Endless Space 2 Lumeris
Its quite simple really. You look at what is strong currently in the game, and then you look at what faction is good at.Assimilating minors is a sure way of snowballing in every game. You expand rapidly, use no food doing so, gain ships, dust, and extra traits, some of which can be gamebreaking in itself (Thinkers and Tinkers I).What factions the best at this? Horatio, Lumeris. Unfallen are the worst at this.Then you look at industry, the most important ressource in the game. Plenty of factions are good at this. Some are better, some are worse.
Jun 04, 2017 Each video will be a 10 player game on Endless with Hard Minor Factions for max AI difficulty. I'm starting with my favorite race, Lumeris. I go through the first 30 turns of a game here to put us on the path to a nice pacifist snowball and discuss and show off some cool Lumeris strategies such as: 11 probes on turn 1 100 science turn 9.
A lot of it comes down to starting luxuries aswell, and starting planets. Having many early temperate+fertile planets allows any faction a strong boost in both industry and science. Here are my power rankings based on playing so far (without the latest balance mod, which changes some things). However, not a ton of multiplayer on most of the factions, so probably very subjective and inaccurate.
Instead of exact rankings, I'll give letter grades of A, B and C, with A being the strongest tier. A. The Vaulters. Ridiculously strong and very resistant against RNG. Their colonization mechanic makes it easier to exploit the best systems that you find, regardless of their location, so you're less reliant on getting lucky with your first couple of outposts. The colonies also get a nice kick start in industry to get the basic Xeno-industrials etc. Up, and new colonies don't drain the food of existing ones.
They can modernize systems using Titanium with comparable bonuses to Jadonyx, and to which you have easy access in every game. So, essentially you will always get Jadonyx in every game. Portals make it possible to easily defend all of your systems, and to easily reinforce your invasion fleets.
And on top of everything else, they have good hero skills, improved versions of some techs (e.g. Research Cities grants extra +10% Science), the best scout ships in the game, and they start with Scientists and Federation.
A. High RNG factor in the beginning (easy planets in starting system, pirate/minor civ spawns), but snowball really hard with a good start. Effective colony population grows absurdly fast, they have the best populations in the game when boosted, and boosting them is cheap. Upgraded Arks are strong and only 4 CP, but can be produced early and in a single turn in any colony. Arks also grant innate colony defense, and the ability to move with your entire colony (e.g. To a better system). A.
The Riftborn. Can colonize extremely cheap, wide and fast even in the very early game, limited pretty much only by which systems you can access and your overcolonization limit. You have a lot of dust in the early game, so you can pump out empty colony ship hulls fast and retrofit them to full colony ships. Outposts are self-reliant (don't drain existing colonies) and grow fast on hot planets (which are plentiful). As soon as you get access to luxury resources (which is easy because you colonize a lot), you can modernize your outposts and start feeding Riftborn populations to your best systems to make them grow incredibly fast, which is even better because Riftborn populations are extremely strong. They also have good ships (lots of attack modules on offensive ships), good government, some nice unique techs, and some of the singularities (Compression and Fold) are very good.
B. Very strong in the early game due to high production bonuses on everything and the strong free ship they get from their quest. Good ships, and in the current patch they have almost guaranteed Ecstatic because of big Happiness bonuses from wars and conquered homeworlds. Good ships and very nice +2 CP fleets.
Have to carefully manage planet depletion and somehow transition in the end game. Also, small probability of RNGing Sowers, which allow for infinite +150% FIDS bonuses. B. The United Empire.
Good baseline faction with good ships. You have lots of influence to spend on minor civs, laws and buyouts.
You also get one extra colony compared to other Federations because of a unique tech. Transitioning to Mezari gives good science later in the game. Nothing feels bad, but nothing is so good to feel like cheating either. B. Hard to get off the ground because of bad starting planet, low money and expensive ships.
Also, minor civs are very important and always RNG dependent. Ecologists are nice in the early game because of easy colonization and ability to exploit all planets quickly, but need to switch out of Dictatorship eventually.
