Favorite/most fun cultures so far?

[Jaeger]

Since we've had some time to play the game, I'm curious about what people's thoughts and preferences regarding the cultures are. I've tried astral and barbarian in the campaign so far, but I'm waffling a bit on deciding which to dig into next.

[Neonivek]

I love the Mystics (though you can only reasonably play them with a Wizard King)... Second place would be dark. Third place is Barbarians.

[Bomjus]

mystic w/ skeleton spam. i like doing full summoner with mana channelers more, but i found early game to be a lot easier spamming skeletons instead. cause not having to spend mana or gold to build up your army meant needing less mana buildings, and not spending any gold on units either. also once you get aspect of the root from tome of glades skeletons become extremely survivable. great unit.

plus by not going full summoner i don't need to take mana channelers which opens up a society trait for something else. and i've really been enjoying talented collectors. i mostly take it for the affinity, but the little bit of bonus resources early game has been nice. i think adept settlers might be the better choice just for a free city cap, but it's fun hunting for the perfect spots with lots of magic materials for new cities.

[アンジェル]

Every culture is fun to play. My favourite so far is probably Dark or Mystic.

[=]

Going Chaos Barbarian is fun and incredibly powerful. The aspect tree makes all your units really cheap and even gives you free units after battles. In combination with tomes which give your units good buffs, you can have a huge and unstoppable horde of tier 1 units rampaging across the map.

[Estellese]

Favorite so far was high culture with nature/order.

Absurdly tanky front line that must be killed three times before they die, with tons of heals to stop those deaths.

But that is pretty much always my preferred playstyle so no surprise there.

[David McMurdo]

High culture. Now I can recreate the Archons.

[Chikanuk]

Favorite - is 100% Feudal, most universal one. It gives +20% damage to everyone, without "but`s". You can play melee, you can play ranged, even mages. Just grab couple of casters from the tomes and you as good as mystics or archons. Also its allow you to pick best units from over cultures and ALL of them will have +20% damage. And all over units, without exception. Unlike more focused cultures, like barbs, who is great at agressive melee builds, but lack in everything else. And give nothing to mages or archers. Same with every culture except Mystics - they didnt buff only archers.
Most fun - everything except maybe industrial. Way too defensive.

[Seth'cor]

Mystics, Their magical ranged ability is just phenomenal in general., the affinity they grant is also one of the better ones.
Barbarians. They provide the best two affinities in general. they are also great for use as an archer based build.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Most anoying to face is mythic.
The damage output is insane.

[Rhalius]

I'm currently rapidly expanding with a barbarian faction with a melee champion. They have the swarmers culture trait that makes them require less population to expand and it pairs super well with legendary hunters that gives double resource rewards from clearing nodes, wonders and some other stuff.
The first ten turns I claimed a province for my capital each turn.

Added to that cheaper tier 1 units that can also be summoned through the horde tomb and the chaos and nature tomes in general pairing super well together for rapid expansion, and it becomes a very strong combination all together.

I rushed a high elf lord, declared an unjust war and stormed his two cities fast. Nearly 70 turns in of 150, and I have already destroyed that High Elf Lord before turn 40, migrated his cities, raised another city and build up a new one.

Raising Imperium can be a bit slow, especially since I didn't make much at all during my unjust war. The penalty did stop once I destroyed him.
But currently I have 5 cities and am not at war with anyone while the remaining 5 other lords are fighting among themselves and all hate me.
I'm busy building up currently, because I really stretched myself too thin by expanding fast and burning a lot of resources to take out the high elf early.

But it's fun, there's so many great combinations to experiment with and try out. There's a lot of cool synergies.

I played a brief campaign with a pyromancer wizard king sort who had the defensive culture and some focus on ranged units firing more accurately and melee units getting stronger retaliations and opportunity attacks. The fire enchanted weapons looked really cool on them and materium + chaos was a great combination too. Materium's economic bonuses stack well with chaos getting discounts and free stuff.
I had my mages and crossbowmen fire from behind my tough infantry forming a battle line, and played more defensively. My wizard king was very strong with fire magic. The fire focus did make them struggle a bit against fire resistant enemies.

[Fendelphi]

So far, I am leaning to Feudal for culture. Allows easy paths into Nature or Order(so beast spam or vassal spam are easy options) which gives a lot of healing options to keep momentum going and allows you to grow your empire pretty fast.

And Feudal is one of the few cultures(the other being Dark) with access to actual cavalry. Do not underestimate 48 movement speed on buffed up cavalry. They blaze across the world, hit you were you are weakest and will find your flank in a battle.

[Jaeger]

Nice and helpful responses. Thank you all!

It hasn't been deep, but I've done some more experimenting to flesh out my thoughts and preferences.

Mystic: Pack a punch with astral blades that will almost certainly be triggered, spellbreakers' ability to strip enchantments/buffs is useful if a bit contextual, and arcane guards have a nice stun to help keep the front line occupied for all of the above to kill things. As long as you don't run into anything very resistant to lightning or have to deal with a Magebane monster, there's a decent amount of fun to be had blasting things.

Dark: A touch tricky to get the hang of, and the lack of defense/support unit gave me pause, but in practice they seem pretty fun. Spells and positioning is important since you want to inflict Weakened on the enemy while not leaving your troops vulnerable to your enemy's own spells and ranged, but the charges are *powerful* if you can nail them. Dead enemy units + Weakened + stacking regeneration basically turns things into a one-sided slaughter...again, if everything goes to plan.

Dark warlocks are pretty darn great at making that happen between giving more combat casting points and their nasty always-accurate debuff skill.

High: I get the feeling they can be very powerful, but maybe not for make. The Awaken buffs are potent and do particularly wonderful things for your ranged units, but it's a bit more micromanagement intensive than the other mechanics. Keeping track of who's awakened and for how much longer during big battles could be kind of hectic, plus all the extra clicking every single time just to use the action-free skills to get it going. Like I said, powerful, just maybe not for me.

They seem to really spike in power once they get a tier 3 settlement and awakeners, though. Potent battlemage that can awaken two units at a time.

Industrial: Definitely the tankiest, though they have some interesting ways of trading their Bolstering stacks for heals and damage buffs. The arbalist is actually pretty flexible as a missile unit since they can do respectable damage while still moving, and their three-action attack matches some archers while denying the enemy retaliation. No melee means they're more screwed than true skirmishers if they get caught trying to flank the enemy, but it's an interesting option.

[TyCobb]

My Barbarian Rats always end up going Nature because I like summoning creatures.
My Dark Goblins always end up Undead Necromancers.

[MrLuckless]

I'm as High as a kite with High Culture. The units look cool, and the awakener is downright nasty as a battlemage and T3. They're also pretty flexible with what tomes and playstyles thanks to the awakening system, but they pretty heavily favor ranged units. Which I'm fine with, massed fire from archers/battlemages works amazingly well in this game.