Best race and why? Your opinion :)

[D.a.r.k.ELF]

Hello! I start play almost 21 hours ago and still play tutorial but after and with United Empire.
What say the biggest fans of ES 2 - which race and why? Which race is the most powerful and which have the most awesome technology? :)

[Sizzlor]

Well I would not say there is a most powerful race. Game is pretty well balanced in that reguard. The big hurtle is figuring out how to play a given race. I think the general consensus is Lumeris and Horatio are the weakest races, but because I have a soft spot for proving people wrong those are the ones I play. As for the why I like the themes and astetics of the Lumeris and the challenges of Horatio. Once you figure out a races secrets though any one of them can be super powerful.

Lumeris have the fastest traditional method of expanding as well as the cheapest diplomacy rates. Between trusted broker and one of their race specific techs they get a 60% discount on diplomacy. They also have better buyout power from some techs. Republic boosted fair trade law is probably one of the strongest laws in the game.

This is probably just me but Horatio is so delightfully counter intuitive to how all the other races play. Horatio also marches to the beat of his own drummer and is a monster when you get him going. With the right luxuries its not hard to reach 5-10k anything per system.

In short thats my horribly unpopular opinion.

[D.a.r.k.ELF]

Sizzlor - ok thanks than for you Lumeris and Horatio :) I'm waiting for more and other opinions :)

[queenelise9830]

I agree that any race can be powerful. Cravers prolly have the strongest early military, but they have domestic issues involving depleted planets and mutinous slave populations. Especially later game (when most of their empire is depleted) it can be hard to stay ahead. The Hissho from the latest DLC are a good compromise if you want to play militarist without worrying about your population literally eating planets.

Vodyani are one of the better races overall once you get going, but in order to actually get going you have to find a sustainable source of Essence which can be hard. Tip: Bring some Leecher ships in addition to your military fleets whenever you go to seige somone as Vodyani. While you're sitting there(hopefully) trashing any reinforcement ships they bring, also queue up Drain Essence to floor their population growth while also harvesting that sweet sweet Essence from their poor helpless civilians. >:)

Lumeris just want to set up trade routes to the fullest extent possible, as well as steal systems out from under enemies and sell them to friends for goodies. I'm still not sure exactly how trade route income is calculated, but it can apparently get to be strong enough that between that, Fair Trade Bill and the Lumeris unique improvement (the White Market) you can catch up to most of the others despite Lumeris' relative weakness.

[D.a.r.k.ELF]

kingedward9830 - ok thanks than for you which is the best race? You write about 4 races..

[Lord Yanaek]

Let me ask you another question? Which colour is objectively the best?

Races are very different. Some are easier to play, some are more "vanilla" (like the empire who mostly follow basic 4X rules with a small difference as they can "buy" stuff with influence) while other simply throw all the usual 4X stuff away like the Vodyani who don't grow population with food but with essence they can steal from other races and never colonize planets, instead exploiting them from their giant motherships, the Arks, that they can relocate at will with all the population and improvements.

Most powerful for what? Which one is strongest, the long living oak or the fast jaguar? Sophons have an easy game going for Science victory knowing they are totally science focused. Cravers can build a strong fleet before anyone else and invade their neighbours easily but if the game drags for too long they will have depleted their planets and will slow to a crawl? Are you a turtle player or a REXer?

That being said, here's a short overview of the races, what i think they are good for and their weaknesses. I'm not the most experienced player so hopefully others will correct me if i overlook some aspects of the races.

• Sophons. Good at science. Almost everything about Sophons is for science. Science allows you to get stronger over time so they are good if the game lasts long enough and they can out-tech everyone. Good for science victory or anything else they choose to focus their science on. Bad for rushing their opponents or being rushed. Mostly a vanilla race without anything really "awesome".
  
• Cravers. Insane production and growth on undepleted planets but unless you are very careful they will soon have their planets depleted and then their production is crap. Good for REXing and rushing their opponents. Bad (dead) for a long turtle game.
  
• Lumeris. Traders. Good for making dust i guess but i never found them that good compared to others. They buy their planets instead of colonizing them with colonization ships. First few planets are cheap so they could be good at REXing early before swithiching to growth but you would need very good food production on home system to sustain 2 outposts. Apart from their colonization they really don't stand as anything special to me.
  
• Vodyani. The classy space vampires. They stay in their Arks and exploit every planet simultaneously. Use essence to grow. They tend to grow slowly at first unless they can find a minor race to drain but they can grow steadily anyway and their base population + arks bonus modules allows them to have very strong systems. They are probably the best "tall" race as a bunch of specialized arks on 5-planets systems can really give them the science/production/dust they need . They have a strong early game rushing weapon if you want to invest an early Ark as a capital ship (it's possible) but it's also one less system. I really like them and find them fun to play but a lot of players seem to consider they have been over-nerfed and now tend to the weak side.
  
