It is first pertinent to go over what this guide likely will and will not cover and to what degree. I will attempt to cover all aspects that are essential to almost every game as Hissho to the best of my ability, but I will say that there are many guides out there that do ship design better and more in-depth than I will and that you might want to refer to those to supplement my guide with information on topics such as this. I will however cover military theory and strategy in mid to late game in-depth and touch on early game ship design as well.

This guide is based on my personal experience playing Hissho, and therefore will in many cases give tips on how to handle certain scenarios rather than give a complete and direct one-way strategy to victory. Keep this in mind when I suggest a certain course of action, and realize that there are sometimes better options depending on the situation you are in, and that my goal is to cover the majority of situation, not all. I play with all DLC except Awakening enabled, so I will not be talking about mechanics present in Awakening.

With all that out of the way, let us begin.

When playing Hissho, you need to keep these basic mechanics in mind, as they dictate the basis of Hissho strategy. First, Keii.

Keii is a resource represented in game by a red feather. It in essence represents how obedient your empire is, and replaces approval. As a result, things normally handled by system or empire approval are either reworked or ignored, including:

• You do not receive any penalties for settling less inhabitable planets, like lava or gas.
  
• Systems cannot rebel.
  
• As Keii is empire-wide, it is the same in every system.
  
• Going over your colonization cap does not penalize Keii, and instead gives a -5% FIDSI penalty on systems.
  
• Keii applies empire-wide modifiers at certain percentages similarly to approval, but many more things rely on being loyal or devoted as Hissho in my experience. As a result, try to keep you Keii above 70 and ideally above 85 as much as possible.
  
• Development luxuries that normally give approval give FIDS instead. Check the chapter on system development for more information.

To gain Keii:

• Winning space battles gives Keii based on how fair the fight is, up to 10. You get 10 also if the battle is in the enemy's favor and you lose, but destroy ships in the process.
  
• Ground battles give Keii. Razing systems gives 5,and subduing them (the Hissho equivalent of looting) gives 10, however subduing the same system will give reduced Keii for a certain amount of time. Beating up pirate lairs gives lots as well.
  
• Every quest gives 5 Keii.
  
• Some of these can be boosted by laws, Behemoths, actions, being at war, etc.

Keii is lost by:

• Retreating. Retreating in a space battle loses you 10 Keii. 10 may not seem like much, but it is certainly worth more than your ships in almost every case, so you should ALMOST NEVER retreat. Just take the loss, you can replace the ships in like 1-2 turns in most cases anyways.
  
• Losing systems or surrendering systems.
  
• Offering peace, truces, alliances and other such friendly diplomatic actions. (Keii is NOT lost when these are offered to you, or when you propose them but they are rejected by another party)
  
• There are ways to spend Keii, but they will be talked about in detail in other sections of the guide (Keii actions, laws, government type switches, Fealty Centers, etc.).

Second, details about the faction itself. The Hissho should be played tall. This means no massive empire of systems to rule and manage, and instead a couple of very specialized systems. The reason the Hissho are so well tailored to tall play is because they have a very low colonization cap, lose FIDSI for going over, can boost their home system's output to ridiculous levels, and because of Hatched at Home, which is a law that costs 1 Keii in upkeep per turn per system, thus penalizing overcolonization.


As it states in the description, systems with Ancestral Reverence don't count, which refers to having this as your production in the system.


AR further boosts your home system, so it is best to focus around your home system for development and leave most others alone unless you have extra Keii. Also, unless you are going for a supremacy victory, you are unlikely to need more than 2-3 systems unless you took them in a truce and plan to raze them.

Speaking of victory, lets talk about victory types and the Hissho.

• Conquest:

Not worth it. You will run out of steam (in this case FIDSI output) quickly. Although possible due to the Hissho's military excellence, just go for supremacy instead.

• Supremacy:

One of the best for Hissho. Although they have few systems, they can hold all capitals while only losing a little bit of FIDSI. This coupled with the near limitless supply of Keii it will bring means that the Hissho can easily sweep through an empire to it's capital and leave only fire and a pile of wrecked ships behind. They also don't have to focus on defense, because of their Homeland Defense ability and lack of frontier outposts which means almost all fleets can be dedicated to offensive operations.

