So, anyone having good advice for the Allayi? I find them a difficult faction to play.



a) unlike the other factions, you only start with a unit tech. So you need to research library, mill foundry and the likes all yourself, wile other factions start with at least one of these

b) +150% expansion dissaproval really limits your growth. I'm usually a "tall" player, but even getting 4 cities to run is very hard.

c) additional to b, you also need 100% more growth

d) there arent pearls in overflow, which you need for the districts



Additionally, I did have the bad luck that my regions had very few luxury resources, which was more painfull by having the dorgeshi assimilated

a) The Allayi also start with shipfaring, meaning they can cross the sea at turn 1. Very useful for exploration.



b and c) Yes, the expansion penalty is quite severe and the Allayi don't have a great way to compensate for it except for Garths. I use pearl food stockpiles to help with pop growth, so I can get some Garths up.



d) Skyfins can get you pearls easily with Auriga Affinity 3 and their mobility. That said, I have found it useful to have an Allayi governor with the pearl price reduction for buildings (zealous hands). I also use said hero to collect pearls after giving them the pearl accessory granting them Auriga affinity 3 (which means I ignore it in the racial tree and go for Zealous Hands).

If you're looking for early game tips, I just uploaded my First Turns Guide for the Allayi, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq59N9boLPk



In general, I find Allayi cities to be extremely efficient once you get going. Your boroughs are amazing and with enough Skyffins you never go unhappy and/or out of resources. The only tricky part is imo creating a solid empire in mid-game. However, as long as you're very picky with your colonization (and only/mostly settle in regions with 3 minor faction villages and a resource deposit) you should be able to stay competitive with other players

I have to play more to be able to help significantly.

For now i can say you really want to go for the buildings that provide yield/tile instead of the ones that provide yield/pop - both because you´ll usualy have less population and because you need to decrease the opportunity costs of your districts. (ps - not to say you don´t want to rush nationals, you do, all of them in your capital)



Settling near water with them is an incredible "blessing". You can get +dust/+food/+science during summer and +industry during winter, not to mention that it offsets a little their lower yield average (~the same food for half the pop is like half the food).



Don´t get hung up on pearls and don´t build a gazillion skifins and districts that are not in your capital. 2 cities should do the job for most the game, especially if you get a good second region with plenty of villages and resources, 2 skyfins should do the job for about half of a short game.



Get the Winter district ASAP. Get the anomaly district ASAP. Plan your district placement so you can lvl them up ASAP.



ps - as for governors, one factional governor for discount on parleys and pearls, one cult for small city and one ardent mages in case of an unlikely third city for extra science and expansion disapproval reduction.

In my experience until now, I've only tried to go for the mission victory, that it becomes easier if you delay expansion until get fervorus in the empire (mandatory for a racial quest). The use of the fin to get pearls (monstly in winter) and extract materials that are outside of your empire, gives a headstart above other empires.

This race works better building huge cities by leveling up districts, but top of all is to get as much pearls as you can. For that, I suggest to use the fin at the beggining to explore as fast as you can every ruins, since it grants some pearls to this faction each good research, and also gives you the knowledge of where to recolect materials with the fins outside of your empire.

About army, I found that they work better if there are many armies that supports them in battle, so is better a big army and several smallers that aids in the backguard. Also, if you have enough pearls and the bendition of changing nature, activate it before the fight during summer.



Thats my experience, not much, but hope I have given some good ideas.