You pick ethics, not a faction, and the ethics determine which options appear for the next fifty hours — a pacifist democracy genuinely cannot build the same fleet as a devouring swarm. Exploration is the early game, and anomalies are short stories that can hand you a technology or a war.

Ten gigabytes, a very deep economy of alloys and influence, and a mid-game that is famously the hardest part to pace. The species you build at minute one is still the thing you are playing at hour forty, which is either elegant or a trap.