Endless Space 2 is a turn-based 4X4X. eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate — a grand-strategy subgenre about building a civilization over a long arc. space-strategy game from Amplitude Studios set in the Endless Universe. Its central design choice is asymmetry: according to the official site, the game features nine major factions, “each with their own asymmetrical gameplay, storyline, homeworlds, spaceships, heroes and technologies.” That asymmetry extends to how each factionfaction. An in-game group or nation players can align with or fight against, with its own goals and reputation system. wins, how it grows its population, and how it earns the FIDSI output (Food, Industry, Dust, Science, Influence) that funds everything. This guide breaks down how those systems differ and how to use them.
Why faction asymmetry is the whole game
In most 4X games, factions are a thin layer of bonuses over a shared engine. Endless Space 2 inverts that. Each major faction plays by materially different rules, to the point that two factions can feel like different games sharing a map. The Umbral Choir does not hold territory the way the United Empire does. The Riftborn build population from industry rather than growing it from food. The Vodyani live on mobile Arks and leech essence from other systems instead of colonizing normally.
This means the first decision in any campaign, your faction, determines your victory path more than any later tech choice. The official site frames the choice simply: “Which one will you choose to impose your vision?” Before picking, it helps to know what each vision actually demands.
The quest victory path
Beyond the standard Science, Economic, Expansion, Supremacy, and Wonder victories, every major faction has a Faction Quest, a multi-chapter storyline unique to that civilization. Completing the chapters of your Faction Quest is itself a route to victory. The chapters are gated by objectives that scale with map size and faction mechanics, so a quest run is as much a campaign of setup as of conquest.
The Umbral Choir quest illustrates the shape of these arcs. Community documentation of that quest describes named chapters such as a Dust discovery chapter, a Wildlife Unit chapter, Accelerated Neuronics, Burning Metal, and a final Hacking Mastery chapter. Objectives involve reaching a count of discovered systems, hitting a bandwidth threshold, hacking through a special node, and creating backdoors. The later chapters lean hard on the faction’s signature mechanic, in this case hacking, so a quest run is also a guided tour of that faction’s toolkit.
A practical note on quest runs: chapter objectives can stall if the galaxy is too small to generate the required targets, and they can be skipped or delayed if you race to another victory first. If you are pursuing the quest victory, pick a galaxy size that gives the quest room to breathe, prioritize the faction mechanic the chapters reward, and treat each chapter’s reward as a power spike to snowball into the next.
Population and FIDSI economy
Every faction manages the same five resources, Food, Industry, Dust, Science, and Influence, but the levers differ. Population is the engine: pops assigned to planets produce FIDSI, and many faction abilities are triggered by where and how your pops live. The economy is not just about growing more pops; it is about placing the right pops on the right planets and converting surplus goods up the production chain.
Because factions treat population so differently, population management is where asymmetry bites hardest. A few patterns to keep in mind:
- Growth-based factions expand by producing new pops from Food and assigning them to high-yield planets. For these factions, system development upgrades and luxury-population boosts are the main scaling levers, and food improvements compound.
- Industry-built pops (notably the Riftborn) generate population as a construction project rather than from food. You decide when and which pop to build, which trades raw growth for control over the mix of population types on a system.
- Buyout factions (notably the Lumeris) can purchase outposts and improvements with Dust, turning economic momentum into expansion without waiting on industry queues.
- Mobile and parasitic factions (the Vodyani and Umbral Choir) sidestep normal colonization. Managing them is less about pop growth and more about positioning their signature units and resources.
The official community patch notes repeatedly rebalance manpower, trade buildings, and population-related improvements, which is a signal that population and economy tuning is where the game’s balance lives. Reading a faction’s population mechanic is the fastest way to understand its economy.
Faction-by-faction overview
A grounded look at the major factions, based on the mechanics documented in official community materials and the official site’s descriptions.
United Empire. A Dust-and-Influence driven empire that buys its way to power. Dust buyout of system improvements and outposts makes industry queues optional, and Influence is a weapon that can convert systems without firing a shot. Play it as an economic and diplomatic juggernaut.
Sophons. The science faction. Their output leans on research speed and the ability to stay ahead in technology, then convert that lead into better ships and system improvements. Their economy is conventional; their edge is tempo.
Cravers. A depletion-driven military faction. Cravers consume planets faster than they can sustain, which pushes them to keep expanding and conquering. Their Feeding Pits improvement and depletion mechanic make them a wide, aggressive play that cannot afford to sit still.
Horatio. A genetics faction built around cloning. Horatio can assimilate other population types and splice their traits into his own, slowly making a single super-population. The Horatio Faction Quest and his splicing system reward patience and a tall, optimized empire.
Riftborn. Virtual beings from another dimension who build population from industry and excel at production. They are a tall industrial faction whose pops are constructed, and whose unique units and improvements favor a planned, slot-efficient economy.
Lumeris. A Dust economy faction that can buy outposts and leverage trade. Their expansion is fast when Dust is flowing, and their trade improvements make them a financial power. They are the closest thing to a pure economy faction.
Vodyani. A nomadic faction that lives on Arks, mobile motherships that anchor to systems to extract resources. Vodyani grow by leeching essence from other systems and can raze systems to fuel expansion, making them an aggressive, mobile civilization that does not colonize in the conventional sense.
Umbral Choir. A hidden, tall faction with a single secret home system. Instead of holding territory openly, they place haunts and backdoors in other empires’ systems, siphon resources through traitors, and win through hacking mastery and economic or quest victories. Their population can merge, letting them stay tall while still scaling.
Vaulters. A portal-traveling faction that uses strategic resources for unique bonuses and can relocate through portals, giving them unusual mobility and defensive flexibility. They are a flexible, tech-leaning civilization suited to opportunistic expansion.
Additional factions introduced through updates and DLC, such as the Hissho, Nakalim, and Unfallen, extend these patterns: the Hissho run on a Keii-based military honor economy and lean toward Supremacy; the Nakalim accumulate relics and awaken slumbering ruins at the cost of a science penalty; the Unfallen expand peacefully through vines.
Choosing a faction for your victory path
Match the faction to the victory you want before you start. For a Quest Victory, pick a faction whose signature mechanic you enjoy running repeatedly, since the quest chapters will force you to use it. For a Science Victory, the Sophons or Riftborn give the cleanest research tempo. For an Economic Victory, the United Empire or Lumeris buyout economies are the most direct. For Supremacy, the Cravers, Vodyani, or Hissho are built for it. For a quiet, defensive Quest or Economic run, the Umbral Choir plays a completely different game of hidden influence.
The common thread is that you should not fight your faction. Every civilization in Endless Space 2 is designed around a few core mechanics, and the population economy is the foundation under all of them. Read the faction’s population rule first, its FIDSI strengths second, and its quest arc third, and the rest of the strategy falls out of those three.