Cultists

The Cultists of the Eternal End are led by The Queen and the Unspoken and will go to all ends to ensure that its will is carried out through the conversion of lesser groups. Limited to a single city, the Cultists instantly destroy any city they defeat. To sustain their economy, their armies must convert pacified minor faction villages by spending Influence.

Lore
This mysterious cult is led by two creations that are the remnants of the Endless: The Queen, imprisoned within her indestructible throne in the capital city, and the Unspoken, a wandering - and perhaps insane - being of enormous power.

Left alone on the planet for millennia, they have turned against their creators and sworn to destroy every trace of their existence.

''The Cult maintains a single city where the Queen is entombed in her indestructible throne. Its power, therefore, is projected across Auriga through proselytization and conversion, when the faithful followers and heroes of the Cult convince other, lesser peoples to join their cause.''

''The Cultists then recruit, train, and arm these converts from the tribes and vagrants that live scattered across the surface of Auriga. Regardless of where they are or to whom they have previously sworn allegiance, when a tribe turns to the Cult it does so until its death.''

Monolithic, fanatic, and ever-expanding, the Cult of the Eternal End will spare no effort, cost, or sacrifice to see that its will is done.

High Seat of the Queen
As a result of this trait, the Cultists are not able to produce settlers, and therefore cannot have more than one city at any time; they also cannot capture additional cities due to the Weapons of the Enemy trait. However, this is balanced somewhat by the fact that the city the Cultists do posses is able to have districts that upgrade to a max of level 3, achieved by surrounding the district with four districts of level 2 or 3. This can be especially useful with special districts that provide a large bonus for being a higher level, such as the Legendary Buildings.

Additionally, because the Cultists can only have one city, they do not experience any expansion disapproval, and are therefore unable to research any technology that would reduce it, such as Bread and Circuses.

Conversion
Another trait unique to the Cultists among the base game major factions that needs further explanation is the Conversion mechanic. This trait gives Cultist units the ability to convert Minor Faction villages that are pacified, destroyed, or haven't been converted by another empire yet. Upon converting a village, the following things happen: However, converting villages costs Influence, and costs increasingly more Influence based on how many villages have already been converted. This cost is determined by taking a base Influence cost and multiplying it by the number of villages that have already been converted plus 1. The base influence cost is determined by a few factors though; each of the different Minor Factions has one of six base influence costs ranging from 21 to 26  if the village is in a region no other empire has claimed, and was pacified either by bribery or completing a pacification quest. There are also different base values if the village is pacified but in a region claimed by another empire, or if the village has been destroyed, and these values are approximately 1.5x and 2x greater than the initial base cost respectively, but not exactly. Here is the table listing the base Influence cost to convert each minor faction village based on the situation it is in. Therefore, Cost=A*(N+1), where A is the base cost determined from the table above, and N is the number of villages already converted on empire.
 * The converted village is lost to its original owner. If a village was pacified and in a region controlled by another empire, the city in that region would typically gain an additional worker and vision on the village and the tiles around it. If the village is converted, then it is no longer considered as belonging to the empire that controls that region, and so the city in that region loses those bonuses.
 * All advantages of a pacified village are given to the main city of the empire that converted it, regardless of location. The main city of the converting empire will gain a new worker in the city and vision on the village.
 * The converted village will exploit FIDSI on their tile and the 6 tiles around it for the main city of the new owner. All Food, Industry , Dust , Science , and Influence  produced by the tiles the converted village is on and the 6 around it will be added to the converting city's production as though those tiles were additional city tiles. There are a few conditions to this, however. First, this only applied to tiles within the boundaries of the region the converted village is located in; if a village is on the border of a region - which is fairly common - it will not provide the FIDSI output of the tiles on the other side of the border. This makes villages that aren't next to a border more valuable to convert. Second, any City Improvements that increase the FIDSI output of tiles does not affect the FIDSI output of tiles exploited by converted villages, since they are not considered City Tiles or Exploitations. The only exception to this is for converted villages that lie within the same region as the city; certain City Improvements, such as Geomic Labs, provide bonuses to FIDSI output on all tiles in the region, meaning that the tiles exploited by the converted village in that region will also receive a boost.
 * The converted village will leech Strategic and Luxury Resources from the region if the relevant technology has been unlocked. For every Strategic and Luxury resource in the converted village's region, it will provide the main city with +0.2 of those resources per turn (i.e. +0.2 if there's one Dye deposit, +0.4  if there's two Titanium deposits, and so on). However, the technology needed to harvest the resource must be researched first, so for example, the converting empire will not receive any Titanium or Glassteel from a converted village that has those resource deposits in its region until it has researched Alchemist's Furnace.
 * The converted village will regularly spawn a mercenary unit for the new owner. When converted, the village will get 1 unit of that minor faction's unit garrisoned in the village, and the unit will be a level equal to the converting empire's current technological Era. These units are considered mercenary units, and cannot be retrofit even if the unit belongs to a Minor Faction the converting empire has assimilated, but can be used as Privateers upon unlocking the Mercenary Corps technology. Converted villages will then spawn another such unit in its garrison every 15 turns for no cost, and if the village's garrison is full the unit will be placed in the world adjacent to the village. Village garrisons can be increased in size by 2 by unlocking the Meritocratic Promotion and Signal Corps technologies, similarly to cities. Additionally, the Cultists have a few unique technologies that increase the potency of this effect; We Are Legion and All Beings Are Siblings increase the XP that units gained from converted villages start with, while Hand of the Unspoken makes 4 units appear in newly converted villages rather than 1.
 * Each additional converted village increases the upkeep of the main city by 10 and the Influence  cost of empire plans by 20%.

Heroes
Note: Base Attributes reflect the unit's attributes before bonuses from equipment or capacities.

All Cultist heroes are able to wield Claws, Swords, and Shields as weapons.

Faction Quest
''You bring these lesser beings up to a state of wisdom and power that they can barely comprehend; such is the nature of your purpose. Seen through the eyes of one of these lesser followers, however, the path is anything but straight, and their grim determination is richly rewarded. When they survive, of course.''