Emperor of the Fading Suns was first released for Windows in January 1997. Now, nearly 30 years later, some of the original developers have come back to re-release this wonderfully unique game for modern systems on Steam. With multitudes of bug and crash fixes, along with a good bit of re-balancing, Emperor of the Fading Suns is back and better than ever.

Emperor of the Fading Suns is a true 4 X game. You start on your own homeworld, leading one of 5 noble houses in an era with lost tech and almost medieval feudal systems are common. Take your fledgling empire and first remove the rebels that threaten your very survival. Research lost tech and leave your ansector home. Travel to nearby planets as you gradually explore, expand, exploit and exterminate your enemies. Both human and aliens alike. With ground, water and space units combat takes many shapes and sizes. Emperor of the Fading Suns had a lot of ground breaking game play mechanics during its first launch. A full soundtrack and true 3D unit modeling. One of the first , if not the first for its time.

If you enjoy this game and it's setting and you are also a fan of table top RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, consider playing the Fading Suns RPG, which takes place after the Emperor Wars (this game) and delves in to the setting in much greater depth.

n 4550 AD, Vladimir I, the first Emperor of the known universe, crowned himself with his own hands and by the Grace of Holy Terra. He was dead within moments.

Now the year is 4956 AD. Space is dark and cold, and humanity is scattered across its vastness. The Regency is vacant and all humanity is preparing to elect a new Regent. But times are changing; the mysterious fading of all the suns of the Known Worlds is accelerating, causing increased hardship and a general sense of foreboding. The Fading
Suns are a portent, it is said, of the coming Armageddon.

Each of the Royal Houses can trace its ancestry to the time of Grand Emperor Vladimir, who consolidated the fragments of the Second Republic into one mighty Imperium As ordered by the Great Charter, in the event of an Emperor's death, human space was to be ruled by an interim ruler, an elected Regent. However, no Regent has been able to harness enough power to declare himself Emperor; in the meanwhile, the Regency has become a means to loot the Imperium.

Many feel that the human race needs strong, dedicated leadership to face the uncertain future — a selfless leader willing to take a personal interest in the fate of the Imperium. But the Regent up until now has been a mere figurehead, who can at most discourage inter-human conflict Humanity's only solution is to make the position of Regent a hereditary one, to once again have it called by its ancient name, Emperor. Then the future of the entire Empire will be the overriding concern of the Emperor, instead of just the short-sighted good of his own House.

The Historical Galaxy map starts players at the end of the First Emperor Wars, which were so devastating that the technological progress and industrial development of the past centuries have been wiped out and the greater society has been reduced to the equivalent of 20th century technology. Use of jump gates and other advanced technologies must be re-discovered.

There are many factions present in the universe. Most are the various human factions, but there are alien factions as well.

The remnants of the former Empire of Mankind are:

- The Great Houses - Li Halan, Hazat, Decados, Hawkwood, and Al Malik.
- Rebels - former great houses and Minor Houses not worth mentioning and are now simply considered rebels.
- The Church of the Pancreator - the Moral Authority of the Human Domain and a force not easily dismissed.
- The League - a guild of Merchants and their mercenaries, controls commerce between the jump gates, willing to sell just about anything to anyone

The Alien Factions are:

- The Symbiote are a sinister hivemind that was unleashed centuries ago by foolish human settlers. They do not bother with communication or diplomacy. The imperial Garrison of Stigmata is supposed to keep them in check.
- The Vau are an ancient, enigmatic race of aliens that keep to themselves, for the most part. Their technology is far beyond what humanity has achieved. They will pay you well for human planet maps. The more complete the map the better the reward. It remains a mystery why they want a detailed report on mankind.

Each house has its own culture and character. This is more evident in the TTRPG, but in this game it is shown though the starting traits. Here's a quick rundown on the flavor of the houses. Keep in mind, however, that every house has its black sheep or mavericks.


Home World: Kish

Only those who fall the farthest know how high they can go. At least, that’s what House
Li Halan believes. This devoted and disciplined family used to glory in the worst
excesses that the Known World had to offer, engaging in acts that even a Decados
thrill seeker might balk at. During the first Emperor Wars, the house swiftly converted to
the Universal Church of the Celestial Sun. Those who didn’t take the conversion
seriously were cut down in their own beds or courtyards.