• Wonder:

Not great usually, but achievable. You can usually get a 1-turn obelisk in your home system (and you should during endgame), but finding other systems to build them in means you will need to take strong systems from others to build them in, as even at endgame, it is unlikely you will have a well-developed second or third system. Strat resources can also be an issue, although they shouldn't be if you are using mining probes as liberally as you should be.

• Economic:

Definitely achievable. As your home system produces upwards of 20K-40K Dust endgame when unspecialized and can easily make much more with correct development luxuries, you can easily get an economic victory without ever researching Commercial Frameworks and touching trade.

• Scientific:

A very strong choice, and my personal favorite. The Hissho can develop the science production of their home system to a ridiculous amount, with my system record being 105K on normal speed, and room for improvement still available. They also get the science wonders easily, thanks to their excellent industrial capacity.

• Score:

A last resort, will almost never happen on higher difficulties or against humans.

With that information out of the way, we can do an overview of things that most Hissho games, regardless of strategy or tactics, will entail. First, how to properly play tall, because it seems nobody understands what tall means. In essence, you should never have more than 2 systems you are keeping, and for pretty much the entire game, you should have all but your home system on AR. You are not playing Riftborn, do not overcolonize. You will be able to strip-mine that optimal 5 planet system you see for better benefits anyways. Any systems acquired should be razed. You should, however, always plan on assimilating a single minor faction system to finish your quest and more notably to get better probes. That one system you should keep on Ancestral Reverence.

The Hissho's Resource Recoverers affinity is your substitute to colonization, and how you are going to make funny colored numbers go up in your home system. Each type of mining probe module on Behemoths have a deposit value for Hissho. When you place a mining probe on a planet, it will give the value that would be produced with one pop on the planet times the deposit multiplier as a decimal to each pop in your home system. As a result, you need a lot of empty systems to mine. For this reason, raze other empire's systems and prevent them from colonizing empty systems near you. This will give you plenty of space to exploit.

Behemoth cap can be raised through the following methods:

• Researching Behemoth techs
  
• Building Behemoth C3 Centers
  
• Hissho heroes have a tier 3 skill that increases it by one when acting as a senator
  
• The Hissho naturally have an extra Behemoth cap

More Behemoths is better and Behemoth maintenance is pretty much irrelevant to the Hissho, as more Behemoths will bring in more than enough Dust to pay their own upkeep, provided you use them correctly and have the space to mine.

After going over all that, we can begin covering general strategy throughout a game. First, setup. The Hissho start with a colony ship, an exploration ship, a hero, a couple basic techs, a pretty basic economic Behemoth, the Militarist party in power, and dictatorship government form. The colony ship you start with isn't much use for colonizing, because it takes forever, costs Keii, and colonies are hard to develop, but is good for exploration because it can fit 3 move modules. Refit it to have 3 movement modules and remove it's armor to save a bit of Dust. Remember to retrofit it. Your hero should be used to explore curiosities until it as the first 2 levels of the Hissho skill that gives food and industry per planet, so give him probes.

You should set Off-World Agribusinesses to research, then Plasma Metallurgy. Use your eco Behemoth to mine a planet in your home system. The probes are not very good and only last a few turns, so you will need to renew them. You leave it on your home system because the Behemoth gives +10 FIDS to it, which matters a decent amount early game. Queue up production buildings, then colonize any planets you can, then Cerebral. After this you should enable Hatched at Home.

Before I go into early game strategy, I would like to touch on laws and government form. Your default party is militarist, but you have a few options for what your favored party is.

• Militarist:

Strong, but situational. Militarist policies with Hissho help you earn Keii through battle and build ships, and thus is good when you want to do these things, but not much use otherwise. It's always active law is decent when at war, but the influence saved usually doesn't matter and does nothing when not actively fighting.

• Religious:

A solid option. The ability to attack without going to war can be convenient if you need to expand on many frontiers, but you get a +25% Keii bonus for attacking someone in an offensive war, so you may overall be gaining less Keii. Religious has good policies to earn hero XP, which can be good for the Hissho has having a good system governor and good admirals will strengthen your fleets and home system.

