Planetmind faction

[Leon Trotsky]

*** DISCLAIMER ***

Before you all start throwing empty datapods at me, let me say that this is not supposed to be a balanced faction. This is supposed to be overpowered, and should only be played by the AI. Then again, in "Napoleon in Europe" there is a semi-realistic scenario in which France is overpowered, and the other players are supposed to join agains her. So it might even work in multiplayer.

*** ON TO MY LITTLE IDEA ***

Looking among the factions, one can find a couple of environmental sensitive groups. We have the concerned ecologists, and the zealous fundamentalists. Cha Dawn even styles himself "The Voice". However, I suggest a true Human-Fungus hyrid. A handful of colonists that gave up to their individuality and became hosts to the mindworm. Their "leader" would be just a body Planet choose to commune more easily with the offworlders; there is no such thing as a "Worm King". Now Planet is to be feared, and not just a resource to be gathered. It would replace the underused Alien factions.

I'm not sure whehter to change the prerequisite to contact this faction to "Centarui Meditation", or just make communication outright impossible. A human Pact mate to planet recieving commerce income form trading with a fungal patch sounds odd...

They should have a pre-designed former with custom graphics which would be some sort of spore spreader, planting fungus across its path. They might also have a pre-designed fungal missile, the equivalent to fungal pops.

Part of their faction.txt would be like this:

Interest, -10
TECHCOST, 1000
FUNGNUTRIENT, 2
FUNGMINERALS, 2
FUNGENERGY, 2
MINDCONTROL, 1
ALIEN, 1
FREEABIL, 25 ; Dissociative Wave
PROBECOST, 1000
+++SUPPORT
+++POLICE
+++++PLANET
-----INDUSTRY

I know I've got to pick only eight of them, any ideas?

Does anyone know if research rates lower than minus five would delay research indefinetely?

I also have a problem since Ecological Engineering is both the technology that allows players both to plant fungus and build advanced terraforming. With any luck, enough bonus from the fungus would make the AI favor it instead of, say, condensers and boreholes.

Tell me, isn't this way too cheesy? Or would you like to play a game with such a faction in it?

[Chaos Theory]

*digs out list of faction traits*

Limited options:

Specified free tech (TECH, Ecology)
FACILITY
FREEFAC (SMAX)
UNIT
SOCIAL
ROBUST
IMMUNITY
IMPUNITY
PENALTY
FUNGNUTRIENT/FUNGMINERALS/FUNGENERGY
VOTES
REVOLT (SMAX)
NODRONE (SMAX)
FREEABIL (SMAX)
PROBECOST (SMAX)
OFFENSE (SMAX)
DEFENSE (SMAX)


Unlimited options:

MORALE
PSI
RESEARCH
TALENT
DRONE
ENERGY
INTEREST
COMMERCE
POPULATION
HURRY
TECHCOST
SHARETECH
TECHSHARE (SMAX)
Unspecified free tech (TECH, 1)
TERRAFORM
MINDCONTROL
FREEPROTO
ALIEN (SMAX)
AQUATIC (SMAX)
COMMFREQ
FANATIC
WORMPOLICE (SMAX)
TECHSTEAL (SMAX)


Your list includes the following unlimited options:
INTEREST, TECHCOST, MINDCONTROL, ALIEN
and the following limited-to-8 options:
FUNGNUTRIENT, FUNGMINERALS, FUNGENERGY, FREEABIL, PROBECOST, SOCIAL x4 (support, industry, police, planet)

That means you only need to drop one of the limited-to-8 options. Also keep in mind, however, that industry is lower-bounded to -3, and rolls over at -7 (to +5).

The faction, as it stands, is horribly underpowered. With TECHCOST, 1000, it'll never get off the ground. FREEABIL only works once you get the associated tech, and furthermore will not affect pre-designed units (such as mind worms). Between the high cost of native life (especially with rock-bottom industry) and the effective inability to use conventional weaponry, any faction could just empath rover its way to victory.

[Leon Trotsky]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
*digs out list of faction traits*

Thanks! I vaguely remembered something about certain traits being limited and others not, but I didn't know the specifics.

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
The faction, as it stands, is horribly underpowered.

Originally I thought of giving this faction more benefits, such as a good psi combat bonus. I was trying to be conservative so that people woudln't be scared, so I dropped some of those. I might have been too cautious - the little paragraph in the first message may have been enough.

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
With TECHCOST, 1000, it'll never get off the ground.

This is something I missed in the original message. This faction is not supposed to do any research. I intended to create a complete different playing experience (game-magazine-buzzword alarm off!), instead of building up knowledge and wealth they would be bent on covering Planet with fungus. Ideally, the Voice would never open the unit design workshop; every unit it could use would be available from start.

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
FREEABIL only works once you get the associated tech, and furthermore will not affect pre-designed units (such as mind worms).

Ouch, and big ouch. Would a special, alpha.txt defined mindworm be way over the top?

