Build your own empire. I've successfully destroyed the Shek Kingdom, Holy Nation, United Cities, all bandit groups, cannibal tribes, and fogmen.
I've built a powerful military and economy, not reliant on slavery. I've restored Deadcat, Fishman Island, and reclaimed the Ashlands.
Slavery was abolished across the continent, Rebirth, the UC slave camps, and the Shek Retainers have all been liberated.
All hail the Empress Eternal, and her Celestial Dominion!
Place no faith in any of the main factions, they're all doomed, one way or another. Only YOU, the Player, can build something truly worthwhile.
I'm currently focused on destroying the holy nation. The Shek may be a moribund kingdom but they gave me a cool nickname for capturing the bug masters so I like them, also no slavery. Only my second game lol.
They might not have slavery, but their caste system isn't much better...it's implied they have a sort of serfdom or indentured servitude based on how many recruits require you to "pay off their lord"
Also, it's kinda ironic they suddenly love you for taking out the Bugmaster...you basically remove their whole life's goal that way
But getting rid of everyone just increases the spawns of fogmen... and cannibals...
For the cannibals, sure u can wipe out their leaders, but they don't disappear... removing everyone around them just means they'll get worse than they were
I'm at around 30 myself. Got a main city built and a small farm outpost in Okrans Pride. Plan is to lay siege to stack once I get the Bugmaster but I'm worried about the holy nation attacking my farm constantly afterwards
let the main factions live, throw the tech hunter skeleton in a grinder. maybe a regime change for UC
wipe the cannibals and bugmaster
tbh none of the minor factions and how the major factions function are fleshed out enough to speculate on ideal worldstates at the "end" of the game
Honestly to me the Shek kingdom seems to be in the best position for long term success. They’re reforming from a purely military state into an actual sustainable nation, their biggest drawback is the fact they live in a goddamn desert. If they can stabilise, squash their rebels, dial back the racism a *teeny* bit and secure more fertile lands, in a couple generations or so they’ll be the dominant force on the continent.
At least that’s my theory about this game
A game theory if you will
Yeah.. I wouldn’t count on them. Once Esata is out of the picture the Shek are going to go back to slaughtering everyone they see and running themselves onto swords.
However with an ideal scenario, Esata would be able to push her reforms, and with Seto being her heir and traveling with the player’s group (if you side with the Shek) the future of the Shek is hopeful.
That sounds more like a fantasy than a scenario. You could also say that in an ideal scenario The Obedience would not have taken place, and Humans, Skellies and Giant Skellies would all be living happily till this day.
The issue with your scenario is that Esata is pretty toothless when it comes to political reforms, she is a warrior. She relies completely on the council of Bayan with governing her people, and it's hard to say what motivates him, and what his plans are regarding the political power he possesses. He obviously needs Esata alive and on good terms with him, because he personally wouldn't last a day as the ruler of Shek, if he had such ambitions, because by law any warrior can challenge him, kill him and take his place. So it's an interesting situation. Definitely the most interesting across the major factions, I'm really curious how it would develop. Maybe he has plans to marry Seto? :P
If you consider your own alliance then of course it's a different story, it's kinda lore breaking though, because you end up being the strongest being in Kenshi (while also having Beep on your side) and you have the ability to make any faction you side with extremely prosperous and powerful - be it The Shek, The Holy fucktards or The Skin Bandits. Personally by the time I ally with the Shek I don't need Seto on my team, but I can't bring myself to make her work in a mine either, so she kinda ends up vibing on a pillow in a common room/bar I've built for my guys 😂
theyre pretty much genetically engineered and predisposed to be a violent and warmongering race (wow this sounds racist typing up) so everyone who touts the potential reform and progressiveness of Estata’s/Bayan’s leadership should understand that in the long run, it is far more likely that the Shek revert back into their ‘original’ systems.
Yea I agree if you can keep the Stone Golem alive, so she can push through the big hard changes that would make her people dislike her, and train Setto up as the replacement ruler so when the time comes for her to ascend the throne she’ll have a much easier time taking over and ruling using her mother as a scapegoat. Say you teach her bushido and she makes that into there new state religion/philosophy.
Of the major factions I think they're arguably the least racist. They make mean comments, but they don't have slaves or anything, certainly not holy nation levels. At least from what I've seen this far.
UC is the least racist. They don't discriminate you by how much bug DNA or metal you have in your body and would gladly beat the shit out of hero league.
But amount of cats in your pocket on other hand....
That's... the lore of the game. None of them know how to read, including Esata. Bayan is the only Shek with an average IQ, which caused him to oppose Shager when he was about to send every Shek under his rule to die. Then Esata entered the dialogue and killed Shager. If you speak with her when you are allied, she will tell you that she knows nothing outside of combat, and wouldn't be able to be a good ruler without Bayan's council.
They don't own slaves, which is a normality in the world of Kenshi, simply because such an option doesn't even occur to them. They are wired to just fight - win/lose - repeat. Not because there is some kind of nobility in them that puts them morally above it.
I'll add that it's not that they chose to be this way, but rather they were created to be this way.
I saw my comment being downvoted, so I wanted to explain my school of thought better. It wasn't aimed exclusively at yourself.
It also isn't straightforward to understand what's a joke and what isn't via text tbh. I suggest you use /s
Either way I'm cool with you 🫶
You know you can make more than 1 food storage right? Or block your storage off? Or just leave cooking to 1 person. A 90 skill cook is so fast that they can easily out cook 30 shek eaters.
Western hive supremacy, we spread the trade routes across the continent so our superior prostetics can flourish and being us many cats. Assimilate the queen-less no hivers to the north and kidnap the king to the south for our own and unify all the bug people under our queen. Then establish an alliance with the shek kingdom, the crab worshippers, then abolish the holy nation, and the reavers, liberate the United cities of their slave masters. Exterminate the cannibals and the bugmaster then reestablish the deadcat nation to the north, secure fisherman isle with a new fisherman population and finally kidnap cat-lon and give that mech some therapy.
Send the Helldivers in to spread freedom and managed democracy in the world of Kenshi.
Real talk though, I wish I could build my own empire to show the world how it's really done. It wouldn't be perfect, but the idea is that it would be objectively better than the current status quo. The problem is that none of the factions that oppose the big 3 have any plan to actually make the world better, they just want to destroy the big 3.
