So I tried Emperor of the Fading Suns recently, and while I've figured out some things, I still have a lot of questions that haven't been answered even with the manual. In no particular order:


1.) What do the different branches of the church do? Is there a reason why I would want to change the sect my planet(s) worship? Do I HAVE to side with the church at all? I notice the church diplomacy screen has fields to show the Vau and Symbiot sects, can I actually side with them somehow? I would love a way to overthrow the church.

2.) Is there a way I can see what the techs actually do? The short blurb on the research page doesn't always tell you much, and the archive pages are mostly lore dumps from the perspective of a church person telling you why you shouldn't research the tech. Some are obvious, but others are not.

3.) How long are games supposed to last? I played for a while, but didn't feel like anyone got anywhere.

4.) Do the Vau or Symbiots ever actually do anything? The Symbiots seem to just hang out in their closed-off section of the galaxy and don't seem capable of bypassing the Stigmata garrison, and the Vau seem content to just sit there being better than humans.

5.) I feel like I'm doing something wrong regarding planet exploration - is there a way I can lift the fog of war from a world other than just sending units along to manually explore the entire surface?

6.) How does the online multiplayer work? I could only find hotseat and PBEM.

7.) Holy Terra is a different color on the map, but I don't remember seeing any references to it in the manual and it doesn't seem to be doing anything. Does it have any significance other than lore?

8.) Do the cargo pods serve any purpose other than being able to be captured? ie, are there some things that need to have the cargo pod physically present in the location in order to use the resources?

9.) Do advanced resource buildings benefit from being close to their raw material inputs? (ie, do I get more output from my electronics cities if they're close to mines?)

10.) Is there a way I can predict the output of a resource-harvesting city before I have my engineer at the space I'm thinking of founding the city? Sometimes it's annoying to have to move the engineers around trying to find the best city location.

1) Have a look at DAT\SECT.DAT file, you can find some useful info in it.

2) Techs are meant as a way to get combat units. There are a few exceptions, like Theurgy to use relics, environment techs to have a combat bonus on relative planets.

3) That depends. To win the game you must collect votes/scepters and get elected emperor.

4) Symbiots are active, not sure about the Vau though.

5) Nope.

6) Only by PBEM.

7) Nope, it's just home system for the Church.

8) No. With warehouse off, resources usage are planet-scale. Pods are resources physically put on the map, they are not abstract.

9) No.

10) No. Cities have a collection range of 2 hexes.

Swag, thanks! Didn't know the data files were readable. ... Huh, looking at this, it feels like, of the choices available to the player, that the Incarnates are better than everyone else.

Other questions:

1.) On my first game, I always agreed to demands like "give me your votes in the next election ... or I'll make you regret it", since I assumed that for the AI to make such a threat, they probably had some means of backing it up. In my next game, I just ignored these threats and absolutely nothing happened (this has resulted in the game progressing even slower, since now no one is regent). Is there any reason to not simply ignore these threats? Does the AI ever actually follow through if I call them on their bluff?

2.) So I know that building a Palace on a planet makes it my color on the starmap, but does this actually do anything? ie, is it considered an act of war to settle cities or attack neutrals on worlds nominally controlled by someone else?

3.) I have heard that techs can be proscribed, but have not encountered any. Do any tech start as proscribed at the start of the game?

4.) What can I do to increase the output of my existing resource cities? There's only so many areas to get metal from, and I'm constantly running out of it (at least in my current playthrough as Al-Malik. In my first game as Li Halan, food was a limiting factor).

5.) In this playthrough, I decided to just zergrush the Imperial Eye fortress. This, of course, resulted in the Imperial Eye declaring war on me. Are there any consequences to this? I don't even see a way to do diplomacy with the Imperial Eye. When someone is eventually assigned to the Imperial Eye ministry, will this make them at war with me?

6.) I am aware that the League, if they get enough money, will attempt to declare the Third Republic. Since their warchest is visible publically, is the AI smart enough to stop buying things from them if they get close to their goal?

7.) I know it is possible to strike techs that are unwanted, but aside from techs that become proscribed after I had researched them, under what circumstances would I want to strike a tech?

