Which is precisely why nobody signs that peace treaty and instead defaults their interactions with Unfallen players with a closed border order followed up by war. Because why would you ever trust a 'peaceful' diplomatic faction that will vine up and influence-buy your systems out from under you? Honestly, the Unfallen suck. What kind of diplomatic faction is supposed to work when diplomacy with them is a net negative for any other player rather than a positive? Double fleet speed and bonus happiness in no way make up for the possibility of having your empire *jacked out from under you* at a moment's notice. No incentive to ally with you means no deal. Negative incentive to ally with you means I sit on your home system with planet-killers and pound you into oblivion for daring to waste my time.
11:35 - as for the guardian debuff on enemies. If you are at war with the Unfallen and happen to have guardians your guardians will produce -20 influence each. If u are friendly with them they produce +20 influence. However its in the tooltip now so... XD
They are immensly powerfull when you play for an economic victory, rivaling even the Lumeris, and having on of their quest rewards beeing dustwater, you are able to add multiple ampefiers of each system level.
Also liked the fact that you play them as a tree, with the roots streching throughout the galaxy feeding you core system, quite clever in a metaphorical way
Waervyn's World I feel like the Riftborn are more of the moneymaker race. Their production make it so easy to construct dust infrastructure and their population constantly make a lot more dust. I also managed to construct a dust related wonder in just a few turns and took control of the market, but that just might be me.
ok i did not know that if you merge vineships you can increase the speed of of vines growing... i wasted sooo many turns just getting 1 system entangled while i have 3 just sitting around doing nothing.... :C also they other races will comment about you if you find a guardian when attacking and happend to have a drone to use. becouse the funny thing is that guardian is going to fight for you if you find a guardian and invade the system
Good video, was interesting to hear that the unfallen were the result of some kind of community poll(?) My first impression of playing them was that the music is awesome. I wish they had more unique audio tracks. I can't say that i've ever enjoyed the harp, until hearing it in the unfallen theme.
I have been able to move Guardians by using the automation presets. (I use them to help get a generalized best pop assortment for lets say industry.) One thing missing here is that the Guardians dont take a population slot, when you search the curiosity it adds a slot on the planet that is then locked by the Guardian. Another thing to note is that you can vine systems like nebulae that give flat bonuses and it counts as if in your sphere, can be very strong early game turn 12 asteroid belt.
Thanks for the notes. Completely forgot to mention about the vining of nebulae & asteroid belts etc.! Didn't know about the population slot of the guardians, that's really good to know! Why oh why did youtube take the annotation function away :(
Very silly. I am sure it will be back eventually though. We could do a multiplayer setting to see what the Guardians do to enemies and to see just how much the vines boost allies though!
In respect to Guardian bonuses, I played a game as Vodyani, when I took over a system which belonged to the Unfallen and anchored my arc, guardians were the only race populating that system. For some reason my Arc was unable to unanchor, and It did not place any Vodyani population on the planets. (Vodyani are xenophobic and will not populate a planet with any other race on it.) And thus my arc was stuck in limbo and though I controlled that system I could not do anything with it nor did it produce resources. I don't know if this is a bug or intended. I could not find a way to kill off the guardians either.
I remember in one game playing something non-Unfallen when Unfallen flew by and unlocked a guarding for me. Guarding provided happiness as well as an ability to sacrifice it for happiness. You should be careful when checking guarding curiosities for opponents or near opponents.
15:17 This is a bug, Only riftborn have the terran there. I tried to create custom faction with both arc mechanic and rifborn mechanic and I had lots of problems. AS should split up ships hull and faction tech more so custom factions can work. Or even change some of the faction affinity to traits to make it even easier.
