sully

So I'm about 10 hours into G1, on my first playthrough. I decided that instead of siding with the awakened, I'm going to side with the obeyers. Is there a way to change factions? Or are the save game files easily edited to allow this? If so, what should I be looking for? I don't really want to replay everything quite yet until I'm trying a different class(I'm a shaper this time around).

Title pretty much says it all. I liked the demo way back when, but never bought the game and lost track of it once I had money. So I'm glad to see it, and 4 sequels on steam. Just wondering if it's worth playing through 1-4 though. Or should I just play 5? Some games age better than others, and some games relate to their prequels better than others. So! Play them all, start at an arbitrary point, or just play 5? What do y'all recommend?