Hi I am going to drop off some of my designs I have been working on for MP. I have so far found every single faction viable apart from amobea. The only reason amobea is not viable in MP is that if your opponent is smart he will cancel any diplomatic agreements before you win.



Lets start of with Sowers. It is a design aimed for wonder victory and alternatively science victory or dust victory by huge industry converted into science or dust.



Sower:

Mineral Rich

Tolerant

Anarchist --

Make science not war +

Feeble warriors --

Stellar guardians +

Micromanagers --

Sloppy sawbones --

Dust impaired --

Fast travellers ++

Xenobotany

Rebellion ++

Sheredyn Integrity --

Offensive first --

Spray n pray ---

Builders +++

Master of illusion ++

Humane weapons ---

Dust starved -

Strong Alloys ++

Master of destruction +



Expansion:

The combo trait of tolerrant and 2 fast moves together with make science not war and 2 in illusion means you will have 100 cost colony ships that your industrial base will be able to use. As you are on a tundra planet that is mineral rich this will allow fast expansion. Make sure to get

dust and science early to from planets to counter your weakness in this in your start.

Combat:

You are not optimal in combat due to only having 1 rank in master of destruction - but due to having a high industrial base and also due to using your factions unique traits of more hit points (some of the ship designs have cheaper armor) you can easily make 2 for 1 trades vs glass cannons. Suggested design early is one full long range plasma as this can kill 2 in one strike (around 900 dmg vs glass cannons 375-450 hp) and since it fires every 2 rounds it can kill 2 during the LR round. However as soon as your opponent gets shields you need to switch to kinetic and missiles as well. Since you are at +2 rank rebellion you can also do conquests and quickly get planets without an approval hit for long.



Winning:

As long as wonder victory is on you should go for this, get quickly all your planets converted to tundra in 5 systems and build the 5 wonders.



Sheredyn:

Dust lode

Anarchist --

Feeble warriors --

Stellar guardians +

Dust imparied --

Micromanagers --

Sloppy sawbones --

Sheredyn integrity -

Human weapons --

Offensive first ---

Spray n pray ---

Master of illusion ++

Buisnessmen +++

Builders +++

Tolerant ++

Wasted space --

Fast travellers ++

Master of destruction ++

Black thumbs -

Rebellion ++

Dust archelogy +

Make science not war +

Lap of luxury +

Fragile hulls --



Expansion:

Having 2 rank in illusion and one in science not war means you can buyout cheap quickly. This will require some micro on your part but you can buyout the ship then move something on top of it in the que to grow even while expanding. This easily more than counters the -1 rank in food growth. This faction is also well suited for exporting from size 2 planets (so small growth bucket) colony ship to an inner core that quickly will reach max population due to having sent your colony ships there every turn buy buyout. For this race lap of luxury synergies extremly well if you manage to get the buyout or the dust bonus monopolies you are going to have a very good game. Keep in mind your buyout bonus is capped at "only" 10% cost. Also important to play this faction is to know how buyout work - it is exponentially more costly the more industry something costs. Thus you want to buyout stuff that is low in industry costs and try to reduce industry cost of stuff you buy.



Combat:

With 2 ranks in master of destruction and a buyout bonus you can very quickly buy many many glass cannons. (not uncommon to click more than 1000 times in a big mp match for the buyout.) With no retreat your opponent is forced to fight on your terms. Make sure your up ahead on fleet numbers and keep pumping out superior numbers. With 2 ranks in rebellion you can go on a conquer spree as well.



Winning:

Your victory goal should optimally be economy (500000 dust gained on normal speed) - so you want to boost your dust for end game. This is why you have 3x rank in dust bonus and together with lap of luxury if you get your hands on monopolies on dust you should have a strong game. If not your secondary strategy is conquest by taking all of the capitals - since you are one of the strongest millitary factions you have a fair shot at this.



Other notes: there are designs where sowers 1 turn colony ships (legendary hero + mineral rich) but I believe this design allows more long term ability by freeing up points for lap of luxury poentially netting a 30% industry bonus if you get the right luxury and since it is how fast you build in end game that matters this is why i prioritize this over the 1 turn ships. But certanly for fast game it can be considered.

