Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares/Some effective race designs

This page presents a few effective race designs. Try them first, and then start experimenting. Most of these designs, except for "Blitz races", are for the medium to long-term, usually in Medium or larger galaxies with Pre-warp or Average Tech starts. And all are for standard MOO2 - we can't predict which mods you will use. The race names generally follow the conventions used in most online discussions.

Basic principles
This summarizes the main points in the discussion of race design options.

Population is power
This is a common saying among MOO2 players and it's 99% true. More people = more money and some combination of more research and more production.

More precisely, research + production = power. Farming is not an objective; it's a requirement in order to support your workers and scientists. That's why picks that either increase food production per farmer, like Unification, Aquatic, or +1 and +2 Farming, or that cut down on the need to support pops with food, like Cybernetic and Lithovore (though they'd still require pops to consume minerals instead of food, so mineral-production-boosting picks like Unification or +1 or +2 Production are recommended alongside those picks), are alternatives to the other population-boosting picks, like Aquatic, Subterranean, and Tolerant, despite not increasing maximum population; less need for farming (and mining for Cybernetic and Lithovore races) means you will have more population in production and research, and won't have to build as many freighters or pay as much in transport costs.

All race designs take a gamble on something
In standard MOO2 it's impossible to design a "best-in-all-situations" race. Although it's possible to design a "good-enough-in-all-situations" race, such "jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none" races will initially be outperformed by other, more specialized races in various fields, like production, research, or combat capabilities. Keep in mind, however, that said specialized races might in turn be outperformed by the "jack-of-all-trades" races, and even more so by other specialized races, in other fields outside of their specializations. (For example, a production-specialized race might be outperformed in research by a more balanced race, and even more so by a research-specialized race.)

It should also be noted that various picks, both positive and negative, will be most impactful in different stages of the game. For example, having a large, rich, homeworld with artifacts would all be most beneficial in the early-game, but would diminish in value as the game progresses into the mid or late game, while on the other hand, having a bonus in beam defense would only be useful in the mid-to-late game, when targeting computers get good enough for beam weapons to become more reliable at hitting their targets than missiles, which would start to become less effective as ECM, Lightning Fields, and accurate Point Defense systems start to appear. This also applies to negative picks. For example, having a mineral-poor homeworld would be especially detrimental in the early-game, and a beam defense penalty would start to be noticeable earlier than normal, whereas the negative effects of Uncreative and Repulsive might be worst felt in the mid-to-late game.

Production versus research races
MOO2 is not perfectly balanced between production-oriented and research-oriented races - in practice production-oriented races have the advantage most of the time. The main reason for this is that Colony Ships are large construction projects for small, low-tech economies (500 production points), so production races colonize faster. This gives them higher populations in the short term; and when the production races construct research buildings on their new colonies they eventually out-research the research races because they have more colonies and therefore more research buildings.

On the other hand many production-oriented races have rather slow early-game research. Since a few high-tech warships almost always beat a larger number or tonnage of low-tech warships, research-oriented races have to be prepared to blitz production races as soon as they (research races) can launch a few ships.

So production races' advantage is usually greatest in fairly large galaxies with a small number of players, so that they do not have to worry so much about blitzes.

Creative races
Despite being a favorite pick for novice players, remember that Creative is controversial and 2-edged! Creative races often get crushed early (especially if they lack bonuses that either help them in the short-term, like Rich Homeworld and Artifacts World, or help them cut down on their need to expand and spread outward, like Subterranean) but like non-Creative research-oriented races, if given time to develop (especially on larger maps with fewer players), can win hugely - but to do so they must be very aggressive once they have a few decent warships. Otherwise, they'll likely become the target of non-Creative races' spying efforts.

Since they usually have fewer production and research bonuses compared to the non-Creative races, and assuming that they're focusing on researching the techs that would give them an edge over the non-Creative races, the Creative races tend to be slower at building warships, so stockpiling production is more important for them (covered here).

For the same reasons, their younger colonies are more vulnerable. In the early game, Creatives (without the Warlord pick) can't afford large defensive fleets because they have very few Starbases (these cost 400 production points, i.e. they're major construction projects for new colonies, especially for non-production races). Some ways to minimize these vulnerabilities include:
 * Missile Bases are in the same tech level as Automated Factory (the first production booster) ; most non-Creatives choose Automated Factory, but Creatives get both.
 * New colonies in vulnerable locations should build Automated Factories, and possibly Robo-Miners (2nd-level production boosters); then stockpile enough production (this technique is covered later) for a Missile Base, but don't build it until needed (this saves maintenance costs).
 * Then use these colonies to increase your population at more developed colonies (the techniques are covered here).
 * Research Radiation Shields. These completely block damage from low-tech weapons and reduce damage from mid-tech ones, so they make Missile Bases a lot tougher. They are part of a military tech path that non-Creatives seldom use early in the game, but which has some very useful "bonus" techs for Creatives. It would be nice if you could research Radiation Shields shortly after Missile Bases, but there are higher priorities. Once again, reduce maintenance costs by stockpiling enough production.

After producing colonies, the homeworld must maximize research in order to reach, as fast as possible, the tech levels at which Creatives start to get really useful "bonus" techs.

Once their colonies are secure, Creatives must attack non-Creatives as soon as they can build a couple of decent warships. They can attack with smaller fleets than non-Creatives because of their "bonus" techs:
 * Some are special systems for warships, which enable a well-designed Creative Battleship to beat 2-3 non-Creative Battleships that are apparently 1 or sometimes 2 levels ahead in armor and weapons (shields are a different matter, discussed in the military sections of this guide). Battleships are the smallest warship size that can accommodate 4 special systems without a crippling reduction in the space available for weapons.
 * Others strengthen planetary defenses.

Some of the most effective Creative races are probably Lithovores (plus production bonuses and/or rich homeworlds), Cybernetics (again, plus production bonuses and/or rich homeworlds), Unifications, and Aquatics, because their relatively greater freedom from farming maximizes their early research rate, and allows them to both build useful populations on "dry" planets, and use no-farming planets as Housing colonies. However, given Creative's high point costs, these various combinations all have their drawbacks. For example, Creative + Lithovore is such an expensive race design combination (18 Picks) that not only are they restricted in additional picks to no more than 1 single 2-point pick (with rich homeworld being perhaps the best out of them for the early production boost) the best government they can have is a Dictatorship, which means their new colonies are slowed down by a 20% morale penalty until they build Marine Barracks. They are also as slow at production as research races, but have less cash than DemoLith research races to buy things when half built, so their early colonization is the slowest of all (Feudalisms are faster because they get ships at 67% of standard cost).

A quick note on being Creative: non-creatives have to choose between Automated Factories (pretty much an essential tech for any race) and Missile Base (an excellent deterrent from attack early on). And some of the other things they miss out on are Fighter Garrison (for Spaceport), Mass Driver (Class 1 Shield is a popular pick) and even the Dauntless Guidance System ... so their missiles are not re-targeted. There are far more benefits to being a Creative that most folk realize.

Telepathic Creatives
Because Creative empires are often perceived by experienced players playing as non-Creative empires as being war-oriented empires, and thus, are likely to be targeted by non-Creative empires before the Creative empires would have a chance to build up their economies to the point where they themselves could opt to field their more advanced warships, and because Creative empires often have to attack non-Creative empires before the non-Creative empires could leverage their superior industrial might against them, why not opt to speed up the process of conquest without needing to build such frivolous production-wasting things as troop transports by pairing the Creative pick with the Telepathic pick? Heck, why worry about whether or not to bomb the enemy's colonies when you could just mind-control them, then if you're worried about the enemy taking back those colonies that you've captured, why not just evacuate the mind-controlled pops back to your space, scrap whatever buildings you can for money, then leave the now-plundered colony behind to be taken back by a now-weakened enemy empire (as if you were a bunch of space Vikings)? While Creative empires might not always be as war-like as players of non-Creative empires might fear them to be, these aggressive Creative builds are sure to live up to this stereotype.

See Telepathic Blitzers below for more details about Telepathic empire playstyles.

