New? Want to know what each faction is best for? (updated, 2+ years old still)

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

-> Necrophage : War : Good with war and consistent conflicts, as well as large cities. (also extreamly good economically in the long term, I found, but you have to be patient with their city building)

-> Wild Walkers : Quick Expander : Best for those wishing to have several rapidly expanding cities, as well as foresight and defense when in forests, they also have some of the best units for melee or long ranged.

Stick to the woods, and everything good for this faction will be shown (military wise and economically).

-> Vaulters : Economic/Defense : Best economic and defensive abilities with cities. (teleportation, economic boosts by using the holy resources, among several others)

-> Broken Lords : Versatile/ Prepared : Best Multi-Use Abilities (though dust population is rigged so you are forced to capture cities, I guess, so bad for a pascifistic type of player), and using dust to regenerate armies.

Slight Update:
/Their military is exceptionally powerful (infantry and caster) for early game battles when able to easilly control the field./

/By "rigged" I mean there is a flaw in that when you have a second or multiple cities.. whenever you build a population the costs elsewhere increase for other cities.. meaning that the one thing Broken Lords SHOULD be good at.. setting up a bunch of early cities... they are infact naturally BAD at it.

Allow me to demonstrate ((not actual numbers, but so you get the idea)).. if the next population requires 10 food.. and for Broken Lords it's 20 gold.. when you build a population in a completely different city.. the same city which was 20 gold before, is now 40 gold.. when you build a population somewhere else, again, that same city, with the same 1 population, requires 60 gold for the second, instead of 20... and it just keeps increasing at whatever the ratio is. /

Personally I would not suggest these to anyone except as a 'for fun' to try out some of their interesting abilities and a change of game pace, if you like having more than one city (simply because of how the population is slanted with multiple cities).

-> Roving Clans : Economics/Pascifist/ (intrigue) : With faster settlers, and percentages of what other people buy, in a large player group they could be quite powerful.

They also are extreamly adabt at back stabbing through the use of rouge mercenaries, allowing you to attack allies.

Note- market usage is worse the faster the game speed is, so best for normal speed or slower games.

-> Ardent Mages : Strategist/ Economic : With minor abilities in upping their other resources of choice, the mages are best known for their use of spells that they can use when needed, at minor costs. They also have some very good abilities if well planned out, such as the zealots radius attack + bonus damage when damaged.

-> Drakken : Pascifistic / General Economy :

They are good anywhere as they don't have a type resource, and an added bonus around ruins so best to start by one if you can, as most regions have 1-2 ruins atleast (though oddly never more I've found).

Their force peace and truce is useful if you are new and don't want to get murdered by more advanced players, generally good if you expect to be on losing side of military conflicts.
They also have a minor ability to get through the economic plan faster, which means you want to pick the newly improved science+ and building+ as soon as you can, as these will be extreamly powerful in the short term (and you won't be worrying as much about military anyways).

-> Cultists : Economic / Manipulation

This faction is more of a curiousity, though useful when certain conditions are met.
They can't have more then one city.. which is a huge turn off to this wonderfully visable faction. This means that you will be the target of opposing players who desire a really big city.. which is your main advantage.

/If in normal speed or slower.. get mercenary units as fast as possible.. or else go through the quest line or tribes as soon as possible.. do not use the starting unit /

Your starting unit is a support type, which makes you start off instantly on the weaker side of things.
You also have a neat ability called conversion, which lets you take over pascified villages anywhere, and have them add resources to your own city, as well as including them in your collective, and granting occasionally bonus units.

**This is the only faction I have not tried in the normal version (only as a custom race), pair this with the necrophage's quick city making abilities and you are a force to be reckoned with.

I would suggest this faction only for more advanced players, or for those who like only having to deal with a single large city (Imperial Coinage is your friend), which there are several advantages for, though in the really long term, it's hard to say if it balances out well.

Their main bonus is happiness, they are almost always at a 100, so something like sewers is something you may wish to skip, among other happiness based ones (they almost always at a 100 in the long run).

BEST NEW: If you are new, Wild Walkers are best since they are all about straight forward building, but if you want to be able to adabt to any surroundings Roving Clans (more straight foward in gains) or Ardent Mages (more complicated abilities) are also good for new players.

****The Drakken may also be nice to play as to keep your more advanced friends from killing you outright.

GENERAL: In general all of the factions are fairly good in their own right (except for broking lords, atleast till the dust pop is fixed for numerous cities, unless that happens to everyone and you just don't notice it).

WORSE NEW: The worse faction to be if you are new is the Necrophage however, because if you don't plan it properly you will get horrible resources due to their starting negative and no positive till you assimulate minor factions.... which may be tricky if you are starting out, Broken Lords also will fall here due to their weakness in having multiple populations and lack of an entire resource, which could be devastating to players who are new to the game.



Tips for new players : Level up your city before starting a new one.. unless your first city is really bad but the second one is really good (based upon tiles). A bunch of 1 cities will make you weak and divided.

