How many factions do yall play with enabled?

[IconianCat]

i generally understand that the 7 factions are intended to represent seven very real extremes of human emotion and response. and to that end having all 7 human factions plus the aliens is the "intended" scenario. but obviously as a game, there are both gameplay and performance limitations. 7 AI factions including the aliens is a rather intense draw on computation in the late game, playing with a full solar system is equally intense. and even beyond that the difficulty of a scenario is almost directly linked to how many factions are in play because more factions means less free control points to run around and snatch up.

obviously the aliens, resistance, and servants are forcibly enabled. you cant go lower than 3 AI factions.

im curious what everyone sets their games to for the number of factions and what people feel is a decent balance of not grinding your performance to a halt or enduring constant councilor border gore fighting with the other AI, but also without becoming a steamrolling powerhouse uncontested with the "big three"

currently ive been playing with all 8 factions enabled every time in a medium sized solar system with 250 celestial bodies. feels like a decent challenge. not overwhelmingly crushingly difficult but i cant laugh in someones general direction and kill them.

[Blaarg]

In both of my playthroughs, I used all 8 factions. I don't expect that to change. The councilor fighting is kind of the name of the game.

As far as solar system size, I've been using light. I don't care much for mining on single site asteroids, as it is hard to defend. That leaves most of the bodies inside Jupiter as just places for the human AI's to mine. That's needed, of course, as if I push them off Mars/Mercury I still want them to have ways to do stuff in space. Even on light, the human AI's do not seem to have any trouble getting to their mission control cap. But once I decide to go to total war with a faction, more bodies just means more whack-a-mole as I send fleets to put down their mines. It doesn't make it tactically more interesting, just maybe longer. And given it might help performance to go lower, I see little value in the higher number of space bodies.

[corisai]

More factions & sites => more stuff in space => more targets for ayys, while they are still limited in amount of ships and constrained by fuel.

[perl]

All of them.