UniCreTel
This Telepathic Creative build combines the Telepathic pick's ability to mind-control enemy colonies with the Unification government's bonuses to food and mineral production for an aggressive pillage-and-burn-styled build. Though not necessarily as strong in ship-to-ship combat as some of the various blitz-type builds below that utilize the Warlord pick for additional offensive and defensive bonuses, the production bonuses from Unification should help this build bring its war economy online to the point where it could start sending out cruisers or battleships to mind-control enemy colonies before transporting them back to the empire's better-defended core worlds.
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Telepathic [6]: Can mind-control enemy worlds without having to build troop transports, or having to deal with enslaved pops, especially as a Unification government.
 * Low Gravity [-5], -10 Spying [-3] and -10 Ground Combat [-2]: you need 10 negative picks with this race to balance the positive ones. You should be working towards assimilating new colonists by mind-control conquest early on, so both Low Grav and negative Ground Combat are fairly painless choices for this build. The spying penalty is offset by both the Telepathic and Unification spying bonuses.

DictCreTelLgeRichArti
This build is similar in gameplay to UniCreTel above, only that it swaps out Unification for a large mineral-rich homeworld with artifacts to allow it to quickly research and build its way to military readiness. To make up for the lack of Unification's food bonuses, it's recommended to research Soil Enrichment ASAP, so that more pops are busy doing things other than supplying the rest of your empire with food, like building warships for your empire to use to wage war against your empire's enemies.
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Dictatorship [0]: The best government this race can afford, because Creative and Telepathic are expensive choices, and because it needs to spend its remaining points on improving its early-game mining and research as much as it can afford to. No early advantages; morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Telepathic [6]: Can mind-control enemy worlds without having to build troop transports, or having to deal with enslaved pops.
 * Artifacts Homeworld [3]: +2 research per scientist, on the homeworld only.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: +2 minerals per worker, on the homeworld only.
 * Large Homeword [1]: in addition to increasing homeworld population capacity, this also raises the production ceiling before pollution starts to bite into production.
 * Low Gravity [-5], -10 Spying [-3] and -10 Ground Combat [-2]: you need 10 negative picks with this race to balance the positive ones. You should be working towards assimilating new colonists by mind-control conquest early on, so both Low Grav and negative Ground Combat are fairly painless choices for this build. The spying penalty is offset by both the Telepathic and Dictatorship spying bonuses.

DictCreTelCybRich
Another build that's similar in gameplay to UniCreTel above, this build swaps out Unification for not only a mineral-rich homeworld to help it quickly build up to military readiness in the early game (like DictCreTelLgeRichArti above), but also the Cybernetic pick, albeit not only to cut down on the need for farmers, but also because Cybernetic ships automatically repair to full health after each battle (as if the empire had research the Advanced Damage Control tech), allowing the empire's invasion forces to continue with their mind-controlling conquests without the need to stop for repairs (especially after some particularly-tough battles that would've left both sides with heavily-damaged ships).
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Dictatorship [0]: The best government this race can afford, because Creative and Telepathic are expensive choices, and because it needs to spend its remaining points on improving its early-game mining and research as much as it can afford to. No early advantages; morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Telepathic [6]: Can mind-control enemy worlds without having to build troop transports, or having to deal with enslaved pops.
 * Cybernetic [4]: Having to eat less food in exchange for needing to eat minerals means fewer farmers, which means more scientists, but also means more need for miners instead of farmers. Farming techs, including Hydroponic Farms, can support twice as many pops as normal, while mining bonuses from both techs and race picks can further reduce the need for miners. Also allows instant repairs at the end of each ship battle without the need for Advanced Damage Control.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: +2 minerals per worker, on the homeworld only.
 * Low Gravity [-5], -10 Spying [-3] and -10 Ground Combat [-2]: you need 10 negative picks with this race to balance the positive ones. You should be working towards assimilating new colonists by mind-control conquest early on, so both Low Grav and negative Ground Combat are fairly painless choices for this build. The spying penalty is offset by both the Telepathic and Dictatorship spying bonuses.

Aquatic Creatives
These races' starting homeworlds are treated as gaia-class worlds, meaning that not only would they get +1 food from their homeworld (meaning that, from the start, they only need 1/3rd of their population on farming duty as opposed to 1/2), but that they would have 25% more population capacity on their homeworld, reducing their need to expand to other worlds early on. Moreover, since Aquatic races treat Tundra and Swamp planets as Terran planets (and Ocean and Terran planets as Gaia planets) for both food production and population capacity (effectively multiplying the population capacities of Tundra planets by anywhere from 2 to 3.333x normal, and Ocean planets by anywhere from 2.5 to 4.1616x normal, depending on the planet's size, with bigger planets being impacted more), they might be able to get away with developing a powerful yet compact empire consisting of a small handful of well-developed planets, assuming they're lucky enough to find and colonize them without needing to kill any space monsters guarding them.

UniAquaCreLge
This race gambles on getting "wet" planets nearby. If it does not get them, it's weaker than CreLithxxx because on "dry" planets UniAquaCre can't fully exploit its population and and farming advantages until it terraforms (mid-game tech; fairly expensive construction), while CreLithxxx gets a technology lead because it does not need to farm. This race needs to maximize homeworld population and then, if it has "wet" colonies, their population too - a later page will cover population growth techniques. Since it has neither production nor cash bonuses, it should stockpile production in order to build things as soon as possible after the relevant research is completed (another technique that's covered later).
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Aquatic [5]: better farming and higher population capacity, on "wet" planets only.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: use that last pick.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

DemoAquaCre
Another gamble on getting "wet" planets to colonize. This one sacrifices production and farming bonuses in favor of research and cash, so it needs to buy things at the right times. And it must beware of enemy spies, since Democracy is weak in defensive spying operations. If it comes through these difficulties in good shape, its power increases rapidly because it soon reaches the tech levels at which Creatives start to get really useful "bonus" technologies. Then its advantages in research and money allow it to cope fairly easily with the financial burdens of a large fleet and it can get aggressive.
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Democracy [7]: research and cash advantages; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Aquatic [5]: better farming and higher population capacity, on "wet" planets only.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

DictAquaSubCreLge
Yet another gamble on getting "wet" worlds to colonize. It is the riskiest of these gambles, because it sacrifices farming, production, research and cash bonuses for the highest long-term population potential for a Creative race. (How high? The combination of Aquatic plus Subterranean would, for example, increase the population capacity of Terran planets to 1.75x normal, regardless of size, and the population capacity of Ocean planets to a staggering 3.5 to 5.8333x normal, depending on planet size!) These trade-offs make it a slower starter, so it really does not want early contact and very much prefers a large or huge galaxy with fewer players. On the other hand it does not need a huge number of colonies, which enables it to delay contact and to switch from colonization to research fairly early. Population-building techniques (covered later) are very important for this race in order to maximize research on the homeworld once it has finished building Colony Ships and Colony Bases.
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Dictatorship [0]: The best government this race can afford, because Creative, Aquatic and Subterranean are expensive choices. No early advantages; morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Aquatic [5]: better farming and higher population capacity.
 * Subterranean [6]: Can build huge populations; even larger on "wet" planets because of Aquatic.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: use the last pick; maximize early homeworld research.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

Subterranean Creatives
Like Aquatic races, Subterranean races benefit from much higher population capacity, only this applies to ALL planets, including Terran, Gaia, Arid, Desert, Barren, Radiated, and Toxic planets (with population capacity increases ranging from 2 to 2.6667x, depending on size, for low-habitability planets like Ocean, Tundra, Desert, Barren, Radiated, and Toxic planets, to 1.4x, regardless of size, for Gaia planets), thus allowing them to "play tall", focusing even more on growing and developing what few planets they already have over expanding and colonizing further out. However, since they lack the Aquatic races' +1 farming bonus on their homeworlds, these races would need to make up for this by either choosing other picks that either provide farming bonuses (like Unification or +1 Farming) or alleviate the need for food (like Cybernetic, ideally also with a rich homeworld or production bonuses), or rushing for Soil Enrichment ASAP.

