Vanilla Factions vary in power but being able to create a custom Faction is what keeps me coming back to ES2. Its honestly something I wish Civ 6 would add but it doesn't appear to be in the works any time soon. Anyways, what are some of your favorite Custom Faction builds? Below is one I've come to really like:

Name: Terran(Name really needs improvement)
Gameplay Affinity: Gene Hunter(Horatio)
Visual Affinity: Imperial(United Empire)
Starting Planet: Jungle

Starting Government: Republic
Population Ideology: Industrial with Automatist to boost Industrial Ideology

Population Traits: Extreme Foremen with Planet Menders

Population Collection: Peer Reveiwed(Sophon)

Faction Traits:

Growth Plan III: 30% boost to Food Production

Crowded Planets II: +2 Population cap on Planets

Sowers Minor Population

Price of Perfection: +20% Ship cost, +10% Weapon Damage

Combat Rookies: +30% Manpower Cost

Fledgling Traders: -50% System Trade Value

Off-World Agribusiness

Xenobiology

I wanted to create a custom Faction with as many factions represented as possible. I've come to really like Horatio's ability to enhance its population but not their ships or even quest line. That's where I opted for United Empire since I not only love their quest line but their ships and in particular heroes since they make exceptional Governors. Although you're locked into keeping your population as is in the Quest line(changing it to Sheredyn or Mezari completely overwrites custom population), it comes with 10% boost to Industrial output and a unique improvement that makes one system a Gold and Industrial powerhouse provided it has lots of Influence(not that hard if you assimilate United Empire or Minor Factions like Baghba). United Empire Visual Affinity also comes with +1 Colonization cap and improved Manpower Modules(not too shabby).

I started on a Jungle Planet to fit under the 95 point Affinity cap. Ideally I'd like to use Atoll for the higher base Food and Industrial output along with actually having Science but figured having no Science is better than having no Industry in a Boreal opening scenario. Since we have no base Science to start with, I opted to give myself even more of an early game challenge by having the faction start in a Republic Government. This locks Cram Exam Act, pretty much forcing you to take Super Tax Act(or nothing at all) to start the game. It also kind of forces you to build Cerebral Reality from the start lest you want to wait 14 turns to research your first Technology.

Our starting population has an Industrial Ideology, hence Industrialists will be in power from the start. Industrial laws allow for faster expansion but also increased production(ex: Mineral Misers law). Dust Windfall is also stronger thanks to Republic Government and stacks with Super Tax Act(which is also stronger at +4 Dust). To help keep them in power or in the Senate, I opted for Automatist Ideology. This basically buffs Industrial whenever you have Science events(which is quite often in the early game). These two buffs ought to be enough to keep Industrial in the Senate for the duration of your game. They're unlikely to retain power though(which I'll explain momentarily).

For Population buffs, I opted for Extreme Foremen or the Craver population Trait. Cravers are the locusts of the Universe and they're productive little bugs on unspoiled worlds before they have to move on to the next unspoiled spot once a planet is depleted. To solve the Extreme Foremen malus, you're forced to take Planet Menders as a Secondary Population buff. This cuts the Depletion effect in half but doesn't quite eliminate it. To eliminate the malus, I added in the Sower's Minor Population as our starting Minor Faction. This along with Planet Menders allows you to exploit planets beyond what is normal and if you get a Craver Hero as a Governor... Behemoths can turn a single system into a FIDS supernova. Finally for a Population Collection bonus, I opted for Peer Reviewed or the Sophon Collection bonus. This will ultimately bring the Science Faction into your Senate since at 10 population, Science Ideology is boosted. 20 population buffs Science by 15% and at 50 population, Technology costs are reduced by 20%. At some point in the game, its quite likely that your Science Idelogy will overtake your Industrial Idelogy for power within the Senate. If that occurs, its not the end of the world since you gain some nice benefits, including -10% Technology costs from the base law.Combine that with 50 population bonus and the likelihood that you'll have ITER built thanks to Extreme Foremen means you'll have -30% Technology costs(-40% with Science in power). Assimilate Galvan, Pilgrims and factions that buff Science and you'll easily overtake the Tech lead despite your slow start. Just remember to always choose Petra so you have her as a Science representative(having 2 Imperial Heroes on Senate is better than 1. Plus she's a Seeker so you get the Seeker Movement bonus as well).