Home World: Aragon

Much like the rest of the house’s existence, the creation of the noble house known as
“the Hazat” was fraught with conflict and rapid change. During the Second Republic, the
house was in service to the now-extinct House Chauki, a proud lineage of martial dukes
who expected absolute obedience and perfection from their retainers. The Hazat
overthrew them in a martial coup, much to the Chauki’s chagrin. While there are still
remnants of the Chauki devotion to physical perfection in the Hazat, the house's virtues
have since expanded to encompass all sorts of romantic ideals.


Home World: Severus

When the Avestites launch an inquisition or the Brothers Battle lose one of their own in
the night, the first question on every noble's lips is the same: “Which Decados was it
now?” House Decados has built their brand on shock and awe – physically, mentally,
and socially – but it is their spy network, the Jakovian Agency, that poses the real threat.
Any member of the Decados could be a Jakovian. Any free person on a Decados planet
could be a Jakovian. In fact, it's safer to assume the person you're talking to is a spy
trained by the Jakovian Agency than it is to let something important slip.


Home World: Delphi

If there is any true honor to be found amidst the lords, ladies, and other nobility of the
Known Worlds, then it is in House Hawkwood. At least, that's what House Hawkwood
says. Traditionalists to the bone, Hawkwood plays hard, works harder, and fights to win. They take contracts and treaties seriously — and treaty breaking them even more so. To become friends with a Hawkwood is to have an ally for life. To become their enemy is to be forever watching over your shoulder.


Home World: Ishtakhr

House al-Malik is an enigma, a mystery deeper than that of gold. Are they merchants,
buying their way to power? Are they secret republicans, worming their way into the
cracks and crevices of the Empire, trying to bring it down from the inside? Are they
exactly what they appear to be, poets and artists and a mishmash of other cultural
influencers, all thrown together in one family? The truth is some combination of the above. Al-Malik is a house of individuals, nobles all living their lives as hard as they possibly can.

During his lifetime, the Prophet Zebulon traveled the stars, preaching on the many
different worlds he visited. Whether by design or happenstance, he himself left behind
no writings, but some of his disciples and followers did. After his death, these
reminiscences circulated among the faithful, reminding them of his teachings, even
though the Prophet was no longer with them. As the Universal Church of the Celestial
Sun took shape, it collected these writings, recognizing some as representing the true
teachings of the Prophet and rejecting the others as spurious, apocryphal, or even
heretical.

The Patriarch governs the Church from Holy Terra as successor of the Prophet and supreme teacher of the faithful. His personality, character, and decisions affect the lives of billions across dozens of planets.

In principle, the Patriarch may come from any sect or order of the Church, but in practice, most Patriarchs have been members of the Orthodoxy.

At various times, the Patriarch will deem certain technologies "Odious to Humanity" and proscribe the technology. Any player who has researched or is currently researching a proscribed technology will have their laboratories targeted by the Inquisition.

In order to escape the wrath of the Inquisition, the player must strike the proscribed technology. This means that any unit or city that directly depends on the technology can no longer be built. Technologies with the proscribed technology as a prerequisite are unaffected. Those units already constructed or trained with the forbidden technology may still be used.

The Inquisition is perhaps the most feared organization in the Known Worlds and with good reason. The Inquisition is responsible for seeking out and punishing heretics, users of proscribed technologies, demon worshipers, psychics, pagans, non-Church aliens, political dissidents, and any others deemed to be “malcontents” — a very large group indeed.

The Inquisition will seek out and raze the laboratory cities of any House that has proscribed technology. If they encounter a garrison in the lab city, the Church will declare war on that House.

??
[need specifics]
[it's bad. Rebellions more likely?]

It is not uncommon for a Patriarch to deny his vote to an Imperial claimant unless the House signs the Holy Writ, which is an acknowledgment that the Patriarch has the right to crown the Emperor, showing the rule of Church over State. Signing the Holy Writ is a great blow to the future power of the Emperor and therefore reduces the player's score by 30%. True

The great Guilds belong to the Merchant League which resembles ancient Terra’s Hanseatic league in power and organization. The League is the true descendant of the Second Republic. Each Guild works for the betterment of the League while seeking mercantile dominance within the League. They yearn to recreate the free-trade glory days of the Second Republic, before the rise of the Emperor and the Royal Houses.