UniSubCre
Similar to the UniAquaCreLge build above, though this build sacrifices some farming efficiency for a broader and higher long-term population potential, especially on low-habitability worlds like Barren, Tundra, Ocean, Desert, Radiated, and Toxic worlds, where, compared to non-Subterranean builds, their population capacities would be doubled for tiny worlds, and multiplied by 2.6667 for huge worlds. (Said low-habitability worlds, especially the more hostile ones like Barren, Toxic, or Radiated, are also more likely to be mineral rich.)
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Subterranean [6]: Can build huge populations, especially on low-habitability worlds.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

DictSubCreProd2
Like the DictAquaSubCreLge build, this build focuses more on long-term potential, meaning that players may initially want to avoid early contact with other civilizations and focus more on internal development over rapid colonization. However, its focus on population potential isn't as immediate. Instead, it focuses more on production capabilities, though unlike the UniSubCre build above, it substitutes Unification for Dictatorship and +2 Production so that it can benefit from morale-boosting technologies. (To make up for the lack of Aquatic's and Unification's farming bonuses, it's recommended to research Soil Enrichment ASAP!) While a Unification government does provide a +50% bonus to food and production, which goes up to +100% if Galactic Unification is researched, colonies under an Imperium have the potential to gain +100% or more in bonuses in food, production, research, AND income through morale-boosting technologies, buildings, and leaders.
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Dictatorship [0]: Chosen over Unification because it can benefit from morale-boosting technology.
 * Subterranean [6]: Can build huge populations, especially on low-habitability worlds.
 * +2 Production [6]: Helps make up for the loss of Unification's +50% production bonus, especially when paired with morale-boosting tech.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

DictSubCreArtiProd1
A variant of the DictSubCreProd2 build above, this trades some Production bonuses for the Artifacts Homeworld's early-game boost in research, in order to allow this empire to more quickly research-rush towards the Soil Enrichment tech that it desperately needs in order to make up for the early-game lack of Unification's or Aquatic's farming bonuses.
 * Dictatorship [0]: Chosen over Unification because it can benefit from morale-boosting technology.
 * Subterranean [6]: Can build huge populations, especially on low-habitability worlds.
 * +1 Production [3]: Helps make up for the loss of Unification's +50% production bonus, especially when paired with morale-boosting tech.
 * Artifacts Homeworld [3]: Helps with early-game research in spite of the lack of Unification's or Aquatic's farming bonuses from the start.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

DictSubCreCybRich
Like the DictSubCreProd2 build above, this build focuses on taking advantage of the Subterranean pick for long-term (though not immediate, such as when compared to the DictAquaSubCreLge build above) population potential, with a general focus on playing tall instead of playing wide (i.e. focusing more on developing a few core worlds over rapid colonization), along with the possibility of utilizing morale-boosting technologies to offset the losses from taking a Dictatorship government instead of a Unification government, yet also making up for the loss of Unification's production bonuses in the early game through other picks. However, in this build's case, it swaps out +2 Production for a rich homeworld in order to make up for the loss of Unification's bonus production, which, while still allowing this build to rapidly churn out ships and build up its homeworld's infrastructure as it researches technologies, would mean that, by the mid-game, this build would be under pressure to seek out new mineral rich worlds to colonize once its production needs outgrow its homeworld's capacity. However, the switch from +2 Production to a rich homeworld also frees up enough points to take the Cybernetic pick, freeing up half of the farmers at the start in order to more quickly research and develop the empire throughout the early game (even more so than Unification's +50% farming bonus, or Aquatic's treatment of ocean and terran worlds, including the homeworld, as gaia worlds, both of which would've freed up only 1/3rd of the farmers at the start).
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Dictatorship [0]: Chosen over Unification because it can benefit from morale-boosting technology.
 * Subterranean [6]: Can build huge populations, especially on low-habitability worlds.
 * Cybernetic [4]: Frees up farmers to be used for production and research by substituting half of the population's food needs with some easily-met mineral needs, which should also help with making up for the loss of Unification's +50% food bonus. (The ability to instantly repair damaged ships anywhere at the end of each battle, without the need to research Advanced Damage Control, is also a nice little early-game bonus.)
 * Rich Home World [2]: Provides the same benefits as Production +2, only limited to the homeworld, which should still be sufficient for making up for the loss of Unification's +50% production bonus, at least until the production needs of the empire outgrows its homeworld's population capacity (which Subterranean helps to ensure that it'll take a long time).
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

Tolerant Creatives
One alternative towards taking the Aquatic or Subterranean picks to boost population capacities on your planets in order to remain compact yet powerful would be to take the Tolerant pick. However, Tolerant Creatives face many difficulties compared to Aquatic and Subterranean Creatives. 1st, the Tolerant pick is quite expensive at 10 points (meaning between the Creative and Tolerant picks, there's only room for a single 2-point pick, like rich homeworld). 2nd, the population capacity increases won't be as substantial as Subterranean (with population capacity increases that range from 2.25x for low-habitability planets like Barren, Desert, Tundra, Ocean, Radiated, or Toxic planets, to 1.25x for Terran planets, to just 1x for Gaia planets, since, unlike Subterranean races, Tolerant races cannot exceed the population capacity of a Gaia planet of any given size), meaning that they won't be able to play as "tall" as Subterranean Creatives, and would need to expand to new planets a bit more frequently. And 3rd, The lack of room to fit food-producing or food-consumption-reducing picks (like Aquatic, Unification, Cybernetic, or even +1 Farming) will mean that Tolerant Creatives will need to research-rush for Soil Enrichment ASAP. However, if Tolerant Creative races can manage to overcome these shortcomings, then they can reap the benefits of Tolerant's lack of a need to care about pollution (and thus, lack of a need to research and build Pollution Processors, Atmospheric Renewers, Nano-Disassemblers, or Core Waste Dumps).

CreTolRich
As an out in left field choice, you might have some good success with a race of tolerant creatives. The key, as with any creative race, is to avoid wars while building your empire. Diplomacy can keep the other races off of your back. Taking out the guardian at Orion before starting a war will give you the upper hand.
 * Creative [8]: gets all of the technologies.
 * Tolerant [10] Maximizes planetary populations and mitigates pollution.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: maximize early homeworld production.
 * Dictatorship [0]: The best government this race can afford.
 * Low-G World [-5], -10 Ground combat [-2], -10 Spying [-3] to balance the picks. Since the creative pick gets all the spying technologies, unless you are battling another creative race, the -10 Spying won't impact you too much. If you are concerned about the low planetary defense picks, over 95% of battles are fought in space. If your fleet can keep the opponents at bay, these picks have little effect in the overall scheme of things.

Creative Lithovores
As mentioned before, one alternative towards increasing population sizes through picks like Aquatic, Subterranean, or Tolerant would be to reduce the amount of farmers needed to support the empire's population. Although Lithovore accomplishes this by shifting all food requirements to mineral requirements, allowing Lithovore races to do away with the need for shipping food to other colonies via freighters, and cutting costs in the process, unfortunately, Lithovore alone does little to alleviate the need to dedicate a sizeable fraction of the population towards feeding the rest of the population. Assuming a standard Terran mineral-abundant homeworld start, without any production bonuses to boost mineral production, a Lithovore race would need 1 miner to support every 3 pops. (That's the rough equivalent of being a race with the Aquatic, Unification, or +1 Farming picks alone, all of which are much cheaper in point costs to Lithovore!) This means that Lithovore races would also need a pick that boosts mineral production, though with Creative Lithovores, this would be limited to a rich homeworld start due to how expensive both Creative and Lithovore are, at a point cost of 18! (However, a rich homeworld would boost mineral production per pop on the homeworld high enough that, ignoring pollution, each miner would be able to feed 5 pops instead of 3.) Otherwise, Lithovore races would need to beeline it to Automated Factories (others would've needed to beeline it to Soil Enrichment), not only to boost their hamstrung production capabilities, but also to alleviate their need to dedicate miners to feeding the rest of the population (by both increasing mineral production by +1 per miner, and through a flat +5 minerals from the building itself, similar to a Hydroponic Farm's flat +2 food from the building itself).

