Strongest faction, easiest victory?

[BlackDragon]

In a game like this, there are many roads to victory... that's kind of the point, even. But I'm curious. Suppose I wanna play against a high-difficulty AI, but still wanna WIN, what is the 'easy road' to take? Which faction is most overpowered, which victory most swiftly attained?

I've already learned the hard way that the Endless Space AI is far from a fool. Heck, I once lost a game on a low difficulty as the Cravers because I was so preoccupied with conquering the galaxy that I didn't notice one of the other factions building their way to a Wonder Victory, pulling the rug out from under me before I was ready to checkmate him. Unlike in certain OTHER 4X-games I could mention, the AI in this one certainly seems to play to win.

And so, the question stands - if you wanna cut the oh-so-clever AI down to size, what route should you take?

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I'm talking about the 'Disharmony' version of the game. I've seen some say that the 'classic' version is just easier, but I'm enjoying the new stuff added in Disharmony too much to play vanilla anymore. ^_^

[Sassafras]

I definitely agree that the Ai plays to win. I really like how they get mad at you for having a higher score, it makes them slightly more human.

But ANYWAY the differences between factions really just differ by playstyle. None are really underpowered unless you use the wrong strategy (Going for a science victory with the cravers).

The factions you enjoy using will probably be the best for you. People generally enjoy what they're good at, so yeah.

One last point: Don't go for a diplomacy victory on the higher difficulties.

[BlackDragon]

The factions are adapted to a specific playstyle, yes, but as you just admitted, not all victories are equally easy to attain. Since Diplomatic Victory is hard to attain on high difficulty (presumably because the AI is more agressive), that would make factions that rely on diplomacy - such as the Amoeba - less than ideal for high-difficulty play.

The question, thus, becomes mostly about victories. Is it easier to rush towards a Science Victory with the Sophonts, build up towards a Wonder Victory with the Automatons, or maybe steamroll the galactic economy as the United Empire? I rather assume that Military victories (Conquest and Domination) are unsuitable on higher difficulties, since the AI seems to build a truly ludicrous number of ships even on the lower difficulties.

[JH]

Originally posted by BlackDragon:

I rather assume that Military victories (Conquest and Domination) are unsuitable on higher difficulties, since the AI seems to build a truly ludicrous number of ships even on the lower difficulties.

It's true they do build many ships. But you only need one good fleet to lock down all their hundreds, as the AI doesn't like to engage fleets with a higher military power (helps to have a leveled fleet hero for this). If you can trap most of the enemy fleets in one or two blockaded systems, you are then free to use warp drive (ctrl-right click) to send your invasion fleets behind their frontline. Fight where the enemy is not, and prevail.

[Zednaught]

A custom faction can easily be stronger than the default factions.

I comfortably beat the game on Impossible, and I also have a victory on Endless.

My favorite faction is the Sowers. Their mechanics allow you to develop a tremendously strong early game and circumvent many of the normal restrictions. Allow me to explain.

Their combination of tolerant, allowing them to settle on any planet, plus their faction trait of converting industry into food, allows them to easily colonize their whole system, somtimes 50+ turns before the AI, and get colonies up and running very fast. A methane gas giant or a lava world turn into these amazing world that give you incredible production and very good food.

A side effect of the tolerant trait is how it offsets, partially, the serious hit the Sowers take to science. Tolerant allows them to ignore much of the lower tree for a long time, essentially letting them get techs in the other trees earlier.

With this enormous advantage in early production and colonization, you're well suited to any game type you want.

Regarding Victories: Science or Economic are the easiest to get the higher up you go if you want to play peacefully. The key is terraforming, detailed below.

Go for military victory types with Craver or Hissho, as their traits make it much less of a slog for them. The key to winning military victories is to capture one or two systems within 10 turns of declaring war. You'll want dedicated siege ships, with plenty of troops and bombs. If you've accomplished this, the AI will always sue for peace and give you multiple systems. You need to strike quick and siege undefended planets, otherwise the AI can send an unending stream of reinforcements to the planet. Always have the ability for your combat ships/cards to use the repair ability.

Terraforming is the key to fast victories. At a certain point in the game, usually by turn 130, you should have more happiness than you'll ever need, plus very productive systems. All you do then is transform every single planet into one type, either completely science focused or dust focsed. Go for the low hanging fruit of desert/barren planets first, then your gas giants. Your science or dust will rocket up amazingly fast.

Science victories are probably fastest, but dust victories allow you to rush buy more and more planets, or simply outfit whatever military you desire. Wonder victories fit awkwardly. It requires so many advanced techs that if you're reasonably going to be able to get them, you may as well just go science.