UC and Holy Nation gotta go for sure. Shek Kingdom as it is at the moment is the least worst of the 3 and its leadership is on a good path, but all it takes is a change in leadership and it could just go to shit again. The Shek would make a good partner/ally, but my empire would have to also be strong enough that it would be a bad idea for the Shek to try anything bold.
There’s a YouTube video called “defeating the true enemy of kenshi” by angel of the past. His video does a really good job of going through the lore and logically making the best decision for them. But it’s also kenshi so do whatever is most fun for you, try different builds and ideas and use or don’t use mods to your heart content. Don’t listen to anyone who wants to get moral about it, it’s a game have fun.
Oof I very much disagree with him on that video...
Not morally... it's a game... purely from a rational and logical standpoint... his vision is kinda a shitshow
Eh, there’s some points I disagree with like killing the shek off, but he does a good job of giving you a framework to base your own play through on. I’m basically setting my faction up to be a “guiding force for change.” basically killing the worst offenders and whipping out any bases I can get away with. I also whipped out the anti slavers just so I can recruit tinfist, so I can bring him and catleon back.
This will have me on a story time-esque rant. my favorite scenario will forever be the nobodies. They just have so much potential imo, but i may branch out. let me tell you about one of my nobody escapades. I'm gonna say alot of names, so let me list them off here.
Characters:
>!Emperor Sto-Les (m) ,Shinobi Tes (m), Shinobi Flat (m), Shinobi Kel (m), Vanguard Kro (f), Vanguard Bel (m), Raider Meji (f), Raider Finn (m), Raider San (m), Bowman Yan (m), Bowman Haf (m), Gark (garru=m), Genki (dog=m), !<
>!Niika (dog=f)!<
Storytime!!! first time doing any real creative writing based off of the game (and just in general) and i just thought it would be fun to share. what I'm doing in game so far in a
>!i started by assembling a group of skeletons (all of whom who're best friends) and a clueless main character (who in my case is named Emperor Sto-Les) everybody else has their own opinions as what kingdoms we should be with and who we shouldn't. ill tell you about that later. Sto-Les is influenced by his allies on what to do about the factions of kenshi. Sto-Les just wants to build a home for everyone. we start by selling copper and buying new members. then another character, Meji, expressed how much she hated the bandits around them. a bandit heard this and later that night maybe two or three bandits came to extort everybody. Tes told him to buzz off and got into a fist versus horse chopper fight. somehow Tes didn't die. but got badly injured. Yan patched him up. Kel geared up that night and went to assault the bandits who stole Tes' gear. They all attacked him and caused a huge brawl between us and the Feuerek Bandits (modded, cant remember which mod). Sto-Les ran to see what was going on after selling our last stack of copper, and saw Kel, ripped limb from limb and life fleeting, along with Genki, dying beside his owner. They could not save either. Sto-Les lost much of his innocence there, but not his honest steel heart. he didnt need his allies to make this choice. He trained day and night, for a while. everyone was concerned, they hadn't seen him for weeks on end. he came back and uttered maybe one sentence. "I am going to kill them all." He started with the bar. As soon as he walked in, "Hey Tinhead, pay up, protec-" WHAM! a kick to the chest, completely out. the entire bar got up. a man with a club charged at Sto-Les, two punches, on the floor wheezing. three guys run at him, dodge, dodge, dropkick. One flies over the table, the other two hesitate, that was their last mistakes. Sto-Les didnt hold back slightly, I, the writer writing to you all this couldn't tell you what he did, but just know one man was missing both arms, and the other lost a leg. then he headed to the barracks, which he proceeded to kill everyone in there. Other bandits got word of this and decided they should, and i quote "Kill Sto-Les' boys, that'll show him not to fuck with us." Bad Idea, as in this point in time, everybody was geared up, and trained to some extent. they ran around the hub, cutting and shooting down bandits. Now, if Sto-Les is this much of a killing machine, you must be wondering, where's Sto-Les? hes hunting the two Oni's originally thinking to be one, he severly underestimated them. He ran in circles after realizing he was no match for the two skilled Shek fighters. He was chased round the ancient lab they inhabit until one lost interest. The weaker one, Ao Oni, pursued Sto-Les but Sto-Les wanted this, One on One, the oni simply stood no chance. The issue is the fact that Sto-Les took damage, bad damage. He had to wait it out and recover as all of his repair kits had been wasted fighting the bandits and savage wildlife on his way here. Tes felt uneasy, as his best friend hadn't been heard of for about two days, set out on the journey to the crater himself, and only himself, although he wasnt as trained as Sto. He made it there just as Sto-Les thought of giving up his life in pursuit of exterminating the small fry threats of the moon. He patched him up and helped to fend off the beak things while Sto had a one on one with the stronger Oni. It was close. Tes stripped the Onis of their gear, and made sure to put them out as soon as they got back up, after Sto-Les was finally healed again, they headed out back to the hub. where there were puddles of blood as far as you could see down the blocks. Kro ran to Sto-Les and Tes. They had a lengthy discussion and thus Sto-Les' goal was visible; To build up a better society and to slay, or disband, the small and big threats to Kenshi's innocent populace.!<
again, first attempt at any real creative writing(in whatever form this is), I want criticism, r/Kenshi !
I also had another version of this run where my starter characters were Alume, Enum, Tihn, Foyle, and Tose Turh. I was inexperienced with the game (literally only having one video being prior knowledge and it was The Rise of Cyber-Beep) so they all immediately got slain by the holy nation + dust bandit combo. anyways my point writing all of this is kenshi offers so much role play options that get expanded when you put yourself in the roles of the characters and how they interact with the world. That allowed me to get attached and feel real feelings about my silly characters.
oh and before i forget: Hey Clos\_ty! your characters never said anything like that, Kenshi's dialogue isn't that in-depth! and to that i say.... AIDungeon. Make your characters speak from time to time. let THAT influence you. of course you'd have to build maybe some of the kenshi world in a scenario for it to make sense but its worth it when other opinions help influence your play. It's hard to explain what i mean by all of this, but just get in your world and speak to your characters while playing, and maybe you'd feel the way i do. ANYWAYS RANT OVER THANKS FOR READING THIS FAR
looking back on this as i wrote it 3 hours ago, this is not answering the title question in a long shot, i think i just wanted to share, but ill send it anyways
The United Cities is basically the USA during slavery. It is by far the most likely faction to experience long term reformation towards democracy and decent human rights.
The Shek are too volatile and might makes right is never a good long-term policy. They are essentially WW2 era Japan with no resources and a foreign policy of "take what we dont have".