As for Faction traits, I opted for Growth Plan III to really get Food Production going since the power of the Faction is growing not only major population fast but minor population as well. The more Food we produce, the faster population appears. To add to the power of population, I added in Crowded Planets II for a +2 population cap on all planets(including Gas). You will notice this effect right from the start and especially in the mid to late game when you start populating Sterile and Gas Planets for their insane yields. For Minor Population, we will choose Sowers since they're cheap at 5 points and are mandatory if we wish to remove the Depletion malus on our Population. Our starting Technologies are Off-World Agribusiness and Xenobiology. Honestly you can go with any two Techs in a custom Faction but I opted for these two for the following reasons. 1) Assimilating Minor Factions is paramount for Gene-Splicing(plus extra faction traits are a bonus). Having the tech from the start allows you to interact with them along with annoying Pirate factions(if you choose to even start with them). 2) Xenobiology opens up Tier 2 Science(for faster ships at the start) and PPP improvement that will boost your Science(which you need since Jungle has 0 Base Science).

To balance out the buffs of the Faction, I opted to utilize Price of Perfection. With Extreme Foremen, you'll hardly notice the +20% boost to Ship Construction and gain a free 10% boost to Weapon Damage(which stacks with Punisher Drives in UE Quest line). Combat Rookies is another malus that you'll hardly notice since your Food output will dwarf the 30% increase in Manpower costs. Finally, Trading won't be that important to you so having System Trade Value cut by 50% really isn't that much of a malus.

The power of this faction is quite insane. In a particular game I was fortunate to get Jadonyx, Void Stones and Lost Foundries(all three Industrial Luxuries) on System Improvements along with 2 Imperial Heroes in Senate for Titan of Industry. Craver Hero for a Governor in a 5 Hot Planet system led to me getting ~100k Production. It wasn't even ideal since it had just 1 Strategic resource(Hyperium) on a small Medeterranean Planet. Had the two Ash(Small/Large) or two Lava(both Large) had Strategic's, Production could have been far more. I also didn't have population booster active so... yeah you can achieve some sweet production values with this set-up.

I've read about others but I'd like to see what personal favorites you all have.

Here's another one that I've written down on paper but haven't really utilized yet to see if it actually works.

Name: Cylons

Description: That's right... Cylons. Forget we even have British accents.

Gameplay Affinity: Continuum Sculptors(Riftborn)

Visual Affinity: Sophons

Starting Planet: Arid

Starting Government: Republic

Population Idelology: Science with Aggressive and Audacious to boost Military

Population Traits: Meritocratic Cosmopolites with Efficient Farmers

Population Collection: Peer Reviewed(Sophon)

Faction Traits:
Biophobic: +1 Population cap, +10 Loyalty on Sterile/-1 population cap on Fertile, -2 Loyalty on Fertile

Fast Travelers II: +2 Movement on Ships

Big Fleets II: +2 CP, -25% Ship upkeep

Optimal Defense II: +20% HP on Ships

Price of Perfection II: +20% Ship Cost, +10% Weapon Damage

Fledgling Traders: -50% System Trade Value

Rare Earth Foams

Planetary Landscaping

I've always wanted to do a custom Sophon with different Gameplay mechanics. Just something about them screams "I love Sterile worlds while playing with the fabric of space-time." Unfortunately, the closest thing to a Sterile world that is available in the generic editor(perhaps an update to allow all Planet type starts in Custom Faction screen?) is Arid and only being 5 points really helped on the Faction Tree. Instead of Democracy, I opted to utilize Riftborn's Government of Republic(a Government type I've come to really like). Politically, population is Scientific and will become more Scientific as the population grows with Sophon Peer Reviewed Collection bonus. Yet I also added in two minor Ideology tweaks that cause Military to become more predominant from Industrial and Scientific events(which should be happening often). Goal with this faction is to have not only Science but Military ideology in Senate to take advantage of their Potent tier laws. Combined they yield a nightmarish 90% boost to Weapon Damage and 40% boost to Troop Damage while under a Republic(good luck stopping that).

Sophon population takes the powerful +2 FIDSI primary buff of Meritocratic Cosmopolites and adds an additional Food buff of Efficient Farmers that increases Food Output by 5 on Sterile worlds. Although the starting world is not Sterile(the only downside with respect to Food and Loyalty), it should allow to quickly get improvements and colonize other planets to overcome this less than ideal start. Science will also be an issue early on so its recommeneded to build Cerebral Reality and colonize Cold Planets(like Barren) to make up for Science deficiency.