As much as I enjoy the lore of the Unfallen, as a faction, I can't help but feel they're the worst. The thing about diplomacy that so many 4X game devs don't seem to get is that you have to have incentive to want to engage with it. AI might be willing to play ball, so to speak, but a player that is trying to win needs a reason to ally with another player, especially if their faction is a warlike one that benefits more from grinding the other into the dirt. In ES, diplomacy comes with both real and abstract costs. It costs influence, it costs expansion opportunity, can cost happiness, money, etc. Sometimes that cost is worth it and there are times the diplomacy mechanics really work in your faction's favor, especially if you've got the systems you want, the influence to spare, etc. Forced truces can save games for some factions, pressure mechanics, diplomatic demands, closing borders, etc. can let you bully your neighbors and pull ahead of them. There are some really cool concepts that actually can work quite well. But the problem with the Unfallen is that there is almost no incentive to EVER want to be their friend. This is a huge issue because their primary means of winning is through diplomacy. They rely on diploacy with few other routes to victory, unlike other factions which can easily pivot their goals and choose some other means of winning if they have to. Yet the Unfallen really rely on diplomacy-- but why would you ever want to be at peace or in an alliance with a faction that can *vine up your systems* and then influence buy them right out from under you? Which is why when I play multiplayer and I see someone pick Unfallen, I almost immediately close borders, and actively deny any requests for peace. I treat all such requests in fact as an insideous provocation for war, as if I was dealing with Cravers by another name. And while they have defense bonuses, they really don't do that well in a war against other factions so you can generally roll them. And honestly, that's terrible for a supposed 'diplomacy-based' faction. But as it stands, it's better to ally with the United Empire or the Lumeris than to ever trust the trees, because at least the UE and Lumeris have things they can offer in exchange for an agreement with them or they have ways to bully you to the table if you don't. With the Unfallen, it's exactly the opposite, they have little they can do if you tell them to pound sand and a lot of harm they can do if you trust them. My recommendation for any future game, if you want to create a diplomacy-based faction, make choosing to be their ally actually attractive. Players don't need excuses to distrust and go to war with each other; we do it by default. It's a lot harder to convince us to put that aside and try to work with each other. So if your faction revolves around that, you better bring something to the table that actually makes doing so worth it.
Short of attacking their vineships or going further and wiping the faction out, is there any way to be nice to these guys and not potentially suffer for it later? As you showed, having an alliance can give a bonus but it can also be a trap if they later turn on you? Will 'closed borders' work to stop the vining of your systems? It seems odd that it's a faction where it seems like you are supposed to regard them as a "nicer" faction-perhaps a potentially good trading partner-and yet they seem to be inspiring 'kill them on sight' reactions in players who start near them.
Yeah closing borders does do that. And you're right, this is why they suck as a faction. For a diplomacy-based faction to make sense, there has to be something that incentivizes players to want to diplomatically engage with it. If doing so means having your systems influence-bought out from under you, then the risk isn't worth any reward and players will default to blowing up your home system and sending your vine network into cascade failure for even insulting them by playing Unfallen anywhere near their border (also watching all those vines disappear and all their systems decolonize over time is IMMENSELY satisfying-- almost too satisfying a reward compared to ever trying to play their friend).
Unfallen: Everybody should learn about our peaceful way, by force!
War is peace ;-) ?
What force? Better believe I can snap a few twigs
Playing religious be like
Which is precisely why nobody signs that peace treaty and instead defaults their interactions with Unfallen players with a closed border order followed up by war. Because why would you ever trust a 'peaceful' diplomatic faction that will vine up and influence-buy your systems out from under you?
Honestly, the Unfallen suck. What kind of diplomatic faction is supposed to work when diplomacy with them is a net negative for any other player rather than a positive? Double fleet speed and bonus happiness in no way make up for the possibility of having your empire *jacked out from under you* at a moment's notice.
No incentive to ally with you means no deal. Negative incentive to ally with you means I sit on your home system with planet-killers and pound you into oblivion for daring to waste my time.