• United Empires. Your classic race with a twist as they can use influence to buy anything. Despite their apparent militaristic theme i find they are very good at peaceful growth with their industry focus and a lot of influence to buy what you need, including enemy planets (anyone can convert planets with influence, but UE are best at it due to their influence production). They are extremely versatile thanks to Emperor's will.
  
• Horatio. The crazed clones can be hilarious to play as they can easily end up the strongest race after assimilating the genes of plenty of other races but they have a slow start. Their ships are on the weak side with few modules and a high price. They really need time to unlock their power but can be unstoppable at the end if they are not dead before. Good for long games and going for any victory with OP population. Bad for the first half of the game.
  
• Unfallen. The trees are a strange race. They don't send colonizers to create outposts, they grow "vines" with their vine-ships and once they have linked a system they can colonize it immediately. The process is slow with only one vineship and vineships are expensive and defenseless so they tend to grow slowly at first thought their population growth quickly on their planets thanks to good food production. They have bonuses for being at peace and can force peace with other races (obviously mostly useful in single player). They are immune to influence conversion but have a hard time converting other planets since they need to be at peace to put vines in a system and need vines to spread their influence. Once you start converting their systems they will ask you to stop and if you refuse will usually cancel the peace treaty, causing your vines to recede. They are good for a really peaceful game where you don't even try to "peacefully" conquer enemy systems, or maybe some really sneaky players who could find a way to steal a bunch of systems quickly but that would require a lot of influence and they are not the best at influence production. Great if you just want to turtle in your territory thought as AIs rarely break your forced peace in you don't make hostile actions and keep a minimum of ships for defence.
  
• Riftborns. Another strange one. They don't grow, they are built as their consciousness occupies artificial bodies. They are happier on sterile planets and have reverse terraforming which is nice to create super-production systems and ultra science systems. Their singularities give them even better production but they can only maintain a limited number of those making them another "tallish" race. Their ships however are quite strong (at least their medium hulls) with attack ships full of weapon modules and defender ships full of armor modules, making them quite formidable opponents in an open war. Good for a tall game with a few highly specialized systems or a conquest game with their strong ships after they have grown for some time. Bad for early rushes.
  
• Vaulters. Strangely their single colonizer allows them to grab a couple of systems really fast in the early game. The ability to use strategic resources for system upgrades is quite strong (+40 industry and food from very affordable titanium L2 upgrade really makes their systems productive fast) so they can reach a strong and productive empire very quickly but after they have colonized about half a dozen worlds the cost to reactivate the Argosy quickly becomes prohibitive and their expansion slows a lot. Good for an early expansion rush followed by consolidation of your power or conquest. Bad if you can't take advantage of your early growth and think everything will be easy all game long.
  
• Hisho. I don't have Supremacy DLC so i can't say.

EDIT : of course with such a long post i've been multi-ninjaed.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Originally posted by D.a.r.k.ELF:

Hello! I start play almost 21 hours ago and still play tutorial but after and with United Empire.
What say the biggest fans of ES 2 - which race and why? Which race is the most powerful and which have the most awesome technology? :)

There really isn't one. Each one is pretty well balanced and can be played well, although I think Sophons and Riftborn are very good for snowballing later game and Cravers are well good at being at war with everyone early on. So really there isn't a "best" or "most powerful" however, I must say United Empire probably has the best soundtrack hands down. Every time their theme comes up again while playing I smile. Depends on your taste and preference like all else though. Unfallen have a nice smooth jazzy sound.

OH there is one major thing for new players to know and that is module slots. Some races have way different module balance than others. The Riftborn for example tend towards all or nothing, with almost all weapon slots or almost all coordinator slots. Different factions are balanced in different ways meaning some you can easily strap two engines to be faster and others you have to pick and choose more. Some factions have more armor slots but weaker guns, things like that which make a pretty big difference eventually.

Originally posted by Lord Yanaek:

Let me ask you another question? Which colour is objectively the best?

Races are very different. Some are easier to play, some are more "vanilla" (like the empire who mostly follow basic 4X rules with a small difference as they can "buy" stuff with influence) while other simply throw all the usual 4X stuff away like the Vodyani who don't grow population with food but with essence they can steal from other races and never colonize planets, instead exploiting them from their giant motherships, the Arks, that they can relocate at will with all the population and improvements.