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
Between the high cost of native life (especially with rock-bottom industry) and the effective inability to use conventional weaponry, any faction could just empath rover its way to victory.

I thought this faction would build nothing except colony pods and formers. As for the empath ability, I hoped the dissociative wave would cover it.

[Chaos Theory]

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
Would a special, alpha.txt defined mindworm be way over the top?

Well, either you would replace the basic mind worm, in which case anyone could capture and build wave mind worms, or you wouldn't, in which case this faction (like others) could never capture them. I'm not sure how easy it is to make a new unit act like native life.

I thought this faction would build nothing except colony pods and formers. As for the empath ability, I hoped the dissociative wave would cover it.

How does it win, then? Native life alone doesn't cut it simply because scout patrols are so cheap and effective against them. It would take a lot of bonuses to deal with just how many scout patrols can be fielded against a mineral-equivalent mind worm army. Artillery also does a number on it.

[Leon Trotsky]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
Would a special, alpha.txt defined mindworm be way over the top?

Well, either you would replace the basic mind worm, in which case anyone could capture and build wave mind worms, or you wouldn't, in which case this faction (like others) could never capture them. I'm not sure how easy it is to make a new unit act like native life.

I was thinking of a third option - a custom mindworm lookalike which prerequisite would be a bogus tech. A house rule would be not to build those. If memory serves, this is the way special units were made in Civ2.

Originally posted by Chaos Theory

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
I thought this faction would build nothing except colony pods and formers. As for the empath ability, I hoped the dissociative wave would cover it.

How does it win, then? Native life alone doesn't cut it simply because scout patrols are so cheap and effective against them. It would take a lot of bonuses to deal with just how many scout patrols can be fielded against a mineral-equivalent mind worm army. Artillery also does a number on it.

The idea of making this faction human player friendly is only recent - it was born an AI faction, to add a new flavour to the game, and make Planet somewhat scarier. Still, it could be able to pull out a conquest victory. Since it doesn't have to bother teching up, and thanks to its elementary terraforming philosophy (fungus and forget!) it can concentrate on expanding and building scout patrols to capture mindworms. Its Planet rating yields a nice Psi combat bonus, furtherly enhanced by actually giving the faction a Psi combat bonus.

Bear in mind that I do not have a clear idea of how this faction would be; I started this thread not as a "faction review" but as a brainstorm proposal. That is, any suggestions are more than welcome.

[Leon Trotsky]

Is it possible to duplicate secret projects? I'd like to make a clone of the Ascent to Transcendence called "the flowering", reserved for this faction.

[Chaos Theory]

AFAIK, secret projects' effects are hardcoded. You could change one of the empty secret projects to be "The Flowering" and give it an unusual prereq and high AI values, and then declare the game over if it gets built.

[Xian]

Or,mor simply you could allow the AI to build the Ascent to Transcendence as well, renaming it to the Flowering and making it the same for everyone.

[Leon Trotsky]

I could, but this faction is supposed to have little or no research. Thanks again, Chaos - I didn't remember having spare projects. I could use those.

[dmm1285]

I found that that you have to be real careful about messing with the fungus values, or the faction can get unbalanced very quickly. Remember, the faction does not have to plant fungus to take adcvantage of it, it shouldn't be stronger than condesnors/borholes, those take a lot of turns to terraform. I think I found that +1 NUT and +! MIN was fair (giving fuugs 2,1,0 with Centauri Ecology). Also, I used the modifer that doubled negatives, so you had to choose between more engery and no funugs benefit, or fungus and no engery. Some other ideas you may want to consdier:

FREE Brood pit to lower cost of native life

Giving the faction -95% Alien Offense/Defense, then raising the PSI bonus really high. What thisd does is make using conventional weapons impractical, but native life stronger

If you search for my name in this forum, you can probabbly find the orignal thread.

[Leon Trotsky]

Thanks! I know I wasn't being original at all...

Originally posted by dmm1285
I found that that you have to be real careful about messing with the fungus values, or the faction can get unbalanced very quickly. Remember, the faction does not have to plant fungus to take adcvantage of it, it shouldn't be stronger than condesnors/borholes, those take a lot of turns to terraform.

Now I am confused... Master Chaos says this faction is cannon fodder, now you tell me you had problems balancing fungus resources... my head a splode!

Originally posted by dmm1285
I think I found that +1 NUT and +! MIN was fair (giving fuugs 2,1,0 with Centauri Ecology). Also, I used the modifer that doubled negatives, so you had to choose between more engery and no funugs benefit, or fungus and no engery.

Interesting. I think that I'll use no bonus energy. The less energy this faction has, the better. I don't want it subverting bases, cornering the global market, or *gulp* making research breakthroughs.

Originally posted by dmm1285
Some other ideas you may want to consdier:

FREE Brood pit to lower cost of native life

Hey, that's a good one. Not only does it lower native lifeforms costs, but it also frees me one social engineering slot.

