General

Ancient Race

The ancient race trait has a small exploit that can be used. As soon as you meet an alien race you will know all the systems they occupy through the borders map in the politics window. Not too big a help but will help send you send ships towards his empire and have colony ships avoid enemy space. (LordAxel)

Ancient Race also allows you to know where every homeworld is from the start, and allows the only certain counter to the previously mentioned trick. The combination of the right size planet and all three values being within 5% of 80/100/120% for bad/average/good starting planets almost never happens by chance, so every such planet is almost guaranteed to be a homeworld. To prevent any other ancient race from learning exactly where your borders are on first contact, claim the entire galaxy on the first turn. (Douglas) For example, you start on a fair, medium oxygen rock planet, 99% min, 101% org, 98% rad. The stock EEE are in the game. Find the medium CO2 gas giant with the same rating -- you know they start there, as medium gas giants are pretty rare, using standard map generation. (Arkcon)

Alternatively, claim only some systems, resulting in bogus borders. To alter your borders, go to the Score screen => Borders. If you want to claim the whole galaxy, click on every systems you are not already claiming (you will miss some if you are not an Ancient player, unless you are very patient). The Ancient race can also see how many colonies the enemy has in total, by looking at the appropriate figure in the Planets screen. This does not always work, however, and is mostly useful if there are only a couple of Empires in the game. Regular Empires can usually get the same information, but only about the enemy colonies present in systems they have seen. I am not sure what may prevent that figure from working though. (Alneyan)

Or, and this works for everybody... UNclaim your homesystem(s). Better yet, if you're an ancient race, claim somebody else's homesystem to throw the other ancient race off. (Suicide Junkie)

Just unclaim your home system(s) and disable the "automatically claim all colonized systems" option in the Empire Options screen (under Empire Status - crown). Now no systems will ever be claimed on the map. (Imperator Fyron)

When you have "Players can see all systems" on at the game setup, do NOT choose Ancient Race as a racial trait. (StrategiaInUltima)

Question: Does claiming a system have any diplomatic (AI) impact?

Q(Makinus): Does claiming a system have any diplomatic (AI) impact? As if you contest with another race a system the diplomatic instance with that race degrades?

A(Baron Munchausen): Yes, once you meet a race you'd be wise to UNclaim all systems that appear on your map of their territory if you use this method of concealing your own territory.

Advanced Storage Techniques

Advanced Storage Techniques is probably the most valuable of the advanced traits. This trait gives you 20% more facility space and 20% more cargo space on all your planets - domed or undomed! Obviously with more facility slots available, you can produce more resources. This effectively gives your empire a 20% larger capacity in the same space as a player without this trait.

Natural Merchants

Main article: Natural Merchants (SEIV)

Natural Merchants allows resources produced on a planet to be sent to the empire without a Spaceport. Refer to the linked article for an explanation of why you should probably never select it.

Propulsion Experts

Propulsion Experts gives a +1 movement speed bonus to all ships produced by the race. This is a moderately useful racial trait. Note that this bonus only applies if the ship has at least one working engine.

Tech Traits

The following traits provide access to advanced technologies and specialized items.

Organic Manipulation

Organic empires can be very formidable. Their ships can utilize organic weapons and armor which cost less minerals than normal equivalents. This has some important effects. Since the build time of a ship is controlled by its costliest resource, normally minerals, an organic ship can be built faster assuming equal construction rates because it costs less minerals. Organic fighters & troops can also be built much faster and can use one of the best unit weapons in the game: the Small Electric Discharge. The whole organic empire is based on high production and reproduction. Organic empires can normally out-produce other empires and attempt to win by outnumbering opponents. Organic empires will want to produce more organics than other empires because they will require more of these to satisfy their build and maintenence costs. There are 2 Organic facilities that increase population production. This in turn increases planet production and construction rates. It costs 1500 empire set-up points to choose Organic Manipulation. See also section 17.3 "The Organic Edge". The 2 already Organic empires the Ukra-tal Collective and the Xi'Chung Hive

Organic Components

Organic Armor

Organic Weapons

The Organic weapons are:

Organic weapons that require organics but little or no minerals and radioactives to construct. Therefore, they lower the overall mineral cost (usually the most limiting) of ships, bases, and units and thus allow the construction to happen faster. All organic weapons do normal damage; no special damage types. The Seeking Parasite is arguably the best seeking weapon in the game due to reload rate of 2 instead of 3. The Small Electric Discharge is arguably the best fighter weapon in the game, and is pretty good on troops too. Since the Small Electric Discharge is strong and requires only organics to construct, Organic races can quickly make large numbers of formidable fighters.

Organic Facilities

Crystallurgy

Crystal empires can be very powerful. It costs 1500 empire set-up points to choose Crystallurgy. Crystalline Armour regenerates shields when hit, and their Crystalline Restructuring Plant reduces maintenance costs for their empire's ships in the same system (but only in that system).

The Crystalline Torpedo and Shard Cannon ignore armour. The High Energy Magnifier is a fairly powerful beam weapon that can inflict hefty amounts of damage. It fires faster than the infamous Wave Motion Gun, giving it a slight advantage at the cost of firepower and range. Mounted HEMs can cause significant damage.

Empires using the Crystallurgy techs can expect to have a somewhat higher requirement for radioactives than most other empires.

The 3 empires that already have this tech-tree are the Cryslonite Imperium, the Phong Confederation and the Piundon Empire

Crystalline Components

Crystalline Armor

Crystalline Weapons

Crystalline Facilities

Deeply Religious

Religious empires are often feared because of their use of the Religious Talisman. The Talisman makes every direct fire and point defense weapon always hit with 100% certainty. For this reason some multiplayer games prohibit taking this racial trait. If it is allowed, frequently other players will gang up to eliminate any Religious players before they have the chance to research the Talisman. Religious empires also have some pretty good facilities. See also section 17.6 for tactics against players using the Talisman.

Some mods remove the Talisman completely, or simply reduce it to a standard accuracy-booster like Combat Sensors.

The empire that already have this tech-tree is the Norak Continuum

Deeply Religious Components

Religious Talisman

Deeply Religious Facilities

Psychic

Psychic races have more weapons in the vein of special effects - and two very special ones - one disrupts reload times, and the other, if successful, can capture an enemy ship without boarding. Their other two weapons are pretty standard, though.

They also have access to a Psychic Scanner Component and Facility which are better at detecting standard-cloaked ships.

The 2 empires that already have this tech-tree are the Abbidon Enclave and the Cue Cappa Commonwealth

Psychic Components

Psychic Receptors

Psychic Weapons

Psychic Facilities

Temporal Knowledge

Temporal Empires can be one of the most powerful, as their Temporal SpaceYards are hands down, without boosters, the fastest spaceyards in the game, easily beating their standard counterparts at equivalent levels. Thus, it is wise to capture, not destroy, these helpful structures.

A lot of their weapons do special damage types, especially against shields - their Time Distortion Burst might not do much to a ship, but it does quad damage to shields, making it quite deadly to lightly shielded ships!

Empires building temporal facilities and components can expect to have a higher requirement for radioactives than most other empires.

The 2 empires that already have this tech-tree are the Sallega Empire and the Xiati Empire

Temporal Components

Temporal Sensors

Temporal Weapons

Temporal Facilities

Preceded by:
Game Start-up and Empire Creation

Manual (SEIV)
Section 1.1

Followed by:
Racial Characteristics

Racial Traits (SEIV)

Contents