[need specifics, like what's the interest rate?]
The League bank will automatically offer loans to most Houses if asked. They will prompt you at the end of every turn for the payment; if you refuse, they will embargo you and possibly declare war. Next time you get a loan the rate will be higher depending on how much trouble you were. [<- Is this true?] ???

The Agoras are the League's trading posts. At the start of the game they are stocked with a substantial amount of resources to sell, and a substantial garrison to defend them. The League will try to periodically restock the Agoras if they can.

When the League collects between 300,000 to 500,000 Firebirds in their warchest they will declare the Third Republic, cease trading and wage war on all the Houses. Whatever the outcome of the ensuing civil war, it will weaken the Imperium to external threats and therefore lowers your victory score by 30%.

The Symbiots are a sinister contagion unleashed centuries ago by human settlers. Symbiots can infest all life forms and alter their genetic make up. The planet of Daishan was made barren in an effort to halt their first invasion. They continue to attack humanity but are held in check by the Imperial Garrison on the planet Stigmata. It is located to the galactic Northwest of human space.

Symbiots have never been known to communicate with full blooded humans other than to tell them to surrender peacefully to the warm embrace of the hive mind.

The Vau are an ancient, enigmatic race of aliens to the galactic south of Human Space. They have a superiority complex and keep to themselves. They occasionally make claim to the planets on the borders as 'Protectorates' but they have never been known to do more than talk. The Vau protectorates are Vril-Ya, Manitou and Apshai. The planet named Vau is actually only the local outpost of Vau space which is rumored to encompass nearly a hundred worlds. The Vau are known to be interested in map information on human planets and have the funds to buy it.

The Vau buy maps. The more complete the map, the more they pay. Their units are incredibly powerful, but the Vau have no desire for expansion. Their true motives are a mystery.

Historical: The historical and standard map of the known universe. Depending on player experience, playstyle and goals a single game may be as short as 40 turns to over 200. Jump connections, planets, starting situations, and layout based on the RPG Fading Suns lore.
Random: Almost always more difficult includes random planet locations with random planet maps themselves. Finally new paths as jump connections have also changed. The rebels and ruins guardians will be much more challenging then a traditional game. You might end up next to another Noble House or worse alien planets from the start.
Load Custom: You can load custom made galaxy maps that can use their own custom made world maps.
By default, you'll see 3 available galaxy maps: DARKAGES.GAL, GALAXY.GAL, and LostWorlds.gal
- Dark Ages: A map with fewer worlds than standard, but the rebel presence on those worlds is stronger.
- GALAXY.GAL - This is the file for the regular Historic Galaxy
- Lost worlds: this galaxy map has all of the worlds in the Fading Suns lore (it's a lot), and is sorta balanced such that rebel and unclaimed planets get harder the further out you go. The houses all start with substantially more forces than the Historical Galaxy. You'll need to crank up the taxes and lower the unit pay, and maybe even disband some units and take out a loan from the league if you want to avoid bankruptcy on the first turn. I haven't tried this galaxy yet but it certainly looks like and interesting challenge.

You can make your own galaxy with less or more worlds, different planet maps and starting situations, etc. using the Map editor. The Map Editor can be found in the game folder (usually [drive]:\Programs\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Emperor of the Fading Suns)
- Using the Map Editor might be considered cheating as it reveals information you would not otherwise know in-game. HOWEVER I think it is fine for people to use the map editor because:
- It only reveals the starting conditions
- It puts everyone on a more even footing, as experienced players already know the locations of things just by experience.

For this guide, we will be using the Historical galaxy option.

Here we have the option to decide which houses will be controlled by humans and which will be controlled by the computer. At least 1 house must be controlled by a human.

For multiplayer games: we have 2 options, hot seat and PBEM (Play by E-Mail). I'll explain the difference in the next section. If you are planning on doing multiplayer, have your players select their houses now, and switch those houses to human controlled.

Playing against yourself: Some consider this a great way to learn the game, and I have to agree. However, it does get rid of the asymmetrical information aspect.

In my opinion, using the historical galaxy, the difficulty of the starting positions for each house would be (easiest to hardest): Hazat < Li Halan < Al Malik < Hawkwood < Decados

However, the difficulties of the starting positions soon disappear (10-20 turns or so), so don't worry about it too much. It is helpful to play each house and learn how to overcome the unique starting challenges present.