[Guipanda]

Thanks, but you should have done a guide for that

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

I don't know about these guides.. or how to do them >.> Just giving a broad statement about the factions.

[MadBinton]

I found the Necrophages easier to play as a new player than the Mages. Well once, you adapt the mindset of "claim all the AI villages!!!". Sure, you'll have to run negative in dust to get some growth through upkeep-buildings, but they do play fairly straight forward. In the end, the only thing limiting your rate of expansion / offence is the village adaptation rate and the rate at which you can "max" out your buildings and start pumping some troops to keep your border cities claimed.

While the factions do all have an special edge an do play rather different, they aren't really night and day from each other it seems. General terms always apply strongly it seems. Personally I think the Mages have a poor army for a beginning player. You really need to tune the gear of the units a fair bit, or you'll just be overrun even by small factions.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

True, maybe it was just when I was starting out that I kept running into trouble as the necrophages (that was before their flying abilities and diseased abilities were added), I would continually be crushed by the other AI due to the lack of resources in the beggining, but they are straight forward in tactics, once you figure out how.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

That is also true that the mages are lacking when it comes to their own military (but are awesome when given things), but the mages are a universal when it comes to terrain types, meaning that they are good where-ever they go.. so there is less planning there.

[TchernoWill]

Thank you for the thread, good idea and very usefull.

[Warmarine]

Probably should either update or make a guide on this, especially since the cultist are now in the game

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

yeah this was a while ago, and custom factions can really mess it up.. but it mostly holds true.

[Commander Tom]

awesome post, thanks !

[Aspic]

Really useful OP - thanks

[scy]

I know it's been nearly two months since you wrote this but there are more factions now.

[Zaiaku]

Most of this is good...With the exceptions of the Broken Lords and the Ardent Mages.
The Lords are increadably fast and easy to use. Without having to worry about food, it makes it so you can rappidly make 20+ pop cities again and again(Me and my friend did this last night...300 turn game finished in 150 from an economic victory with an expansion victory close behind. Dust production was in the 10K range at the end of the game) Mind you he did this with one city and i was expanding and building.

The Mages...Broken and not in a good way. Their quest line is stupid hard with little to no reward. It also seems like the pillars are broken and do not level properly.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

There are some issues.. but you do have to bare in mind that this is a very old post (I haven't played the game in about 2-3 years now.. that's because my computer that could play it has since died.. this one lags ridiculously).

I know Broken Lords -seems- good for an expansion victory.. but the way the pricing works out ((unless they changed it.. which I doubt)) you're actually better off just having food.. because you really don't get 'extra gold'.. you just gain an additional use for gold, instead of using food (and there are a ton of ways to gain food in the late game).

I'm guessing you did it on fast speed which oddly favors non-dust players (who don't use the market).. and do you ever use the market? I make extensive uses of it as a non-broken lord player to very great benefits.. so I end up using all the dust I get anyways. It's a matter of play-styles I suppose though.


I'm not saying either mages or broken lords are my favorites.. infact I actively avoid both in favor of my beloved Wild Walkers and on occasion Cultists (when customizing them to be Mercenaries of Death.. thanks to the roving clans trait).

//// why expanding with broken lords is incorrect ////

If you contained yourself to one city you will be amazing for a period of time as the costs do indeed favor using gold for the most part.

The Broken Lord population is what is a severe disadvantage when you expand however.. what I mean more precisely is that if you have 2 cities.. and you spend money for one population in one.. the other city's cost goes up... and the costs will only continue to build to ridiculous levels that will make it //not as good as it could be//

This does not happen with food.

This means that with multiple cities it will increase dramatically and will hurt you effectively.


Now bare in mind I'm not saying you can't "win the game" and certainly it's good for having a bunch of 1 population cities (as awful as that is)... I know a lot of players who only build cities to 3 population and think it's a good city.

I typically build all my cities to 15 or higher, and they don't stop.. constantly building districts to ludicrous amounts. Ironically.. I don't play to win usually.. I play to a challenge.. then I get bored.. and then I overwhelm with sheer economics.

So just because you can "win" with it.. doesn't mean they're particularilly good at it if someone else can do it better.

[Жора]

Broken lords basic infantry units are surprisingly good though. Healing themselves during combat for large portions of health every time one of them kills some enemy they hit that turn. And they are fast. I doubt it'll allow them outplay human opponent, but they are murdering AI pretty hard. Right now I defeated Wild Walkers on serious difficulty with just a 3 of them and a hero. Using only iron tier 2 stuff! They lost ~5-10 full stacks of Caecators, Archers and militia.
But those Ryder cavalry units are utter garbage. I regret researching them.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Yeah, I've seen players use them fairly effectively.. and the A.I... I agree completely that the Broken Lords are very good at combat, especially early combat as slightly mentioned in the description.. I enjoyed playing them the few times I did.. I just despise the lack of food (which actually counts as faction points).. for a trait that in the long run is actually harmful to your empire.