Those who play multiplayer competitive, which is the strongest race you've found?

[NattyDev]

Not counting custom races, which race do you think is the most powerful at the moment?

For me it would be a toss up between Cravers or Vodyani (Vodyani is VERY dependent on nearby spawns for essence gathering)

But for pure supremacy from the start of the game I would definitely say Cravers. Capturing the medium ship in the early 10 turns allows you to pretty much invade and capture the nearest player or minor faction system. Unless the player has a large fleet (6 ships) there is just no way to beat it once it drops ground troops. Taking a system with some pop and improvements greatly increases the start advantage and I struggle to see any other race match it.

Vodyani of course can beat any fleet early game with the Ark but unless you find a good leeching system close by early game you can quickly get left behind by the other teams. Also last time I played them was in EA and they had an annoying bug where population was stuck at 5 no matter what so that was a disadvantage also.


With regards to custom factions I really love them but it's difficult to find accepting players that want to use them. There are some really great advancements you can add to your own faction that give you a good advantage. Starting off with hyperium or titanium is a huge boost also removing starting tech is great because a 10% global modifier for health or damage is much better late game than starting with 1-2 lousy tech.

[Gzar]

Tiers
S: Vodyani (just all around powerhouse) - assuming average or better start
A+: Riftborn (colonizer spam, extreme industry),
A: Sophons (mid-lategame tech dominance and can rush key techs)
A-: Cravers (good but require you to war and it's gonna be hard fighting on competitive level),
Unfallen (excellent growth and fast colonization for nice snowballing)
B: Lumeris, Empire (just average but balanced)
F: Horatio (pop splicing is buggy ATM and super weak early game meaning you get behind and can be killed off early easily) (will move to C once they fix splicing)

Custom factions just break the game completely so there is very little chance they will be used in multiplayer.

[Outplayed and Destroyed]

1-unfallen,
2-vodyani, riftborn

[NattyDev]

I'd like to see Sohpons beat Cravers early game, they would get steamrolled.

Are you saying custom factions break game balance or they are broken? I've played 4 races of my design and they've all worked marvelously. Craver with horation pop splice was great!

[Panic Fire]

Originally posted by NattyDev:

I'd like to see Sohpons beat Cravers early game, they would get steamrolled.

Are you saying custom factions break game balance or they are broken? I've played 4 races of my design and they've all worked marvelously. Craver with horation pop splice was great!

Riftborn faction, and humans both don't use there full custom faction points, so any custom faction using them as a base to build off will always be stronger simply since they can add more perks with out having to take negatives.

[NattyDev]

Originally posted by Panic Fire:

Originally posted by NattyDev:

I'd like to see Sohpons beat Cravers early game, they would get steamrolled.

Are you saying custom factions break game balance or they are broken? I've played 4 races of my design and they've all worked marvelously. Craver with horation pop splice was great!

Riftborn faction, and humans both don't use there full custom faction points, so any custom faction using them as a base to build off will always be stronger simply since they can add more perks with out having to take negatives.

Taking maximum negatives is a great strategy to get the best advantages. Especially adding negatives that don't really effect your playstyle.

[Spear Deer]

I think he means its quite easy to exploit the custom factions setup to make factions that are FAR too strong.

[NattyDev]

Originally posted by Spear Deer:

I think he means its quite easy to exploit the custom factions setup to make factions that are FAR too strong.

What I mean is, if everyone does that, where's the disadvantage?

[Torrent]

Originally posted by NattyDev:

Originally posted by Spear Deer:

I think he means its quite easy to exploit the custom factions setup to make factions that are FAR too strong.

What I mean is, if everyone does that, where's the disadvantage?

Wouldn't you just end up getting people all playing the exact same race against each other? Whatever the FOTM happened to be? Not sure what would be more interesting to play.

[NattyDev]

Originally posted by Torrent:

Originally posted by NattyDev:

What I mean is, if everyone does that, where's the disadvantage?

Wouldn't you just end up getting people all playing the exact same race against each other? Whatever the FOTM happened to be? Not sure what would be more interesting to play.

Nope. having 30% industry bonus or 30% science can be just as good depending on your playstyle. Same with buffing ground troops and ship health, Cravers infinity can be great but so can riftborn singularities. There are heaps of very powerful combinations.

[Gekkosera]

I think making the Unfallen from natural Pacifists to a Military Force is quiet strong. You have Ecstasic on you planets almost all of the time, convert % of your Food to Manpower and build one fleet after another while building 2-3 Vineships for spreading fast. If the bug with the "you can not vine conquered empires" is no more, you are pretty much on top of others from the start.

[p00ky]

Originally posted by NattyDev:

But for pure supremacy from the start of the game I would definitely say Cravers. Capturing the medium ship in the early 10 turns allows you to pretty much invade and capture the nearest player or minor faction system. Unless the player has a large fleet (6 ships) there is just no way to beat it once it drops ground troops.

Why rush mid ship? just study tech 1 for additional manpower module on "Ubiquitious Surveillance" and add this module onto the scavengers . 3-4 of these can take any minor faction at any point of the game and 3+3 scavengers (to complete the fleet) can take anyones home planet if you rush it and they havent put up defenses.
Yes, everyone cries when you do it on multiplayer :)

[It'sJustOmari]

Originally posted by Gzar:

Tiers
S: Vodyani (just all around powerhouse) - assuming average or better start
A+: Riftborn (colonizer spam, extreme industry),
A: Sophons (mid-lategame tech dominance and can rush key techs)
A-: Cravers (good but require you to war and it's gonna be hard fighting on competitive level),
Unfallen (excellent growth and fast colonization for nice snowballing)
B: Lumeris, Empire (just average but balanced)
F: Horatio (pop splicing is buggy ATM and super weak early game meaning you get behind and can be killed off early easily) (will move to C once they fix splicing)

Custom factions just break the game completely so there is very little chance they will be used in multiplayer.

Of what you've played, which faction is the best for tall gameplay? And is it feasible to use tall against human players?

[NattyDev]

Why rush mid ship? just study tech 1 for additional manpower module on "Ubiquitious Surveillance" and add this module onto the scavengers . 3-4 of these can take any minor faction at any point of the game and 3+3 scavengers (to complete the fleet) can take anyones home planet if you rush it and they havent put up defenses.
Yes, everyone cries when you do it on multiplayer :)

The cravers first quest is to capture or destroy a rouge craver vessel. This vessel is a medium ship with about 240 attack and 80 troops, getting it around turn 10 is a huge boost and allows you to capture pretty much any players homeworld if you can reach it. I use it to capture about 2-3 systems by turn 20+ at least. It's very strong!

I would say the only defence is having a larger number of ships staying at base to defend, but then you fall behind in curiosities or building improvements.



Of what you've played, which faction is the best for tall gameplay? And is it feasible to use tall against human players? [/quote]

Tall Gameplay?

[It'sJustOmari]

With tall I just mean a handful of very valuable/resourceful systems.

[NattyDev]

Originally posted by It'sJustOmari:

With tall I just mean a handful of very valuable/resourceful systems.

I can see it working with vodyani and Riftborn with the use of singularities but not agaisnt human players. At some point people are going to have as good of quality planets as you do, so add more systems to that and they will continue to overtack you.