Free Drones: the most powerful faction?

[Lazerus]

Because that IS auto infiltration, Lals requires almost co-operation from the other players, by the time he's got all comms on a huge map if another player grabs the empath guild thats Lals main feature almost neutralized.

[CEO Aaron]

Good point . . . if auto-infiltration weren't powerful, why would you see the Empath Guild disabled in so many PBEMs?

+50% council votes? The ability to grab everyone's frequency and play tech broker?

Flexibility does not connotate a lack of distinctive strengths. That assertion doesn't make sense.

Conversely, flexibility does not connotate the presence of distinctive strengths. Middle of the road factions can adopt any particular playstyle, but they won't do it as well as a specialized faction. Lal can build, but he can't build like Morgan or University. He can play Momentum, but he won't be as tough as Sparta, Yang or Miriam. Does that mean he can't be played well? No. It does mean that you can't use your strengths to dictate the tempo of the game, however.

The more bases you have, the more bases you have to defend, the greater your energy losses to inefficiency, and the greater the cost of infrastructure builds relative to your empire (30 size 7 bases spend 30% more minerals than a similiar population of size 9 bases to get a build throughout the empire.)

I'm sorry, but this statement really is insupportable. A colony pod costs 1 population and 3 mineral rows, and pays HUGE dividends, starting almost immediately. Efficiency and bureaucracy limits reduce these dividends by a tiny fraction. By your logic, an empire of a single base is far more efficient than one of 2 bases, because you spend less minerals on base facilities.

[Straybow]

Hey, way to be both obtuse and hostile! By your logic, an empire would be better to keep bases at size one, because you get to work two tiles per pop.

OK, now we can move beyond the exchange of reductio ad absurdam arguments.


Seriously, it costs no minerals rows to grow the two sizes that other factions can't grow without hab, each of which pays huge dividends due to existing base facilities.

Then you build a pod just before the food box fills and get same the "HUGE dividends" you talk about.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Lazerus
Not being forced to play a particular way might show that you don't have any crippling weaknesses but also shows that you don't really have any strengths to play to.

Or maybe you just don't like playing to Lal's strengths?

[Lazerus]

Which is ?

As Aaron pointed out, he's a jack of all, ace of nothing.

[Straybow]

That would be a point if this were a card game in which an ace always beats a jack...

[Lazerus]

Assuming an equally skilled player and removal of pods etc that increase luck factor then it would be the case in the majority of games if Lal attempted to do something like play a research game vs zak.

[Kirov]

Originally posted by Lazerus
Assuming an equally skilled player and removal of pods etc that increase luck factor then it would be the case in the majority of games if Lal attempted to do something like play a research game vs zak.

That's certainly true, but in my experience, you can't win a PBEM game by focusing on just one aspect of the game. Playing Lal, I won't beat Zakharov to Transcendence - but I can try to take his empty (Free Market) bases. I concur that Lal is the closest to vanilla faction, but I also agree that in that it's very strong. By and large, I can say that SMAC requires a very balanced gameplay - decent population, not so bad military, labs, treasury, and so on. Lal at least doesn't have to overcome any obstacles in doing so.

On the other hand, this faction is one of the most sensitive to mistakes, along with Pirates, Morgan and maybe few others. You can't play it dumb, as Aaron commented on Morgan.

[CEO Aaron]

Originally posted by Straybow
Hey, way to be both obtuse and hostile! By your logic, an empire would be better to keep bases at size one, because you get to work two tiles per pop.

Way to interpret perfectly reasoned rebuttal as hostile. If you're disturbed by someone disagreeing with you, I recommend unplugging your internet connection.

Well, I'll certainly say that an empire composed exclusively of 1 population bases will invariably beat an empire of one single base, so maybe there is something to be seen in 'reducio ad absurdum' as you put it. How I chose to frame my rebuttal aside, I call BS on any attempt to claim that efficiency and infrastructure costs are anything more than a speedbump in the face of the massive dividends offered by robust base expansion.

This is true even for Lal. Unless you're expanding at least to the second bureaucracy limit in the early game, you're squandering Lal's strongest advantage, early game drone mitigation.