• Ecologist:

Not usually worth it, as you will not be colonizing much beyond your home system. The food laws also aren't much use, as you home system will grow to capacity quickly. You may be able to make a case for Ecologist early game though, to colonize your home system's planets.

• Pacifist:

You are a militarist faction and trade isn't very good with Hissho, don't bother.

• Scientist:

A very strong option. The -10% tech cost reduction stacked with the fact that you will probably be able to get another -10% from the 2nd tech wonder means that you will be in a prime position to out-tech everyone and win an easy science victory. You also will have access to a strong variety of laws, with a notable mention being the law giving extra movement points. Movement points are very important to cover both more space with your economic Behemoths and to project power further from your home system.

• Industrialist:

An option I personally haven't messed with much, but I can't deny that it could be strong. With Dust Windfall converting a percent of spent production, you have good potential to further an already strong system's dust generation. You also have strong laws in the later tiers to further boost production, especially if you have strat resources in your home system.

Now, for government forms. You start off as a dictatorship, which is a decent option, but late game you can get much more strength out of other government forms. Switching government forms costs Keii, with different forms having different costs.
I will also briefly mention the tier 3 hero skill exclusive to Hissho heroes that gives an extra Behemoth capacity when the hero is a senator. Your default starting hero is militarist, but there is also a scientist, religious, and industrialist hero. All are good admirals and governors, and the one respective to the party you will have in power most of the time is always a good investment, as Behemoths are the lifeblood of the Hissho.

• Staying dictatorship:

Not necessarily a bad option, and maybe a good idea for your first Hissho game. You will have control over what party to put in power, so your citizens won't elect the ecologists into power for no reason or something. One abandoned, just keep in mind that there is no going back, as it costs 60 Keii to re-adopt it.

• Democracy:

Solid. As Hissho you will certainly get use out of the extra law slot, and as the Hissho don't have much population, you won't have much upkeep either. For only 20 Keii to switch, democracy is not expensive either. The only issue is that you will not be able to direct your citizens to vote for what you want, which can be an issue, as getting a pacifist or ecologist government isn't very good for the Hissho.

• Federation:

Meh. Any amount of extra systems won't do much other than waste Keii from Hatched at Home, and the development cost does little when your home system is still basically the only important one as you are missing out on mining the systems you colonize as well. For 40 Keii, just go republic instead.

• Republic:

Another strong option. You have access to intensified laws, which includes a Hatched at Home that now nets you +35% FIDS instead of +25%. The other intensified laws can be very helpful, specifically the ones that boost your economy. Costs 40 Keii, which is a bit steep, but allows election actions to ensure the correct parties sit in power.

Usually, you will reform your government sometime in the midgame, when you have spare Keii. There is also a table at the ES2 wiki on this page[endless-space-2.fandom.com] that gives percentage calculations for specific FIDS boost values on systems when Hatched at Home is active.

A brief statement on the rituals from observances every election cycle:
1. The Dust ritual is pretty good on your home system when you can grow a pop every turn as long as your Dust production is decent in general
2. The one that converts food to manpower isn't exceptional, just because usually you will have enough manpower converted naturally. If you really need manpower I guess you can go for it so long as you don't have Super Biofuel Plant.
3. The Keii ritual is sometimes good on your home system, but you should only do it if you really need Keii or have nothing better to do, as 1 turn of production for Hissho is equivalent to a small fleet or even a wonder. A strategy mentioned by a commenter was proposed in which you take a system and sacrifice all the pops you can before burning it down, but in general, remember that you gain 5 Keii for razing or 10 for subduing after capturing a system, both instantly. I would say that this strategy is viable, but only worth it if all the following conditions are met:
-Have not yet assimilated a minor faction (causes losses from overcolonization)
-Have not unlocked Behemoth Blueprints and Generators (in this case mining the system is far better)
-The correct ritual is available immediately
It is 9 times out of 10 more worth it to just raze, as you can start mining the system faster, and will avoid any FIDS losses from overcolonization.

The early game is crucial for Hissho. With proper setup, they can quickly spiral out of control, but with an improper setup, it will be hard to keep up with other empires that have more balanced development. The first thing you must do is prioritize your home system above all. This means you should get the tech to colonize it's new planets by the time you finish growing population on it's already colonized planets. This is crucial to a good start, as you must develop your home system to capacity as quickly as possible.