CreLithRich
Another Creative race that does not gamble on "wet" planets. Gets faster production and colonization than CreLithLge because it takes Rich homeworld rather than Large Homeworld. But that means this race needs to get some high capacity planets early to grow its population. If all the good ones are guarded by Space Monsters, it should research monster-killing techs (covered later) as fast as possible then use the Rich Homeworld bonus to crank out the ships (stockpiling production is essential here too). Like other Creative races, it has to attack as soon as it can build decent warships, otherwise races that build larger populations will out-research and out-produce.
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Lithovore [10]: eating minerals instead of food means no need for farmers, which means more scientists, but also means more need for miners instead of farmers.
 * Dictatorship [0]: The best government this race can afford, because Lithovore and Creative are both expensive choices. No early advantages; morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: maximize early homeworld production with what few picks were left. Also greatly reduces the need for miners to feed the populace, meaning more research and production.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

CreLithLge
Although it gets faster early research than basic non-Lithovore Creatives because it needs miners instead of farmers (and because miners on a standard mineral-abundant Terran homeworld produce 3 minerals instead of 2 food from farmers), this build would still struggle to keep up with the research and production capabilities of non-Lithovore Cybernetics or Unifications (and even CreLithRich can out-produce and out-research this build. Because of these shortcomings, it would need to research and build Automated Factories ASAP in order to make up for its relative lack of mineral production capabilities. Perhaps its only saving grace is that its large homeworld would allow it to not only fit more pops on its homeworld, but to also provide a bit of a bigger buffer against pollution. Use population growth techniques to maximize early homeworld research.
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Lithovore [10]: eating minerals instead of food means no need for farmers, which means more scientists, but also means more need for miners instead of farmers.
 * Dictatorship [0]: The best government this race can afford, because Lithovore and Creative are both expensive choices. No early advantages; morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: increase homeworld population capacity and pollution tolerance.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

Cybernetic Creatives
Perhaps a more viable alternative towards using the Lithovore pick to divert all food needs to mineral needs, the Cybernetic pick diverts only half of the population's food needs to mineral needs, thus necessitating a need for both farmers and miners to keep the population fed. However, it's much more cost-effective at it than Lithovore, only requiring 4 points instead of Lithovores' 10 points in order to have for a custom race. Though the benefits are smaller compared to Lithovore (requiring 1 farmer per 4 pops, plus 1 miner per 6 pops, instead of Lithovore's 1 miner per 3 pops, assuming a standard mineral-abundant Terran homeworld), when combined with picks that increase food production (like Aquatic or +1 or +2 Farming), mineral production (+1 or +2 Production or Rich Homeworld), or both (Unification), the benefits of Cybernetic races, in combination with other picks, over Lithovore races start to become more noticeable. (For example, a Cybernetic Creative Unification only needs 1 farmer per 6 pops, and only 1 miner per 9 pops, in order to keep the entire population fed, and that's all assuming a standard mineral-abundant Terran homeworld start.)

UniCreCybRich
This build uses the 6 points freed up from switching from the Lithovore pick to the Cybernetic pick to further augment food and mineral production by upgrading from a Dictatorship government (as used by the CreLithRich build above) into the ever-popular Unification government, whilst the rich homeworld pick further boosts the homeworld's production capabilities. The combination of Cybernetic's halving of food consumption and Unification's +50% food production means that, at the start, every farmer could support up to 6 population, though at the cost of requiring minerals, though thanks to the combination of Unification's +50% mineral production bonus and rich homeworld, just 1 miner would be needed to support 15 population. (This means that 2 miners and 5 farmers would be needed in order to support 30 population without researching any technologies. Although, by comparison, with the CreLithRich build, 1 miner would be needed in order to support 5 population on the homeworld, even then, it's doubtful that the 1 population in 30 freed up for other purposes by switching from Cybernetic plus Unification to Lithovore would've, overall, been able to compare to Unification's +50% production bonuses.)
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Cybernetic [4]: Having to eat less food in exchange for needing to eat minerals means fewer farmers, which means more scientists, but also means more need for miners instead of farmers. Farming techs, including Hydroponic Farms, can support twice as many pops as normal, while mining bonuses from both techs and race picks can further reduce the need for miners. Also allows instant repairs at the end of each ship battle without the need for Advanced Damage Control.
 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages (that, when combined with the Cybernetic pick, outweighs the benefits of Lithovore overall); no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: increases early homeworld production.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

DemoCreCybLge
Another Creative Cybernetic build, this one focuses a bit more on long-term research. The loss of Unification's +50% food production bonus, along with the rich homeworld bonus, can be a bit of a detriment, but can be quickly solved by research-rushing both Soil Enrichment and Automated Factory, and can also be mitigated by Democracy's +50% income bonus, allowing for more frequent purchases of half-built buildings, ships, etc. Getting Research Labs will help make up for sacrificing the artifacts homeworld pick's +2 science per pop for Democracy's longer-term empire-wide +50% research bonus.
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Cybernetic [4]: fewer farmers means more scientists. Farming techs, including Hydroponic Farms, can support twice as many pops as normal. Also allows instant repairs at the end of each ship battle without the need for Advanced Damage Control.
 * Democracy [7]: research and income advantages, which can help mitigate the lack of Unification's 50% mineral production bonus via more frequent purchases. Also allows for the use of morale-boosting technologies and leader skills unlike Unification.
 * Large Homeword [1]: increases max homeworld population, and thus, homeworld farming, production, and research. Also helps provide more of a buffer against pollution until pollution-reducing technologies are developed.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

DictCreCybRichArtiSci
Yet another Creative Cybernetic build, this one focuses more heavily on short-mid-term research, in which each scientist generates 6 science from the start (compared to DemoCreCybLge's 4.5 science per scientist). Here, the loss of Unification's +50% food production bonus is of little consequence thanks to the mineral rich homeworld pick.
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Cybernetic [4]: fewer farmers means more scientists. Farming techs, including Hydroponic Farms, can support twice as many pops as normal. Also allows instant repairs at the end of each ship battle without the need for Advanced Damage Control.
 * Dictatorship [0]: Chosen over Unification because it can benefit from morale-boosting technology.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: increases early homeworld production.
 * Artifacts Homeworld [3]: +2 research per scientist, on the homeworld only. Very good early-game.
 * +1 Science [3]: +1 research per scientist. More valuable in the mid-game onwards, as more research is being conducted away from the homeworld.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

Creative Unifications
Like the Aquatic, Cybernetic, Lithovore, and +1 or +2 Farming picks mentioned above, Unification governments by themselves can also serve to cut down on the need for farmers through their +50% farming bonus. However, their additional +50% production bonus also helps them in other ways, such as more quickly building all the various buildings that Creatives get, expanding to new colonies when the need arises, and building ships and defenses to help fend off other empires (and in the case of races with the Cybernetic and Lithovore picks listed above, reducing the amount of miners they need to support their populations). Though not able to play as "tall" as other Creatives that have population-capacity-boosting picks like Aquatic or Subterranean, non-Aquatic, non-Subterranean Creative Unifications could still afford to play "taller" than non-creative Unifications (particularly by developing their colonies' infrastructure even further with techs that non-Creatives might miss out on, such as Cloning Centers/Soil Enrichment), whilst fielding a smaller force of well-designed ships that other Creative empires may typically possess (especially if these empires survive long enough), especially since, while not cheap, Unification's reasonable cost of 6 points grants Creative Unification races enough points to spend not only on picks that further increase their worlds' population capacities (such as the aforementioned Aquatic or Subterranean picks mentioned above), or further reduce their reliance upon farmers (such as the aforementioned Cybernetic, +1 Farming, or, again, Aquatic picks mentioned above), but to further bolster their production and research capabilities with picks like rich or artifacts homeworld, or +1/+2 Production and/or Research (though keep in mind that Unification's +50% bonuses to farming and mining are more impactful bonuses in the long-term than even flat +1 or +2 bonuses to food and production, since they also improve the bonuses from technologies and infrastructure). The biggest downside for Unifications, especially Creative Unifications, is perhaps their inability to benefit from morale-boosting technologies like Holo Simulator (though said technologies tend to start appearing late) or leaders with the Spiritual skill, while their difficulty assimilating conquered peoples within reasonably-short timeframes is their 2nd most notable flaw (which is only really a hindrance from the mid-game onwards, when empires start to attempt to conquer eachother, though pairing Unification with the Telepathic pick would make even this a moot point).