United empire affinity



Mineral rich

Anarchist --

Wasted space --

Feeble warriors --

Stellar guardians +

Dust imparired --

Sloppy sawbones --

Micromanagers --

Spray n pray ---

Offensive first ---

Buisnessmen +++

Humane weapons --

Efficient stock

Sheredyn integrity

Tolerant ++

Fast travellers ++

Fragile hulls --

Masters of illusion ++

Make science not war +

Rebellion ++

Masters of destruction +

Optimistic ++

Black thumbs --

Builder +

Dust archeology +



Expansion:

You are going to use the fact that UE gets bonus tax in the early tax percentages (up to 15% more than other races) and if high tax the tax is normal while industry bonus gets higher. This will allow you quick colony ship. Since you have 2 negative ranks in food growt it is vital you use colony ships of small planets with small growth buckets and send these ships to quickly expand a core empire. In mid game due to your efficient stocks and a faction building giving +1 of each resource (easily netting you 10-30% more food bonus mid to late game) you will regain any lost lead in population growth. Your colony ships is 100 so this is almost optimal for expansions. (cheapest possible is 75 on normal.) But due to the competitve nature of MP games a preferential has been taken on combat abilities over the fastest expansion possible. (You will not be able to hold it in a serious mp match as you will get blokaded asap.)



Combat:

You only have 1 rank in destruction but you do have efficient stocks and industry bonus meaning you will build quicker than your opponents so this counters the small extra cost. (around 60 industry for your glass cannons vs 40 for the 2x rank destruction ones.) You have rebellion (most of my factions have this since it is so big deal on happiness) so you can go on a conquest spree as well.



Winning:

Your victory goal should optimally be economy (500000 dust gained on normal speed) - for late game efficient stock bonus will give you the research to get all the dust stuff you need. It will also boost your industry and combine that with a faction ability to convert industry to dust at a 50% rate vs the standard 1/3 rate you will actually build dust end game for a very quick economy win. If you fail to do this or a science victory is winning faster than you go on a conquest spree for a conquest win.

Automations faction





Expansion

As a jungle planet start it lends itself well to tollerant trait (no need to add extra tech as to not loose 25% industry in beginning) and as allways with such a combo you need fast travellers for fast expansion. (Unlike if you use techs instead of tollerant as then you get the +2 from a tech). For automation the key is to save up resources and use them only when a colony ships is 1 turn to build thus making you grow faster even with a negative in black thumbs.



Combat

Automation has a lot of ships and traits giving bonus hp. This is even stronger with strong alloys ++. You can and will make 2 for one trades with 1k hp glass cannons vs the 370-450hp glass cannons. With no rank in master of destruction you need to play very carefull in early game and make sure you commit enough industry vs glass cannon of opponents. You can use your illusion rank 2 to build cheap flak with no weapons only defence to take up spong hits for your real damage givers.



Winning

I think automation is a jack of all trades and it lends itself well to big games due to having a bonus based on how small it is compared to map overall. In a tight game with many players automation can easily get +30-40% to FIDS and thus all victory conditions are open for them to persue. They will never match a pure science or pure economy faction if it is a clean race, but automation will impose itself on the other players with the lat game high hit point ships. They also have bonus to population and can allow bigger planets somewhat helping they have less % bonuses than the other races for dust or industry. Also the interest rate is another 20% for industry suggesting perhaps the optimal rute for automation is to go for conquest or wonder victory.

Cravers Faction





Expansion

With 1 sci not war and 2 illusion ranks you got 100 industry colony ships. With the early game industry bonus and your dust bonus (huge 55%) you can buyout and build colony ships very fast. You do not use the tolerant trait but instead get compact fusion reactor (+2 moves and the science starting planets) and tundra planets. This means you can have some superb games and some games will be slightly worse in starting. It however frees up a lot of points (only 12 for the two techs instead of 40 for fast moves II and tolerant II) giving you both lap of luxury and crowded planets.