8.) Sometimes I see techs that list as one of their benefits that Engineers can build a certain type of city - for example, the Wireblades technology says "Allows: Blademaster. Palaces can be built by Engineers." This implies to me that the tech unlocks the ability for engineers to build palaces (... not sure why, given that the tech seems unrelated to building, but whatever)... but my engineers have already been able to build palaces! Is confused.

1. In my experience, diplomacy just doesn't work well. If the AI promises to declare war on you, it will follow through. But "make you regret it" is pretty much always an empty threat. The diplomacy system, if I remember correctly does force all sides to follow through on their promises.

2. Palaces let you collect taxes. You get taxes depending on the population of the planet which is determined by the number of cities on the planet. I believe you also get taxes for cities owned by other factions, but I haven't tested that. There can only be one palace per planet and only one shield per planet, so plan accordingly. Some traits also give a +20 loyalty bonus to your UNITS if you have a noble in the palace.

3. I don't think any techs start proscribed. I'm still playing with the new patch, but the church in 1.50 was always pretty proscription heavy.

4. Build more cities. Buy resources from the Guild via the Agora building on your home world. I typically play as Hawkwood and build a lot of mines on my home planet. Food and energy are an issue. This reference chart from the old Nova mod website will help you with planning. (Edit, the URL seems to not work right. Copy and paste this: [url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180723043516/http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/machi/efs/harvest.htm]https://web.archive.org/web/20180723043516/http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/machi/efs/harvest.htm[/url] )

5. Sorry, I haven't tried this myself, so I can't comment on it.

6. In my experience, no, but again I'm not as used to 1.51. In old EFS, the AI just spammed engineers and other units (they didn't appear to have to pay construction costs so no need to buy resources).

7. None, in my opinion.

8 (unsolicited advice). Loyalty is the premier currency in this game. Lowering taxes increases production in your cities, so you'll want to choose the traits that increase city loyalty and then lower taxes to maximize production. The extra commodities you'll produce are generally more valuable the taxes. For unit loyalty, you can take traits that improve that if you have a noble in the palace (+20). Officers in the stack also give a +20 loyalty bonus against routs to units in the same stack as them. Nobles give +30, but I don't risk them, personally. In 1.5, changing the sect of the planet to match your units gave a loyalty bonus, too, but it's different now in a way that I don't yet know the details. If you do all that, you can lower unit pay significantly and still have very loyal units. The tithe skim is different now too and appears to cap loyalty.

Okej, cools, good to know.

Also, I did eventually become regent (apparently you only need a plurality of votes, not a majority, so me finding a random scepter from neutral territory made me win the election XD), and I did NOT wind up being at war with the person I appointed as the Imperial Eye, so that's good to know.

Good thinking there at the end - I came to a similar conclusion myself regarding lowering taxes, mostly because money felt kind of useless.

Your url is whacky. I got it to work by pasting: [url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180723043516/http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/machi/efs/harvest.htm]https://web.archive.org/web/20180723043516/http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/machi/efs/harvest.htm[/url]

-edit- ok that is whacky indeed! Try cutting and pasting this instead:

web.archive.org/web/20180723043516/[url=http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/machi/efs/harvest.htm]http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/machi/efs/harvest.htm[/url]

-edit #2- wtf did they do to the forum? It did not used to be so hard to post urls. Anyway... if you go into that url mess and copy out the first part that starts with http through the first time it says .htm, and paste that into your browser locater, it should work.

-edit #3 - oh it seems I might have something to add in the way of response to the question 7: I think there's a small on-going (research) charge for keeping techs that you have researched. Deleting a tech should cause it to stop charging for that tech. Or have I got this wrong?

Generally good answers on here already, but I just to clarify/expand on a few things...

3.) I have heard that techs can be proscribed, but have not encountered any. Do any tech start as proscribed at the start of the game?
The church proscribes techs based on a few different factors. The first is galactic difficulty. This is the average difficulty level of all houses. So if you play on an average of "easy", you won't get a lot of proscription. Proscription isn't a retaliation from the church. It's just random, based on difficulty level and how much they like a tech.
It IS possible for modders to make certain techs to start out as proscribed at the beginning of the game, but so far as I know only Nova2.4 does that.