UniCreLgeRichProd
This avoids the gamble on getting "wet" planets, at the cost of reduced farming efficiency and reduced population capacity on the homeworld (compared with Aquatics). Its industrial advantages help it to colonize faster, but feeding the new colonists without Aquatic's additional farming bonus will reduce its early research. The food problem can be minimized by moving population from the new colonies to the homeworld, but that has lower population capacity than UniAquaCre so UniCreLgeRichProd needs to get a good large planet as early as possible to avoid a slowdown in either research or population growth - getting such a planet often involves killing a Space Monster and the Rich Homeworld helps in building a monster-killing fleet.
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * +1 Industry [3]: the homeworld builds Colony Ships and Colony Bases faster, and new colonies get going faster.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: increasing homeworld production.
 * Large Homeword [1]: this also increases the production level at which pollution starts to bite into production.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

UniCreLgeRichArti
This race sacrifices UniCreLgeRichProd's industrial bonus in favor of faster research, in order to reach as quickly as possible the tech levels at which Creative gets really useful bonus techs; the industrial sacrifice mainly affects new colonies, since the homeworld is Rich. Like UniCreLgeRichProd, it avoids the gamble on getting "wet" planets, at the cost of reduced farming efficiency and reduced population capacity on the homeworld (compared with Aquatics). And it also needs get a good large planet as early as possible, if necessary by killing a Space Monster. Spaceport (increases a colony's tax income by 50% when built) is a very useful early tech for this race, enabling it to compensate for colonies' industrial weakness by buying things when half-built. [The counter-argument in favor of +1 Science over Artifacts is that a home world that's Rich+Large -AND- has Artifacts can only fully benefit from one or the other of those advantages, not both. But +1 Science is empire-wide.]
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Artifacts Homeworld [3]: +2 research per scientist, on the homeworld only. Better than +1 Science [3] for this race, because: the lack of an industrial bonus makes the colonies slow to get into research; being non-Tolerant, this race can't produce flat out on the homeworld, and Artifacts Homeworld maximizes the productivity of the few scientists it has while it's building colonies.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: increasing homeworld production.
 * Large Homeword [1]: this also increases the production level at which pollution starts to bite into production.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

UniCreProdSci
This race gambles on getting good planets in the home star system -- because your homeworld gets Poor resources. Of course, if this gamble fails, you'll know as soon as the game starts, so you can always begin another game ...

This race's positive picks are:
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * +1 Production [3]
 * +1 Research [3]

It uses different negative picks to the other Unification races listed in this guide. Instead of Repulsive, low Ground Combat and low Ship Defense, it goes with Repulsive, low Spying, and Poor Home World. Hey, if you're going to be Repulsive, why weaken your military capability? And while having techs stolen through spying is annoying, Unification government gives defensive spying bonuses, so you'll lose no more than a handful of your techs before you have enough resources to build a few defensive spies and/or upgrade your spying capabilities. Forget offensive spying; you're a research monster, you shouldn't need it.

A possible variation is to drop the Production and Research bonuses and take Subterranean instead. This allows a much bigger population per planet, but that takes time to build up, whereas the +1s give you benefits at the start. Since the biggest weakness of Creative races is often at the start, take Subterranean at your own risk. Note also that, when your research gets to Androids, your non-Subterranean planets get a pop limit that's the same as Subterranean races.

You might also want to drop Repulsive and take other negative picks to get some better Leaders applying to you. But again, they will cost you a fair bit of money early in the game, when you least want to be impeded. As a Creative, you won't want or need to exchange much tech.

Your tactic should be to build colony bases on all useful planets in your home star system before sending out scouts; look for Rich or Ultra-Rich planets over Large or fertile planets, as you will soon have techs to increase population size, and until you do, excess people can be shipped to other planets. If playing Pre-warp, it's a toss-up whether to start your research on Research Lab and Automated Factories, or to go straight to Freighters and Hydroponic Farms to support those colony bases. Feel free to experiment.

UniCreSci2
Another variant of the previous races that trades off production for more empire-wide research. A good Pre-Warp race, as well as 'End Game Perfectionist' build - you'll never feel anxious about research! Unification provides the food needed to have massive pools of researchers as well as grants a production bonus that gets your structures/colony ships built fast. The focus is to leverage your science research to quickly unlock better production bonuses, research bonuses, farming bonuses (to support more researchers) and to get Android workers ASAP.
 * Creative [8]
 * Unification [6]
 * Scientific Research +2 [6]
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: (the standard negative picks.)


 * Large Home World [1] (SP variant, though it uses 21 picks so the overall score will be 90%.)

Variant: take Artifact World [3] and +1 Research [3] instead. Faster research initially in the early game, but loses its edge vs the +2 Research perk as your other planets reach their population limits (ie. +2 science is like having a free supercomputer per world, whereas +1 science is like a free research lab).

This race is tailor made for executing the fun Creative Android Gambit strategy.

Creative Democracies and other Research-Heavy Creatives (Basically Psilon 2.0 Builds)
Without the benefits of additional food production (like Aquatic, Unification, or +1/+2 Farming), or reduced food consumption (like Cybernetic or Lithovore), any kinds of racial builds, including Creative builds (and especially Creative builds) might be hard-pressed with freeing up enough farmers to devote their time and effort towards research or production (again, recall that basic civilizations without any food bonuses or the Cybernetic or Lithovore picks on a standard Terran homeworld would need to dedicate half of their population to food production in order to feed everyone), which would necessitate early-game research-rushing for Soil Enrichment. However, in terms of the amount of farmers freed up to be usable as miners or scientists, Soil Enrichment would likely have a greater impact upon these non-Unification, non-Aquatic builds compared with Aquatic builds, or even with Unification builds, especially when these builds have bonuses in production and/or research. Moreover, these race builds with research bonuses, like Democratic Creatives, and/or Creatives with +1 or +2 research bonuses, and/or Creatives with artifacts on their homeworld, might be able to get the most out of their Creative pick by quickly researching all the techs they'd need in order to not only make up for their early-game disadvantages, but to also dominate their corner of the galaxy with just a small fleet of highly-advanced, well-designed ships.

DemoCreRichArti
This build is a very fast creative research build in the early-game, able to churn out 7.5 science per pop at the start, thanks to a combination of Democracy's +50% research and the Artifacts homeworld's +2 research per pop (the archetypical Psilon 2.0 build if you will, which beats out the base-game Psilon race's 6 science per pop from just the artifacts homeworld and +1 Science picks), and also comes with the added early-game production bonuses stemming from a rich homeworld to boot. Though lacking in food production compared to the Unification, Aquatic, Cybernetic, and Lithovore builds above, 7.5 science per pop while half the population are farmers manages to produce 12.5% more science than 5 science per pop while 1/3rd of the population are farmers (basically Unification/Aquatic/+1 Farming plus +2 Research/Artifacts Homeworld). Besides, research-rushing Soil Enrichment could help mitigate the food production problem, freeing up more farmers for additional science and mining, while the rich homeworld pick helps with getting the Soil Enrichment improvement (along with other things, even without the benefit of Unification's production bonus) built on the homeworld more quickly. Democracy's +50% income can further help mitigate the lack of Unification's +50% mineral production bonus by allowing more frequent purchasing of half-built buildings, ships, etc., and can also help with dealing with maintenance costs before needing to research and build Spaceports or Planetary Stock Exchanges.
 * Creative [8]: gets all the techs at each level.
 * Democracy [7]: research and income advantages, which can help mitigate the lack of Unification's 50% mineral production bonus via more frequent purchases. The lack of Unification's +50% food production bonus can be mitigated by researching and producing Soil Enrichment early.
 * Artifacts Homeworld [3]: +2 research per scientist, on the homeworld only. Very good early-game.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: increasing homeworld production. Helps with the lack of Unification's +50% mineral production bonus until the start of the mid-game.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

UniTol
The classic UniTol build works well in most starting positions (good or bad); its gamble is that a nearby aggressor will not take advantage of UniTol's slow early research by blitzing it. UniTol should expand fast in the beginning to gain population and research and build Soil Enrichment early (1 extra food per farmer), so that it can move some people off farming.


 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Tolerant [10]: no pollution so can build flat out when desired; similar maximum populations to UniAqua
 * +1 Industry [3]: this race is even more production-oriented, because it's also Tolerant.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: use that last pick.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

UniAquaProd2
A gambler's race: if this race finds a few "wet" planets (Tundra, Ocean, Swamp, Terran) early in the game, it quickly becomes a monster in both production and research. In this case it should research and build Cloning Centers early to maximize population growth.


 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Aquatic [5]: better farming and higher population capacity on wet planets
 * +2 Industry [6]: this race is production-oriented!
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: increasing homeworld production.
 * Large Homeword [1]: use that last pick.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

A variant of this race has only +1 Industry and adds +50% Population Growth.