If you manage to splice good populations, you become super strong in the end game, you just need to get there in one piece. C. On the surface they aren't really bad, but they don't really seem to have anything extra special going for them either, unlike the A and B factions, who have at least one big upside. Buying outposts is convenient, but it gets so expensive that you can't really abuse it like the Riftborn can. Buyouts are hurt because of inflation, and Trade Companies feel OK but not exceptionally strong. Hopefully future patches make them more interesting.
C. The science bonus is big, but it feels like the good factions can match or exceed it by just snowballing harder. Fast ships and scouting bonuses are nice, but not that strong. Strong factions are good at everything, Sophons are not. C. The Unfallen. Their start feels very RNG dependent and vulnerable.
Vineships are really expensive to produce, even as empty hulls, which hurts really bad in the early game where they would be the most important. Bad spawns like black holes or badly timed pirates can cripple you in the early game bad enough that its probably impossible to come back.I haven't played the Hissho because I hate Behemoths and play with the Supremacy DLC disabled. These are my own personal rankings, worst to best. Take these with grains of salt because they are only mostly serious. There is a little bit of personal preference and memeing mixed in.The Unfallen: The designated pacifist faction. They have the best defensive game starting out thanks to their 'Guardians' faction trait and their thicc ships, but that doesn't count for much when they expand as slowly as they do.
In all but the most skilled and dedicated hands, they fall behind in territory, science, and military until their rivals can overcome the thiccness. Plus they can't even capture enemy systems if they're out of tether range so honestly fuck these stupid trees.The Lumeris: The designated mercantile faction. They'd be good if Trading Companies weren't dogshit and if the whole point of their faction wasn't hamstrung by dust inflation, which will absolutely be skyrocketing thanks to all the dust that you'll be producing. In the upcoming Umbral Choir update, the Lumis probably won't be as bad because they'll gain the ability to reduce inflation for themselves, but until then they're basically just a much weaker United Empire.The Vodyani: The designated religious faction. The funny thing is that these guys worship the Endless instead their true Lord and Savior, Horatio (pbuh), so they're all heretics anyways. These space vampires are down here because despite the power that their Arks bring to the early game, they are very reliant on being able to bully their neighbors into letting them do their space vampire thing.
If anyone manages to stand up to them, then they lose their early-game flow of Essence, and then they're basically fucked for the rest of the game. That being said, if they survive to midgame, then your Vodyani will be the second most productive pops in the game, which is nothing to sniff at.The Cravers: The designated aggressive faction.
Their ships are weak, but god damn you can make a lot of them. These fanatical murder bugs are down here on my rankings because they are so extremely reliant on getting a decent stretch of territory early that if you fail this, you'll eat yourself to death in the midgame and get trampled lategame. It takes a ton of skill and population micromanagement to avoid this fate, but if you can, then they devour all competition later on.This is where the rankings become much more muddled because the factions get a lot closer in power-levels, so take these with larger grains of salt. Here I'd place the Sophons: The designated science faction.
They can field carriers on the field before any other faction in the game (if you don't count the Vodyani Arks), so their late-game comes in the mid-game and it is not to be fucked with. That being said, their military is just okay until then and they can't invade for shit, so you're probably better off lying low and then rolling up with Core Crackers while the competition still only has medium ships.The Rifborn: The robot faction, and my personal favorite to play. These metal bois don't need food to grow, instead preferring to inhabit the most hostile planets in the galaxy. With their excellent pop bonuses, they are the most productive pops right out of the gate, and still cling to the third most in the late game.
They also have access to wibbly wobbly timey wimey shenanigans in the form of their Singularities, so these guys are pretty good. Their downfall is that it costs precious production instead to build new Riftborn, which can slow you down if you're not careful about it.The United Empire: The designated human faction. Every human knows two things: The Emperor protects, and He will not suffer the heretic, the mutant, or the xeno to live. The UE is often cited as the beginner faction, and its not far from the mark.
