Where did the other thread by this name go?

Even if old, I found it to help in my gameplay, some parts might be out of date but for the most part it'ss helped me. I wished the OP would've stated the version this was for as I see other Guides listing it now that I've looked at others. xD



Thank you for the heads up!

Lunaus wrote:
Are the Automatons under one of the other affinities? I can't find them anywhere on the page(s). Also can you go a bit more indepth with pilgrims (explain the tech trees a bit)? Just from looking over some benefits of being a pilgrim my way of playing has changed me my chances against AI have gone up, instead of me just being left in the dark I'm actually expanded at a better rate and my rank isn't as low as it was when I first started playing. Custom faction or not. So thanks :3

This thread is very old -- the game is in a very different state right now. Automatons were added a few patches back as a new G2G player created species.



The whole idea of Sowers rushing an Administrator industry hero and using conversion to supply everything has taken a huge hit. Not only had Administrators been weakened, but conversion has been halved from the beta.



Almost all of this guide is out of date so I wouldn't suggest reading into any of it. There might be something newer, but this came up with I was trying to figure out what negative traits are fairly minor in the long run.

Are the Automatons under one of the other affinities? I can't find them anywhere on the page(s). Also can you go a bit more indepth with pilgrims (explain the tech trees a bit)? Just from looking over some benefits of being a pilgrim my way of playing has changed me my chances against AI have gone up, instead of me just being left in the dark I'm actually expanded at a better rate and my rank isn't as low as it was when I first started playing. Custom faction or not. So thanks :3

Regarding sowers, in my opinion black thumbs is very good because the malus is very negligible : all the good sowers planet have low food production or mediocre at best. And i agree focusing only on industry since there are conversions if u need dust and science. Thats why i also take spendtrhifts. Insted i dont like space cadets because u start in a tundra planet with lots of science and also makes magnetic fields generators much less effective, u will want those. Also swap metallic waters with mineral rich + one level of optimistic because they cost the same.



Builders trait is very good for rushing industry improvements and allows u to spend more time converting. Coupled with the industry cost improvemnt also allows for very fast terraform operations. The best endgame sower planet is tundra because it gets bonus with every single imrpovement they have, but u need adamantian to terraform to them. Tolerant is bad because of the happiness penalty early game, u want to keep people estatic to take fids bonus to industry and science. Industry to dust conversion allows you to put taxes at 0%.



And yes the legendary admin hero start is the best : if u take level 1 optimistic, have mineral rich, make your start colony ship colonize the planet and set industry to dust and taxes high enough u can recruit him at turn 2 netting very high industry. Than u can start converting to dust or science as needed or pumping out colony ships almost every turn. Not having him is quite a drawback.



For peace games i also suggest taking nway fusion plants and core mining as traits, they will boost a lot your early game. Against tough opponents instead i advise optimal structure +optimal defense.



And yes i am addicted to them =)



Good work Nycid.

Perhaps you should mention that the Legendary Hero trait is a big boost for Sowers in early game

Added Sower Affinity guide.



Its likely not complete, If anyone has anything specific questions about sowers please feel free to ask it might help explaining their affinity more concisely.

Great stuff! Thanks alot and should be sticky imho.

The final number on your Scravers chart should be 32, not 31. On turn 40 the Scravers had 32 total planets. So on turn 80 they should have 32 total bad planets.

This is a fantastic thread, deserving of a sticky to the top.



I've learned a lot from your various posts that has made me a much more capable player. Wish I could bribe you to write the Sowers affinity guide next...

Just amazing iam realy a fan of your work ; ) very professional too



Iam looking forward and also realy Excited about In depth faction analysis of the Sowers cause i personally use them quite often and do experiments with them.

Actually it was requested of me to recreate the thread because they couldn't fix it but basically the same thing.