One last thing: At no point did I say, or even imply, that Lal was a weak faction. By virtue of their lack of distinctive features, I think they're possibly the most balanced faction. Also, one of the principal virtues of SMAX, in my opinion, is that aside from the Aliens, the factions are remarkably well balanced, while remaining meaningfully diverse.

If you want me to pick a weak faction, I'll pick Sparta, Planet Cult or Pirates.

[Frankychan]

Why Pirates as a weak faction? They aren't that bad.

Santiago's gun-toting freaks? Heck yeah, I'd rank them at the bottom.

At least with the Pirates you get a head start on all the seapods. I like being the first faction that has massive creds and free techs.

[Lazerus]

I usually pop an IoD or earthquake hence they're not so useful

[Frankychan]

Originally posted by Lazerus
I usually pop an IoD or earthquake hence they're not so useful

Ugh that isn't so great.

If you pop an earthquake and you have one of your sea bases nearby, does that base get elevated? I've never had this happen to me...

But then again, I usually don't like making sea bases...

[rsfarrell]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron


Way to interpret perfectly reasoned rebuttal as hostile. If you're disturbed by someone disagreeing with you, I recommend unplugging your internet connection.

Way to rebutt the accusation of being obtuse and hostile with obtuseness and hostility.

Well, I'll certainly say that an empire composed exclusively of 1 population bases will invariably beat an empire of one single base, so maybe there is something to be seen in 'reducio ad absurdum' as you put it. How I chose to frame my rebuttal aside, I call BS on any attempt to claim that efficiency and infrastructure costs are anything more than a speedbump in the face of the massive dividends offered by robust base expansion.

This is a false dichotomy. Lal's extra talents put him in an excellent position to expand aggressively. Your assertion was that larger bases aren't valuable because lots of medium-sized bases are better than large ones anyway. I pointed out that there are signifigant costs associated with a larger number of bases. Of course any problem -- including inefficiency, drone problems, and extra infrastructure cost -- has a solution in-game. But those solutions have their own problems.

One last thing: At no point did I say, or even imply, that Lal was a weak faction. By virtue of their lack of distinctive features, I think they're possibly the most balanced faction. Also, one of the principal virtues of SMAX, in my opinion, is that aside from the Aliens, the factions are remarkably well balanced, while remaining meaningfully diverse.

And I'm not saying they are a world-beating faction, only that I really don't understand why people feel Lal lacks distinctiveness. Lots of factions have industry bonuses. Lots of factions have free facilities of one kind or another. Only one faction gets extra council votes, larger bases, and up to four extra talents at those bases, and on the minus side, only one faction has only neg. SE modifers.

It is not that Lal lacks distinctiveness, but that his distinct advantages can serve him in a multitude of strategies. That makes him more challenging to play, but it's not in itself a weakness.

If you want me to pick a weak faction, I'll pick Sparta, Planet Cult or Pirates.

I really hate the pirates -- crappy mineral production. Planet Cult better see some dividends from an early worm rush -- but everyone's going to see that coming. So I tend to agree.

I think the Spartans can be very strong, if they can stay at tech pariety, but the industry hit hurts, I agree.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
Way to interpret perfectly reasoned rebuttal as hostile. If you're disturbed by someone disagreeing with you, I recommend unplugging your internet connection.

Way to ignore the actual point I made!

Once you've built base facilities you get more bang for the buck growing two extra pop than somebody else gets starting a new base. Once you've grown the two extra pop you can expand just as any other faction can at the base size limit.

So the advantage isn't just the base limits, it is pre-hab base size.

About Zak beating Lal: if Zak doesn't get VM he is screwed. That is a HUGE weakness.

[rsfarrell]

You know what would settle this? First narrow the list of strongest factions to seven (no planet cult, etc.) We should then set up a "round robin" SMAX tournament with 7 strong players taking each faction (of seven) in turn, and compare the results. Seven games, seven winners, controled for player skill by having each play each faction once. A little time-consuming, but it'd be the ultimate test.