For this guide, we will play as House Li Halan.

Here we have the final game options before we start the game. The screenshot here shows the default configuration. If you are doing a multiplayer game, it is recommended that you screenshot this page and send it to all the players to make sure everyone is in agreement on the options. These options cannot be changed after the game has started.

Difficulty: Difficulty will impact various game features: how many trait points each house starts with (lower difficulty starts with more), the difficulty of enemy forces in Ruins, and how often the Church will proscribe (make illegal) technologies.

There are actually 2 different difficulties - the chosen house difficulty and the average difficulty between all the houses. The ruins difficulty and Church proscription are based on averaged difficulty.

Plague: The Necrosis plague is a terrible thing. It will spread and slowly kill your units and cities, and requires quite a bit research to cure. Units can become infected by fighting enemy Pestulator Artillery and Plague Bombs. You can turn it off completely, but where's the fun in that?

Rebellion: If your unit's and cities' loyalty gets too low, you run the risk of those units and cities turning rebel. You can turn it off completely, but where's the fun in that?

Combat Report: The combat report is where you can see what happened when your units fought an enemy's units. If an enemy attacks you, you'll get the combat report at the start of your turn. I recommend leaving it on you you know when you've been attacked, though there are times when it can be annoying.

Show Tutorials: The game has tutorial pop-ups that explain the basics of how to play. I recommend leaving this ON for the first game, as the tutorial covers things that will not be covered in this guide.

PBEM: Play By E-Mail is an old method of multiplayer where the players would email the game save file to each other after finishing their turn. These days, we use discord, but you can still use email if you want. The official Emperor of the Fading Suns discord server is a good place to look if you want to play with internet strangers. If PBEM is on, you will be prompted to save the game at the end of your turn and then the game will exit to the main menu. If you have multiple human players but PBEM off, it will be "hot seat" meaning that everyone is playing on the same computer.

Universal Warehouse: When ON, all of your resources are shared between your planets. When this is OFF, resources are local to individual planets. This means that if you have units and cities on a planet without farms, they will starve, even if the planet next door has a surplus of food. Don't want to manage resource distribution? Then, leave this option on.

Consume Food: With this option on, every unit (save a few special ones) will consume 1 unit of food and every city will consume 10 units of food. If you don't have enough food to feed your units and cities, random ones will start taking damage and potentially die until there is enough food. The number/amount of damage depends on the deficit. You can turn it off completely, but where's the fun in that?

Security: This only applies to PBEM games. This adds some minor security features to make cheating harder. Each player will be prompted to make a password, it is recommended to have a trusted 3rd party hold all of the passwords. This will also dis-allow mid-turn saves. I also believe it adds some kind of hashing check to ensure that everyone is using the same game files.

For this guide, we will be leaving all options on default. Hit the Play button in the lower right corner.

Now, we can finally play the game! Just after we choose a portrait and name for our leader and the traits for our house. Hopefully you've left the tutorial messages on because they give a good bit of information I won't be covering here.

We will go through the first few turns here playing as House Li Halan in the Historical Galaxy using all default game options.

This is the picture that will be shown to other players when sending messages and doing diplomacy, no other impact on the game.

Same as the portrait, will only be used for messages and diplomacy.

Each positive trait costs 1 point, each negative traits gives 1 point. You can take opposed traits if you want, such as being both friend and enemy of the Church, but there is no reason to do this. Higher difficulties will start you with fewer points. You can see the remaining points tally at bottom left of the screen. You can mouse over eave trait pick for a description of what it does.

Some trait descriptions say something like "Increases loyalty at the beginning of the game" which might make it sound like the trait has only a temporary effect, but to my knowledge the trait stays in effect for the entire game.

For this guide, we will use the default trait picks for House Li Halan.

We start the game with 1 laboratory waiting to be assigned a research project. Every turn, each laboratory will generate research points at the cost of 550 Firebirds (the currency of this game), and apply those research points to the assigned research project. Each lab can be assigned to one project. If you have multiple labs, you can assign them all to the same project or different projects, but one lab can only be assigned to 1 project. Sometimes labs can have points left over after finishing research, the leftover points can be assigned to a new project.

