Having played a couple games as a custom faction based off the Pilgrims, I have to say the Fleet Errant special, while neat sounding, falls under the "Awesome, but Impractical" category. What I found is that by the time any system is built up enough to the point that it would actually be useful, one of two things has happened: one, that system is capable of producing colony ships at a much more efficient pace, or two, 95% of the galaxy is already occupied, making colonization virtually impossible.



Now, maybe I'm not using it correctly (if so, please tell me), but I think they'd be a lot more useful if they're special was something like increased chance of finding temples on moons or increased benefits from temples, which sort of reflects their lore of being really immersed with the Endless.

I have only found their affinity useful in large to huge galaxy types... Where expansion is not so immediate. But, I will say this... If you concentrate all your efforts into making your home system grow at top speed... (This means colonize no/few other systems) When you do expand out into the galaxy, you will find that you can outpace all other races.



I would gladly trade their affinity for "increased chance of finding temples", though...

I would like their affinity to be able to completely evacuate a system, instead of leaving all but 1. This would make for some useful scorched earth conquering tactics. As of now, the affinity is just a super colony ship.

It is usefull for three things:



- After invading an advanced enemy planet with improvements you don't have researched yet you can just pack all those improvemets and settle them to one of your own systems (if you have an uncolinzed planet in that system).

- After invading an enemy planet you can just "Kill" the population by "evacuating" the system. The system is nearly useless to the enemy then because not only the improvements but also the pop is gone.

- After invading an enemy planet you can boost the population of one of your own systems by tranferring the evacuated population to it. Again you will need at least one "free" planet in that system.



Most the time you spare some of the more difficult planets in your core systems until you have the tech to make them more effective. With the "evacuation" you can build them up completely within one singe turn while simoultaneously weakening the enemy by wiping out a conquered system.