The Hissho faction quest is unusual, in that you will be forced into a certain path based on what you pick for the first option. ALMOST ALWAYS pick the religious path by choosing the quest to assimilate a minor faction, and prioritize hacking to improve relation with one nearby, along with praising using influence. The reason you pick this one is because the second stage of the militarist path gives a mediocre beam weapon, and the religious path gives a very strong mining probe module that you will want for your early Behemoths.
Exploring is crucial, as it gives you Keii. Explore curiosities with your hero until you get 2 levels on him in the Hissho skill forced labor, then make him your home system's governor. After that, five him the skill that gives 1 food and 1 industry per pop on the next 2 levels. Look for sources of strategic resources nearby, and try to find Titanium. If you can't, cry a little, then after a while research market tech and buy some. You need Titanium for your third Keii action, the one that gives industry. You should almost always have it active on your home system. You should also search for good luxuries for development. I will cover home system development strategy in another chapter, as it is an exceptionally important tool for the Hissho. It is up to you who you elect in the first election, but make it a party that will be used. You could probably justify all of them but Pacifist, as Ecologist may still hold use this early.

I like to build both science wonders, even if i'm not going for a science victory. The Endless Research Park especially, as it gives 20 Keii over time and is good for an economic victory with it's Dust boost as well. For buildings, keep it balanced most of the time, but prioritize industry early on. When doing so, it is important not to let your home system's growth stop, so colonize planets as well.

At some point, you will have build almost everything you can. On building downtime, start printing ships. You will want to beat up the pirates near you, as it gives a lot of Keii, places to mine, and some extra resources. You should also try to limit your neighbor's expansion, as you want plenty of planets to mine later. Make all your troops tanks when you have the manpower, as pirates only have infantry.

Early game for me ends when you have researched Behemoth blueprints. Try to have finished the first 2 steps of your faction quest by this time, as you will want the mining probes.

As you have unlocked Behemoths at this point, you should know Behemoth designs. Most are pretty simple, there are a few basic design rules you can follow. Just keep in mind that you unlock more support slots after researching Mission Flexibility, which should be prioritized as it vastly improves your Behemoths.


You should mostly prioritize mining Behemoths, as you should cover as many empty planets as possible at all times. I personally like the deep mining probe, as it gives the best lifetime/cooldown ratio for 50% deposit value. Before that, use the Gouge of Tonatsi you get from your questline, as it has exceptional cooldown, but only 30% deposit value. If you want, you can use core miners, but they have a slow cooldown and cost Adamantian to make. They do however give decently better strategic deposit output. You should prioritize mining Gas planets for deposit value, as they give it in the highest proportions.
Correction: Use 3 Gouges and 1 Core miner always. It gives the fastest cooldown, 50% deposit value, and the strat resource mining potential of Core miners.

Other than that, you can build science Behemoths to rush techs in a certain branch, very helpful for science victories, and FIDS Behemoths can be useful if you are unable to expand for a while for any reason, as you just park them on your home system and they make funny colored numbers go up. Deposit Behemoths are a bit more niche, as you can usually get all strat resources you need from mining probes and the ridiculous amount of dust your home system generates, but can be useful on larger maps if you are in a part of the galaxy where few of a certain type appear. Terraforming Behemoths are rarely necessary, as you won't be doing much terraforming, but they can be useful if you just wiped out a Craver empire, as you will have reduced FIDSI output from probes on depleted planets, and you can restore just a few points of many planets to up probe output, or if you only have planets that give a certain individual value of FIDSI nearby, and you want to improve them.

Also keep in mind that usually the best Behemoth weapon setup is whatever is cheap, as the Hissho can then spam them out very quickly. You can also sacrifice a singe support slot for cloaking, but I don't like to as Behemoths can usually beat anything that isn't a military fleet (of which there should be none in your well protected territory), and can sometimes give extra Keii for doing so.
Remember that researching more Behemoth techs (the hexagonal techs) gives you an extra Behemoth cap every third one researched. Also, make sure to grab Behemoth Generators after getting blueprints, as it allows freer movement.