[BlackDragon]

Now THIS is what I'm talking about... *furiously takes notes* The bit about being able to 'force' a warp-jump with ctrl-rightclick is particularly interesting, and news to me. If I'd known that, my last game would've been much faster - I got locked down on several chokepoints by 20+ enemy fleets, each of which was pathetic compared to mine, but took forever to grind through.

I can also see that I've clearly been underutilizing Terraforming... and the Sowers. I keep meaning to give them a try. If they're so overpowered, I assume they're also a good choice for basing a 'negative value' custom faction on, for those 'negative value faction' achievements?

Incidentally, Zednaught, could you expand a bit on custom factions being better than the pre-made ones? From what I've heard, all of the pre-made factions have a 'point value' well above what it's possible to give a custom faction, so I figured they were just better.

[Zednaught]

It's not necessarily the case, but certainly some factions do get a higher point value. Nevertheless, because there is no limit to how many positive and negative picks you can make, you can easily stack negative traits that don't significantly affect you and ignore many of the positive traits that aren't that important.

So, for example, I'm running a custom faction based on the Sowers but instead of minus 20% science, I have positive 30% science 30% smaller construction costs, plus +20 happiness from optimism. It's turn 57 and I have 10 systems making 777 science per turn, and it's about to shoot higher real quick. The game's already over, and I've only met one faction.

[BlackDragon]

Ah, the noble art of twinking... from sword and sorcery to laserbeams and plasmashields, it always gets the job done. ^_^ I'll keep your advice in mind.

[JH]

Originally posted by BlackDragon:

Now THIS is what I'm talking about... *furiously takes notes* The bit about being able to 'force' a warp-jump with ctrl-rightclick is particularly interesting, and news to me. If I'd known that, my last game would've been much faster - I got locked down on several chokepoints by 20+ enemy fleets, each of which was pathetic compared to mine, but took forever to grind through.

I can also see that I've clearly been underutilizing Terraforming... and the Sowers. I keep meaning to give them a try. If they're so overpowered, I assume they're also a good choice for basing a 'negative value' custom faction on, for those 'negative value faction' achievements?

Incidentally, Zednaught, could you expand a bit on custom factions being better than the pre-made ones? From what I've heard, all of the pre-made factions have a 'point value' well above what it's possible to give a custom faction, so I figured they were just better.

Be aware that warp drive needs "atmospheric filtration" tech to unlock and travel will be painfully slow at first. Researching techs and engines for + green arrow will make commando raids more viable. In the early game it's good for getting your scouts behind enemy blockades to find more trading partners. In the late game it can be crucial for cutting off an opponent's impending victory - have enough fast fleets ready to launch a massively parallel invasion and you can stop the almost-winner dead.

Sowers are powerful when their strengths are used properly, and only half of this is based on their affinity. The trait Tolerant allows them to immediately use the difficult high-production planets, so keep that in mind if you're making a custom sowers faction. For the negative-points "Don't even think about it" achievement I used Cravers cos I figured I'd either have won before my initial locust advantage was up, or I never would. Fun times.

Aside from extra points, the pre-made factions have another advantage: you need to use a pre-made if you're chasing the faction-specific achievements. These tend to require a variety of playstyles and can be quite entertaining.

[Sassafras]

Originally posted by BlackDragon:

The factions are adapted to a specific playstyle, yes, but as you just admitted, not all victories are equally easy to attain. Since Diplomatic Victory is hard to attain on high difficulty (presumably because the AI is more agressive), that would make factions that rely on diplomacy - such as the Amoeba - less than ideal for high-difficulty play.

Ey. No need to insult my amoebros. Serously though, the amoeba are actually very good at military victories. The happiness boost from diplomacy points (and the amoeba's naive trait) gives enough happiness to allow you to neglect the diplomacy tech tree, and having the whole map explored allows you to launch a sneak attack on an empire that doesn't even know you exist.

My best games were with the amoeba; Like I said before, its really just about the strategy used.

[Drahcir0]

Harmony. Harmony is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ OP. No happiness=No +10% for high happiness, but who dafuq cares, if you can get every Planet and that sweet +50% trait? No Dust= No heroes, but who dafuq cares if you got a 40 ship fleet on every system? Also you can build a undestroyable advancement, converting Dust in your system to food and science, so your enemys can´t "use" it anymore. Also you can let your Science skyrocket, if you pull the "happiness" switch. Your systems will stop growing, but you´ll get a huge amount of science, then go for that tech, with that you can convert Food into Industrie. AND BAMM!! Ultimate Lategame race. You need like 5 systems to win. Also you can play them any Playstyle (except Eco, cuz they got no dust).