The problem is that the original thread developed some database problem and could no longer be viewed. So, Nycidian created a duplicate thread and requested the moderators to put the original broken thread out of its misery. Moderators can delete any thread, but normally either by request of the OP or due to some TOS violation.

I was not aware threads could be deleted, which if true is annoying. Actually I do not think it should be possible to delete a thread with replies.

Shivetya wrote:
Where did the other thread by this name go?

I had to remake it because the old one's second page was irreversibly borked

SpaceVC wrote:
Amazing work. Thanks, Nycidian!

Your welcome, hope it helps.

Amazing work. Thanks, Nycidian!

Before we go over all of the affinities and traits, everyone needs to be on the same page when it comes to what it is we want to get out of a faction.



Winning



What is it you want to do in this game? The simple answer most likely is to win, but how do you define or even achieve winning is a much more complicated matter. First off realize that because this often is a long game, and if you are playing in a multi-player(MP) game, you likely will never formally win. What is much more likely to occur is, others will concede or you will quit when you are so far ahead of those left that it gets boring.



This does not mean it is not possible to win as the game defines it, but because humans are not AI's your human opponents will often give up long before you have achieved victory even though it may be quite obvious who would have won.



Population



Another point that must be realized is that no matter what form of victory you seek the bedrock of that victory is your population. This is obvious in most types of victory, i.e. without a population base to develop science from you can not win a scientific victory, without a population base to build ships from you can not win a supremacy victory, etc.



One type of victory where it may not seem to be the case is a diplomatic victory. Population is as important for this type of victory as any other, however. To maintain a good relation with others you must be useful but at the same time somewhat dangerous. This is because if you are not useful then you are a dead weight and not worth allying with, but if you are useful but weak then it is far better to dominate you than to ally with you.



There is one exception to this and that is is you manage to become a science broker you could conceivably maintain a safe position even as a weak power because your usefulness comes from the fact you are a 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] party. This usefulness however ends when you are no longer needed, and if at that time you are not dangerous enough to be worth allying with then your alliance will end as well.



So again, remember the key to victory is population and because of that the growth of that population.



This means that with little exception maluses to population growth are likely to be the worst choice one can make if you want to win.



Contrary to this is that bonuses to growth are exceedingly useful as they help any type of victory.



On Exponential Growth



The last thing to remember is growth of most things in this game is exponential, this means at anytime if one item in the game impacts the next then a small change can and likely will over many turns be magnified may times over.



For example, Rich Soil gives +3 per opulation: to your home world. This bonus is a decent amount even without exponential growth but because all FIDS are derived from population, which grows from food this means exponential growth. This extra growth (even if it only effects your home world) puts you many turns ahead of others. Even if it only gives you a one turn boost (likely much more), 300 turns later you still will be those turns ahead, that means turns of a what a massive empire can produce, thousands upon thousands of ahead.



Out of the FIDS and Approval some are more exponential than others.



Food directly grows population which in turn increases Food, this cycle causes Food to be one of the most important FIDS in the game, at least until you max population and can no longer build colony ships to siphon off excess population.



Industry is almost as important, in that you need it to build all the system improvement that increase your other FIDS.



Approval is as important but in another way, as it is a direct multiplier on all FIDS because of the way taxes and approval work.



Science and Dust also grow exponentially, but because they do not directly feed into the other FIDS they are not quite as important, though still not to be discounted.





[HR][/HR]The following is a list of affinities and traits sorted by those most beneficial and least detrimental to types of victories.

• All
• Supremacy
• Scientific
• Diplomatic
• Economic
• Expansion
• Example faction
  
  

I will not be addressing Wonder victories as this can be done if enabled by using almost any other type of victory method with possibly the exception of diplomatic.

[HR][/HR]

How Come Sucks?



Short answer, um... well your wrong.



Here's the long answer...



Chatting in MP or perusing the forums, a very common opinion you will encounter is that certain factions suck, or if they understand the game a bit better, more specifically certain affinities suck.



