How permanently delete custom races?

Are you subscribed to any of these custom factions or did you add them to the steam workshop?

Neither. When I remove all the files from the mod folder (leaving the empty stock folders intact), ALL my previously save factions come back, and duplicates are the most recent version. Curiously, a .zip file that I put some factions in to send to a friend before we could do it on steam also comes back. If I simply delete factions one at a time, they stay away, but if the folders are ever all empty, everything comes back.

EDIT: Two factions are uploaded on Steam, the rest are all made in the editor.

How are you deleting the factions?  Are you using the in-game "delete" button or removing the files from the "my games" directory?  

I am puzzled about the zip file though.  That shouldn't be something that the game knows about.  Are you using a cloud or automatic backup service? 

I've tried both ways of deleting the factions, and as far as I know, I'm not using any backup service, although I'm using Windows 10, which has some odd 'features', so maybe that's one of them?

This kind of thing isn't happening for any of my other games, steam or not. At one point I even uninstalled the game, deleted the whole GC3 stuff in 'My Games', and then reinstalled - and everything, including the zip file, that had been in the GC3 documents directory reappeared when I started GC3. I mean, it's not making the game unplayable, and I can just simply not select the civs I don't want to use anymore, but it's driving my OCD nuts lol.

I'd like a solution to this too.  I subscribed to two factions that need a DLC, and I don't have the DLC and don't want it.  Now the game keeps popping up error messages telling me I have two factions that can't be used.  Very annoying.  I tried deleting with the delete button, and deleted what files I could find, but I still seem to have the factions hiding somewhere.

I originally subscribed to 200 factions for a 100 player game to only to discover that wouldn't work with an insane map, so I spent a few days in subscribing some at steam only to find out I couldn't get rid of them. We need an easy way to delete factions in mass, not all off the game.

Well, I think I'm done with GC3.  I came back after several months away because of Star Wars, and I am seeing a lot of the same issues that existed before.  GC2 is a much smoother game  in my opinion.  Think I'll head back there to get my fix.

I like galactic civilization 3

I like the game too admiralWW, it when I can't delete unwanted saved games, ship designs and so on, even if I wade through the folders to do it, functionality isn't what it should be -- there's a button for that, but it doesn't work. The economic model changed from Planet-centric to strategic and back, and the AI governors need to go back to school to learn how to develop specialized planets.

I do like the game. The interface is good; ship design is fun and varied; the AI is challenging; tech is reasonably balanced, as is combat (mostly). It's just rough around the edges and needs focused tuning.

Try going to the Steam Settings, Cloud, and turn off "Enable Steam Cloud synchronization for applications that support it".  Then delete your factions, start a game, and see if they still come back.  If they do, then I'm wrong about how they are coming back, my apologies.  If not, then at least you know the source of the problem, even if you need to turn the setting back on for your other games.

Early versions of GC3 supported Steam Cloud synch, but at some point the developers turned it off.  I'm thinking that somehow your version still has it turned on.

What factions are you trying to delete?  When did you subscribe to them?

I had the same problem with ships and races. I turned off steam cloud sync and it worked. So I guess its more of a Steam problem than a game problem.