Most powerful for what? Which one is strongest, the long living oak or the fast jaguar? Sophons have an easy game going for Science victory knowing they are totally science focused. Cravers can build a strong fleet before anyone else and invade their neighbours easily but if the game drags for too long they will have depleted their planets and will slow to a crawl? Are you a turtle player or a REXer?

That being said, here's a short overview of the races, what i think they are good for and their weaknesses. I'm not the most experienced player so hopefully others will correct me if i overlook some aspects of the races.

• Sophons. Good at science. Almost everything about Sophons is for science. Science allows you to get stronger over time so they are good if the game lasts long enough and they can out-tech everyone. Good for science victory or anything else they choose to focus their science on. Bad for rushing their opponents or being rushed. Mostly a vanilla race without anything really "awesome".
  
• Cravers. Insane production and growth on undepleted planets but unless you are very careful they will soon have their planets depleted and then their production is crap. Good for REXing and rushing their opponents. Bad (dead) for a long turtle game.
  
• Lumeris. Traders. Good for making dust i guess but i never found them that good compared to others. They buy their planets instead of colonizing them with colonization ships. First few planets are cheap so they could be good at REXing early before swithiching to growth but you would need very good food production on home system to sustain 2 outposts. Apart from their colonization they really don't stand as anything special to me.
  
• Vodyani. The classy space vampires. They stay in their Arks and exploit every planet simultaneously. Use essence to grow. They tend to grow slowly at first unless they can find a minor race to drain but they can grow steadily anyway and their base population + arks bonus modules allows them to have very strong systems. They are probably the best "tall" race as a bunch of specialized arks on 5-planets systems can really give them the science/production/dust they need . They have a strong early game rushing weapon if you want to invest an early Ark as a capital ship (it's possible) but it's also one less system. I really like them and find them fun to play but a lot of players seem to consider they have been over-nerfed and now tend to the weak side.
  
• United Empires. Your classic race with a twist as they can use influence to buy anything. Despite their apparent militaristic theme i find they are very good at peaceful growth with their industry focus and a lot of influence to buy what you need, including enemy planets (anyone can convert planets with influence, but UE are best at it due to their influence production). They are extremely versatile thanks to Emperor's will.
  
• Horatio. The crazed clones can be hilarious to play as they can easily end up the strongest race after assimilating the genes of plenty of other races but they have a slow start. Their ships are on the weak side with few modules and a high price. They really need time to unlock their power but can be unstoppable at the end if they are not dead before. Good for long games and going for any victory with OP population. Bad for the first half of the game.
  
• Unfallen. The trees are a strange race. They don't send colonizers to create outposts, they grow "vines" with their vine-ships and once they have linked a system they can colonize it immediately. The process is slow with only one vineship and vineships are expensive and defenseless so they tend to grow slowly at first thought their population growth quickly on their planets thanks to good food production. They have bonuses for being at peace and can force peace with other races (obviously mostly useful in single player). They are immune to influence conversion but have a hard time converting other planets since they need to be at peace to put vines in a system and need vines to spread their influence. Once you start converting their systems they will ask you to stop and if you refuse will usually cancel the peace treaty, causing your vines to recede. They are good for a really peaceful game where you don't even try to "peacefully" conquer enemy systems, or maybe some really sneaky players who could find a way to steal a bunch of systems quickly but that would require a lot of influence and they are not the best at influence production. Great if you just want to turtle in your territory thought as AIs rarely break your forced peace in you don't make hostile actions and keep a minimum of ships for defence.
  
• Riftborns. Another strange one. They don't grow, they are built as their consciousness occupies artificial bodies. They are happier on sterile planets and have reverse terraforming which is nice to create super-production systems and ultra science systems. Their singularities give them even better production but they can only maintain a limited number of those making them another "tallish" race. Their ships however are quite strong (at least their medium hulls) with attack ships full of weapon modules and defender ships full of armor modules, making them quite formidable opponents in an open war. Good for a tall game with a few highly specialized systems or a conquest game with their strong ships after they have grown for some time. Bad for early rushes.
  
• Vaulters. Strangely their single colonizer allows them to grab a couple of systems really fast in the early game. The ability to use strategic resources for system upgrades is quite strong (+40 industry and food from very affordable titanium L2 upgrade really makes their systems productive fast) so they can reach a strong and productive empire very quickly but after they have colonized about half a dozen worlds the cost to reactivate the Argosy quickly becomes prohibitive and their expansion slows a lot. Good for an early expansion rush followed by consolidation of your power or conquest. Bad if you can't take advantage of your early growth and think everything will be easy all game long.
  
• Hisho. I don't have Supremacy DLC so i can't say.

EDIT : of course with such a long post i've been multi-ninjaed.

