What race or faction to play?

I usually create my own faction of the race of "Men" and play a created sov of the race of "men".  Why?  They can use most of the gear in the game.  Lame reason, but its the truth.

I do the same as Lord Xia.  I do strongly suggest you create your own Faction as the off-the-shelf ones they provide are inferior to one you make yourself (Tarth excluded).  To create your own Faction go through the "Workshop" menu from the main menu.  I play men for the equipment and when you conquer the cities of the other men factions their dwellings automatically upgrade to your tech levels. 

Save the game often or change the frequency of the autosave through the game menu.  Enjoy!

Thank you guys. I love creating my own Races or factions. This is just bonus now. I didn't know we could make our own factions.

Yep, creating your own factions is the way to go.  Also, I prefer further editing my factions within the .xml docs in your "My Games" folder.  It REALLY gives you more control over everything.  There, you can designate a sov for your faction, designate your faction's climate type (snow, grass, desert etc), tweak your faction's skin color and more.

Of course, I'd only recommend doing that if you're serious about customizing everything in your game... like me.

I must be an idiot (don't answer that). I had no idea you could create your own faction, although I've always used a custom sov. I'll have to try that out.

Be sure to check out my FAQ then!

https://forums.elementalgame.com/402940

There is little or no differentiation between the default factions, so you really *need* to roll your own if you want some personality injected into the game.  Even then, you are stuck with the default races (even if you use the faction "creator" - it has some pretty narrow constraints) so everything ends up feeling the same.  You'll find there is a limited set of strategies, and they all play out the same no matter what faction you use.

Now I'm sure someone will post "But they're going to make it better!"  Sure.  That's why I'm still here.  But the game in its current state is bland.

I like using the standard factions, with the Sovereign that is "assigned" to it.  No matter though, I almost always list the Kraxis as one of my enemies---I just dislike those treacherous dogs.

My favorites are Procipinee, Relias, and Kul-al-Kulan.  Carrodus is pretty good, the sentinels do help early on so you have decent guards protecting your cities.

Too bad the Sentinels are cripples, they have the worst stats of any soldiers if memory serves me.

Try out some of the Expanded Factions that HeavenFall has created:  Angels, Goblins, Elves, etc.   He has done a really good job.  Once you try the game with the mods available you won't want to play with anything else.  :)

agreed... i think angels , demons, goblins , undead (vampires,witches, ghouls) should be always part of the fantasy 4x game. infact i really hope reguardless if they are part of lore or not that KAEL will add those as core factions to the game if not for EWOM put on fallen enchantress.

Among the default factions, Capitar is really, really good.  At least until they nerf trade routes.

The fantasy genre (4x game or not) doesn't need elves, undead or anything like that. Hey, I like them (hell, I use my own versions for my mod) but they should never be a "must have". At least as long as whatever "races" are offered by the game are actually interesting and offer differences in the gameplay.

That said, I hope that Stardock, once things start really to settle down, can offer some models for other races and/or a modded new race that follows the "traditional" pattern of "elves, dwarves, trolls, orcs, goblins, skeletons, zombies, angels, demons, etc". Much like was originally planned as part of the support for modding.

How do you creat your own faction? I just have made my custom Soverign and clicked next for Factions. I don't see where I can customize them.

So how do I custom make a faction?

In the main menu's Workshop option, then select Faction Creator.

I see it now. Thank you very much. So it has to be done before you start a new game. I thought it was after when you make your Soverign.