For Faction Traits, Biophobic is frankly mandatory since Sterile worlds are open for colonization immediately. The Population maluses from Fertile worlds shouldn't be much of an issue since most Fertile worlds typically spawn with positive buffs and if not, Sterile worlds will easily overcome that and then some. Mobility has always been the Sophon theme so Fast Travelers II gives all ships +2 Movement. I match the Cravers with Big Fleets II that adds +2 CP to Fleet Capacity while also cutting Ship upkeep by 25%(allowing you to build Ships early and often). Optimal Defenses II increases Ship HP by 20%, half of what Fleet Fortitude Decree would yield in a Republic and might give the Unfallen a run for their money. As for starting Technologies, I opted for Rare Earth Foams and Planetary Landscaping. Rare Earth Foams under the Riftborn Colonization tree unlocks Arid Planets, hence giving access to a solid Industrial rich base while giving an extra movement point to start with thanks to Tier 2 Science. Planetary Landscaping was chosen to help jumpstart Food Production on our starting Arid world and unlocks Tier 2 Empire for our Attacker/Protector Hulls for those thinking of rushing for them.

To offset our buffs, I opted for the tried and true Price of Perfection II. Increases Ship cost 20% but comes with a free 10% boost to Damage. The Ship cost won't be too bad with an Arid Planet start and even more so with Sophon's first Military Quest(-15% Ship cost) or Lower Fleet Costs Rule(-20%) in Military Law tree. The other malus I chose is Fledgling Traders, which is inconsequential since this faction favors Military action over Peaceful Trade.

Feedback appreciated!

Doesn't add any faction traits or anything, but you'll be able to get more variety in your populations by using one of my old mods:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1858283819

CaptainCobbs wrote:

Doesn't add any faction traits or anything, but you'll be able to get more variety in your populations by using one of my old mods:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1858283819

Hmm I'll take a look but honestly updating the Custom Faction Editor would be the way to go rather than using a mod. My recommendation would be to take the Planet list and flip it on its head when Continuum Sculptors is selected in the Gameplay Affinity(where Lava and Barren would easily be 15 points, if not 20+ due to their yields) or simply allow us to choose between 2 Sterile Planets: Toxic or Desert. Although high on the Dust yield at 6 and 8 respectively, they're really not so overpowered that they're game breaking starts. I mean Nakalim start on a unique Desert planet so why not a Custom Faction?

Daynen wrote:

I've long upheld that the faction editor needs some tweaking for balance and usability; I think it could extend the life of ES2 considerably to have more coherent faction building elements.  Kudos on being gutsy enough to try making the Riftborn affinities work separately; they're tightly married to each other, making them hard to use apart.

  That said, I've tried a few custom concepts myself; some work great, others don't work at all.  One of my most successful ones was a horatio+emperor's will combo.  It's meant to maximize influence production so you can buy literally EVERYTHING through Emperor's Will.  Ships, improvements, luxuries, tech, minor factions, SYSTEMS, you name it.  Go for everything that gives you influence and terraform worlds to savannah planets, then just get rid of minor pops.  It's similar to vanilla Horatio in that you have to do some pop management, mainly sending garbage pops (meaning everything but your own) to "graveyard" systems so they starve out.  You'll also have to pay close attention to defense since you'll have zero combat bonuses, but if you're getting your heroes, growing enough pops and pumping out enough influence to force peace often enough it won't matter.  You'll have to make use of all your options to fight off a Craver neighbor (because the game WILL spawn them next to you, like the B#%*^ it is) but if you can stave off the enemy and find systems in a good spot the galaxy will acknowledge your SUPERIOR CULTURE as your influence circles BLOT OUT THE STARS.

Thank you for the support. One thing I've noticed with what I have in my custom Sophon faction is that my start is shall we say really poor. If I could start with Sterile(like Toxic) to unlock the secondary Food bonus it wouldn't be an issue but since Arid Planets have a 2 Food base yield(not to mention a -3 Loyalty malus that Biophobic doesn't apply towards), I don't produce enough Food to keep my starting population fed and that's even with Toys for Boys bumping things to Happy for +10% production. Even at Escatic I don't think it'd be enough since Arid's Food yield is just too low(would produce 8 base plus 2 from Escatic for 10 Food total. Consumes 13 Food or so if memory serves, hence has no solution with present parameters).