What this guy says. I would in particular note that part of the reason UE is so good for new players is because the faction both plays largely the way you'd expect in any 4x game plus they're super versatile. In fact your faction quest allows you to switch your entire base pop to something else (Sheradyn/militarist pop are identical to Yuusho, Mezari/science is the same stats as Sophons so you're basically converting your whole population to Sophon or Yuusho halfway through) if you want or to keep it. They're super good at industrialization but can easily become a military force to be reckoned with, or a profitable trade empire, a peaceful conversion/diplomatic empire etc. The industry party combined with Emperor's Will means each construction gives you back some dust and influence, and is in general very good at a massive buyouts to quickly establish strategic colonies.

Riftborn pick and choose between building pop or improvements or ships and can be hobbled early on, but not needing food while having your starting planets all ice or lava worlds lets you build massive industrial and research bases. Ships can be more like glass cannons but still hardy enough to survive battles and have the highest weapon module count of any faction so they can be stupidly powerful in battle too.

Unfallen the AI particularly seems to struggle with and grow slowly and centrally so they're much more restricted by nearby systems. The weaker diplomatic race. If you only have Cravers nearby, expect a probable restart.

Sophons are one of the best snowballing factions. Starts out pretty weak and can't hold their own in ground battles at all, but teching up fast enough can quickly compensate for that.

Cravers are basically the zerg rush race. This is the "peace was never an option" faction so you'll actually need all those bonuses to expand and conquer.

And so on I mean it really depends on what you're playing as. I personally like just building up my empire. I'm perfectly satisfied with the more construction management simulator side of things and like games like City Skylines and Tropico so I usually neglect war until forced into it and somehow usually end up with trade routes before anyone else including Lumeris. Other people just like waging war and exterminating other empires. Some factions are better at some things than others so "most powerful" depends on your playstyle. If you want endless war Unfallen are a horrible option and Hissho and Cravers are "most powerful". If you just want to trade and build then Sophons, Unfallen, Lumeris, and United Empire are good at that.

[Sizzlor]

Originally posted by D.a.r.k.ELF:

Sizzlor - ok thanks than for you Lumeris and Horatio :) I'm waiting for more and other opinions :)

No problem. I can tell you all sorts of evil things you can do with Lumeris.

[queenelise9830]

Unfallen, while not as good at conversion due to the vines needing permission to plant, are actually one of the better Influence generating races due to Guardians. You can even wake up Guardians on other peoples' planets, they take much longer to kill if you're not Unfallen and will provide an Influence penalty for so long as the other guy is your enemy.
(I'd still prefer UE for a massively Influence focused game though, because of Emperor's Will and not needing to deal with the vines.)

[sharknoise]

In terms of power the best faction is a custom faction since all vanilla races have some suboptimal traits that can be dropped and replaced with something more useful. Especially the starting techs, their point costs are comparable to traits, but traits are useful throughout the whole game while the techs only save you several turns of research.

If we talk about the favorite core feature (gameplay affinity), I'd choose Metafolding (Vaulters). Portals simplify micromanaging, without them moving pops between systems during the late game is a nightmare. Moving military ships in one turn is also nice.

[Lord Yanaek]

Well, yes if you go to custom races you can create some totally overpowered ones. Extreme Foremen + Planet Menders combo is just insane on it's own, merely costs half of your population points and none from your empire traits pool allowing you to throw % based bonuses on top!

Building an OP custom race could be a game on it's own if it wasn't so obvious that a couple of population traits are so clearly above everything else that really you only have 2-3 valid choices when trying to create a powerful custom race.

[D.a.r.k.ELF]

LORD YANAEK and BLACKSUN - thank you very much for the very comprehensive answers :) I am interested in only now which personally for you is the best race and which you like to play the most? :)

[D.a.r.k.ELF]

KINGEDWARD9830 and SHARKNOISE - also thanks :) And also last question - which personally for you is the best race and which you like to play the most? :)

[D.a.r.k.ELF]

LORD YANAEK - sorry but I'am not interested in creating my own race.

[queenelise9830]

I like all of them for the most part, I can never choose a favorite in terms of gameplay. LOL

[Lord Yanaek]

As i tried to explain i don't think there's one best race just like i don't think a car or a boat is inherently better than the other. I wouldn't go to work in a boat but wouldn't try to travel to Hawaii in a car (wish i could travel to Hawaii). Vaulters are a good all around race as their strong early game can give them a lead for whatever victory they choose to pursue, so are United Empires with their ability to purchase whatever they need but other races will be better for some victories so it depends a lot on how you like to play.

As for which ones i like to play the most i would say Vodyani and Vaulters for their style and lore so nothing to do with actual gameplay.