Select a technology and see in the area below that is shows you what further technologies that will lead to. For Example, researching Immunology will eventually lead to Cure for Necrosis. However, Cure for Necrosis won't be the direct next technology.

Archive: This button will bring up a new screen with some fun flavor text that gives a general idea of what the technology is. Fun, though not particularly useful.

Database: This button shows you what technologies have already been researched, and the maintenance cost (in research points) for keeping that technology. If you lose all of your laboratories, you will lose all of your research!

You can also Strike a technology from your Database. This will prevent you from getting any of the benefits from that technology, so for example if you strike the Infantry technology, you will no longer be able to build infantry. This can be useful if the Church has proscribed a technology you've already researched and you want to avoid a visit from the Church Inquisitors.

Let's assign our lab to research Composite Armor because that looks like a good path to getting some cool new units.

Here is what you should see after clicking through all of the pop-ups at the start of a new game.

In front of us, we have the main map screen. Here, we can right click on the different hexes to select units and cities and move the map view around as well as give orders to the selected stack of units.

Along the top of the screen, we see the various menus and information screens that will be helpful later. I feel they are mostly self-explanatory, so please let me know in the comments if I should add additional information on any of them in particular. I will add sections on the House, Diplomacy and Byzantium II screens later, as they are of particular importance, but not for the first turn.

At the top left side of the screen, we have have a mini-map, a cross/circle button, and a rocket ship button. You can right click the mini-map to bring up a larger overall view of the planet. You can right click any of the buttons for an explanation of what they do.

Below the mini-map and space buttons, we have a little info box that shows: the planet name (Byzantium II in this case), the current year (default start year is 4956, this can be changed in EFS.INI, each turn = 1 year), and the current balance of the House Treasury (4450 FB, FB = Fire Birds, the currency for this game)

Below this info box is another that shows the city on the current tile, with available options. Every city has the option to build basic units, and certain cities have additional options, which will show up as additional buttons in this area.

Below this we have the unit stack. Each hex can hold up to 20 units. Each unit is one of those square icons with a number in the top right of the square icon. That number is how many movement points the unit has. Different units have different movement types that are affected by different types of terrain. For more information on the units in the stack, you can click the [->?<-] query button.

Along the bottom, we have the the resources. Each icon represents a different resource which will be used to construct different units or consumed along with other resources to produce other more advanced units. Some resources are used for both. When you mouse over these icons, numbers will appear on hexes in the main screen. Theses numbers show how much of that resource would be produced if the appropriate city were built on that hex. You can right click on the resource icon at the bottom and a window will pop-up showing the production and consumption of that resource along with some other information.

After we've chosen our fist research project and been informed that the new Patriarch is Orthodox, the game brings us to our fort on Byzantium II, the heart of the Empire.

This fort, or really the noble on it, is vitally import to our political ambitions in the game, as without a noble on Byzantium II, we cannot vote in the Regency Elections. Each House starts with one of its five nobles at the fort on Byzantium II. Technically, the noble only needs to be somewhere on the planet, so you could move your noble to some isolated corner and be safe from assassination. In multiplayer games, this is considered a ♥♥♥♥ move, and generally not allowed.

The Regent gets to assign the ministries of the Stigmata Garrison, the Imperial Eye, and the Imperial Fleet. More on these and the politics of it later.

Building new cities on Byzantium II is not allowed, so if you lose your fort due to famine, you wont get it back.

We can see our units are purple, the fort to the south in red is House Hazat, the green fort is House Decados. If we move a unit to the east, we will discover a yellow fort controlled by House Al-Malik and a blue fort controlled by House Hawkwood.

The buildings to the north - the dark grey palace, forts, shield, and factories, belong to the Emperor. The regent does not get to control these buildings and units.

Combat on the surface and in orbit of Byzantium II is not allowed, except for stealth units - raider stealth ship (space), spies, assassins, doppelganger assassins, and submarines, are allowed to attack other units on Byzantium II. The computer players will build large numbers of spies to try and assassinate your noble on Byzantium II.

We start with some advanced power armor troopers and a freighter capable of transporting 2 units in our fort here. These power armor troopers could be put to better use elsewhere, as we aren't expecting assassination attempts on our noble just yet. But don't forget to build more troops here for defense later, as attempts on your noble's life will be made!