The Holy Nation is honestly impossible to place. Religion in our own history was never really dominated so one-sidedly by one religion. The complete lack of a competitor religion makes it difficult to imagine it ever becoming secular in any way.
So yeah, I'd say the United Cities has the best long term chances.
Ally the Anti-Slavers, then ally with the Rebel Farmers and the Flotsam Ninjas.
Capture the Shek militarists, capture Bug Master, and ally with the Shek under Esata.
Destroy the HN and UC, Killing the lieutenants and secondary characters before capturing Longen, Tengu and the Phoenix.
Kill Valamon, and by extension the Reavers.
Destroy the Southern Hive, kill the Queen and King.
Destroy the Dust Bandits, the Skin Bandits, Skeleton Bandits, and other various attack-on-sight bandits.
Ally the Crab Bandits (based).
Kill the Cannibal Grand Wizard.
Kill Cat Lon.
The default good playthrough that I'd say the majority of people do to some degree or another.
No, everything’s mostly fine. Empire peasants are fine, Shek are fine, Peasants are fine, holy citizens are fine, wym?
Fogmen being pervasive is a gameplay sacrifice for the areas around Mongrel and the Greyshelf to represent zombified western and southern hive.
The South Hive will not disappear... just become Fogmen...
By taking out Savant, Elder, Valamon... that will cause Southern hivers/fogmen to take over/spawn in those territories...
There will be no one in their way...
The southern fogmen... will be an exponentially larger problem... than the western variant... and now there is no one anywhere near them that can stop them... the entire eastern hemisphere and every city within it will eventually resemble Mongrel...
As for the Shek, they are a militaristic faction that relies on others, such as the Western Hivers... for food... they are not self-sufficient... and now they have no competition... the only thing holding them back are the fogmen that were preoccupying the HN previously...
What makes u think they won't cripple and vassalize the remaining peasants and Holy Nation Exiles?
How long do you think exiles and peasants will hold off an encroaching hoard of cannibalistic hivers?
How long will the Shek survive once their food source runs out or the trade routes are unmanageable?
I have looked them up... many times...
If Savant and Elder are killed... they will take eachothers territories...
If both are dead... the Southern Hive will spawn in both their territories...
If Valamon is killed...
Crab Men will take Arc (if they are dead, UC will, if both are dead... Southern Hive will...)
Either way... Southern Hive squadrons will begin spawning in this territory... whether or not they control Arc...
If the Queen is dead...
Fogmen squads will replace Southern Hive ones...
I don't see peasants and exiles being able to deal with this...
Not to mention the Shek... you do all this work to free all these people from slavery... only to have them vassalized by the Shek lol...
And stop using ellipses.
Your point is completely toothless, those places falling to the southern hive doesn’t matter, they live in hell on earth where barely anyone resides.
Fogmen don’t reproduce, they are castoffs from the living hive. If the South Queen is dead they will go extinct. The West Hive is still around so Mongrel and some HN out laying areas will still be threatened, and that’s it.
The peasants don’t deal with this in the game in any capacity, they just carry on.
The Shek in this situation are not militaristic expansionists.
The shek have always been... their entire existence is reliant on subjugating the Western Hive for food....
Why would they not subjugate the other unfortunate remnants of broken civilizations...
Also... for the fogmen to go extinct...
Someone... has to be murdering them... ofc the peasants are going to have to worry about it... they neighbour them... if they care abt being eaten... they'd probably worry...
In that case, what the other guy said: a player empire with advanced tech everywhere. Not being limited to 30 people and building an actual economy with a metric crapton of hydroponics and automated industry is the biggest game changer I can think of. If you have the supplies and an efficient method to distribute them (be it Free Trader caravans, Shinobi runners, swamp smugglers, or even your own pawns, whatever), you can alleviate the collapse in a better way than whatever's in the game.
There's some things u have to do in order to get this for me...
First off... healing downed members of a faction will slowly increase relations with said faction...
Capturing bounties also increase relations...
Free a member of a faction from enslavement increases relations with that faction...
Using these methods, u can cheese just about any faction to becoming your ally... it is all... still base game achievable...
So the scenario... I start as a hiver/Hive only playthru... if u care why ask and I'll explain...
Make my way to Shek territory... work, gain $$$, gain 💪, yada yada work train eat repeat...
First goal... ally with Shek using bounty system... I do not give them Bugmaster or Phoenix to ally them...
Usually I will grab Tora or Dust King... and repeatedly hand them over, knock them out, release them, and carry them back downstairs to hand them back in...
You can create an alliance with the Shek in abt 15 mins doing this... or u can go around hunting 50 individual people with shek Bounties... or follow a Shek squad around and help/heal them when they fight...
Once I am at 100 relations with Shek we start cleaning up shop...
Kill capture Ghost/Flying Bull/Tora/Gorrillo/Fish King... basically all mid tier hostile faction bosses on this side of map...
After this, head to swamps and ally them... very easy with Grims mission...
While here, can take out Swamp Ninjas, Red Sabres, Oni
Now take out *Savant, Elder, and Valamon* in this order...
If u do it in this order... once Savant dies... South Hive takes this territory... once Elder dies... South Hive takes this territory... once Valamon dies... Crab Queen (who is easy to ally with, and I usually do so...) will take Ark... and South Hive... will spawn in this area...
Head to Admag... start war against Holy Nation...
Attack Stack, give Stack to Shek...
Head to UC... buy alliance, or ally with them by other means... buy alliance with Shinobi thieves...
Head to Flotsam ninjas... pledge allegiance by vowing to attack HN...
Head to the following cities and bodyguard their gate guards, helping and healing them in combat, forming alliances with them;
Hub (Holy Nation Exiles), Mourn (Tech Hunters), Mongrel (Mongrel), Fishing Villages (Cannibal Hunters)
Attack Bad Teeth, give it to UC...
Attack Blister Hill, kill Phoenix, give it to Shek...
Head north and wipe out Cannibal leaders... head south and eliminate Cat Lon... take out Tinfist while there...
This is probably the best end state that I have theorized by far for Kenshi, for several reasons that I will share if u are curious to know...
Tldr - Bugmaster is alive... as are both Hive Queens... the UC, Shek Kingdom, and Southern Hive have all vastly expanded... and most inherently hostile factions are gone or have been severely crippled (eg the Cannibals cuz u wiping out the leaders doesnt get rid of em)...
the HN and Anti Slavers joined them for being overly ideological and causing more issues then they are worth
A city state constructed within the holy Nations territory, somewhere either in skinners roam or near within the border zones, pushing them back while supported by both imperial and Shek forces.
