While there are a lot of very good guides to custom factions, which taught me a lot when I was starting out, there always seems to be room for one more, especially since the latest patch has moved things around so much. This started as a response to a question .... but I got wordy. I hope this helps someone even half as much as the wisdom in these forums helped me.



I've put about 240 hours into this game so far (nice of Steam to remind me of that ) and I am very much still learning. These days, I pretty much play on endless and the main thing I have learned from it is that custom factions and approaches that work well anywhere else just don't work there (since the patch anyway). I'm still figuring that out.



I have only really torture tested four of the affinities to the point I feel like I can offer much worth knowing, but I'd like to share what I have learned;





The Factions





1. Pilgrims -



At the most basic level, what makes pilgrims different is they do not have to build colony ships. Instead they build exodus fleets, which transfer improvements as well as population. This is best done from a strong system with an admin hero.



Why this matters a lot is something that took me a minute to understand - they don't waste production on colony ships, don't waste approval (from expansion disapproval) on tiny colonies, can do most of their population growth on 1-2 worlds that are good for it, and have more time to decide where to plant colonies.



The larger you grow a colony before transferring it, the more you save by not buying colony ships - if you build a exodus fleet to fly 2 pop and a N-type, you basically break even - because 2 colony ships costs about as much as 1 exodus (very loose math, yeah) and the N would have built in a turn with an admin hero transferred to the new system anyway. So, if you transfer 10 population with a mess of improvements you save a lot more. The "sweat spot" for transfer is hard to pin down - I'd say that as long as you are gaining pop every other turn, keep growing it. When you hit 3 turns to grow pop ..... its probably time to go.



One thing to consider is the 30 turns it takes to for a outpost to become a colony (keeping in mind that outposts will basically never make dust). Sometimes, I find it helpful to throw a single colony ship on a system, maybe on a strategic resource, and have it build an exploit and nothing else. Long term, you know the improvements/population will show up later ... maybe right at the turn the outpost becomes a colony or something ... and a outpost with no improvements set on research will never cost you any dust.



Exodus ships can't be customized, so it is a good idea to get the +speed traits/technologies early. 11 pop taking 1 more turn to get onto a planet costs you a lot. Also, try not to lose exodus ships to pirates. It tends to lead to having to load an autosave. Much cleaner to spend 2 more turns before you launch it building an escort or two.



Pilgrim get racial factories in mid game that give them a decent boost.



Also worth mentioning is the ability to steal stuff. It is just fun to take a world, decide you don't want to defend it, scrap whatever improvements you don't need/want, fly the population off to fill the empty planets on a defended system, and then sell the empty world to an AI faction (you can only trade worlds during a ceasefire settlement, so you might need to start a war) for keen stuff (and in the process you reset an AI's diplomatic status to neutral). Moving population also "removes" approval issues from taking over a world. Honestly, I play Pilgrims a lot because they get to plunder. Pirates > Ninjas.



Endless: On endless, I find Pilgrims have tech issues. They are good for building "tall" and avoiding early Approval Choke, but after the expansion phase ... they seem to lack staying power. I've had issues with them since the patch.



Core Traits:



Legendary Heroes 2/2

Fast Travelers 2/2

Mineral Rich or Rich Soil (both work)





2. Sowers -



Sowers are one of the worst designed default factions. Part of this is Tolerant just plain sucks. As a custom faction, they shine.



For Sowers, industry = food. This means that you can go all in on industry. This allows total focus, which makes up for some of their weaknesses. This also means that they target very different planets then other factions; for them, tundra, desert, and jungle are their type 1 worlds. While they do not have a "dust" or "research" bonus, the fact that you don't need to build (and pay maintenance on) agricultural improvements or research agricultural technologies in the early game ends up acting like a bonus to both (mid game, sometimes it is worth it to build agricultural improvements, even with the penalty to food growth). In addition, they start on a Tundra, which provides an early game research boost.