To load our transport with power armor troops, click the [->?<-] button in the lower left corner of the screen. This brings up the detail view of the stack. The advisor should pop up with some useful info about this screen. Click and drag the power armor trooper icons onto the icon for the freighter. Click Exit at the bottom right, then make sure you have only the freighter (and its cargo) selected, and click the rocket ship button at the top right next to the mini-map to blast it off into space.

Now in space, we can see 8 squares around the planet, the one at the middle bottom slot is occupied. If you right click on that icon, the the details [->?<-] button, we can see that this formidable space force is owned by the Imperial Fleet. As the ministry of the Imperial fleet is currently unoccupied, these ships won't be doing anything but look cool. Exiting out of this detail view, right click on our freighter and then left click on or home world, Kish. You move the map by right clicking around. The screen will center on where you right-click. You can also right click the mini-map in the top left corner to bring up an overall galaxy view, and then left-click on Kish to bring the view there. With the freighter selected, a single left click on Kish will show the route there, with the jump lane to Criticorum from Byzantium II highlighted in green, and the jumplane from Criticorum to Kish highted in Red. This means that the freighter can jump to Criticorum this turn, but will have to wait till next turn before it can get to Kish. Left click on Kish again and the freighter will jump to Criticorum. Jumping to a new planet will expend all remaining movement points.

Next turn, we can jump the transport to Kish. It will be out of movement points, but we can transfer the cargo in space to another transport that still has movement points and use it to bring our power armor troopers to where they're needed on the surface.

Our freighter carrying the power armor troops is now in orbit of Criticorum and will need to wait till next turn before it can drop off the troops at Kish. The game will now automatically take us to the next unit or group of units that have movement points are are not sentried. In this case, it should take us to our fleet in orbit of Kish, which consists of 1 Vlad Cruiser, 2 Frigates, 2 Assault Landers, and 1 Bulk Hauler. Let's take a look at our little fleet and what we can do with it.

The Vlad Cruiser can be used to bombard troops and cities on the surface of the planet, but be aware that PTS (Planet To Space) units can fire back on bombarding ships. You won't know if the enemy has PTS until you either bombard and get counter-attacked, or if you have scouts on the ground already that can spot the PTS units. If you look at the detail view, you can see that the Vlad cruiser has 2 attacks: Ranged Space of 4/80 and Direct Space of 4/70. Ranged space is used for bombarment, and the 4/80 means that it has an accuracy of 4 and damage of 80. 10 is typically the highest accuracy, meaning 100% change to hit BUT it can go higher, and is contested by the target unit's agility so a 10 accuracy doesn't always guarantee a hit. The combat system is complex and covered better elsewhere.

The frigates only have Direct Space and Close Space attacks, so they can only be used in space and not for bombardment. Use these ships to escort your transports and hopefully they will keep them safe.

The Assault Landers can carry two units and have a special ability - unlike regular freighters that will take damage from landing outside of cities, the assault lander will not take any damage. However, it can only carry 2 units and has a greater maintenance cost than bulk haulers, which can carry 4 units.

The Bulk Hauler can carry 4 units, but will take damage from landing outside of cities. This damage is random, but can be up to substantial sometimes half of its health. Add in the danger of planet to space defense guns and it be destroyed trying to land.

We can use the strengths of our bulk hauler and 2 assault landers by using the bulk hauler to bring units to space, transfer them to the assault landers and then have the assault landers bring them back down near the target city. But first, we need to find our target!

lets right-click on Kish to see the planet view, and now right click on the mini-map in the top left to get an overall view of the planet. You can see unknown/ undiscovered cities on the map, they look like this:


We have 2 options to find out what sort of cities they are and who owns them: we can send surface units to scout it out, like an aero fighter or scout tank, or we can use the Vlad cruiser in orbit to bombard and reveal the tile. Scouting via bombarment can be useful, but the cruiser has a lower spot value than scout tanks, so a scout tank is preferable. Luckily, we have a scout tank at fort near some unknown cities, so lets have that guy go take a look.



Our scout tank has spotted a Well city owned by rebel forces!
It's possible that our scout didn't spot all of the enemy units, but I think we've seen enough to send a force to take that well. Let's look around at our cities and see what forces are available to go capture that well. Hmm... looks like a lot of militia, AA, AT and artillery units. Not great. But we have some tanks and an officer at the fort from where we sent out the scout tank. We could have them move over land using the road, but that will take them at least 2 turns, so let's use our bulk hauler and landers.