Your citizens are loyal and faithful, allowing you to expand fast and far without fear of riotous colonies or collapsing government. From the security of a larger territory than any that could be held by the filthy xenos, you can guide your fellow humans down the path of industry, outproducing literally everyone else in the mid-game. You really can't go wrong with UE.The Horatio (pbuh): The one, the only, the true Lord and Savior of the galaxy. They have the weakest early-game due their expensive ships and slow population growth, but also the strongest late-game because of their absurdly productive population after a bunch of splices.
If I were being slightly more critical then I'd place these guys between the Cravers and the Sophons, because it takes a good deal of skill to not get wiped out in the early-game, but I dare not so insult the most beautiful Emperor in the galaxy. Besides, their ships are very pretty.The Vaulters: The designated defensive faction.
They have the second best defensive game starting out because they have defensive pop bonuses. They can also build Portals that instantly teleport ships in between their colonies. They also have science bonuses on pop, meaning that they won't be far behind the Sophons in getting fancy military technology. All of this culminates in an unassailable late-game thanks to well-supplied carrier fleets that literally cannot be caught out of position, allowing the Vaulters to pursue any non-domination victory they want without worry.Oh boy. Strap yourself in.The Hissho: The other designated aggressive faction because we definitely didn't already have that niche filled. And guess what, this bullshit faction that thrives on early aggression doesn't get weaker as the game goes on like the Cravers do.
In fact, they get stronger than any other faction except extreme late-game Horatio (pbuh). And why is that?
No, it's not because of their manpower and industry pop bonuses, or their Observances that give them big economic boosts. It's because of Behemoths. What about Behemoths you might ask?
Endless Space 2 Lumeris Quest
Because these stupid fucking birdmen start the game with one. And they have a faction trait that boosts their Behemoth mining probes in an exponentially stacking way. So these goddamn space chickens start the game with a ship that can kill entire fleets, overshadow the FIDS output of entire systems, and.
Wait for it. Destroy enemy systems from anywhere in the galaxy. As if an aggressive faction didn't already have enough ways to kill you in the early game, Amplitude thought it'd be a good idea to give these fuckers a way to kill you in the late-game too: By having more Behemoths sooner than anyone. Honestly, fuck these guys, and if you play them, then I wish a mild inconvenience upon you.
Like a stubbed toe. Or a bit of appleskin stuck between your teeth. You'd deserve it. Blasphemy!You don't understand how modern Vodyani work at all, probably haven't played them since launch. Their Arks are not as powerful as they used to be before (they now scale in power with your Empire Development and research), and leeching is a secondary source of Essence anyway, they can passively collect enough essence to expand - they do need to assimilate one minor faction for the early quest to help with Influence, but that's about it.
They do have a somewhat slow start and average ships, but Horatio that you value very high (probably following the common trope of this subreddit) even though they have even slower start and worse ships. Their easy access to Religious Republic (that allows you to expand infinitely, effectively ignoring Approval) and non-reliance on Food (on difficulties lower than Endless) allows them to beeline to required techs without losing anything. Vodyani scale into endgame immensely, as I can research the full tech tree faster with them than with Sophons, and switch my whole empire from full Science to full Dust or Industry in a single turn by proper usage of Ark modules. Also, having unique modules for decreased charge time of planet crackers and being able to dodge obliterators (by detaching Arks before impact) makes them a sweeping force in endgame, especially coupled with ability to churn out free carriers (Arks) and going full Industry. Their counter is aggressive neighbors in the early game (whose isn't?) and full lack of luxuries around them, as they're very dependent on having at least 2, better 3 ample sources of luxuries around.You also overvalue the starting Behemoth of Hissho by a lot. A good production faction (like Riftborn) can spam them pretty fast in the game, and science factions (Sophons, Vaulters) can make their starting Behemoth much more potent than Hissho's - early game Behemoths are not that menacing without research (especially as they only get one before the other factions).