As I went over mining Behemoths, I will mention the infamous probe spam exploit/bug. If you spam click the button to add probes, you can place multiple on a planet. It's up to your whether you use it or not, but don't use it in multiplayer games and keep in mind that it will make the game artificially easier for you. Just be mindful that anything you can do while using it you can also do without using it.

Because system development is so crucial and you can do some things with Hissho you can't usually do with other factions (besides UC), I would like to briefly touch on system development. As the Hissho, there is less rush do develop, and developing with bad luxuries is more detrimental, as you only need a few of the luxury to develop your home system. In essence, this means that you can take more time to search for a source of your luxuries of choice, or wait to develop until midgame or even endgame.

From worst to best (in my opinion).

Food luxuries should be sold off. Extra food will not do much for you, as your home system will grow to capacity very quickly.

Trade value luxuries are slightly better, but not by much, as trade and Hissho don't get along as well as many other factions.

Above this is manpower/defense luxuries. While the manpower isn't bad, you don't get much, and you have a Keii actions to get both defense and manpower already.

Influence luxuries are very situational, as you can make a very large sphere as Hissho with them, but influence as a resource is not actually that useful to the Hissho, because law upkeep is cheap and diplomacy is unnecessary.

All the luxuries after this are very solid in different situations, but it's up to you to choose which ones are best.

I would say Dust comes next, because while Hissho have great economic victory potential, it doesn't give as much as some others in other situations.

After that comes the science luxuries, as they are good for all types of playthroughs, although they still lose out to industry slightly, as the industry luxuries are more versatile.

The best is my opinion though, is the approval luxuries, which may seem weird. As mentioned earlier, the approval luxuries give FIDS when loyal or devoted instead of approval. For the tier 2 approval luxury (Lost Cities), you get +3 FIDS per pop when devoted, and +2 when loyal. On the tier 3 (Benthic Gems), you get a massive +15% boost to all FIDS when devoted and +10% when loyal. That's the equivalent of 4 tier 3 luxuries in one.
As a result of this, you should try to develop your home system with more expensive and higher tier resources even if it takes a bit longer. Try to look for good resources available on the market early on, or sources of good tier 2 luxuries nearby. You can pick up enough to develop your home system easily with either Dust or your mining Behemoths. Keep in mind that Evaporation Inhibitors is a very strong tech for Hissho for this reason, both because it gives the ability to find tier 2 luxury deposits and because it allows you to get more population slots in your home system via terraforming.

The last thing to keep in mind is certain situations in which you should use tier 1 luxuries. If you have an early source of Jadonyx, use it. Industry is very important early game. Whether you use Transvine or Bluecap Mold is up to you. If you think you need more early game strengths, they are an option. The rest are rarely worth it.

At this point in the game, you should have unlocked Behemoth blueprints, finished the first 2 steps of your quest and gotten the Gouge of Tonatsi, have fully/almost fully colonized your home system, and met a few of your neighbors. Things get fun and more free now. Your general strategy during midgame should be a search for luxuries, optimizing population slots, and expanding your mining operations. You should also focus on switching your main source of Keii to beating up pirates and wars with your neighbors. You can (and should) protect ALL your mining operations by placing a fleet of a few small ships or a couple medium ships constantly defending. It will be able to get rid of colony ships, but will likely lose out to larger fleets. Luckily, this is all you need, as denying colony ships access is enough to protect the systems most of the time, and you have a much bigger problem on hand if it isn't.

For economic development, terraforming can be a solid part of it, as it gives extra population slots on your home system. Keep in mind the terraforming chart.


The Hissho are special when it comes to terraforming, in that they can get more population slots on certain sterile planets compared to going all the way to fertile. Ideally, you should terraform to arctic and desert, and no further to maximize population slots. If you are unable to reach those two, just terraform to fertile. The second part of midgame eco-development is Fealty Centers, the unique planet specialization for Hissho that costs 25 Keii unlocked by researching Behemoth Blueprints. Whenever you have 95-100 Keii, build one in your home system. Don't let Keii get out of loyal for too long, and try to stay in devoted most of the game, especially if you are developing your systems with approval luxuries.