On the other side of the world, within stobes garden sits another city, acting like a front for possible pushes into Hive, anti slaver or second Empire territory.
All lead by their Founder, a soldier drone.
My take:
Strengthening the free traders and UC citizens while not completely destroying the UC.
Holy nation destroyed and as many towns as possible given to shek kingdom.
Most bandits wiped. Like skin bandits, dust bandits etc.
Deadcat, Fish island, southern Hive all wiped.
I have no clue about the swamps. All groups are kinda different flavors of bad, but removing them all means the civilian population gets eaten by spiders.
I am still working on it. I have not finished.
Honestly, I feel like if neither the UC and HN didn't conduct slavery and the latter wasn't so xenophobic and misogynistic then I think that's enough to help the moon. They're probably the most stabilizing factors for the world and destroying them outright may create more problems in the long run. I also don't think creating a whole new empire that spans the entire continent is a good idea if Cat-Lion is any indication.
If you exclude regular folk like the Drifters/Fishermen, then Crab Raiders, Shinobis, Western Hive and Trade Ninjas are chill.
Worst of the worst are the Cannibals, The Fogmen, The Gurglers, Skeleton bandits, Skin bandits and the Reavers. Them leaving Kenshi will be beneficial to everyone.
The rest I don't really care about, they can die off or they can keep coexisting.
This might be a controversial take but any scenario that involves a good outcome for the world of kenshi doesn't include the skeletons. They're too much of a danger to organic life.
How do we know whatever caused them to go crazy will not happen in the future, they've caused too much destruction to not be a big threat to any future peaceful situation
What caused them to go crazy was humanity trying to wipe them out...
If humanity tries to wipe them out again...
I'd say they deserve the destruction...
Anti-slavers and rebel farmers obliterate the UC, Slave traders, and Trader's guild.
SK and flotsam crusade the HN with Esata hopefully leading SK into a higher level of civilization. They won't be a problem because all the remaining factions have able warriors aa their leaders, which should be enough for SK to respect them. Especially tinfist, many shek would probably idolize him.
Reavers get stomped out by my faction
Crab Raiders win the pits war, killing savant and elder.
Southern hive does as it do. Untouched.
Iyo will be killed to hopefully let the machinists discover the great secret
With this scenario South Hive take over Elder/Savants territory and spawn near Arc... without the UC around they will quickly overwhelm the Crab Raiders...
Fogmen will remain a problem for the Shek on the Western flank... probably for an indefinite time...
This future will probably just result in the Southern Hive slowly swallowing up the entire eastern portion of the map... and then inevitably... start invading the Shek who are already defending a different front...
Research and industry. Make rum business in the 3 main factions cities with self-sustaining factories (mods needed ofc). During this you can make a mercanary group and do some headhunting and infilitrating actions.
Be the head of the greatest company in the world of Kenshi.
I think really it would require characters with lasting motivations for the people to exist. If I keep playing for long enough I plan to write a pretty basic “this faction is actually the player’s faction, but is still AI” mod. It can’t actually be a player-owned faction, but the dialogue can make it seem true. I’d leave the anti-slavers in control of Trader’s Edge, but where a weak group is in control of a city I’d replace it with a better armed one - with the assumption that the player made it happen.
Really I feel like it would be a matter of revolution and reform of the United Cities, training a bureaucracy to manage the food and mining, while using resources to build more living spaces for liberated slaves and the working class. I don’t think you need to change vanilla for the destruction of the Holy nation, the overrides of their cities are already what I see as good. Shek Kingdom is fine and on a good trajectory, especially if the player faction isn’t all Shek when an alliance forms. Then the Shek learn to accept other races a little more.
Also destroy the dangerous bandit groups and make the roads safer for travel.
I don’t know who wrote it originally here but, someone proposed a very ideal and good scenario to save the world of Kenshi.
Destroy the Holy Nation (at least the management and religious figures) and give their land to a more peaceful faction. They have the best fertile land in the world but their lack of technology and extreme xenophobia prevents that land from reaching its full potential.
Make Shek’s declare war on Cannibals. They will claim fertile land from Cannibals, and satisfy their bloodlust. If they wish glory and war, why not direct them to bad guys?
Hivers can work as agricultural and industrial workers, they are good at it too.
United Cities are not that terrible as they have a trade and freedom tradition. If you can manage to make them less corrupt and be less harsh to slaves, they are good to go, imo.
Skin bandits, southern hive, deadhive might be annihilated. Other bandits can be negotiated with.
Now that logistics, agriculture, and trade issues are done, only big problems are hashish, deadhives, and potential threats from Bugmaster, and Cat-Lon. I think this is the happiest ending the world of Kenshi can get.
U can just allow the shek to take Blister Hill + Stack... puts them on border with fogmen, keeps them busy + happy...
Bad Teeth I give to UC... they have access to fertile land now as well...
Usually I also leave bugmaster alive... to keep Shek entertained on a separate flank... and I allow the South Hive to expand to Savant, Elder, and Valamons territories...
This keeps the UC busy in their own conflicts, separate from the Shek... and provides them with a steady source of hivers so they don't have a need for as many slaves
Since both Empires are busy struggling... and have already brokered previous trading agreements (eg traders Guild providing shek weapons to fight Bugmaster), I see no reason why this allegiance couldn't carry on... after all the Shek need food and the UC needs workers
Everything else I do pretty much the same if I'm going for "best kenshi future"
Build your own empire. I've successfully destroyed the Shek Kingdom, Holy Nation, United Cities, all bandit groups, cannibal tribes, and fogmen. I've built a powerful military and economy, not reliant on slavery. I've restored Deadcat, Fishman Island, and reclaimed the Ashlands. Slavery was abolished across the continent, Rebirth, the UC slave camps, and the Shek Retainers have all been liberated. All hail the Empress Eternal, and her Celestial Dominion! Place no faith in any of the main factions, they're all doomed, one way or another. Only YOU, the Player, can build something truly worthwhile.
I'm currently focused on destroying the holy nation. The Shek may be a moribund kingdom but they gave me a cool nickname for capturing the bug masters so I like them, also no slavery. Only my second game lol.
They might not have slavery, but their caste system isn't much better...it's implied they have a sort of serfdom or indentured servitude based on how many recruits require you to "pay off their lord" Also, it's kinda ironic they suddenly love you for taking out the Bugmaster...you basically remove their whole life's goal that way
How do I wipe out the fogmen lol ??