Without the Behemoth the Hissho would be far behind, with their atrocious colonization technique. Their scaling probes are a confirmed bug, so I wouldn't judge them for that.I also never understood why people value Horatio that high. Yes, they have very good late game if they are allowed to progress, but they're very vulnerable to both obliterators and planet crackers, and almost require to have a lot of minor factions around to assimilate. Their ships are expensive and slow - yes, universal slots are nice, but in general before Carriers Horatio ships are inferior to other races. Horatio are late bloomers that prosper if allowed to by neigbors.
Their 'insane production after splicing' only overcomes Riftborn and Vodyani somewhere in late-game, and only if you get lucky with the minors. Riftborn get 5 IDS per pop, and Vodyani get 4 IDS unboosted with 8 IDS boosted (and they can grow to max pop in 12 turns from scratch in late game), while both have boosts to industry from buildings and modules Horatio doesn't have access to.
I agree about the Horatios and Hisshos. Especially Hisshos, never judge anything in a game based on bug exploits. That said, their approval mechanics are very good once you understand how they work.One small note about Riftborn, they don't consume food but they do produce it, and minor pops will make use of it. This is useful if there are few sterile planet, just send your minor pops to the fertile ones. Because of this I could colonize all systems I stumbled upon in my current playthrough, and I'm having an easy time on impossible difficulty.
You're most likely more correct than I am about the Vodyani, as I don't have much personal experience. I am aware that their late-game is nearly unstoppable, and I probably over-emphasized their early-game weakness.
Still, I've also seen Vodyani get chumped early.Moving on, I did say I'd actually rate the Horatio as middling at best. Personally I found their early game too agonizing for my taste. I had simply reserved the right to meme and I exercised it accordingly.And finally, I probably do overrate the Behemoths, but after withering under swarms of Obliterator missiles, I am perfectly comfortable in maintaining my irrational hatred of any faction that associates with Behemoths. Seriously, a faction shouldn't start the game with a piece of their win condition already in their pocket.
Going from starting Behemoth to Obliterator takes very long, Behemoths are not inherently a win condition in themselves, just large powerful ships. A starting Hissho Behemoth can be defeated by 7 Attackers of most factions with just T2 vanilla (non-strategic resource) weapons, so in itself it's more useful as a probe carrier. Hissho also cannot build more unless they research the tech the same way as other factions.Obliterators can be a problem in late game, but actually decent fleet with planet crackers is a higher threat due to the speed with which it can destroy the systems. Obliterators are nasty when you don't expect them, or when there are tons of them - but they still come at a cost of not having Citadels, Juggernauts or economic/scientific Behemoths, which are arguably more powerful. Obliterators are either a 'win more' weapon for empires that are far ahead, or 'catch up' mechanic for those that can't penetrate the defenses of a massive enemy. I'd say that Juggernauts' Ion Wave ability is more devastating when used properly.Fun fact: on 'Fast' game speed, a Vodyani planet cracker carrier filled with modules for decrease of cooldown doesn't have any cooldown.
That means that a single such carrier can destroy 3-4 systems in one turn. I think that is obviously a bug. Riftborn have 2 weaknesses that you didn't mention:.Their ships suck.
Attacker and Hunter have only 1 utility slot, 2 armor slots and all other slots are weapons. They are slow and easy to shoot down. You can use protector and coordinator with fleet accelerator modules to protect and increase their movement but they also cost a lot of strategic resources.Reverse terraforming: It helps them a little early game but late game hampering them so much. You get fewer population slots when you terraform. Those cold and hot planets also make your other pop types very unhappy. I wouldn't say there are 'best' or 'worst' factions.
There are some broken things that will be patched out (like Hissho mining probes), but overall, the factions are mostly about playstyle.I can only say that so far I haven't found a way where Lumeris would dominate. Their faction strength is meh at best, so they're a bit underpowered in my opinion. All the other factions can be potent in the hands of a person who plays them properly.For instance, Horatio is very much loved on this subreddit, but on other forums you would find that they're one of the worst.
