice and the faster research is useful, but the decrease in production is horrible, as are the weaker ships. Also they lack a unique feature which is more than a simple decrease size by X.



What are your thoughts about the factions? I am looking forward to reading some other opinion!



Take care, Buecherwyrm

So far I have played through entire games with the Hissho (411 turns), Cravers (509 turns), and Sophons (633 turns).



I found the Hissho to be the most fun of them all with the warrior-culture and bonuses I found them to be very suited to my military centric playstyle and yet found their industry to be the best out of the three and was able to amass quite a few full strength fleets. I liked the look and feel of their ships a lot, they all felt very martial to me with an egyptian flavoured vibe of birdiness that fit so well with my vision fo the Hissho. I also loooved Bushido and the background of the faction sung to me like the warbirds they are.



The Cravers were not as fun as the Hissho to me, although still quite enjoyable, because I found that I had trouble getting enough ships out of the door. Perhaps it was my starting area of the galaxy but industry just never seemed to be where it needed to be. This resulted in a rather dull series of turns trading planets with the UE. I was expecting a horde type faction but unless you only produce the small ships then it can get quite tough to keep up with enemies such as the UE. As for their ships not everyone will understand me when I say this but they remind me of the ships of the Reavers from Firefly a bit and so I am kind of in the middle on how I feel about them. They are kind of cool but the Reaver-ness is kind of unsettling.



The Sophons were so weak and their industry so crippled that you really need to rely on the speed and research to get anywhere. You pretty much have to outclass every opponent in the technology department. That said I found the Sophons to be a unique experience that I enjoyed immensely and may return to after playing through as the Hissho another half dozen times. I just wish I didn't detest the look of their ships so much, I kept referring to my military as my able fleets of blue space bunnies.



That's my opinion on the three factions I have got to so far in this amazing alpha of what I hope will be an incredible final game.