DemoLithArti
The fastest possible early research (if you ignore Creative's "two for the price of one" deals), and improved cash income to buy items. Its main weakness is having no traits that increase maximum populations. Biospheres (increase maximum population by 2 when built) and later Terraforming will be important to it. This race does best if it can kill a Space Monster that's guarding a planet with a large population capacity early in the game; its research advantages will provide the tools to do this. Later in the mid-game Android Workers/Scientists will boost its population (Androids are Tolerant, so you can add Androids to a colony that has reached its maximum biological population). DemoLithArti has no industrial production bonus, but it should be able to research and build Automated Factories and Robo-Miners very quickly, and its cash advantage enables it to buy things when half-built.
 * Democratic [7]: extra research and cash; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Lithovore [10]: no farmers needed, allows the player to have more scientists
 * Artifacts Homeworld [3]: +2 research on homeworld; assumes that this race will get Research Labs and Supercomputers by the time other colonies are ready to start researching.
 * Repulsive [-6]: -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2] - the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

DictLithSubArti
Researches fast and can also build up a large population - but quite weak at early production and expansion. It gets Automated Factories very quickly to compensate for its weaker production. After that it should research either Robo-Miners to boost production or Cloning Centers to take advantage of its high maximum populations.
 * Dictatorship [0]: the best government this race can afford, since its other positive traits are expensive; suffers morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Lithovore [10]: no farmers needed, allows the player to have more scientists
 * Subterranean [6]: gives the largest boost to maximum populations.
 * Artifacts Homeworld [3]: +2 research on homeworld; assumes that this race will get Research Labs and Supercomputers by the time other colonies are ready to start researching.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: use that last Pick; maximizes the number of scientists that get the benefit of Artifacts Homeworld.
 * Repulsive [-6]: -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2] - the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

A variation of the above works very well. Substitute Industrial Production +1 [3] for the Artifacts Homeworld [3]. When you start out, research the Research Laboratory, Scout Lab, and Planetary Supercomputer before researching any other items. Of course, build these items on the colonies and aboard every ship - including the Scout ships. Having these in place, other items will research very quickly.

The secret power of this race, which some call a bug or the Mega-Morph race, rebuilds itself end-game: when getting evolutionary mutation and taking Cybernetic, the lithovore pick gets reimbursed, since it cannot go together with cybernetic. You can then also deselect cybernetic if you do not want it. Now you can spend a lot of points to morph into a warrior race ready for war. You can also keep a few points unspent from the start so you can take more expensive picks like Telepathic or possibly Transdimensional. Your empire will require food from this point, so have freighters and food ready for them on the turn that you morph. You get the benefit from the early lithovore boost, and later, with a large empire, it's easier to ready Gaias for food. You can morph into Stealthy/Warlord/Telepathetic/+spy/+ship attack race with this trick after building a strong empire.

DemoSubLgRichArti
Combines the cash-generating Democracy with the large populations of the Subterranean; In a Pre-warp game, increase the tax to 50% and use Trade Goods while you research to get the Research Laboratory. You can build up a huge cash reserve. Once the Research Laboratory is researched, set the taxes to 0%, build the laboratory and use the 50% purchase methodology. Key technologies to research would be Automatic Factories, Hydroponic Farms, Soil Enrichment, First level Chemistry and First and Second levels Power (to get the Colony ships) and Terraforming (to expand planet capacities). While you research these, build Battleships packed with Nuclear Missiles (2 shot), Extended Fuel Tanks and Battle Pods (if you have researched them already). While the armor will be basic, these ships can launch enough missiles to overcome any monsters guarding the great systems (Ultra-rich and/or Gaia planets). Build two ships and a Colony ship (once you have researched it) and go planet hunting. Replace ships which get destroyed in combat. When meeting with the other computer players, use Diplomacy to get treaties in place to keep them off of your worlds. With good colony management, you can keep the tax rate at 0% (for speedy production) while researching the technologies like crazy. With careful buying at 50%, you can grow into a monster empire.


 * Democratic [7]: extra research and cash; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Subterranean [6]: gives the largest boost to maximum populations.
 * Artifacts Homeworld [3]: +2 research on homeworld.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: base production 5 per worker.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: can be used to maximize the number of scientists that get the benefit of Artifacts Homeworld and then move to production as needed.
 * Low-G World [-5]: -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Attack [-2] - This way the ships defending your worlds will not be penalized.

UniAquaProdSci
This race gambles on getting early "wet" planets, and becomes a monster if it gets a few. This race is also a very dangerous blitzer if it finds a less advanced empire nearby - it's not the fastest to build ships initially, but speeds up as it researches and builds Robo-miners; then each warship it makes is probably better than the last because it researches fast.
 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Aquatic [5]: better farming and higher population capacity
 * +1 Industry [3]: good but not extreme production.
 * +1 Science [3]: good but not extreme research.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: maximizes homeworld production.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

DemoAquaCash1
This unusual race is sometimes described as a research race but it's really more of a balanced race: it sacrifices part of its potential research advantage to generate very serious money, and makes extreme use of the "buy when half-built" technique to get fast production. It can and should get Automated Factories very quickly to increase the rate at which it can "buy when half-built". Maximizing population growth will maximize both the cash advantage (more taxpayers), and its research; so Cloning Centers are important for this race. If its neighborhood contains high-capacity planets guarded by Space Monsters, it must use its research and cash advantages to produce monster-killing fleets quickly. If there are few "wet" planets nearby, Terraforming is important a little later in the game, and this race can afford to buy rapid completion of Terraforming projects; this may make it less of a gamble than Aquatic usually is.
 * Democratic [7]: extra research and cash; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Aquatic [5]: better farming and higher population capacity on "wet" planets.
 * +1 BC [8]: usually a poor choice, but this race is designed to make good use of it.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2] - the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

DemoSubCash0.5Rich
A variant of the DemoAquaCash1 build above, this focuses even more on larger population capacities on not just the homeworld, but also on less-habitable planets, regardless of how "wet" or "dry" they are (with the biggest population capacity increases happening on low-habitability planets like Barren, Desert, Tundra, Ocean, Radiated, and Toxic planets). Although it swaps the Aquatic pick for the Subterranean pick for this purpose, this, unfortunately, also means sacrificing Aquatic's +1 food bonus from the homeworld, meaning that Soil Enrichment would be an early-game priority for this build. (Unfortunately, non-Creative builds will have to choose between Soil Enrichment and Cloning Centers, and must spy, trade, or conquer for the other if they want both.) Moreover, in order to free up enough points to make the build legal, despite switching from Aquatic to Subterranean whilst also keeping the Democratic government pick, it, unfortunately, has to downgrade its cash income per pop (before accounting for Democracy's +50% income multiplier) from +1 BC to +0.5 BC, though the addition of Rich Homeworld should help make up for this loss with some additional early-game production from the homeworld to more quickly expand to other planets.
 * Democratic [7]: extra research and cash; no morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Subterranean [6]: higher population capacity on all planets, especially low-habitability planets.
 * +0.5 BC [5]: usually a poor choice, but this race is designed to make good use of it.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: Spends the last 2 picks for an early-game +2 mineral bonus on the homeworld.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2] - the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

CybUniTol
This combination mitigates early starting position risks. The strategy is to colonize all nearby planets rapidly and develop an equilibrium for population upkeep based on planetary traits. As Freighter Fleets and Hydroponic Farms are twice as effective at providing food to population, food production is increased, planetary populations are maximized and pollution does not eat into production, a rapid early expansion using colony bases on ALL available planets is possible. The key to using this combination of picks is to power build yourself into a strong position via multiple planets.
 * Cybernetic [4] The main advantage is splitting population upkeep between food and production for a versatile opening based on what planets are available.
 * Unification [6] Provides a farming and production advantage, which is convenient for feeding your cybernetic race with minimal population investment.
 * Tolerant [10] Maximizes planetary populations and mitigates pollution, allowing all planets in a system to be colonized early via colony bases.
 * Repulsive [-6], -10 Ground combat [-2], -20 Ship Defense [-2]: the standard negative picks, to get the total down to / below 10.