There are many misconceptions about, say, Vodyani or Riftborn, as these factions are a bit more difficult to start out with (though pretty easy once you get the gist), so their power rankings are also a bit off usually.Try them all and choose your playstyle. I managed to consistently beat the 'unbeatable' Horatio as Vodyani, but lost a couple times to 'slow and ineffective' Unfallen, for instance. Discussions like this are funny because I can't see a way how Lumeris would not dominate. I can't speak about the Hissho since I'm still hesitant about getting the addon, but I would always rank the Lumeris at #1 and with a big lead over the rest to boot.
In a game where assimilation is so obviously and ridiculously overpowered I just can't fathom how people get ideas like 'Horatio early game weak' and 'Lumeris bad'. By the time you finish your first outpost Lumeris have assimilated 5 minors. Who cares about dust production or trade- you're getting 80% of the minors on a silver platter and can easily crush the mid game with 5 billion movement point protector fleets. might be slightly exaggerated for effect. I play on standard galaxy settings with 10 empires. Unless your starting position is at the very outer end of the galaxy a Horatio should almost always be able to get the academy minors. All the 'Horatio/Lumeris weak' people just have no clue how to play exploration style.As Horatio I regularly have the 80% galaxy discovered message around turn 40, even earlier if things go well.
Couple that with way over 100 curiosities discovered before the mid game (pretty much always 200 over the course of a game) and you're looking at a significant economic boost (not to mention exclusive technologies etc.), completely independent of home system and your surrounding constellation. And that's not even talking about minors and assimilation. I really fail to see how fast assimilation is the sole prerogative of Lumeris, when, say, UE can achieve the same with Influence. Also, while assimilation is powerful, it's not 'obviously and ridiculously overpowered', not by far - they help with a faster start, but minors don't scale well, and you have to first find those minors to get that effect. Even finding 5 minors before the first outpost is complete is a huge challenge for most seeds; I remember a start where the first minor civilization was encountered after my 4th colony turned level 2.Lumeris, along with Cravers, have a very good start, they can rush buildings and ships much faster than others, and that's the only reason they are not a complete disaster. Because they don't really get anything else - their ships are mediocre, their population growth is average - they are something between Sophons and UE, getting shortcuts to power (only for industry, not science), but they lack the ship speed of thinkers and firepower of UE. Their basic ideology is also not the best one for fast domination.But, well, as I said, in the hands of a player who matches the playstyle, any race can dominate.
Endless Space 2 Lumeris Guide Reddit
I really fail to see how fast assimilation is the sole prerogative of Lumeris, when, say, UE can achieve the same with Influence.Can you sell stuff your exploration ships find, assimilated minor systems including their buildings and surplus ships for influence in the marketplace? I really don't want to get into this conversation, because it will be spherical warfare in a vacuum.Then you're really, really bad at exploring. Like I said in another post- I get the galaxy 80% explored around turn 40 with Horatio, earlier if things go well.aaand you find a minor near Cravers or UE. Would you hold that system for long?Like I already pointed out they are by far the fastest at the best way to grow by a long shot. I also don't see how minors would scale any different from majors, excluding Horatios.Because minors are scattered across the galaxy, with no good way (like what Vaulters have) to move your fleets to defend them. You do get numerical advantage, but by neglecting your own colonies, your fringe colonies are easy prey for a focused fleet.
Endless Space 2 Riftborn Quest
Also, you do not choose what kind of bonuses your population gets, you might be stuck with those 'we replenish manpower, yay!' Species for your best system, and migration in the early game is pretty slow. Lumeris are also very vulnerable to blockades by both pirates and warring empires, due to trading companies and migration - which they, of course, can offset by purchasing fleets, but that saps their income that could be spent on just buying out improvements. And you get more political faction variety, which means spending research and production/dust on Approval buildings (though their trait helps with that a lot).Also, Riftborn and Vodyani have exemplar majors, that trump any non-lategame Horatio population there is (with +5IDS per pop for Riftborn.