Land the bulk hauler at the fort, load it up with an officer, 2 tanks (wolfen) and a mobile artillery (smyter). Launch it to space, go to detail view and transfer the units to the assault landers. now land the assault landers next to the well, but don't attack yet! We can give our forces the best chance of success by using our Vlad cruiser to bombard the enemy to soften them up before we attack. So, go to space view (the little circle/cross button at the top left), double click the cruiser so that it is the only unit selected, them click the planet Kish, select attack, and click the well. Use all of the cruiser's movement points to bombard the well. Now go back to your little subjucation force and attack the well. You can choose any of the attack types, but I recommend using assault or normal for this battle. It might be a little close, but you forces should win and capture the city. If any of the enemy has retreated, use one of you troops to "attack" the retreating unit after the battle and it will capture that unit. If your units got damaged, they will heal over time. They will heal faster in cities, faster still in the city type that produced them, and fastest in a hospital city (requires hospitals research).

You should now have enough knowledge to subjugate the rest of the rebels on your own, so gather your forces and take control of your home world!

Once you have sufficiently advanced your forces in the rightful conquest of those meritless rebels, we should look to how we can build up the power of our House.

We start the game with one engineer. Engineers are the only units that can build cities, roads, and raze cities. Roads will reduce the movement cost over any terrain for any movement type to 1 movement point, very useful. Razing a city means erasing that city from the world - the city will be left behind and a road will be left on that hex. Roads cannot be destroyed.

Cities can produce resources and build units. Cities also produce tax income. All cities provide a minor defensive bonus to units on that hex. Units will heal faster in the city type that produced them. Cities that gather resources, such as mines, will gather from a 2 hex radius. Collection radius cannot overlap, so resource gathering cities must be at least 5 hexes apart.

Some cities have additional functions. Let's go over that here.


Palace - Only one palace can be built per planet. Whoever controls the palace will receive tax income from that planet. You only receive tax income from your own cities.

Church - Only one church can be built per planet. You can change the official sect of the planet at the church, different sects give different bonuses. Changing the sect will take time, and units of a different sect may have a decrease in loyalty until they convert. The clergy unit built at the church will speed up conversion.

Factory - This city produces mechanical units, like tanks and planes, are built here. If you build the factory next to a water hex, you can produce naval units. Naval units can enter cities build next to water hexes. On some planets, there are bodies of water separated by only 1 or 2 land hexes - if you build cities at these points, it can act as a canal allowing your ships through and avoiding long detours. Damaged mechanical units will heal faster if placed in a factory.

Wetware - This city produces the resource of its name. This is a late game resource used for advanced units. If you happen to get this resource in the early game, it might be more useful to sell it to the League.

Electronics - This city produces the resource of its name. This resource is used by almost every late unit in the game and is also used to produce monopols which are required for higher tier units. Can't really have enough electronics.

Ceramsteel - This city produces the resource of its name. This resource is used for most higher tier units as well as most space units. You'll need a lot of this.

Bioplant - This city produces the resource of its name. This resource is used in many higher tier units and is produced from somewhat rare exotica resource, which is gathered by farms and arboriums.

Chemicals - A basic resource used by in the production of many units, but mainly used for the production of ceramsteel and biochems.

Cyclotron - This city produces singularities, which are used in every space unit except fighters and bombers. Very valuable, though if you get this early game (within the first 20 turns or so), the money might be more useful.

Fort - This city produces foot units. It also provides a greater defensive bonus to units inside than other cities. Damaged foot units heal faster if placed in a fort.

Starport - This city produces space units. Damaged space units heal faster if placed in a starport.

Shield - This city protects its own hex as well as each hex adjacent to it from orbital bombardment. This is shown by the pulsing blue outline around the protected hexes. It makes a circle shape.

Mine - This city produces metal, trace and gems, depending on what is nearby.

Well - This city produces energy. Wells can be build on water tiles by loading an engineer onto a naval transport. Wells in water are especially useful towards the middle and late game as energy shortages will cripple production.

Fusorium - This city produces monopols, which are used for power armor units and other higher tier units.