One potential solution to this is to take the Vaulter's Involuntary Nomads ability in exchange for Optimal Defense II(extra HP is a luxury as I see it). That way I can pick and choose what planet to start on as opposed to having an Arid start. I only wish that if we chose Involuntary Nomad trait that it would exclude Starting Planet from your Faction Trait total since you'll be paying 10 points(plus whatever your Starting Planet pick happens to be for a minimum of 15 and valuable Faction Trait slot(pretty steep if I say so myself)) just for the right to start the game on a Rejuvenation Field and hoping there is a golden system nearby for immediate colonization. If that change were to be applied, I could take Fledgling Traders malus off and have room for a 5 point bonus(like Efficient Explorers I, Pirate Slayers or Big Brother) as opposed to simply having 7 Traits and being stuck at my max Trait total. Oh well as they say....

As for your custom Horatio, that is a bit intriguing. Might I suggest the following tweak: Swap Guardians(40) for Growth Plan III(40). Said so yourself that you don't like Minor Population, why have Guardians taking up valuable population real estate even if they appear infrequently as they do? I mean I know they boost Influence and are solid defenders but so is Dark Glitter Luxury(underrated may I add when it comes to defending against an invasion) and Edence Incense(although I prefer Giga Lattice for obvious reasons). The extra Growth will really help in the early game while making Combat Rookies malus irrelevant.

For your custom Lumeris, that's a tricky one. Slave Drivers basically applies a -10 Loyalty(or Happiness penalty) for each Minor Population in exchange for them doubling their FIDSI output. If you have 15 minor population, that's a -150 Loyalty malus that is hard to overcome. I do have a simple solution to it though: Biophobic. Namely swap Big Fleets I for Biophobic and then upgrade from Amoeba Minor Population to Niris. You get a bit less output from Niris but their 50 population collection bonus is sheer gold compared to Amoeba's. Place your Major population on Fertile Planets(where your inherent Loyalty buff negates Biophobic Malus) and place Minor Population on Sterile Planets(ideally Arctic, Ice and Ash where the malus isn't as large). Effectively Biophobic wipes out Slave Driver malus, leaving just the issue of counteracting Sterile planet malus(-8 Barren and Lava in particular) and Overpopulation. Might consider swapping from Autocracy to either Republic or Democracy and utilizing Senator Bob Act to further cut down on Loyalty issues.

Oh and if Blockade Breakers isn't a mandatory trait, might consider a 2nd Techonology or Utopian Infrastructure to further boost Loyalty. Since the bulk of your traits center aound Trade, Utopian Infrastructure and System Development seemed like a logical conclusion.

Daynen wrote:

While thinking on my slave driver Lumeris, I had an incredible idea.  See if you follow this one.

Before i comment on that Riftborn one, my suggestions for the Lumeris Slave Drivers was merely to help control the minor population malus to maximize the FIDSI from enslaved population. Little reason to have Slave Drivers if you werent going to have systems with at least 50%(if not higher) in slaves. Utilizing Biophobic would allow you to place all your enslaved population on Sterile worlds while your Slave Masters enjoy life on Temperate worlds. Since the Terraform mechanic is unchanged(Riftborn Gameplay Affinity flips colonization and terraform to favor Sterile worlds, whereupon Biophobic is a mandatory trait), you can terraform Sterile systems to your hearts content to keep loyalty in check. Biophobic would lend a considerable hand in this by increasing housing for your Slaves while making it far easier to control them(and not needing a Death Star to instill fear... yeah Death Star.... who needs a Planet Cracker or Obliterator... lmao). Anyways, for the Riftborn variant, you can control how many Slave Masters are on each system since Rfitborn visual affinity requires that you build your population. It also means that food consumption will be far less since your major population requires no food and you can expand like mad to set up a wide empire from which to fill with Slaves(hence the Federation Government and Ecology is a strong choice). Yet the Core Worlds buff is kind of contradictory to the Riftborn's strength of settling multiple outposts at once(get Thinkers and Tinkers I from assimilating Pulsos and you can settle Colonies in as little as 1 turn...). Not sure what id replace it with(starting minor population?) but its a solid buff to have while you have it. Like with your Lumeris variant, Biophobic would really work well but with your current traits its just an alternative. Priority would be to try and maximize buff from Harmonius II, although you can sign Peace/Alliance with only so many factions and without Pacifists in power, you can't force Peace to grab that +8 boost. Question I have is what other faction joins your Ecologists? Wont be Military or Religious so im leaning Industrialist since Fleet Fortitude and their production laws would help a great deal. Ill post my own Slave Drivers faction sometime soon but i have to iron out things first.