The first turn legendary hero (labor 1 then + 15 industry ability) effects Sowers more then anyone else - because you get both industry and food from it. Sowers are the only faction where I think it is worth it to spend points on technologies; until you have production improvements up, they don't grow, so it is worth it to not have to wait. This also reveals and allows use of tritanium and hyperium from the first turn, which sometimes helps. Basically, the shopping list for sowers is EVERYTHING that pushes industry.



Without trying to make it deep, having huge piles of industry everywhere means you are very flexible. At any time you can convert that industry to ships (early rush works well with sowers), dust (for a quick refit/buyout), or tech. Long term, terraforming every world you have to tundra gives them a mid-game research edge (and they get the tech earlier in the bottom tree as a racial technology).



It is worth mentioning that their racial version of Colonial Rights gives +25% industry rather then +10% and they get a racial factory that adds industry to ... basically any planet that is low on it to start with (and for some reason it helps tundras too).



Endless: Sowers took a beating the the last patch. That said, they still are surprisingly strong; my best endless run since the patch was a Sowers run. Using their early game tech/industry advantage for some early violence can slow even endless AI's down to a pace where you can compete. If nothing else, you can burn industry on suicide fleets and slow down whichever AI is in the lead.



Core Traits:



Legendary Heroes 2/2 + Dust Archeology 1/2 (first turn hero combo)

Mineral Rich

Crowded Worlds 1/2 (they start on a tundra ... so they need the room on the home planet)

N-way Fusion Plants (so you can build it turn 2)

Core Mining (so your industry exploits work better - like the one you build turn 1 on your tundra home planet)

3. Sophons -



The Sophon affinity is not subtle. The tool tip alone tells you everything you need to know; (1.) I want a 0% tax rate for as much of the game as possible and (2.) I want to spam colony ships like it is going out of style.



The 1st part requires some thinking ahead; if your not making dust from taxes, you have to plan to get it somewhere else and do whatever you can to keep your upkeep costs low. Some combination of Industry -> Dust, trade, and blowing people up for profit are the options for making this work. On the plus side, you can "pay" for this by taking Spendthrifts 3/3, because its not like it is going to hurt you any.



The 2nd part ends up working kind of like the Pilgrims; you can do your growing on fewer worlds and you save a lot of production on colony pods. Figuring out the exact traits and circumstances needed to make a colony pod a turn from your home world is something I will leave to you - but I will tell you it is a very small number of turns into the game and requires very few improvements.



An early forge system (meaning multiple planets with good industry) set to industry -> dust is one way to deal with low taxes early and is handy for sudden shipbuilding.



Long-term strategy is simple - expand like crazy, get a technology lead, and then keep it. Depending on your preference, once you have a decent tech lead it is easy to go for a science victory or a "I used my death rays to stomp you all" victory.



Another key is making the most out of Masters of Illusion and the affinity reduction to support modules - and not just to make colony ships cost less then colony expansions. Probe ships (a corvette with just an engine), Invasion ships (only invasion modules), and "Tar Baby" Defense ships (only defense) are all super cheap for Sophons. The last can be a little cheesy but ..... even if a fleet can't kill anything, it stops sieges from happening and can be used to stop (blockade) a stack of fleets from moving, gains experience from every senseless battle it fights, and is a keen way to keep an invasion fleet from being disturbed. The probe ships help a lot if you plan to trade .... at 22 industry each you can throw a lot of them out in the turn you get Cashmir effect, are very cheap ways to check out how your opponents ships are designed, and sending them one at a time into a battle is a funny way to get the AI to waste their attacks for the turn. Basically, you have options nobody else does - use them.



Last but not least, keep in mind that the -50% to support modules cost affects warships too - like armor....



Endless: Sophons are definitely a contender. They are the only faction I can consistently keep a tech lead with in Endless. Operating without taxes gives you an edge in approval that helps a lot and extra tech means you can get to approval improvements quicker. Net, Sophons can play expansion more aggressively then any other in endless. That said, it is still easy to hit Approval Choke if you expand without careful though - and just as easy to over focus on expansion .... which leads to bitterness and restarting when the AI shows up with a fleet "when you though it was going so well".