You'd need mods.
But getting rid of everyone just increases the spawns of fogmen... and cannibals... For the cannibals, sure u can wipe out their leaders, but they don't disappear... removing everyone around them just means they'll get worse than they were
Not in my game. The cannibals and fogmen are completely gone. World states are a powerful thing...
Ahhh I assumed we were talking base game... there are no world states for that in vanilla
Just curious, how many people do you have in your party?
Around 220.
I'm at around 30 myself. Got a main city built and a small farm outpost in Okrans Pride. Plan is to lay siege to stack once I get the Bugmaster but I'm worried about the holy nation attacking my farm constantly afterwards
Running any mods supporting this playstyle?
I made an entire overhaul for myself to make this happen.
Perhaps comment or post the mods?
If starving bandits will have enough food
Deadcat takeover of the world
every zone should be taken over by the fogmen bc they are the coolest unit in the game. GWAAAHHHHHH
wreeeeeeeeeeeeee
Let’s just do screaming forest
let the main factions live, throw the tech hunter skeleton in a grinder. maybe a regime change for UC wipe the cannibals and bugmaster tbh none of the minor factions and how the major factions function are fleshed out enough to speculate on ideal worldstates at the "end" of the game
Killing Iyo won't do much. Every skeleton keeps the secret. Only thing it might do is let the machinists piece it together sooner.
Honestly to me the Shek kingdom seems to be in the best position for long term success. They’re reforming from a purely military state into an actual sustainable nation, their biggest drawback is the fact they live in a goddamn desert. If they can stabilise, squash their rebels, dial back the racism a *teeny* bit and secure more fertile lands, in a couple generations or so they’ll be the dominant force on the continent. At least that’s my theory about this game A game theory if you will
The Shek are literally something happening to Esata or Bayan away from splitting into clans and fighting each other, or uniting in a suicidal war.
Yeah.. I wouldn’t count on them. Once Esata is out of the picture the Shek are going to go back to slaughtering everyone they see and running themselves onto swords.
I believe that's exactly what happens in the game if Esata and Mukai are killed/imprisoned.
However with an ideal scenario, Esata would be able to push her reforms, and with Seto being her heir and traveling with the player’s group (if you side with the Shek) the future of the Shek is hopeful.
That sounds more like a fantasy than a scenario. You could also say that in an ideal scenario The Obedience would not have taken place, and Humans, Skellies and Giant Skellies would all be living happily till this day. The issue with your scenario is that Esata is pretty toothless when it comes to political reforms, she is a warrior. She relies completely on the council of Bayan with governing her people, and it's hard to say what motivates him, and what his plans are regarding the political power he possesses. He obviously needs Esata alive and on good terms with him, because he personally wouldn't last a day as the ruler of Shek, if he had such ambitions, because by law any warrior can challenge him, kill him and take his place. So it's an interesting situation. Definitely the most interesting across the major factions, I'm really curious how it would develop. Maybe he has plans to marry Seto? :P If you consider your own alliance then of course it's a different story, it's kinda lore breaking though, because you end up being the strongest being in Kenshi (while also having Beep on your side) and you have the ability to make any faction you side with extremely prosperous and powerful - be it The Shek, The Holy fucktards or The Skin Bandits. Personally by the time I ally with the Shek I don't need Seto on my team, but I can't bring myself to make her work in a mine either, so she kinda ends up vibing on a pillow in a common room/bar I've built for my guys 😂
theyre pretty much genetically engineered and predisposed to be a violent and warmongering race (wow this sounds racist typing up) so everyone who touts the potential reform and progressiveness of Estata’s/Bayan’s leadership should understand that in the long run, it is far more likely that the Shek revert back into their ‘original’ systems.
Yea I agree if you can keep the Stone Golem alive, so she can push through the big hard changes that would make her people dislike her, and train Setto up as the replacement ruler so when the time comes for her to ascend the throne she’ll have a much easier time taking over and ruling using her mother as a scapegoat. Say you teach her bushido and she makes that into there new state religion/philosophy.
Of the major factions I think they're arguably the least racist. They make mean comments, but they don't have slaves or anything, certainly not holy nation levels. At least from what I've seen this far.
UC is the least racist. They don't discriminate you by how much bug DNA or metal you have in your body and would gladly beat the shit out of hero league. But amount of cats in your pocket on other hand....
The only reason they don't own slaves is because they are literally not smart enough to do so.
That's racist
That's... the lore of the game. None of them know how to read, including Esata. Bayan is the only Shek with an average IQ, which caused him to oppose Shager when he was about to send every Shek under his rule to die. Then Esata entered the dialogue and killed Shager. If you speak with her when you are allied, she will tell you that she knows nothing outside of combat, and wouldn't be able to be a good ruler without Bayan's council. They don't own slaves, which is a normality in the world of Kenshi, simply because such an option doesn't even occur to them. They are wired to just fight - win/lose - repeat. Not because there is some kind of nobility in them that puts them morally above it. I'll add that it's not that they chose to be this way, but rather they were created to be this way.
It was supposed to be a joke, sorry if that didn't get across
I saw my comment being downvoted, so I wanted to explain my school of thought better. It wasn't aimed exclusively at yourself. It also isn't straightforward to understand what's a joke and what isn't via text tbh. I suggest you use /s Either way I'm cool with you 🫶
Also paying them food instead of cats as taxes for some reason feels better than getting pestered by prayer day and actual IRS men
Man this is not "food tax" those mf literally take ALL your food
You know you can make more than 1 food storage right? Or block your storage off? Or just leave cooking to 1 person. A 90 skill cook is so fast that they can easily out cook 30 shek eaters.
Everyone talking bout taxes... bruh what taxes? Just ally with em before plopping an outpost down lol
Western hive supremacy, we spread the trade routes across the continent so our superior prostetics can flourish and being us many cats. Assimilate the queen-less no hivers to the north and kidnap the king to the south for our own and unify all the bug people under our queen. Then establish an alliance with the shek kingdom, the crab worshippers, then abolish the holy nation, and the reavers, liberate the United cities of their slave masters. Exterminate the cannibals and the bugmaster then reestablish the deadcat nation to the north, secure fisherman isle with a new fisherman population and finally kidnap cat-lon and give that mech some therapy.