Great video! The Unfallen have become my favorite race to play as since I don't like fighting and love their defensive play style
Fighting is mandatory when Cravers exist in flight range of your systems
@@wiiblii8584 unite the other races into a super coalition and no amount of cravers can threaten you ever again
You sound like a little bitch
futuristic sci-fi Ents!
The march of the Ents into space :-D.
Space hippies
Out of all the factions, the Unfallen is the most terrifying to go against.
what ?
Terrifying as probably hard to go against
They are weak and vulnerable. Easy to kill off. Just stab in the Heart.
Unless you’re cravers
11:35 - as for the guardian debuff on enemies. If you are at war with the Unfallen and happen to have guardians your guardians will produce -20 influence each. If u are friendly with them they produce +20 influence. However its in the tooltip now so... XD
They are immensly powerfull when you play for an economic victory, rivaling even the Lumeris, and having on of their quest rewards beeing dustwater, you are able to add multiple ampefiers of each system level.
Also liked the fact that you play them as a tree, with the roots streching throughout the galaxy feeding you core system, quite clever in a metaphorical way
Thanks, I'll have to try the economic victory! :)
Yeah, I'm always surprised by how original all the races are and how different they play in the Endless games.
Waervyn's World I feel like the Riftborn are more of the moneymaker race. Their production make it so easy to construct dust infrastructure and their population constantly make a lot more dust. I also managed to construct a dust related wonder in just a few turns and took control of the market, but that just might be me.
ok i did not know that if you merge vineships you can increase the speed of of vines growing... i wasted sooo many turns just getting 1 system entangled while i have 3 just sitting around doing nothing.... :C
also they other races will comment about you if you find a guardian when attacking and happend to have a drone to use. becouse the funny thing is that guardian is going to fight for you if you find a guardian and invade the system
They also give maluses in happiness if they are among your enemies' population so they can create a new battlefront with a rebellion out of nowhere
Thanks, this really helped me understand the faction's tactics and potential.
Keep up the amazing work!
The unfallen are the only race that I’m comfortable doing peace and alliance with lol, most other races be aggressive af
Good video, was interesting to hear that the unfallen were the result of some kind of community poll(?)
My first impression of playing them was that the music is awesome. I wish they had more unique audio tracks. I can't say that i've ever enjoyed the harp, until hearing it in the unfallen theme.
I get it now I play Jerry until everyone is too bored to hate me. Then I win.
I have been able to move Guardians by using the automation presets. (I use them to help get a generalized best pop assortment for lets say industry.) One thing missing here is that the Guardians dont take a population slot, when you search the curiosity it adds a slot on the planet that is then locked by the Guardian. Another thing to note is that you can vine systems like nebulae that give flat bonuses and it counts as if in your sphere, can be very strong early game turn 12 asteroid belt.
Thanks for the notes. Completely forgot to mention about the vining of nebulae & asteroid belts etc.! Didn't know about the population slot of the guardians, that's really good to know!
Why oh why did youtube take the annotation function away :(
Very silly. I am sure it will be back eventually though. We could do a multiplayer setting to see what the Guardians do to enemies and to see just how much the vines boost allies though!
In respect to Guardian bonuses, I played a game as Vodyani, when I took over a system which belonged to the Unfallen and anchored my arc, guardians were the only race populating that system. For some reason my Arc was unable to unanchor, and It did not place any Vodyani population on the planets. (Vodyani are xenophobic and will not populate a planet with any other race on it.) And thus my arc was stuck in limbo and though I controlled that system I could not do anything with it nor did it produce resources. I don't know if this is a bug or intended. I could not find a way to kill off the guardians either.
Theres guardian harvest, but if you couldn't even produce anything you wouldn't be able to do it
I didn't know it was community mod made very neat.
thanks for all your great content
There is no better race (excluding Horatio) then space trees
*the Umbral Choir would like to know your location*
I remember in one game playing something non-Unfallen when Unfallen flew by and unlocked a guarding for me. Guarding provided happiness as well as an ability to sacrifice it for happiness. You should be careful when checking guarding curiosities for opponents or near opponents.