Core Traits:



Masters of Illusion 2/2



There are a lot of valid combinations that get you similar results with different trade-offs. Basically, if you have traits that answer the questions; (1.) how am I going to afford a low tax rate and (2.) where am I getting the food growth to operate my colony ship factories, then you are good.



Suggested Traits:



Spendthrifts 3/3

Trade Stuff (one answer to the tax thing)

Dust Recyclers 2/2 (another)

Growth Plan 3/3, Legendary Heroes 2/2, and/or Rich Soil (all fine ways to push growth)

Optimistic 2/2 and/or Crowded Planets 1/2 (you will expand fast enough that you will want them, even with a low tax rate)

Fragile Hulls 2/2 with Optimal Structure 2/2 (since you plan to have a tech edge and abuse your cheap support ships/modules ....)





4. United Empire -



If UE has a theme, it is flexibility.



First and foremost, UE gets better tax income (even at low tax levels, though this is not listed in the affinity description) and gets a production bonus for high tax levels. The key to making the most of it is to constantly and wisely spend the dust you get from this. If at the end of every turn you try and spend all your dust on something, you will not be too far wrong.



Dust does not generate “interest”; it does nothing for you by itself. Dust mostly gets spent as “hurried production” (buyout) which converts it to industry at around a (2 dust = 1 industry) basis. One strength dust has over industry is that it is not local – you can use dust from a strong system to improve a weak system or launch a defensive fleet on a colony far from your forge worlds. The main weakness it has is that it is taxed, unlike industry. Industry that is not used locally is either converted to dust or tech at a (4 industry = 1 tech/dust) ratio (this is almost always a greater loss then taxes). This means industry that is not spent "locally" is much less efficient then dust.



Obviously, this bonus to tax income works very well with other traits that increase dust revenues. At 30% taxes (which just about every faction uses for at least the first few turns) the “hidden tax bonus” amounts to a 33% increase in taxes. This means that Entrepreneurs (+1 dust per pop) functions as +1.33 dust per pop. This also has significant effects on which planets work for UE – terrans, arids, and deserts weigh in a lot heavier. This also means that UE can benefit from improvements that effect dust at a lower population. On the other hand, the effect of outposts vs. colonies (outposts take a huge hit to revenue) hurts UE more …. So planting a colony a few turns early, even if it develops slowly, can have significant effects later. This also changes the weight of corp vs. admin heroes, even in early game.



Traits that effect industry costs do affect buyout prices (masters of illusion, militarists, builders, etc…) and refit costs. (See progressive returns on negative % below….) Also, remember that approval techs will affect UE more (taxes, taxes, and more taxes). One last hint – the improvements that effect buyout cost. Enough said.



UEs second greatest strength is a cluster of factors that give them military advantages. The one your can see by reading their affinity is the +10 exp per ship. If you look at their racial techs you will notice that they get interesting bonuses to armor (hp). These bonuses matter some until late game, but once you reach Dreads, it is on: UE can build dreads with so many hp that the +10% regen per turn from Intelligent Tools (and the +20% from the “repair card”) can basically replace using defenses… almost. Last but not least, UEs extra dust revenue means they gain tactical flexibility; not only can they use dust as “projected power” to build ships and defenses but they can afford refits more easily and more often.



One strategy I use often with UE is I will send a probe or three (one at a time) into a large AI stack and figure out what their main current ship builds are like. Then, I will refit a hero fleet to abuse just that. Next turn, I drop the hero on the stack. Even if the AI does not suicide completely, you cannot refit a ship while it is blockaded …



Endless: UE works fine in Endless. Building “tall” = higher tax rates. Tech is the key. Buy it.



Core Traits:



Optimistic 2/2 (no brainer = more taxes)



UE has great flexibility here too. Growth works, trade works, everything works. It is hard to go wrong. One thought; the Lengendary Admin Hero combo does less for UE then any other faction.