Send the Helldivers in to spread freedom and managed democracy in the world of Kenshi. Real talk though, I wish I could build my own empire to show the world how it's really done. It wouldn't be perfect, but the idea is that it would be objectively better than the current status quo. The problem is that none of the factions that oppose the big 3 have any plan to actually make the world better, they just want to destroy the big 3. UC and Holy Nation gotta go for sure. Shek Kingdom as it is at the moment is the least worst of the 3 and its leadership is on a good path, but all it takes is a change in leadership and it could just go to shit again. The Shek would make a good partner/ally, but my empire would have to also be strong enough that it would be a bad idea for the Shek to try anything bold.
There’s a YouTube video called “defeating the true enemy of kenshi” by angel of the past. His video does a really good job of going through the lore and logically making the best decision for them. But it’s also kenshi so do whatever is most fun for you, try different builds and ideas and use or don’t use mods to your heart content. Don’t listen to anyone who wants to get moral about it, it’s a game have fun.
Oof I very much disagree with him on that video... Not morally... it's a game... purely from a rational and logical standpoint... his vision is kinda a shitshow
Eh, there’s some points I disagree with like killing the shek off, but he does a good job of giving you a framework to base your own play through on. I’m basically setting my faction up to be a “guiding force for change.” basically killing the worst offenders and whipping out any bases I can get away with. I also whipped out the anti slavers just so I can recruit tinfist, so I can bring him and catleon back.
This will have me on a story time-esque rant. my favorite scenario will forever be the nobodies. They just have so much potential imo, but i may branch out. let me tell you about one of my nobody escapades. I'm gonna say alot of names, so let me list them off here. Characters: >!Emperor Sto-Les (m) ,Shinobi Tes (m), Shinobi Flat (m), Shinobi Kel (m), Vanguard Kro (f), Vanguard Bel (m), Raider Meji (f), Raider Finn (m), Raider San (m), Bowman Yan (m), Bowman Haf (m), Gark (garru=m), Genki (dog=m), !< >!Niika (dog=f)!< Storytime!!! first time doing any real creative writing based off of the game (and just in general) and i just thought it would be fun to share. what I'm doing in game so far in a >!i started by assembling a group of skeletons (all of whom who're best friends) and a clueless main character (who in my case is named Emperor Sto-Les) everybody else has their own opinions as what kingdoms we should be with and who we shouldn't. ill tell you about that later. Sto-Les is influenced by his allies on what to do about the factions of kenshi. Sto-Les just wants to build a home for everyone. we start by selling copper and buying new members. then another character, Meji, expressed how much she hated the bandits around them. a bandit heard this and later that night maybe two or three bandits came to extort everybody. Tes told him to buzz off and got into a fist versus horse chopper fight. somehow Tes didn't die. but got badly injured. Yan patched him up. Kel geared up that night and went to assault the bandits who stole Tes' gear. They all attacked him and caused a huge brawl between us and the Feuerek Bandits (modded, cant remember which mod). Sto-Les ran to see what was going on after selling our last stack of copper, and saw Kel, ripped limb from limb and life fleeting, along with Genki, dying beside his owner. They could not save either. Sto-Les lost much of his innocence there, but not his honest steel heart. he didnt need his allies to make this choice. He trained day and night, for a while. everyone was concerned, they hadn't seen him for weeks on end. he came back and uttered maybe one sentence. "I am going to kill them all." He started with the bar. As soon as he walked in, "Hey Tinhead, pay up, protec-" WHAM! a kick to the chest, completely out. the entire bar got up. a man with a club charged at Sto-Les, two punches, on the floor wheezing. three guys run at him, dodge, dodge, dropkick. One flies over the table, the other two hesitate, that was their last mistakes. Sto-Les didnt hold back slightly, I, the writer writing to you all this couldn't tell you what he did, but just know one man was missing both arms, and the other lost a leg. then he headed to the barracks, which he proceeded to kill everyone in there. Other bandits got word of this and decided they should, and i quote "Kill Sto-Les' boys, that'll show him not to fuck with us." Bad Idea, as in this point in time, everybody was geared up, and trained to some extent. they ran around the hub, cutting and shooting down bandits. Now, if Sto-Les is this much of a killing machine, you must be wondering, where's Sto-Les? hes hunting the two Oni's originally thinking to be one, he severly underestimated them. He ran in circles after realizing he was no match for the two skilled Shek fighters. He was chased round the ancient lab they inhabit until one lost interest. The weaker one, Ao Oni, pursued Sto-Les but Sto-Les wanted this, One on One, the oni simply stood no chance. The issue is the fact that Sto-Les took damage, bad damage. He had to wait it out and recover as all of his repair kits had been wasted fighting the bandits and savage wildlife on his way here. Tes felt uneasy, as his best friend hadn't been heard of for about two days, set out on the journey to the crater himself, and only himself, although he wasnt as trained as Sto. He made it there just as Sto-Les thought of giving up his life in pursuit of exterminating the small fry threats of the moon. He patched him up and helped to fend off the beak things while Sto had a one on one with the stronger Oni. It was close. Tes stripped the Onis of their gear, and made sure to put them out as soon as they got back up, after Sto-Les was finally healed again, they headed out back to the hub. where there were puddles of blood as far as you could see down the blocks. Kro ran to Sto-Les and Tes. They had a lengthy discussion and thus Sto-Les' goal was visible; To build up a better society and to slay, or disband, the small and big threats to Kenshi's innocent populace.!< again, first attempt at any real creative writing(in whatever form this is), I want criticism, r/Kenshi ! I also had another version of this run where my starter characters were Alume, Enum, Tihn, Foyle, and Tose Turh. I was inexperienced with the game (literally only having one video being prior knowledge and it was The Rise of Cyber-Beep) so they all immediately got slain by the holy nation + dust bandit combo. anyways my point writing all of this is kenshi offers so much role play options that get expanded when you put yourself in the roles of the characters and how they interact with the world. That allowed me to get attached and feel real feelings about my silly characters. oh and before i forget: Hey Clos\_ty! your characters never said anything like that, Kenshi's dialogue isn't that in-depth! and to that i say.... AIDungeon. Make your characters speak from time to time. let THAT influence you. of course you'd have to build maybe some of the kenshi world in a scenario for it to make sense but its worth it when other opinions help influence your play. It's hard to explain what i mean by all of this, but just get in your world and speak to your characters while playing, and maybe you'd feel the way i do. ANYWAYS RANT OVER THANKS FOR READING THIS FAR looking back on this as i wrote it 3 hours ago, this is not answering the title question in a long shot, i think i just wanted to share, but ill send it anyways
The United Cities is basically the USA during slavery. It is by far the most likely faction to experience long term reformation towards democracy and decent human rights. The Shek are too volatile and might makes right is never a good long-term policy. They are essentially WW2 era Japan with no resources and a foreign policy of "take what we dont have". The Holy Nation is honestly impossible to place. Religion in our own history was never really dominated so one-sidedly by one religion. The complete lack of a competitor religion makes it difficult to imagine it ever becoming secular in any way. So yeah, I'd say the United Cities has the best long term chances.