WarDictSubProdSciFarm
Similar to the previous race, this strategy involves settling all planets. You get food, production and science bonuses along with large population, so early on you can easily readjust the focus of each planet's economy as needed. Desert and Swamp planets will be able to support large populations, even without being terraformed. Warlord gives you additional CPs even without a Starbase, so you can support a large early fleet if necessary. By mid-game once you have terraforming, pollution-control and planetary supercomputer, this race grows into a versatile juggernaut.
 * Warlord [4] A very nice early CP boost that will continue to make itself felt throughout the game. The extra planetary troops and boosts to your leader's experience are just icing on the cake.
 * Dictatorship [0] Later in the game when you form the Imperium, your CP limit is going to max out even higher with this build.
 * Subterranean [6] Maximizes planetary population. More farmers, workers and scientists, all paying taxes. Basically means you can act as both a Production or Research race as you see fit.
 * Production +1 [3] Speaks for itself.
 * Science +1 [3] Ditto.
 * Farming +1 [3] Allows you to keep even more population engaged in Production and Research early on.
 * Repulsive [-6], -20 Ship Defense [-2], -20 Ship Attack [-2]: both combat penalties are essentially negated by the Warlord's bonus crew experience. This makes the Warlord's bonus somewhat less good - consider removing the science bonus to at least save one of those maluses.

DicSubProdSciLgRich
Similar to the two previous races, this strategy involves settling all planets. You get production and science bonuses along with large population, so early on you can easily readjust the focus of each planet's economy as needed. Desert and Swamp planets will be able to support large populations, even without being terraformed. Since most battles are won or lost in space, the Low-G World option is used to balance out the picks. Food technologies, Pollution control and Command point boosting techs are essential to growing your empire.
 * Dictatorship [0]: the best government this race can afford. Suffers morale penalty at new colonies.
 * Subterranean [6]: maximizes planetary population. More farmers, workers and scientists, all paying taxes. Basically means you can act as both a Production or Research race as you see fit.
 * Production +1 [3]: Helps boost economy of poor and ultra-poor. Makes an industrial juggernaut out of a large rich or large ultra-rich world.
 * Science +1 [3]: Helps research for all worlds. When combined with a research colony leader on a large world with mostly scientists, makes for a monster of research. Poor and Ultra-poor worlds are ideal for this.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: base production 5 per worker.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: can be used to maximize the number of scientists or move to production as needed.
 * Low-G World [-5]: balances the Picks

Blitz races
This section is about "glory or death". You either attack early and conquer, gaining advantage through assimilated alien homeworlds, or you risk falling seriously behind. The blitz races described here are strongest in densely packed galaxies, where several enemy empires are fairly close. They are risky in more disparate galaxies, as the longer it takes for you to reach your victim the longer he has to build better defenses. They are usually hopeless if you cannot conquer at least one (or more) enemy homeworld(s) in the early game and thereby gain a meaningful industrial or technological advantage.

Blitzers often profit the most from early-game military advantages gained from Racial Picks or through research; they rely on successful conquest to offset not taking other Picks or researching technologies that give more long-term benefits. Conquered and assimilated alien populations bestow the benefits of their respective Racial Picks on their new ruler (note: Feudal research penalty always applies even against assimilated alien research bonuses). Thus the successful blitzer makes the alien racial strengths his own.

Blitzers' chances are best in Advanced Start games and worst in pre-Warp games:
 * In pre-Warp games they have to research all the basic space travel and combat techs, and most blitz races are inherently weak(er) in research. Advanced Start and Average Tech games give them those techs for free (these are all "general" tech levels, i.e. even Uncreatives get all the techs in these levels).
 * The free Battleship all races get in Advanced Start games is also a big help to blitz races, as they've often sacrificed production as well as research to gain combat bonuses. Indeed, certain blitz races might only be viable in Advanced Start games.

Warlord
You simply gotta have this. The Warlord trait [4 Picks] was made for blitzing: it gives nice exp bonuses for your ships, which essentially translates into combat bonuses, plus allows large fleets without building starbases, fleets that grow in size with each subsequent conquest. The Ship Attack and Ship Defense bonuses alone would cost 5 Picks if chosen separately (but keep in mind that the warlord bonus is smaller, unless the crew is Ultra Elite). Your ships built without a Space Academy have "normal" crews rather than "green", very useful especially when considering you will likely be facing "green" enemies. But even more importantly the extra command points added with each new conquest enable Warlord races to rapidly expand their fleet using the fastest way of getting firepower into space, which is a lot of small ships. A small horde of Destroyers armed with fighters or missiles early on while your neighbor is still weak is quite fearsome. Overwhelm your enemy through sheer numbers and firepower. Indeed, this balloon-like fleet expansion and time-advantage over the need to build starbases is so great, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say non-Warlords are by definition no longer (effective) blitzers.

Thus, now that we have established that irrefutable fact, blitz races can be divided into 2 main groups, Telepathic and non-Telepathic, as outlined hereafter.

Telepathic Blitzers
For Telepathic races the name of the game is mind control, effectively making the need for invasion troops redundant. You will need a Cruiser or larger warship to mind control an enemy planet (another reason why Advanced Start is good for blitzers). However mind control will not work if the target planet has either a telepathic population or a telepathic leader. Mind control also brings the added bonus of being able to instantly use a captured enemy ship or starbase while still in combat. Mind control has several advantages over more conventional planetary invasion troops:
 * There's no need to spend construction effort and Command Points on Troop Transports.
 * Command Points are critical, as early empires have very few Command Points and can be ruined financially if they try to operate invasion fleets in excess of their Command Points.
 * Troop Transports don't have extended fuel tanks. Not needing them means you don't suffer from this.
 * Construction effort is critical: your own planets can concentrate on research or other beneficial production instead of supporting your military troop buildup.
 * You spend the picks and research you would otherwise need for effective assault troops on other things. Win/win.
 * The conquered colonists assimilate instantly: they work, farm and research at 100% immedately, so they're an asset; they won't rebel, so the telpathic blitzer can build defenses immediately and let its ships move on to new conquests.

Common racial Picks to offset the cost of Telepathic are:
 * -10 Ground [-2]: mostly you have little need for troops (notable exception: capturing enemy ships/starbases), unless there is another telepathic race.
 * Low-G [-5]: same as for -ground, you will likely not need to invade when you can mind control. As soon as you assimilate an enemy race, you can use their colonists without the low-grav penalty anyways.
 * -10 spying [-3]: A pick that is (largely) offset by the telepathic spying bonus.

TeleDictCreaRichWar
Like other creative races listed above, this race is good for all-around strategy, while the Telepathic, Warlord and Creative traits make it an excellent blitzer as well. You do not need to waste production on Transports or worry about choosing between technologies. This means almost from the get-go you will have Fighter Bays, Tritanium Armor and your ships get extra experience bonuses from Warlord to boot. Not to mention Dauntless Guidance System (good for blitzing using missiles).
 * Telepathic [6]: mind control / diplomacy bonus / spying bonus
 * Dictatorship [0]: advantage in defensive spying, Free pick with the ability for extra command points. Imperium effectively grants a 20% morale bonus to all planets with Marine Barracks. Also enables an extra global 10% morale bonus from the Psionic tech.
 * Creative [8]: You get all the best blitzing techs from your normal research pathc anyways, and you get to leverage that. "Have tech - will blitz" should be your motto.
 * Warlord [4]: more skillful warship crews; extra command points and your CP limit increases automatically with each conquest.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: helps to build ships faster, and use up those last 2 picks.
 * -10 Ground [-2]: little need for ground units, other than ship capture.
 * Low-G [-5]: Gravity generator tech eventually available for all creatives.
 * -10 spying [-3]: nullified by both dictatorship and telepathic.

TeleUniLrgArtiWar
This race gets a research bonus on their homeworld, which is leveraged using Large Homeworld. Unification also grants farm and production bonuses. Warlord + Telepathic means the first alien race you encounter is likely toast. This biggest downside of this race is being forced to make some painful early tech choices that will affect your blitz strategy (fighters vs reinforced hull, tritanium armor vs deuterium fuel cells, fusion drive vs augmented engines). However, this is a race that can still potentially pull off a blitz strategy in a Pre-Warp game.
 * Telepathic [6]: mind control / diplomacy bonus / spying bonus
 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages; no morale penalty at new colonies (captured, of course; blitzers don't build colonies!).
 * Warlord [4]: more skillful warship crews; extra command points and your CP limit increases automatically with each conquest.
 * Artifacts World [3]: gives your scientists +2 research bonus on your homeworld.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: extra space on your homeworld for extra scientists.
 * Low Gravity [-5], -10 Spying [-3] and -10 Ground Combat [-2]: you need 10 negative picks with this race to balance the positive ones. You should be working towards assimilating new colonists by mind-control conquest early on, so both Low Grav and negative Ground Combat are fairly painless choices for this build. The spying penalty is offset by both the Telepathic and Unification spying bonuses.