Suggested Traits:



Optimal Structure 2/2 and Strong Alloys 2/2 (if you plan to build armor based ships)

Crowded Planets 1/2 (more pop in fewer systems = better tax rates)

Entrepreneurs, Dust Lode, and/or Businessmen 1/3 (efficient synergy)

Masters of Illusion 2/2 (if you plan to buy colony ships ….)

Militarists 3/3 (makes buying all ships cheaper)

Builders 3/3 (faster colony growth)

Scientists 1/3 (you can’t buy tech with dust… directly)

Custom Faction Traits ... and Stuff



So, I bet you expect me to tell you which ones I like and such. Meh. Here's some math that might help you figure some things out for yourself instead.



Percentages are Not Friendly



Take Growth Plan as an example;



Each level costs 10 points and adds 10% food. While you get the same +10% per level, those levels do not have an an equal effect;



As an example, lets say you are producing 100 extra food and you need 1000 extra food to grow population. This should take exactly 10 turns (1000/100). With 1 level of growth plan it will take you 9.09 turns (1000/110). With 2 levels, 8.3 turns (1000/120). With 3 levels, 7.7 turns (1000/130).



Here's the lots of math in a chart thing version:



Level 1 (1/3) = 110% food = 9.1% more food (then without it) = 1.09 points per % of net increase

Level 2 (2/3) = 120% food = 8.3% more food (then with level 1) = 1.20 points per % of net increase

Level 3 (3/3) = 130% food = 7.7% more food (then with level 2) = 1.30 points per % of net increase



Summary: Taking more levels of a positive % has diminishing effects.



What about Black Thumbs in the same scenario? Glad you asked.



Each level give 5 points and costs 10% food. Again, the effects of multiple levels are not equal;



With one level it will take 11.11 turns (1000/90). With two, 12.5 turns (1000/80). With three, 14.29 turns (1000/70). Ouch, that hurts.



And the chart:



Level 1 (1/3) = 90% food = 10% less food (then without it) = .5 points per % of net loss

Level 2 (2/3) = 80% food = 11.1% less food (then with level 1) = .45 points per % of net loss

Level 3 (3/3) = 70% food = 12.5% less food (then with level 2) = .4 points per % of net loss



Summary: Taking more levels of a negative % has greater effects.





Review Question: Assuming tech and dust are approximately equal (I could write a wall of text on that subject, but lets not), which is better?



A. Scientists 2/3



or



B. Scientists 1/3 and Businessmen 1/3





Flat Effects and Percentages



While percentages look attractive at first glance, because they (should) continue to matter more as the game progresses, early production is invested. Illustrating this is awkward at best.



An example:



Dust Lode (8 pts) - +3 dust per pop



At turn 1, effect is +9 dust of planetary production, or a 21% bonus to total FIDS (3/14 FIDS on a Terran planet)

At the end of the tech tree, effect is +27 dust of planetary production, which is approximately 0% of total FIDS.



vs



Businessmen 1/3 (10 points) - +10% dust



At turn 1, effect is +9.1% dust (as is it 10% of a total of 110%), or a 3.5% bonus to total FIDS (.4/11.4 FIDS on a Terran planet).

At the end of tech tree, effect is +7.4% dust (because it is 10% of a total of 135%), which is approximately 1% of total FIDS (because D receives fewer total boosts then FIS).





ROI from an Improvement



So, you have extra dust from Dust Lode. Now you want to know how much it matters. Even in the first few turns of the game, there are many things you could spend this on. Learning to figure out how to measure your return on investment will help you make this choice and accurately measure what Dust Lode is really worth compared to Businessmen 1/3.



An Example:



Heavy Isotope Refinery - 75 industry or 155 dust - + 10 industry and +1 per pop to type 2 planets



(We are going to do the math for a Terran starting planet with a 30% tax trade.)



ROI is usually measured as how many "turns" does it take to pay for the investment.