Later during the midgame, your superior economic development strategies will start to bear fruit. You can easily start printing a few medium ships a turn, and maintain a massive amount of them as well due to your Dust output. To facilitate this, make cheap ship designs without using many strat resources, unless you have a massive amount of them. This means easy victories against pirates and your neighbors. You may run into manpower issues. To avoid this, make sure to keep up on food output and grab the techs to convert more food to manpower. A tactic to keep in mind for manpower as well is the strategy of abandoning your old systems and annexing a forward system to enable manpower refill without returning all the way to your home system. This allows you to keep your momentum in the war, and have less downtime on your fleets. Keep your ground forces on mostly tanks until air comes around. Grab manpower modules to allow larger deployment, eventually you should have enough to beat almost any force in 1-3 turns. Mix in siege modules to your preference, as you may encounter highly fortified systems when you are low on manpower. Raze most systems, subdue them if you won't be able to later fill them with probes. Don't capture, unless it is a capital and you are going for supremacy. Even though trading a massive new system for 5 funny red bird feathers seems like a terrible idea, do it anyways for the reasons mentioned in previous chapters and because probes are good. For tactics, researching Fleet Shielding for Repair and Recover is a no-brainier. Other than that, you are free to choose your other slots based on range and value.

Try to also grab some heroes to lead your better fleet and also whatever you need for the senate. As stated earlier in the guide, Hissho heroes have a skill that gives Behemoth cap when on senate. Vodyani/UE/Hissho heroes have the best fleet skills in my opinion, especially Vodyani, so go for them if you see them on the market. You should probably be making enough Dust to spend it fairly freely at this point, so you have options.

At this point, you should be far past everyone in both economy and military. In the endgame, your goal is merely to achieve victory by whatever means you have set yourself up for, be it supremacy, economy, science, or some other. Your economic development should have brought you ahead of almost everyone in score, and you should easily be able to print out a full 21-29 command point fleet a turn.


You job in the endgame is to capitalize on your overwhelming power to make enough space to use your massive Behemoth cap to mine, and to fully develop your home system. In early endgame, I strongly recommend getting a citadel up over your home system. This both protects it from obliterators, gives bonuses to some of FIDSI, and will allow you to build citadel buildings. You also will need to research citadel technology anyways, because you need it to upgrade your fealty centers, which will happen automatically when you unlock the higher level version of them.

If you are going for science victory, you should utilize the combination of Super Biofuel Factories and Urgent AI Research to convert 50% of all your industry and food on your home system to science. The second strategy I like to speed up science gain endgame is to grab Offensive Laboratories and declare war on everyone. You should have enough fleets to easily defend all sides of your borders at this point, and the science gain you can get from them is insane. After that it just becomes a matter of getting endless techs, just make sure to go for genius of the endless first to reduce the cost of the other 3 by -20%. The final strategy I employ is to try to find some Proto-Sprores or Ionic Crystal for development, as it will help quite a bit with output. Lost Cities and Benthic Gems are still better though.

For an economic victory, it basically just comes down to how well you maximized your Dust output. Make sure to grab the Trade Clearance Bureau when it becomes available, as it will net you a massive amount of Dust from taxing everyone else's trade. It is up to you whether or not you choose to get into trade, but you probably won't have enough systems to make optimal use of it. Again, use Dust development luxuries, unless you have the FIDS ones.

For supremacy, you should focus on maintaining your fleets with Dust, and researching more advanced ship modules. I like to focus on bomber/fighter carriers in endgame, and also whatever weapons you have the strat resources to build. Tier 5 neutral weapons are also not bad though for a cheap option. I personally favor lasers, as they synergize best with the Repair and Recover tactic due to them being optimal at mid-range. Make sure to get admirals as well, as hero skills should never be underestimated.

If you made it to here, well done. You should now be very well equipped to play Hissho, and if you already knew how to, hopefully you learned something new as well. The Hissho are a ton of fun after you get the hang of playing them, and in writing this guide hopefully I have shed some light on how to get the most of their unique mechanics. At this point all you need to do it load up a game as Hissho and put it all into practice.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this guide, feel free to drop a comment with any feedback or with anything I may have missed. Have a good day.