Of the builds I've posted so far, here's how I'd rank them:

#1 Gene Hunter with Extreme Foremen/Planet Menders and Sowers: This build is so OP its not even funny. Literally any Visual Affinity would work with this. With Growth Plan III adding to Population growth(especially early game. Swap to Constructionist III with Riftborn Visual Affinity for obvious reasons since Riftborn wont take food or you want to buff Minor propagation further with Growth III) and Crowded Planets II making even Sterile/Gas Planets monsters in the mid-late game, this set-up can feasibly break 100k production on an Industrial rich system(and that's without Population Boosters).

#2 Continuum Sculptors with Sophons(or another visual except Riftborn obviously...). Although I haven't figured out the kinks of my Sophon build yet(could be as simple as starting on Atoll as opposed to Arid), this build in theory should be really strong from all the buffs to ships and having access to Sterile Planets from the start. If I could start on a Sterile Planet(like Desert or Toxic) then it'd rival an Atoll/Terran start from a Food perspective.

#3 Slave Drivers with w/e Visual Affinity(Riftborn might be the optimal pick here): This build potentially could rival Extreme Foremen in terms of productivity, although that productivity comes from having as many Slaves as you can get. Since Population growth is derived from both Major and Minor Populations, getting a strong Slave population requires considerable population management. Yet with Riftborn, that's not the case as only Minor Population will grow naturally, allowing there to be ample amount of Slaves. The problem though is solving the malus issue from Slave Drivers. Solve that and you can have a build that harnesses the power of minor factions to the fullest. Religious Autocracy Riftborn with Slave Drivers might be the optimal set-up since Species Control Act is a lifesaver and Autocracy prevents rebellion.

#4 Gene Hunter with Adept Workers/Meritocractic: I finished my Borg game using Adept Workers and while I was able to propagate Minor Population like nothing, it just didn't feel as strong as Extreme Foremen. Being able to get an additional 150% or effectively a 2.5 multiplier on everything a system has(including System Development) makes it just insane.

While imvestigating my Sophon Continuum Sculptors faction, I came across something interesting that may explain why it(Continuum Sculptors) doesnt work well with non-Riftborn Visual affinities. You start the game with a Galactic HQ and a Colony base. Galactic HQ gives +40 Dust, +10 Science and +5 Influence. Nothing to see here as that's standard, regardless of Gameplay/Visual combinations. What changes is the Colony base. When playing with a Gameplay affinity that isnt Riftborn, you get +35 Food, +25 Industry, +2 Influence and 10% Food production goes to Manpower. In a Riftborn(Continuum Sculptor) Gameplay faction, the Colony base loses the +35 Food buff, hence any faction that relies on Food to grow(which is everyone but Riftborn), is severely hampered since your Food production is based on planet base yield + w/e your population produces(not to mention your manpower takes a hit since theres less food but thats another issue).

Meaning on an Arid planet, Food production is a whopping 8 Food with Meritocractic and no starting Minor population, hence why I was having issues with population and couldnt figure out why(until now). Atoll or Fertile planet start helps but defeats the flavor of a Biophobic faction and the only reason this Colony Base change exists is because Riftborn dont grow naturally and this prevents the starting minor population in the Vanilla faction from becoming a bigger presence than their robotic "masters". Which means that for a Continuum Sculptor custom faction to work, you must start on a Toxic planet(where Efficient Farmers brings you up to match that of a Fertile planet), an Atoll/Terran/Forest/Ocean start where youll produce enough Food to grow modestly or going with Involuntary Nomads and getting a temporary +25 FIDS boost along with picking your starting planet(which should detract from faction point total but i digress).

Redsang or Titanium(via Material Expertise) is almost mandatory for System Development(rushing it might be necessary). Assimilating Sowers(+25 Food per Sterile Planet) and Haroshems(either faction trait) are priorities for population growth. I suppose if there is any consolation prize is that any Continuum Sculptor faction starts with a bonus of +150 Dust(hence 250 Dust at game start instead of 100) but that is because Signularities cost Dust and Strategic Resources.