5.) In this playthrough, I decided to just zergrush the Imperial Eye fortress. This, of course, resulted in the Imperial Eye declaring war on me. Are there any consequences to this? I don't even see a way to do diplomacy with the Imperial Eye. When someone is eventually assigned to the Imperial Eye ministry, will this make them at war with me?
The Eye and Imperial Fleet and Imperial Guard and the Vau are just dummy AI that don't do anything. If you attack them, they will just sit there. They literally have no AI behind them. They are also not supposed to be active. They are just placeholders until someone is elected and selected for ministry control. Stigmata does actively fight the symbiots though. But they will lose eventually if a human player doens't help them out.

7.) I know it is possible to strike techs that are unwanted, but aside from techs that become proscribed after I had researched them, under what circumstances would I want to strike a tech?
Tech maint is supposed to be deduced from your research points, and it used to in 1.40, but that got broken somewhere in 1.5. There is currently an issue report out for it here: https://github.com/HDIAndrew/EFS/issues/167

Is there a way I can predict the output of a resource-harvesting city before I have my engineer at the space I'm thinking of founding the city? Sometimes it's annoying to have to move the engineers around trying to find the best city location.
There is nothing in game like in civ for example, but you can open up some of the dat files to get a feel for resource generation. For example, if you open up mine.dat, you will see that mines don't get any metal from city planets like B2 or Leagueheim. Most ocean tiles give 3 metal and most mountain tiles give 3 metal. But grass and trees give 0 metal. Hills give 1 metal. I'm not saying it always makes sense, but this is how you can find out.
There are some other interesting ones too, like in farm.dat, you will see grass is pretty good, rivers are very good, but deserts and mountains are no good at all. But if you open up arborium.dat, these are basically like greenhouses so they are basically the same no matter where they are, except they're not good in mountains and hills.

c7.) Holy Terra is a different color on the map, but I don't remember seeing any references to it in the manual and it doesn't seem to be doing anything. Does it have any significance other than lore?
It's bright pink because that's the church's color. If you research proscribed techs, they will send inquisitors to your labs and raze them to the ground. Also if you put a spy on holy terra, you can see how much they like you (specific number) in their diplomacy screen, which is kinda cool but you already have a green bar to tell you that generally

2.) Is there a way I can see what the techs actually do? The short blurb on the research page doesn't always tell you much, and the archive pages are mostly lore dumps from the perspective of a church person telling you why you shouldn't research the tech. Some are obvious, but others are not.
As stated earlier, mostly techs are just to get you to Applied Techs which unlock units. If you go to the archive for applied techs and click on a specific tech, it will tell you which building block techs you need to research in order to get to that specific applied tech. (actually it tells you this for any tech you select, but it's most useful if for example you want Space Freighter, so you click on that one to see the fastest way to get there). Some oddball techs give special bonuses: Frozen Environment gives +2agility combat bonus on frozen planet (similar with Jungle and Barren). Theurgy unlocks relics to give bonuses for you. Symbiot Psychology gives +20% strength against symbiots. Cure for Necrosis gives a bonus to protect your units against the plague. And of course certain techs unlock certain buildings. Some units require certain non-Applied Tech techs, such as building Heavy Infantry doesn't require 1 specific tech, but requires "Infantry Legion" and "Monofilament".

Keep in mind that it may take multiple techs and the entries only tell you the next ones of the ones that are available to you. So if you're going to work towards space frigates and look at the archive's entry on space frigate on turn 1 (assuming no techs to start), it'll tell you to research physics. In reality, you're going to have to research at least physics, energy physics, electron microscope, cyclotron, monopols, singularity tech, jump drives, and a few others ones that I can't remember before you can build your first space frigate. Some units require extensive research from more than one category, too, like the archangel space fighters.

I kind of like this feature. It's not noob friendly, but it gives me that "coming out of the dark ages" feel.