[BlackDragon]

Ah yes, the Harmony... I should've thought of them. They're kind of BORING to play as, since you don't have any heroes to level up or clever dust-charged strategies to play with in combat, but they certainly ARE effective...

Which reminds me. I've noticed that on low difficulties, the AI can't figure out how to play Harmony AT ALL. During my last game, I met the Harmony as an enemy for the first time - and during the entire game, they colonized literally ONE other planet, beyond their home system. And build maybe 5 ships total. I left them alone for ages while dealing with the belligerent United Empire, and still nothing happened there. I wound up colonizing most of their constellation before I could even be arsed to wipe out those two pathetic planets of theirs.

That was, however, on a rather low difficulty. So, question here: Does the AI figure out how to work all the little crystaline levers if they're on high difficulty? 'cuz otherwise, I think I can see the potential for an easy victory just by going up against nothing but Harmonies. :p

[MTB-Fritz]

Many games have this ONE faction (doesnt need to be harmony) which is unable to get off its feet for whatever reasons as if its broken down or something. This usually applies to matches with 6+ factions involved. By the time every other faction is expanded to its limits and war flares up in all corners these slowgoers are busy settling their first outpost :)

Still its the exception and rather a bug. Usually the harmony can be very deadly. They are one of the factions which have a "slow" start thats the main reason why they hardly see any endgame (because they get dominated or crushed by that point" but if they manage to survive into midgame and unlock a certain key technology.....woe the galaxy...a new powerhouse is born and it will rush through the map like a tidal wave :)

[Drahcir0]

Originally posted by BlackDragon:

Ah yes, the Harmony... I should've thought of them. They're kind of BORING to play as, since you don't have any heroes to level up or clever dust-charged strategies to play with in combat, but they certainly ARE effective...

Which reminds me. I've noticed that on low difficulties, the AI can't figure out how to play Harmony AT ALL. During my last game, I met the Harmony as an enemy for the first time - and during the entire game, they colonized literally ONE other planet, beyond their home system. And build maybe 5 ships total. I left them alone for ages while dealing with the belligerent United Empire, and still nothing happened there. I wound up colonizing most of their constellation before I could even be arsed to wipe out those two pathetic planets of theirs.

That was, however, on a rather low difficulty. So, question here: Does the AI figure out how to work all the little crystaline levers if they're on high difficulty? 'cuz otherwise, I think I can see the potential for an easy victory just by going up against nothing but Harmonies. :p

trust me, that waiting period of about 50 rounds is worth the annihalition you´ll bring to your enemys.

Originally posted by MTB-Fritz:

Many games have this ONE faction (doesnt need to be harmony) which is unable to get off its feet for whatever reasons as if its broken down or something. This usually applies to matches with 6+ factions involved. By the time every other faction is expanded to its limits and war flares up in all corners these slowgoers are busy settling their first outpost :)

Still its the exception and rather a bug. Usually the harmony can be very deadly. They are one of the factions which have a "slow" start thats the main reason why they hardly see any endgame (because they get dominated or crushed by that point" but if they manage to survive into midgame and unlock a certain key technology.....woe the galaxy...a new powerhouse is born and it will rush through the map like a tidal wave :)

Really? I always felt like they are rather good early game, cuz they got no dust, so they don´t need to pay debts for their fleets, even if the building reduces the growth speed for 50%, plus they are pretty much better than every race, despite the lack of dust and thus quickbuy.

Usually I get a 2 Planet system, build it up to a industrie Powerhouse, and then going straight for harmony-tech (that 50% bonus) Now I only produce ships in there, and I´m save till the end. Maybe if you choose a anti isolanist map, where you start with another player in your "territory".

[Zednaught]

Nah the Harmony really aren't very good in the early game. Probably the slowest of any faction. They don't really click until they've gotten some very important techs. Once they do, however, they become an aboslute powerhouse.

[BlackDragon]

...I find myself wondering just what the heck got censored out in that last post. >_>;

Well, anyway, I suppose the important bit here is that the 'no-starter' in my latest game wasn't down to them being Harmony, but just a random bug. Wasn't even a 'big' game, either - just a fairly regular 4-player fight in a 4-armed spiral galaxy, which is what I tend to default to if I don't feel like mixing it up.

Although, I suppose there still IS something to making things easier for yourself by picking your opponents rather than leaving them random. Some of the factions are slower to expand, some of them less inclined towards beligerence, some of them (as, apparently, the Harmony) are relatively slow starters and can therefore be handled easily if you catch them early...

Of course, all my experience with AI behavior is from lower difficulties. Does it still hold on higher settings? I'd assume you'd at least want to avoid throwing factions like the Hissho or the Cravers into the mix, generally speaking...