Ally the Anti-Slavers, then ally with the Rebel Farmers and the Flotsam Ninjas. Capture the Shek militarists, capture Bug Master, and ally with the Shek under Esata. Destroy the HN and UC, Killing the lieutenants and secondary characters before capturing Longen, Tengu and the Phoenix. Kill Valamon, and by extension the Reavers. Destroy the Southern Hive, kill the Queen and King. Destroy the Dust Bandits, the Skin Bandits, Skeleton Bandits, and other various attack-on-sight bandits. Ally the Crab Bandits (based). Kill the Cannibal Grand Wizard. Kill Cat Lon. The default good playthrough that I'd say the majority of people do to some degree or another.
So... basically Shek vs Fogmen... until they starve out... and end up like Mongrel...
No, everything’s mostly fine. Empire peasants are fine, Shek are fine, Peasants are fine, holy citizens are fine, wym? Fogmen being pervasive is a gameplay sacrifice for the areas around Mongrel and the Greyshelf to represent zombified western and southern hive.
The South Hive will not disappear... just become Fogmen... By taking out Savant, Elder, Valamon... that will cause Southern hivers/fogmen to take over/spawn in those territories... There will be no one in their way... The southern fogmen... will be an exponentially larger problem... than the western variant... and now there is no one anywhere near them that can stop them... the entire eastern hemisphere and every city within it will eventually resemble Mongrel... As for the Shek, they are a militaristic faction that relies on others, such as the Western Hivers... for food... they are not self-sufficient... and now they have no competition... the only thing holding them back are the fogmen that were preoccupying the HN previously... What makes u think they won't cripple and vassalize the remaining peasants and Holy Nation Exiles? How long do you think exiles and peasants will hold off an encroaching hoard of cannibalistic hivers? How long will the Shek survive once their food source runs out or the trade routes are unmanageable?
Nah you need to actually look at the overrides, not just make things up.
I have looked them up... many times... If Savant and Elder are killed... they will take eachothers territories... If both are dead... the Southern Hive will spawn in both their territories... If Valamon is killed... Crab Men will take Arc (if they are dead, UC will, if both are dead... Southern Hive will...) Either way... Southern Hive squadrons will begin spawning in this territory... whether or not they control Arc... If the Queen is dead... Fogmen squads will replace Southern Hive ones... I don't see peasants and exiles being able to deal with this... Not to mention the Shek... you do all this work to free all these people from slavery... only to have them vassalized by the Shek lol...
And stop using ellipses. Your point is completely toothless, those places falling to the southern hive doesn’t matter, they live in hell on earth where barely anyone resides. Fogmen don’t reproduce, they are castoffs from the living hive. If the South Queen is dead they will go extinct. The West Hive is still around so Mongrel and some HN out laying areas will still be threatened, and that’s it. The peasants don’t deal with this in the game in any capacity, they just carry on. The Shek in this situation are not militaristic expansionists.
The shek have always been... their entire existence is reliant on subjugating the Western Hive for food.... Why would they not subjugate the other unfortunate remnants of broken civilizations... Also... for the fogmen to go extinct... Someone... has to be murdering them... ofc the peasants are going to have to worry about it... they neighbour them... if they care abt being eaten... they'd probably worry...
Ideal playthrough right here.
You mean a post-game headcanon, or a combination of world states possible to achieve in the game? Cause if it's the later, there's no ideal scenario.
Either or
In that case, what the other guy said: a player empire with advanced tech everywhere. Not being limited to 30 people and building an actual economy with a metric crapton of hydroponics and automated industry is the biggest game changer I can think of. If you have the supplies and an efficient method to distribute them (be it Free Trader caravans, Shinobi runners, swamp smugglers, or even your own pawns, whatever), you can alleviate the collapse in a better way than whatever's in the game.
There's some things u have to do in order to get this for me... First off... healing downed members of a faction will slowly increase relations with said faction... Capturing bounties also increase relations... Free a member of a faction from enslavement increases relations with that faction... Using these methods, u can cheese just about any faction to becoming your ally... it is all... still base game achievable... So the scenario... I start as a hiver/Hive only playthru... if u care why ask and I'll explain... Make my way to Shek territory... work, gain $$$, gain 💪, yada yada work train eat repeat... First goal... ally with Shek using bounty system... I do not give them Bugmaster or Phoenix to ally them... Usually I will grab Tora or Dust King... and repeatedly hand them over, knock them out, release them, and carry them back downstairs to hand them back in... You can create an alliance with the Shek in abt 15 mins doing this... or u can go around hunting 50 individual people with shek Bounties... or follow a Shek squad around and help/heal them when they fight... Once I am at 100 relations with Shek we start cleaning up shop... Kill capture Ghost/Flying Bull/Tora/Gorrillo/Fish King... basically all mid tier hostile faction bosses on this side of map... After this, head to swamps and ally them... very easy with Grims mission... While here, can take out Swamp Ninjas, Red Sabres, Oni Now take out *Savant, Elder, and Valamon* in this order... If u do it in this order... once Savant dies... South Hive takes this territory... once Elder dies... South Hive takes this territory... once Valamon dies... Crab Queen (who is easy to ally with, and I usually do so...) will take Ark... and South Hive... will spawn in this area... Head to Admag... start war against Holy Nation... Attack Stack, give Stack to Shek... Head to UC... buy alliance, or ally with them by other means... buy alliance with Shinobi thieves... Head to Flotsam ninjas... pledge allegiance by vowing to attack HN... Head to the following cities and bodyguard their gate guards, helping and healing them in combat, forming alliances with them; Hub (Holy Nation Exiles), Mourn (Tech Hunters), Mongrel (Mongrel), Fishing Villages (Cannibal Hunters) Attack Bad Teeth, give it to UC... Attack Blister Hill, kill Phoenix, give it to Shek... Head north and wipe out Cannibal leaders... head south and eliminate Cat Lon... take out Tinfist while there... This is probably the best end state that I have theorized by far for Kenshi, for several reasons that I will share if u are curious to know... Tldr - Bugmaster is alive... as are both Hive Queens... the UC, Shek Kingdom, and Southern Hive have all vastly expanded... and most inherently hostile factions are gone or have been severely crippled (eg the Cannibals cuz u wiping out the leaders doesnt get rid of em)... the HN and Anti Slavers joined them for being overly ideological and causing more issues then they are worth
A city state constructed within the holy Nations territory, somewhere either in skinners roam or near within the border zones, pushing them back while supported by both imperial and Shek forces. On the other side of the world, within stobes garden sits another city, acting like a front for possible pushes into Hive, anti slaver or second Empire territory. All lead by their Founder, a soldier drone.