Idk why but no matter how many ships I am having on an orbit I can't explore new guardian on a planet . Guys do you have an idea why is that ?
Do the ships have probes?
15:17
This is a bug, Only riftborn have the terran there. I tried to create custom faction with both arc mechanic and rifborn mechanic and I had lots of problems. AS should split up ships hull and faction tech more so custom factions can work. Or even change some of the faction affinity to traits to make it even easier.
As much as I enjoy the lore of the Unfallen, as a faction, I can't help but feel they're the worst. The thing about diplomacy that so many 4X game devs don't seem to get is that you have to have incentive to want to engage with it. AI might be willing to play ball, so to speak, but a player that is trying to win needs a reason to ally with another player, especially if their faction is a warlike one that benefits more from grinding the other into the dirt.
In ES, diplomacy comes with both real and abstract costs. It costs influence, it costs expansion opportunity, can cost happiness, money, etc. Sometimes that cost is worth it and there are times the diplomacy mechanics really work in your faction's favor, especially if you've got the systems you want, the influence to spare, etc. Forced truces can save games for some factions, pressure mechanics, diplomatic demands, closing borders, etc. can let you bully your neighbors and pull ahead of them. There are some really cool concepts that actually can work quite well.
But the problem with the Unfallen is that there is almost no incentive to EVER want to be their friend. This is a huge issue because their primary means of winning is through diplomacy. They rely on diploacy with few other routes to victory, unlike other factions which can easily pivot their goals and choose some other means of winning if they have to. Yet the Unfallen really rely on diplomacy-- but why would you ever want to be at peace or in an alliance with a faction that can *vine up your systems* and then influence buy them right out from under you?
Which is why when I play multiplayer and I see someone pick Unfallen, I almost immediately close borders, and actively deny any requests for peace. I treat all such requests in fact as an insideous provocation for war, as if I was dealing with Cravers by another name. And while they have defense bonuses, they really don't do that well in a war against other factions so you can generally roll them.
And honestly, that's terrible for a supposed 'diplomacy-based' faction. But as it stands, it's better to ally with the United Empire or the Lumeris than to ever trust the trees, because at least the UE and Lumeris have things they can offer in exchange for an agreement with them or they have ways to bully you to the table if you don't. With the Unfallen, it's exactly the opposite, they have little they can do if you tell them to pound sand and a lot of harm they can do if you trust them. My recommendation for any future game, if you want to create a diplomacy-based faction, make choosing to be their ally actually attractive. Players don't need excuses to distrust and go to war with each other; we do it by default. It's a lot harder to convince us to put that aside and try to work with each other. So if your faction revolves around that, you better bring something to the table that actually makes doing so worth it.
its a trap!
Short of attacking their vineships or going further and wiping the faction out, is there any way to be nice to these guys and not potentially suffer for it later? As you showed, having an alliance can give a bonus but it can also be a trap if they later turn on you?
Will 'closed borders' work to stop the vining of your systems? It seems odd that it's a faction where it seems like you are supposed to regard them as a "nicer" faction-perhaps a potentially good trading partner-and yet they seem to be inspiring 'kill them on sight' reactions in players who start near them.
Ghandi from civ games comes to mind
My general strategy is to shit all over these guys as soon as I can
Yeah closing borders does do that. And you're right, this is why they suck as a faction. For a diplomacy-based faction to make sense, there has to be something that incentivizes players to want to diplomatically engage with it. If doing so means having your systems influence-bought out from under you, then the risk isn't worth any reward and players will default to blowing up your home system and sending your vine network into cascade failure for even insulting them by playing Unfallen anywhere near their border (also watching all those vines disappear and all their systems decolonize over time is IMMENSELY satisfying-- almost too satisfying a reward compared to ever trying to play their friend).