75/10 = 7.5 turns, or 13.3% (10/75) is the answer if we use industry for it. This gets more complicated if we pay for it with dust.



Dust converts to industry at an ~ 2 dust : 1 industry ratio and industry back to dust at a 4 industry: 1 dust ratio. Assuming we plan to build the improvement and then use it purely to create dust:



155/2.5 = 62 turns, or 1.6% (2.5/155) is not nearly as attractive.



Lets assume instead that we plan to use the improvement to build other improvements or colony ships:



155/10 - 15.5 turns, or 6.4% (10/155) looks better and is probably a better plan.





Review Question: What is the ROI of hurrying a food exploit instead? (remember that this also causes pop to grow earlier and this is also an increase in net FIDS)





Comparing ROI to FIDS



We are closer to making a really good comparison between Dust Lode and Businessmen, but we are sill missing one step. Our value for Businessmen is in Net Gain to FIDS (+7.4%) and our value for using investing dust created by dust lode is an ROI (6.4%).



Our math above was for buying the total improvement outright with dust. A much more likely scenario for the first few turns is that we use dust to hurry the production of the improvement as soon as we can. This does not change the ROI much - it may decrease it a little as we might cause "wasted" industry (industry converted rather then used for building something). Lets say we can do this turn 4 and this gets the improvement done 2 turns early. Now, because net FIDS has to be measured based on total FIDS at a given point, we can covert our values to something that can be compared properly.



(All assumptions based on the scenario built from the earlier examples and we will assume that a food exploit was built before the Heavy Iso)



10/58 (we still have 3 population making a total of (16@3= 48 FIDS + 10 FIDS from the improvement) is a 17.2% increase in total FIDS for 2 turns (the time saved this way)





Cumulative Review Question: Assuming Dust Lode has an effect for 10 turns and then just stops working, approximately what rate of return would you have to get on that early investment to make it worth more in the long-run then Businessmen 1/3? Do our results for "using" Dust Lode to buyout the food exploit and heavy iso meet this criteria?





Ok, so I hope you learned something. If you had to decide, how many points would you make Dust Lode cost in faction design and how many points would you make Businessmen worth?

Related Game Mechanics



(Ab)Using the Ques



Each turn you have a system set to ind:dust or ind:tax it stores a full turn of production to be used on whatever. This only applies to a maximum of one turns production.



Lets say you build a faction to kick out a colony ship a turn from the home system. This means you need both the growth and the industry to do this in one turn. Messing with traits, this is very possible. It is not cheap. Lets say instead you build a faction that can grow the pop and produce the industry to produce a colony ship every other turn instead - and you take the time to flip the production que every other turn. You get 1/4 of your industry in dust or tech for "free" every other turn.



While this strongly effects early colony ship production, it also effects ship design - sometimes the optimal warship, even in late game, is the one you can make in two turns so you can use this dynamic. Assuming industry is 1/4 of your FIDS, this is the equivalent of a 3.15% (industry/4/4/2) boost to your system FIDS. Using this on an item that takes 3 turns nets you about a 2% (industry/4/4/3) boost to your total FIDS, and so on.



Additionally, if you have an industrial conversion in the que when you finish an item, it applies any excess production to the the conversion. Ever notice that sometimes it say a tech will take 2 turns and it finishes in 1?



Last but not least, industrial conversions are not affected by taxes (or most +/- % effects that do not effect industry). This matters A LOT when your tax rates are very low (like running 0% tax Siphons...) or if you have penalties to dust production (like Spendthrifts 3/3).



The above also means that, assuming you are "stuttering your Ques" etc, trait like Militarists and the Siphons racial affinity can cause you to produce more science or dust...



Speaking on a personal level, this has a huge cost in "micro", especially once your empire reaches a certain size. Deciding if it is worth it is up to you.





