LEAST Favorite Faction

[Dr Jekyll]

The Cult. Horribly weak, not to mention monotonous. Another non-favourite is Morgan. I hate his greedy guts and can't play him at all.

[Kaptain Ken]

Morgan is a blast if you are a builder with room. Maximize your strength (money) and buy what you need or bribe enemy units. With free market and wealth Morgan has lots of energy (money).
Miriam is the one I hate to play.

[Doomreaver]

My vote goes to Santiago. I can't stand her low production, and I don't tend to prototype units frequently.

I disagree with people who say Pirates or Believers are bad factions. Sure I have low research with Miriam, but I can always try stealing it from another faction. And as for Svensguard, he can have very impressive sea bases, and land bases as good as everyone else!

[Harvestor32]

The low production rates of Santiago disappear when you get convoys, just like for Morgan. For Santiago, I say forget weapons. I get free market econ asap since Santiago's super moral for troops defeats worms so easily. Drill boreholes, build forests, build mines. Switch from free econ to normal when you have the tech that allows you to have 4 minerals/mine or 7 minerals/borehole. If you get trance for your units, you will slay native life so much even while hauling in unfair amounts of mineral. Low prod? Haha.

If you have police state and free econ, you can pull off one of my favorite tricks with the Spartan. Early in the game, leave lots of fungus for this to work. Forget building command centers. Make liberal use of police state's support to get 1/1/1 scout units out. Go worm hunting. Because your planet rating is so horrible, you'll find worms every turn. You will get massive energy from Free Market. You will get added energy from planet pearls. Best of all, your units will all achieve Elite from all the fighting. At sufficient morale, change free econ to normal or green. Gaians will be pissed. Heh. You will destroy them so easily. You know what to do with all that energy: reseach weapons and upgrade your elite scouts or recon rovers. Enjoy. ; )

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Doomreaver
I disagree with people who say Pirates or Believers are bad factions. Sure I have low research with Miriam, but I can always try stealing it from another faction

Before you are able to steal, you'll miss all the initial SPs. This is the main reason I think Miriam sucks in a builder-style game.

[The Vagabond]

Good points about Santiago, Harvestor32.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Dr Jekyll
The Cult. Horribly weak, not to mention monotonous.

The Cult is great if you play with the 'abundant native life' setting. Go into fungus and hunt for Mind Worms. But true, this is a little bit monotonous. I wish it were possible to automatize this kind of worm hunting.

[Gorat]

I like all the factions for the most part.

My least favorite though would be playing Morgan. Just doesn't go with my playing style at all. I enjoy playing against him. : ) Always a fun challenge to knock him out when he tries to corner the global market (he's done it to me only a few times. Played a few thousand games or so).

I don't like playing the aliens either. Against them, sure. Nice challenge. Not that I have a hard time playing them (I always kick butt when I'm one of the aliens), just doesn't have the fun factor for me.

[RGBVideo]

Peacekeepers. With my playing style, the *2 bonus in diplomacy votes in Planetary Council is useless.

[egervari]

I'm surprised that morgan and hive even got a few votes. Those factions are broken.

[Mongoose]

Broken? How so?

[egervari]

I just find those 2 factions to be very easy to play. I never have lost with them and I think they are somewhat unbalanced if used correctly.

[CEO Aaron]

Egervari: Considering how hard you need to work to lose with _any_ faction against the lukewarm AI, it may be a bit presumptuous to call any faction broken. In addition, you may find that certain factions compliment your style of play better than others. Both Morgan and Yang have harsh drawbacks which must be compensated for, and which, if confronted with a hostile neighbor at the wrong time, can make your life very difficult. If you want broken factions, try the Aliens.

PS: If you haven't lost with Yang yet, try playing them on Transcend where one of the good builder factions starts out on the Monsoon Jungle. You might not lose, but the game will look much more interesting during the post-game replay.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by egervari
I just find those 2 factions to be very easy to play. I never have lost with them and I think they are somewhat unbalanced if used correctly.

Yes, try the game on transcend. I would think playing at lower levels would tend to minimize the weaknesses of these factions a great deal.