Note: There is a variant of this race that substitutes Trans Dimensional for Warlord + Large Homeworld. Although their ships and fighters are faster, the CP limit can be problematic early on, since it will only increase at the pace that new space stations can be built.

TeleDictCybLrgRichArtiWar
A variant of TeleUniLrgArtiWar, this build substitutes Unification for not only Rich Homeworld (to make up for the loss of Unification's +50% production bonus), but also the Cybernetic pick, not only to substitute half of the population's food consumption for mineral consumption (freeing up farmers for other tasks, like Unification's +50% farming bonus), but also to supplement the Telepathic and Warlord traits with the ability to instantly repair ships to full health after each battle (as if Advanced Damage Control was researched), speeding up the process of conquest faster by not having to wait for your ships to repair after every battle.
 * Telepathic [6]: mind control / diplomacy bonus / spying bonus
 * Dictatorship [0]: the best government that this build could afford; morale penalty at colonies unless barracks are built.
 * Cybernetic [4]: substitutes half of food consumption for mineral consumption, freeing up farmers for production and research. Ships auto-repair after battle!
 * Warlord [4]: more skillful warship crews; extra command points and your CP limit increases automatically with each conquest.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: gives your miners +2 mineral bonus on your homeworld, making up for loss of Unification's +50% mining bonus.
 * Artifacts World [3]: gives your scientists +2 research bonus on your homeworld.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: extra space on your homeworld for extra scientists.
 * Low Gravity [-5], -10 Spying [-3] and -10 Ground Combat [-2]: you need 10 negative picks with this race to balance the positive ones. You should be working towards assimilating new colonists by mind-control conquest early on, so both Low Grav and negative Ground Combat are fairly painless choices for this build. The spying penalty is offset by both the Telepathic and Dictatorship spying bonuses.

Note: There is a variant of this race that substitutes Trans Dimensional for Warlord + Large Homeworld. Although their ships and fighters are faster, the CP limit can be problematic early on, since it will only increase at the pace that new space stations can be built.

TeleDictTolWar
Being Tolerant gives this race a lot of options, as it isn't hampered by pollution. The Warlord/Telepathic bonuses allows you to expand your fleet as you quickly conquer new territory.
 * Telepathic [6]: mind control / diplomacy bonus / spying bonus
 * Dictatorship [0]: doesn't gimp our research like Feudal would, otherwise we are taking it for the low cost.
 * Tolerant [10]: no pollution. Throw every available colonist into cranking out warships.
 * Warlord [4]: combat and CP bonuses.
 * You need to take 10 negative picks with this race. Use the same 3 negative traits recommended for the previous race (for the same reasons).

TeleDictLrgTransStealthWar
This race allows you to combine mind control with a large fleet of invisible, speedy ships to weave a cunning strategy of stealth and uncertainty. Remember, stealth-ships doesn't work on troop transports, but because of mind-control you don't need them! Where will your ships attack next? Where is your fleet? Which of your planets are undefended? Your opponent will only find out the answers to those questions the hard way. Transdimensional allows you to even wage an aggressive war of conquest during a Hyperspace Flux, while the enemy fleet is stuck in-system! You will need the racial bonuses of your opponent to boost your economy and research, once you have assimilated his planets.
 * Telepathic [6]: mind control / diplomacy bonus / spying bonus
 * Dictatorship [0]: doesn't gimp our research like Feudal would, otherwise we are taking it for the low cost.
 * Stealthy Ships [4]: all military ships are invisible on the galaxy map, until they arrive in an enemy-occupied system. Doesn't work on your colony ships, outpost ships, or troop transports.
 * Transdimensional [5]: all ships +2 speed on the galaxy map, +5 speed in battle; ships unaffected by Hyperspace Flux.
 * Warlord [4]: combat and CP bonuses.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: use the last pick.
 * You need to take 10 negative picks with this race. Use the same 3 negative traits already recommended.

TeleAquaFeuLrgFoodWar
This race has some interesting strengths: 2/3 ship production cost, increased combat and CP bonuses, and gets the telepathic bonuses for diplomacy/spying/mind-control. As well, each citizen generates extra food, both from being Aquatic and +1 Farming, which will allow us to move a lot of population into either research or production as needed. Being Aquatic auto-upgrades any Terran-class planets to Gaia-class, which fits perfectly with this strategy since you will soon be seeking out and capturing enemy homeworlds anyways. You need to concentrate on a fighter-carrier research strategy before your neighbor can put up a strong defense. The major downside is the 50% research penalty, making a lot of mid-level techs hard to get to until we have Planetary Supercomputer. Thus it works best in an Advanced Start game where you begin with a battleship and can start your first war pronto.
 * Telepathic [6]: mind control planet capture and spying bonuses.
 * Feudal [-4]: ship construction costs 67%; research per scientist 50%.
 * Aquatic [5]: increases food production and max population on swamp/tundra/terran/ocean worlds.
 * Warlord [4]: increased combat experience bonuses and CP increase automatically with each.
 * +1 Farming []: generates even more food per farmer, so you can move pop to workers or scientists as needed.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: Use that extra pick to leverage your Gaia homeworld bonuses.
 * Repulsive [-6]: we conquer our neighbors, so who needs diplomacy?

Non-Telepathic Blitzers
A very real problem early on for non-telepathic blitzers is that, unlike colony ships and outpost ships, your troop transports don't get Extended Fuel Tanks ever. This means that Deuterium Fuel Cells is almost an obligatory tech to research for effective blitzing. Even so, you might often need to establish a friendly outpost in the most distant hostile systems first before you can send in your troop transports. Defending such an outpost as your transports are en route can majorly slow down your expansion (as well as invite enemy counter-attack), and waste a lot of precious turns in what might initially seem to be an easily winnable war. If the system you are trying to conquer only has a single planet and your transports happen to be out of reach... U R screwed.

A non-Telepathic blitz race must be able to find a good, warlike way of using the 6 Picks saved from not choosing Telepathic. Otherwise you would be better served either going with a telepathic race, or not blitzing at all.

CreaFeudTolRich
description

FeudTolProd2War
description

Starship Troopers
This race's "warships" carry nothing but marines - made tough by growing up on a High-G World. 4 empty Frigates (no weapons, just grunts; the frigates close in faster that way) board a star base and capture it. The Troop Transports carry more High-G tough guys who capture the enemy colony. This does not work if the enemy has more than just a starbase, as ship to ship boarding is only possible when the target is immobilized and planet-based defenses can't be boarded at all. Depending on the situation to continue the boarding strategy you would need to bring some firepower/assault shuttles/tractor beams/transporters.
 * High-G World [6]: tougher marines
 * Warlord [4]: more skillful warship crews; extra command points (probably only 2 extra, as this race probably only has its homeworld before it attacks).
 * Unification [6]: farming and production advantages; no morale penalty at captured colonies.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: build warships faster.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: use the last pick.

Alternative:
 * High-G World [6]: tougher marines
 * Warlord [4]: more skillful warship crews; extra command points (probably only 2 extra, as this race probably only has its homeworld before it attacks).
 * Dictatorship [0]: Marine Barracks are a must for Starship troopers anyway, so there is no drawback here
 * Better ground combat [3]: With another additional ground combat pick, even antaran ships get easy to board and then give their technology away.
 * Industry +1 [3]: To keep at least some of the unification bonus, without suffering all the (morale related) drawbacks.
 * Rich Homeworld [2]: build warships faster.
 * Large Homeworld [1]: use the last pick.

LithFeudWarTol
Feudal + Warlord can produce a fleet very fast, and replace destroyed ships very fast; but it needs to win quickly, otherwise Feudal's poor research (50% of normal) will be fatal. For example:
 * Feudal [-4]: ship construction costs 67%; research per scientist 50%.
 * Warlord [4]: more skilful warship crews; extra command points (probably only 2 extra, as this race probably only has its homeworld before it attacks).
 * Tolerant [10]: can build flat out because no pollution.
 * Lithovore: [10]: no farmers needed. Helps in researching the basic warship technologies, which come quickly enough despite Feudal's inefficient research But it will wait a long time for 2nd-level techologies, so it must attack as soon as possible.

Note: Impossible race to create without the 14 race picks command line switch (aka cheating) as it requires 14 negative picks.