Hospital - This city gives a healing bonus to units on its hex, as well as a planetary healing bonus. The planet healing bonus does have a cap with 3 cities so no more is necessary. The healing bonus helps to both prevent the spread of the plague and heal units. You do not need to place plague units in the hospital. I advise against this as the plague can spread to the hospital city and it gets infected as well.

Farm - This city produces food. you need food to feed your cities and units . Units and cities will die if they don't get enough food (unless the option was turned off). With food consumption on each city eats 10 food per turn and most units 1 food as well. Units in space will not consume food.

Arborium - This is basically an upgraded farm, usually around 50-100% increase over a farm for the same tile. If you already own a farm and want to upgrade just move an engineer over to the city. Then raze the farm and build the Arborium. It will consume the engineer and is the only way to upgrade them.

Road - As stated previously, a road will reduce the movement cost for a hex to 1. Unlike cities, building a road does not consume the engineer unit.

In the early game, you will probably find that you are losing money and action must be taken to ensure your House does not fall into bankruptcy. First, lets go over our primary costs and our primary incomes:

Primary Costs: Unit Pay and Lab Upkeep

Primary Income: Taxes from cities and Tithe Skim

Taxes, unit pay and tithe skim can be adjusted from the House screen, found in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Unit pay is different per unit, shown as the maintenance cost. Increasing unit pay will increase unit loyalty (higher loyalty can give bonuses), while decreasing pay will decrease loyalty.

Lab upkeep has a base of 500 FB/turn and cannot be changed except by traits and sect.

Cities provide a base of 1000/FB per turn * tax rate (default 25%) * city health/population. Newly built cities take a few turns to get up to full health. Labs are cities so they provide income minus their maintenance cost. Increase in tax will decrease loyalty. You can only gain income from cities you own on a planet where you own the palace.

Tithe skim means that you are taking a bit of the tithe that the church takes from the peasants. The honest, god-fearing peasants do not like this, so it will reduce loyalty of cities. Rebellions have even known to have started if the mob becomes angry enough.

Your chosen House Traits and Church Sect can modify these values.


Sell resources to the League - Right click on the resource icon at the bottom to see the league price. Find the cargo pod for the resource you want to sell (usually at the producing city unless you moved it previously) and move that cargo pod next to a league agora. Moving the cargo, and only the cargo pod, onto the agora will prompt the sell screen.

Get a Loan from the League - Minimum loan amount is 1000, lasts 10 turns with an interest rate of 10%

Sell technology to other Houses

Sell planet maps to the Vau

There are many paths to victory. Choose either a military strategy, where you get enough election votes from conquest or a diplomatic solution where you have other houses and great powers support your claim.

Scouting - As mentioned previously, scouting is very useful and can be accomplished in a few ways. It is important to note that scouts loaded onto naval and space transports will still utilize their scouting abilities. This can be very useful for planets with a lot of water, such as Madoc (in the Historical galaxy) and revealing unspotted symbiot space units.

Ruins - Ruins can give various rewards, like resources free units, relics and sometimes even technology. However, they are guarded by powerful forces, so it is recommended to waint until you have a decent army to challenge them.

Officers and Relics - Officers and some relics are great because they give combat bonuses to all units in their stack. These bonuses are used even if the officer or relic is aboard a transport. Very useful for fighting the symbiot menace.

Landing Safely - PTS units can attack space ships that are landing or bombarding within their spotting range. This is usually 5-6 hex radius, and enemy PTS units are usually in cities. You can get PTS units to reveal themselves with orbital bombarbment. This will put your ships in danger, but hey will usually survive. PTS will do great damage, usually destroying transports.

Invasion Without Universal Warehouse - You will need to either bring food with the invading force, or make sure you capture a farm or arborium on the first turn of the invasion. If you do not, your invasion force will be quickly lost to famine.

Unit Combat Statistics Tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHDGwrCjLKg

Combat Simulator:
https://efs.ignorelists.com/techgraph/?tab=%23pills-combatsim-tab

Tech trees for the vanilla game:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180723043514/http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/machi/techchrt/techchrt.htm


Another guide with plenty of useful information:
https://efsguide.com/Home

A church guide with the sects breakdown can now be found on steam:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3460443819

Tech trees for the units in game have been uploaded in the art section under community:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/app/2799350/images/