These people are right, not because the affinities are inherently bad but because the players don't now how to use those affinities to minimize their drawbacks and maximize their bonuses.



So I'm going to go over each Affinity and go a bit more in depth into not only what is your best strategy with affinities but why.

• Cravers
• Pilgrims
• Amoeba
• United Empire
• Horatio
• Sophon
• Hissho
• Sowers
  
  

Sowers Affinity



Key To The Affinity's Success

Industry Focus & Administration Heroes.



What Makes The Affinity Fail

Exploiting anything other than Industry, *Spending 40 Points on Tolerant*



On Food & Growth



Something one must understand about Sowers is that because of the way their affinity works by focusing on industry they get a significant boost to Food this means they naturally get two for one when it comes to FIDS and industry. Exploiting any other thing other than Industry is counter productive for Sowers, never, ever, exploit anything other than Industry.



Now the consequence of this is that many planets that are far from ideal are very good for a faction with the Sower Affinity. For example Desert has very little Food meaning it is not that good early on for most races, but for a Sower it is very nice indeed.



I am a huge proponent of the Growth trait but for this one faction I have to say that it's just not worth the investment as because of how the math works you don't get a 10% per level to food but half that amount. Some even suggest using Black thumb as instead of a -10% per level this too is half the effect, I don't suggest getting this malus personally but I can see why some would.



On Tolerant



Tolerant is a very strange trait in that even at its best, it makes it so you can colonize systems while hindering those same systems growth as you have an innate -25% to FIDS until you could colonize them through tech. Whats worse is because as systems get harder to colonize they have worse approval for each planet, this means that tolerant allows you to colonize a planet that might give you a -20 approval and -25% FIDS on top of the reduction you will get from unhappiness. The only way to fix these problems is to spend research or traits to reverse these problems.



Alternatively, you could avoid Tolerant and instead get 3 techs for your faction that total 35 points (5 less than the 40 point Tolerant) Arid Epigenetics, Xenobotony, and Compact Fusion reactors. One of the Few advantages to Tolerant is that it allows early expansion to every system, with these 3 technologies while every system may not be open to you very few will not be. On top of this you get the advantage of +2 movement to your ships immediately and being one tech away from wormhole travel. Alternatively you could avoid Compact Fusion Reactors and get the Tech that opens up Deserts(+5 Industry per Population).



So, why do the base Faction of Sowers get Tolerant, and why does it seem to work for them? Well its not that its not useful at all, colonizing a system at the very least blocks another faction from gaining a foothold there and in all but a few rare cases even a bad system will have some population growth. So tolerant isn't really bad but it's arguably not worth 40 points. Another advantage Sowers have is that, in most harder to colonize planets they are heavy in Industry and weak in Food which is actually beneficial to Sowers.



On Planets



Remember food does you little good ( +4 food is actually only +2 for Sowers), you want to be looking for planets that are heavy in industry,planets like Desert, Jungle, and Lava. Also keep in mind that technology changes what planets are good for you, tundra with some minor tech research starts becoming very good indeed.



Finally don't forget Approval, Methane might look real good but without tech to reverse the huge disapproval hit, it's likely not worth colonizing.



On Dust / Science



So I tell you not to exploit anything other than Industry, you get Food from Industry, but what about Science and Dust?



Simply juggle Industry to Dust or Industry to Science, the reason is that if you exploit Science or Dust you won't get any food while if you exploit industry and then convert you get Food and either Science or Dust.



Affinity Technology



Sower get the tech "Persistent Bodies", with this tech you can build the system improvement "Extreme Infrastructure." This system improvement is a relatively cheap system improvement(450) that completely changes most planets to be more favorable towards Industry.



Also make sure you are building Elegant Networks for the 25% Industry bonus on ecstatic, even if your systems don't need the approval boost.

Reserved for In depth faction analysis.



Hissho

Reserved for In depth faction analysis.



Sophon