Combat

Glass cannons with destruction II. Since cravers also get bonus to fleet size and missiles they are particullary suited to huge swarms of missile glass cannons. Keep in mind you want to have a mix of old and new missiles as each missile counts as a missle for chance to be shot down so mix in some high damage (1000+) missiles with low dmg (450ish) and more of them so hopefully not all missiles are shot down.



Winning

Cravers is truly a jack of all trades with good early bonus to all FIDS. Then again they get a huge approval bonus from a faction tech thus lending themself well to the dust victory. This is why I have built this faction with buisnessmen 3 ranks (also keep in mind they start on an arid planet.) They are also very strong in conquest with missile glass cannons so conquest is also a good option.

Harmony faction





Expansion

With a slider that can go from 100 % sci to 100% food bonus you can easily outgrow your opponents. Harmony will be especially strong on fast speed. The key is your illusion based ships that with a 40% discount (build with a single defence only on the ship and use it as flak and FIS boost) you can quickly get +10 FIS on each of your planets - this is absolutly not to be underestimated and easily can counter the disadvantage of no buyout/no hero. You only have +1 move due to having a racial tech netting you 10 turns of bonus moves when you research it (on normal speed.) Key during early expansion is to build in burst colony ships (idealy all systems build colony ships while you boost science as far as you can with no loss in growth) then when building buildings max it out on food to grow back the population spent on colony ships.



Combat

You are the king of glass cannon combat. Period. You have no dust upkeep. You have destruction II. You get FIS on your planets for having glass cannons. It is not uncommon to have 200-300 ships by early mid game. This means you can go on a conquest spree.



Winning

Harmony can win in science due to the 100% boost end game to science (you do not care about growth at that point) and also on conquest.

Hisso





Expansion

In my verison hisso has actually the cheapest colony ships (75 industry) due to having both rank 2 in illusion and in Make science not war (ironic.) The reason for the heavy focus on make science not war is that Hisso has a lot of ships with bombers and fighter bonus and this lends itself very well to a cheaper 50% on modules. With these cheap ships hisso should have no problem to keep up with enough planets to realize its conquest ambitions. With a jungle planet tollerant trait is a good combo with fast travellers 2.



Combat

Kinetic is hissos speciality. Add that you are gaining 36% more damage and you can make 4 for 1 killers in the long range phase. Since kinetic fire every single phase of a round that means if you got enough dmg (375-450) you can kill 4 glass cannons with one of your own. (damn.) However kinetic defence is the cheapest and best defence (adding 300 defence thus 2 kinetic defence will lower your dmg to 50% and 3 will lower it to 25%) so you really need a lot of damage. Luckily kinetic with damage boost and hisso techs does have the damage needed and you can throw your opponent off guard by adding beams or missiles (both good since you get the 36% dmg bonus.) Also you can play some mind games and use bombers or fighters since you get these very cheap and thus countering all his defences and fighting in the 2nd and 3 round no matter what (even if your glass cannon ship carrying the bombers died) netting you a 4 for 1 possible in a glass cannon fight and also you can make bomber runs for the capital ships countering even the tier 2 ships with this easily.



Winning

With bushido bonuses you can go on a conquest spree and possible even a economical and science victory as the bonuses to FIDS piles up.

Horatio faction





Expansion

With a early faction tech netting you 100% population growth gradually declining until 51 population you should be in the lead in early game for expansion. Together with cloning ++ and a early food bonus tech (+20 food ) and crowded planets and racial bonus to population size you can

have very big population planets by mid game. With tundra + fusion reactors you will have a bit randomness in your start but most games will be strong in expansion.



Combat

You have a lot of troop ships so you want to expand very fast instead of using siege for many turns you use repair modules on troops ships (repair modules will gradually replace the lost population without taking population from a planet.) With destruction 2 and extremly strong heroes due to cloning horatio actually lends itself very good to conquest victory.