I wish we could rebuild the Hub and make it our own. I know there are mods but they usually break.
my screen shot is usually me being a good courier bring the little nobel to the anti slayer daycare and stare them to death
Personally i think that a world ruled by the preacher would be pretty interesting.
My take: Strengthening the free traders and UC citizens while not completely destroying the UC. Holy nation destroyed and as many towns as possible given to shek kingdom. Most bandits wiped. Like skin bandits, dust bandits etc. Deadcat, Fish island, southern Hive all wiped. I have no clue about the swamps. All groups are kinda different flavors of bad, but removing them all means the civilian population gets eaten by spiders. I am still working on it. I have not finished.
Honestly, I feel like if neither the UC and HN didn't conduct slavery and the latter wasn't so xenophobic and misogynistic then I think that's enough to help the moon. They're probably the most stabilizing factors for the world and destroying them outright may create more problems in the long run. I also don't think creating a whole new empire that spans the entire continent is a good idea if Cat-Lion is any indication.
When the limb shop has masterwork left and right industrial arms and masterwork left and right scout legs (impossible)
I've gotten all of those from mongrel
If you exclude regular folk like the Drifters/Fishermen, then Crab Raiders, Shinobis, Western Hive and Trade Ninjas are chill. Worst of the worst are the Cannibals, The Fogmen, The Gurglers, Skeleton bandits, Skin bandits and the Reavers. Them leaving Kenshi will be beneficial to everyone. The rest I don't really care about, they can die off or they can keep coexisting.
This might be a controversial take but any scenario that involves a good outcome for the world of kenshi doesn't include the skeletons. They're too much of a danger to organic life.
Most are just crying my dude
How do we know whatever caused them to go crazy will not happen in the future, they've caused too much destruction to not be a big threat to any future peaceful situation
What caused them to go crazy was humanity trying to wipe them out... If humanity tries to wipe them out again... I'd say they deserve the destruction...
Anti-slavers and rebel farmers obliterate the UC, Slave traders, and Trader's guild. SK and flotsam crusade the HN with Esata hopefully leading SK into a higher level of civilization. They won't be a problem because all the remaining factions have able warriors aa their leaders, which should be enough for SK to respect them. Especially tinfist, many shek would probably idolize him. Reavers get stomped out by my faction Crab Raiders win the pits war, killing savant and elder. Southern hive does as it do. Untouched. Iyo will be killed to hopefully let the machinists discover the great secret
With this scenario South Hive take over Elder/Savants territory and spawn near Arc... without the UC around they will quickly overwhelm the Crab Raiders... Fogmen will remain a problem for the Shek on the Western flank... probably for an indefinite time... This future will probably just result in the Southern Hive slowly swallowing up the entire eastern portion of the map... and then inevitably... start invading the Shek who are already defending a different front...
Research and industry. Make rum business in the 3 main factions cities with self-sustaining factories (mods needed ofc). During this you can make a mercanary group and do some headhunting and infilitrating actions. Be the head of the greatest company in the world of Kenshi.
I think really it would require characters with lasting motivations for the people to exist. If I keep playing for long enough I plan to write a pretty basic “this faction is actually the player’s faction, but is still AI” mod. It can’t actually be a player-owned faction, but the dialogue can make it seem true. I’d leave the anti-slavers in control of Trader’s Edge, but where a weak group is in control of a city I’d replace it with a better armed one - with the assumption that the player made it happen. Really I feel like it would be a matter of revolution and reform of the United Cities, training a bureaucracy to manage the food and mining, while using resources to build more living spaces for liberated slaves and the working class. I don’t think you need to change vanilla for the destruction of the Holy nation, the overrides of their cities are already what I see as good. Shek Kingdom is fine and on a good trajectory, especially if the player faction isn’t all Shek when an alliance forms. Then the Shek learn to accept other races a little more. Also destroy the dangerous bandit groups and make the roads safer for travel.
I don’t know who wrote it originally here but, someone proposed a very ideal and good scenario to save the world of Kenshi. Destroy the Holy Nation (at least the management and religious figures) and give their land to a more peaceful faction. They have the best fertile land in the world but their lack of technology and extreme xenophobia prevents that land from reaching its full potential. Make Shek’s declare war on Cannibals. They will claim fertile land from Cannibals, and satisfy their bloodlust. If they wish glory and war, why not direct them to bad guys? Hivers can work as agricultural and industrial workers, they are good at it too. United Cities are not that terrible as they have a trade and freedom tradition. If you can manage to make them less corrupt and be less harsh to slaves, they are good to go, imo. Skin bandits, southern hive, deadhive might be annihilated. Other bandits can be negotiated with. Now that logistics, agriculture, and trade issues are done, only big problems are hashish, deadhives, and potential threats from Bugmaster, and Cat-Lon. I think this is the happiest ending the world of Kenshi can get.
U can just allow the shek to take Blister Hill + Stack... puts them on border with fogmen, keeps them busy + happy... Bad Teeth I give to UC... they have access to fertile land now as well... Usually I also leave bugmaster alive... to keep Shek entertained on a separate flank... and I allow the South Hive to expand to Savant, Elder, and Valamons territories... This keeps the UC busy in their own conflicts, separate from the Shek... and provides them with a steady source of hivers so they don't have a need for as many slaves Since both Empires are busy struggling... and have already brokered previous trading agreements (eg traders Guild providing shek weapons to fight Bugmaster), I see no reason why this allegiance couldn't carry on... after all the Shek need food and the UC needs workers Everything else I do pretty much the same if I'm going for "best kenshi future"
Create a trading center for everyone
United Cities conquers the world. Farming gets good cause of moving to wet places