Review Question: What racial affinities (besides Siphons) are significantly affected by the above and how? (no, you don’t have to write it out)





As Well as You Know Your Own FIDS(T)



Food, Industry, Dust, and Science are portrayed as being equal in many ways. It is implied even it the fact that FIDS is one of the scored attributes tracked by the game. They are given equivalent values in faction traits (mostly) and improvements (and exploits) have similar costs in both science and industry. All that said, they are not always equal, and understanding when, why, and how much is key to understanding this game. The not as obvious, nor clearly displayed in the interface, "fifth wheel" is Trade. The importance of trade needs and will get its own section, but for now I would just like to get you started "seeing" the hidden T in FIDS.



From a certain perspective, Endless space is a "trading" game. You trade Food for population (which in turn creates all of FIDST). You trade Industry for things (which also create all of FIDST and military advantage) or dust or science. You trade Dust for industry, heroes (which can create more FIDST but can also increase military advantage), hero functions (which create military advantage), and last but not least pay upkeep costs on improvements and ships. You trade Science for opportunities to do new trades.



Outside of measuring the worth of military advantage, any trade can be fairly cleanly mathematically compared to any other trade. Even if you do not do it consciously or do any math, you already do this; when you look at a system and decide it would be a better idea to build a food improvement next rather then a science improvement, this is what you are doing. Some of the tools to do this mathematically are in the previous post. Most of the rest of "doing the math" is knowing how to phrase the question.



An example:



(after some sleep)

I think that should be enough

Bump. Feel my pain! (see the second post)

Wow, really great guide. Thanks

*Bump and your welcome.



Added UE section and a little bit on related game mechanics.



Likely Cravers next, as I am still hurting from the lost portion of the Custom Faction math section.

love tar babys!

Bump. Took a different approach in post 3 (The Faction Math section). Feedback would be nice - even formatting etc .... I am not sure it is understandable unless you already understand it.

This was so incredibly helpful. Thank you very much. I look forward to seeing more in the future.

The information on the Sower Affinity was really useful.



Basically running the recommended traits and the difference between them and the preset sower faction is astronomic. I think Sowers got crapsack abilities to make up for such a powerful affinity. I REALLY want to test the 100% conversion of extra food to industry improvement with them.



Though I think Tolerant gets a much worse reputation than what it is. For the Sower affinity Tolerant will let you colonize worlds that you wouldn't be able to normally at a penalty BUT that means you can colonize something like an Asteroid Field... Which has such amazing output compared (for sowers) to normal planets early in system growth that it can make up for the 25% malus.



Consider that an Asteroid field (after malus) has 9 FIDS, that's equivalent to a Tundra world IIRC. With better Industry and no "wasted" food output.

Copperwire1632 wrote:




Summary: Taking more levels of a positive % has diminishing effects.



[...]



Review Question: Assuming tech and dust are approximately equal (I could write a wall of text on that subject, but lets not), which is better?



A. Scientists 2/3



or



B. Scientists 1/3 and Businessmen 1/3

It's not clear this is the correct analysis. If you have 100 base (i.e. before percentages) Science and 100 Dust, A would give you +20 Science and B would give you +10 Science and +10 Dust. If the utility of Science and Dust is multiplicative, then your analysis is correct (assuming no other modifiers) and B is better, since 120 * 100 is less than 110 * 110. However, if the utility is additive, then A and B are exactly the same (regardless of other modifiers), since both give an increase of 20 in net production.

"Each turn you have a system set to ind:dust or ind:tax it stores a full turn of production to be used on whatever. This only applies to a maximum of one turns production."



Does this still work?

Well, you did manage to highlight the Tolerant traits "usefulness" and brought that back to minds eye again, it definitely needs a nudge. However you did spend some time on this and it is extremely helpful, there is a lot of good facts here but using math sometimes doesn't cut it when there is some randomness floating around, for example set-up, stars, opponents, worm holes and star lanes can all affect how the game pans out, after all it is a sandbox. But math helps in the end to understand where you went wrong and where you could do better. Ill learn from this, it is surely worth continuing and adding more. Like the other Factions when you have the time. Overall however, good, very good.