Winning

With a high population and good millitary you should aim for conquest victory. Alternatively you can go for the economic victory due to buisnessmen 3 rank and converting a lot of arid planets (extremly high approval due to +20 from each arid planet)

Pilgrims faction





Expansion

You should be building fleet errants at all times for a new one every 3 turns. Import population to your influence core after your initial expansion. Pilgrim faction is probably the only faction in the game to rival the pop expansion of horratio in early game and can surpass it if a good start with planets near each other. But this requires a lot of micro on your part by buying food improvements while keeping every turn the fleet errant as the top building that is going to be built. This is also why you have the cloning 1 trait as the +1 food will help you get to size 2 on most planets quickly for starting a fleet errant build. Your legendary heroes should NOT go industry but science (+15) and dust (+20) early game for probably the quickes access to tech required to get past initial expansion and buyout should be used for food improvents.



Combat

With 2x destruction and legendary heroes you can do a lot of damage on conquest. However your ships are mostly bonus to engines and scouting so you are going for hit and run with fast moving ships loaded with troops. Take what you need then quickly build a defence and strike where your opponent is not.



Winning

With a lot of techs netting hero and diplomacy bonuses (thats why i pick symbiosos and naive) and a very high population growth due to importing population with fleet errants you should try to get up huge trade (trade is mostly influenced by population size) bonuses from heroes. In a small map game you will be very strong netting easily 1000+ science and dust per planet with trade routes as long as you can remain friends with 1 or 2 other players in the game. This will allow you to go for science or economy victory. If it is a bigger map I recommend going for conquest victory as you do not have any huge dust or science bonuses for end game and the trade of 1000 per planet will only last for as many heroes you got so aroun 6k vs harmony or ue having say 20k science or dust per turn.

Sophon faction





Expansion

with 2 ranks in science not war and 2 in illusion you got the cheapest colony ships (75) so expansion should not be a problem. With your high sci bonus you should quickly get past your initial position and try to expand outside warpgates quickly.



Combat

With 2 levels in master of destruction you can fight the glass cannons head on and hold your territory with out getting blokaded so you can go for your science victory unchallanged. I put rebellion 2 in there for conquest but if you prefer you might change this out if you are going for an all out science victory or nothing.



Winning

Obviously science victory is your main path. You got a lot of science techs and with trade and 0 % tax you also gain big science bonuses. This is also why I picked the 3 rank in science to amplify this for a very quick science victory if left alone. However the sci bonus can also be used for quick weapons lending itself to a 2nd option of a conquest win.

Vaulters faction





Expansion

With gates netting you very fast movement between planets you only need +1 fast move. You will also counter expansion disproval when a portal is built thus allowing you to have a pesimistic trait with no problems for expansion. With extremly cheap colony ships (75 industry ) you should be expanding quickly. Use the techs netting you + sci from pop and planets early for a quick science boost.



Combat

With distruction 1 and able to be anywhere at any time due to portals you can easily hold off opponents while doing a science victory. Since you are only at 1 in distruction you need to build more industry, luckily due to portals removing approval penalty from expansion you will be more happy and have more industry and dust to counter this.



Winning

Science victory first priority conquest victory secondary.

Here is an example of a hisso wargame where i turned it into a dust economical victory t120. (it was mp host so just click ready then hit end turn)



Hisso economical win t119 win t120.zip



Also if a moderator could change the thread into ES instead of EL faction that would be great ^^

Eysteinh wrote:
Also if a moderator could change the thread into ES instead of EL faction that would be great ^^

done and let's count to ten characters

Thanks. A few explenations about my choices in general:



I like stellar guardian because inside own influence ring you do not have a 50% loss on science and dust and it also affects approval rating. Also if your enemy is surounded in influence from you they have less output as well so it is an important thing to have both to grow early and in an arms race of who has most influence across a border.



I for most like to have tolerant since it will allow stability in your games. There will always be planets to colonize and you will not waist time and snowballing will thus be strong. That is also the reason for fast trait, it does not matter if you can build a colony ship twice as fast as your opponent if it takes 2 or 3 times as long to get to the planet it is colonizing. 6 turns in general has a good chance in most games to be a turn 1 plant. (sometimes you need 7 or 8 or even more.) this is why i use fast II when i have tollerant and when i have the technology giving +2 move I do not use 10 points for fast.



