Endless Legend 2 Guide | Best Custom Faction Build

The best custom faction build in Endless Legend 2 is built around Protectorates, free assimilation, and bonuses that keep growing as your empire expands. The Custom Faction creator gives you 100 points, but it also separates faction abilities from armies in a way that is easy to overlook. Choosing the right Affinity, Unit Roster, Battle Affinity, and traits matters more than filling the budget with attractive starting bonuses.

Understand the Custom Faction Creator

Start by choosing a leader appearance and naming your faction. Next, select one Faction Affinity. You cannot combine two Affinities, so this decision determines the main rule your empire will follow. Coral Chorus, for example, gives access to the Aspects' coral-spreading mechanic. 

Knightly Husks changes how the Last Lords handle Food and Dust. The Necrophage Affinity instead centers on a single city. Choose the underlying mechanic that you want to use for an entire campaign, rather than judging it by the faction's army.

After that, choose your Population, Battle Affinity, Unit Roster, and traits. These are separate selections. Some Affinities restrict the available Population because their mechanics require a particular type. The total cost of your choices must stay within the 100-point limit, and incompatible traits may be unavailable.

Choose the Army You Actually Want

Your Faction Affinity does not determine the units you recruit. You can select Coral Chorus for its spreading coral and still use the Last Lords Unit Roster. Your starting army and later recruitment follow the roster choice, not the empire mechanic.

Battle Affinity is another independent choice. Gifts of the Fallen, associated with the Last Lords, restores Health to adjacent allied units whenever a unit falls in battle. You can combine this with troops from another roster. It works especially well with durable formations that can remain together during a prolonged fight.

Avoid Building Around Quest Rewards

Custom Factions do not receive the normal major Faction Quest. This removes rewards that depend on completing that quest, even if you copied the Affinity or units of the original faction. The Chosen, the Kin of Sheredyn's powerful war constructs, are an important example. They are tied to the Kin's faction progression and cannot be treated as a guaranteed unit for a custom build.

Build around abilities visible in the creator, units actually available in the roster, and systems that operate without a Faction Quest. Otherwise, you could create a faction that looks strong on paper but cannot access the centerpiece of its intended army.

Spend Points on Scaling Traits

The strongest investments improve with something you can repeatedly earn. A flat starting bonus gives you its value once. A bonus tied to each Protectorate, Trading Post, or signed Treaty can keep improving as you expand. With only 100 points to work with, spending on scaling effects gives you a clearer plan for the early game and a stronger reason to pursue specific objectives later.

Some older trait descriptions are also misleading. Trade War no longer turns total Dust income directly into combat damage. It now provides non-Hero units with 5% extra Damage and 10 Health per Trading Post. That makes it useful for a trade-centered empire, but much less appealing when you rarely build Trading Posts. Relic Seekers now provides 1,000 Science in reserve rather than its previous effect. Suburban Dream reduces the City Cap by one while raising the territory allowance per city by one. Choose it only if you actually prefer fewer, larger cities.

Build the Protectorate Engine

The central combination is Friends of Saiadha and Cohabitation. Friends of Saiadha increases the number of Protectorate slots available, letting you maintain relationships with more Minor Factions. Cohabitation removes the Influence cost of assimilating them. Together, these traits address two limits that normally slow Protectorate expansion: how many you can hold and how much Influence repeated assimilation consumes.

The Aspects are a particularly natural starting point because Coral Chorus supports expansion through pacified villages, and their normal setup already includes additional Protectorate slots and free assimilation. Check the effects granted by your selected Affinity before paying for the same benefit again. If one of the two mechanics is already included, spend those saved points elsewhere instead of duplicating it.

Pacify Villages Before Assimilation

Once the campaign starts, scout nearby territories for Minor Faction villages. Do not rush straight to switching Protectorates after finding the first settlement. A Protectorate can provide a unique Minor Faction unit, a Notable, and population tied to its pacified villages. Its faction bonus also improves as more villages belonging to that faction are pacified. Securing the territory thoroughly before assimilating makes each selection more valuable.

Your Notables are especially important. They expand the pool of candidates you can appoint as Councilors, meaning assimilation improves more than your military roster or population count. A wider selection of Councilors lets you choose bonuses that match your current needs. Some will help production, others may strengthen armies or the economy.

Keep the Population When Switching

Free assimilation offers a second advantage when you change which Minor Factions are protected. Switching away from an existing Protectorate disables the bonuses associated with that previous relationship, but the population already gained remains in your empire. This lets you collect population from one Minor Faction and move on to another without surrendering those earlier gains.

Pacify as many villages as practical before making the switch. Each additional qualifying village can mean another population gained, and those population gains remain useful after the previous Protectorate's active bonus has ended. Keep the strongest active bonuses when they fit your strategy, and rotate relationships when collecting more population is worth the change.

Try a Science-Focused Alternative

If you would rather rush research, consider Emotional Intelligence. It rewards each currently signed Treaty with Science per turn and also gives Science for empires you have met. Start scouting quickly, locate other empires, and prioritize diplomatic contacts before borders and rivalries become difficult to manage. Signing several Treaties can turn diplomacy into a major research engine, especially early in the campaign.

Ritual Astronomy is a useful companion because it allows factions outside the Tahuks to build Observatories on Mountains. Find mountain sites while exploring and develop them after unlocking the necessary construction. This build depends on maintaining diplomatic relationships, so it is less reliable in a campaign surrounded by enemies unwilling to negotiate.

Try a Durable Combat Alternative

For a military approach, start with Coral Chorus and choose traits that make units tougher at the cost of speed. The result is an army that advances slowly but is difficult to remove. Pairing that defensive setup with Gifts of the Fallen gives nearby troops a way to recover Health during combat when units fall. Select a Unit Roster with soldiers that can hold a compact formation, then avoid splitting them across the battlefield.

If your strategy uses Trading Posts, Trade War can add further durability and Damage to non-Hero units. Otherwise, use the remaining budget to solve the practical weaknesses of the army instead of collecting unrelated bonuses.

The best custom faction build combines free Minor Faction assimilation with extra Protectorate capacity, then uses pacified villages to build a lasting population and Council advantage.

FAQ

Q. Can a custom faction use two Faction Affinities?

A. No. You can select only one Faction Affinity, although your Unit Roster, Battle Affinity, Population, and compatible traits can come from different factions.

Q. Can custom factions unlock The Chosen in Endless Legend 2?

A. Custom Factions do not have standard major Faction Quests, so they cannot count on unlocking The Chosen through the Kin of Sheredyn's quest progression.

Q. Does the Coral Chorus Affinity automatically give the Aspects' army?

A. No. Coral Chorus supplies the faction mechanic. The Unit Roster determines which soldiers you start with and recruit later.

Q. Is Trade War still based on total Dust income?

A. No. Its reworked effect gives non-Hero units 5% Damage and 10 Health for every Trading Post you own.