I also like really cheap colony units (75 industry) on those who rely on buyout to get colony ships out fast. This has two very important meanings : 1. you can skip having a growth penalty since you can put colony ship down your que. 2. You can save dust since dust cost of buyout is exponential to the industry cost. (There is a good thread about this in the guide section.)



For industry factions it is less important so they generall get the 100 industry colony.



Also for the cheap colony units I general dont mind having a penalty on growth. This is due to how the food bucket works. It grows exponentially and even with penalties it is very easy to grow from 1 to size 2 for example compared with size 10 to 11. So what you do is you use around 100 dust for 1 pop unit and you ship it to where it is needed (inside your influence where it generates more dust more science, the population is more happy and there is a hero amplifying your output)



For some races like harmony this is not an option and that is why the food scale going to 100% is important to use as a tool. When buyilding something that gives you -100% growth you might as well put it to 100% science or whatever you can get away with. When your building buildings you should push it to max growth in most cases. (1-2 turn growth is ideal.)



When it comes to combat due to glass cannons you really need master of destruction I or II to have a chance since with rank II you can get 40 industry glass cannons vs 80 industry not glass cannons. That means your opponent has a 2-1 advantage. This is the general rule and it is up to you to figure out each factions advantage to make your ships count for more. For example the sowers can use hit points to make sure they have enough to survive two salvoes of beam or 1 salvo of rocket thus surviving for firing in 2 rounds. Other example is hisso having veyr high damage and using kinetic since kinetic can fire 4 times in a round it can kill 4 ships creating huge advantage if your opponent is not prepaired. Bomber is also such an example since it carries on its bomber run regardless if the ship it was on is dead or not. Thus as long as it manages to launch (http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/Bomber ) during phase 2 and attack 4 times total during phase 3 and 4) you can kill 4 ships for your 1 ship if damage is high enough compared with hp or fighter defences. Most likely with low tech bombers however is a 2 for 1 advantage but this is ofcourse good stuff. Especially if your using illusion to save 40% cost thus creating an economical advantage. (you can get such bombers for around 80 industry and they can take out 2-4 glass cannons of 40 cost.)



There are many formation tactics but in general if all things are equal (same amount of ships) it is good to carry glass cannons for most dps. If you however have more command than your opponent you can start to do funky stuff like having high defence ship take all the shots (each ship picks one target then goes down the list so if you have 4 defence 4 attack and he only have 4 attack they will hit very good defence ships if you set formation right.) I also think for dust cost and industry effiency it is best to have few command ships like size 2 or 3 or 4 since these costs much more dust upkeep and industry to build. It is however true that for each command point the more size you get the more firepower it will bring to the table so even while it is more expensive higher size unit can be tought of as elite units spearheading attacks where needed and taking attacks with zero casualities etc. In general the battle system is quite good once you understand it and many mind games can be found over formations and weapon use. So in summary I highly recommend you try out a game of MP endless space with opponents who know what they do as all factions have a good chance of winning and combat is very fun in this game.



Also regarding the negative traits like 15% less accuracy you have to understand that each weapon attack influences accuracy with 15% for the next attack. (attack vs evade) thus it is really not that bad a negative trait. Same with optimal offence since you still have the very important "DEFENCE" stat and the other stat is just adjusted 15% (a missile instead of having 4 chance to shoot down with 17% it will have say around 15% chance 4 times so very minor.) The one trait that I feel sometimes IS very bad to have taken is less command point as if you have more command point than your opponent you can do a lot of mind games and win combats with superior tactics. I also think that apart from CP then damage bonus or hitpoints are the most important traits if you are going for an offensive build. Having your units survive one more round than opponent with hitpoints is a major bonus. Having your units damage in one shot with kinetic or beams instead of in two or 4 shots is also a big deal so the bonus to damage is great for those who like kinetic or beam tactics. However for missiles in general if the missiles get trough all the flak they usually kill a ship a round no matter what so it is less important.