Originally posted by dmm1285
Giving the faction -95% Alien Offense/Defense, then raising the PSI bonus really high. What thisd does is make using conventional weapons impractical, but native life stronger

Do Alien Offense/Defense only affect conventional combat? Or by "really high" you meant really, really high in order to compensate?

Originally posted by dmm1285
If you search for my name in this forum, you can probabbly find the orignal thread.

Let's get scouring...

[Darrell01]

You might give the faction -a lot of efficiency and make like police state. That would take care of most of the energy outside of the capitol.

[Leon Trotsky]

I have been playing with that idea myself. The main drawback would be that a low efficiency rating creates additional bureucracy drones. The Police bonus is then a necessity, as using psych allocation to deal with such drones would be suicidal - not only does this faction starve for energy, but super drones are far more expensive to revert than regular ones.

[Darrell01]

Well, give them free hologram theatres and/or free ability Non-Lethal Meathods as well as free brood pits. The brood pit, on top of making mind worms cheaper, is +2 police in that city and mind worms are able to police the cities. Or better yet, bypass all that and give them free *light shines down out of the sky and onto this post" punishment spheres.

[Darrell01]

Ok. So looking at my previous post, I've come up with this.

Cult of Planet graphix

Social Ideology - Fundmentalist
Anti Ideology - Democracy
Fungus Nut/Min/Ene - +2/+2/+2
Social Benefit
Support +3
Planet +5
Efficiency -5
Free Facilities
Brood Pit
Punishment Sphere

Interest -10%
Research Whatever you want, Might start out really weak
Population Bonus - Might mess with this. Maybe -8 or something outrageous
Immunity to Mind Control
Alien Faction
Worm Police

Things to fool around with here:
Efficiency can be changed out to -5 industry.
I took out disassociative wave because this faction probably won't research it and won't be able to have it unless you give it to it, and then the human players would grab it.
You can tone down the fungus production to 2/1/0 like Chaos_Theory says, giving you one more slot. You could stick in a technology there. You might give them the tech that allows them to plant fungus.
I think allowing them to do some research is good. Better yet, if you do decide to just completely kill the faction research, you could give them Share Technology 2 or 3 without having to infiltrate them first. This would make sure they are either behind a little in tech, or right up with you, but nuever surpassing you, unless you share all techs you can, then turn in 40 alien artifacts.

[Mart]

This is interesting, is it confirmed by testing, that unspecified TECH is unlimited?

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
Limited options:

Specified free tech (TECH, Ecology)
...
Unlimited options:

Unspecified free tech (TECH, 1)

[Darrell01]

Well, under SMACX editor, you can select up to 8 free unspecified technologies for a faction because its under the "Rules" section. Specific techs, its on the 8 benefit limit.

[Darrell01]

Ok, base named for Planetmind Faction! Here are the prefix and suffix names that I have thought of. For the other half of the base name, refer to this other post and mix and match. Other Post

Abhorrence
Abomination
Angst
Anxiety
Atrocity
Aversion
Awe
Boil
Brood
Consternation
Daemon
Despair
Discomposure
Dismay
Distress
Dread
Fiend
Fright
Foreboding
Hatchling
Heinous
Horde
Horror
Indomitable
Deep Isle
Loathe
Locust
Mass
Nightmare
Panic
Phobia
Psi
Qualm
Repugnance
Revulsion
Sacrificial
Savage
Sealurk
Scare
Scorn
Spore
Suspicion
Swarm
Terror
Trembling
Vicious
Worm

[Flubber]

Interesting idea but if this faction can't research, is the test merely to fight off the numerous worms that are sent in your direction?

A couple of things

1. +5 PLanet ?? I would be interested to see how that works .generall the number of captured natives tops out at or around 10 for +1, +2 or +3 Planet. I'd be curious where it generall tops out at with +5 Planet. Have you experiemented with this feature alone to see what happens?

2. I don't understand the thought behind -5 efficiency or industry. Each cripples this faction badly -- Since it already is a unidimensional worm rusher, I don't see the point in making building most stuff impossible

[Mart]

Originally posted by Darrell01
... up to 8 free unspecified technologies ... Specific techs, its on the 8 benefit limit.

So you mean it is 8 "limited" + 8 unspecified techs?
if unspecified can only add up to limit of 8, they are limited.
this can be tested, maybe i'll take a look

[Chaos Theory]

I haven't tested each entry on the list, so there might be errors. It's easy to check, though - make a faction with eight limited options, and TECH, 5 at the end. If you don't get to pick any techs, then TECH, # should be in the limited category. I'm not sure what the bounds on the # are, but whatever they are, they don't change the category of the bonus.

[Leon Trotsky]

Originally posted by Darrell01
Well, give them free hologram theatres and/or free ability Non-Lethal Meathods as well as free brood pits. The brood pit, on top of making mind worms cheaper, is +2 police in that city and mind worms are able to police the cities. Or better yet, bypass all that and give them free *light shines down out of the sky and onto this post" punishment spheres.

I'd rather not use hologram theatres. Not just because we would have to make up a good excuse, but one of the effects of that facility is fueled by energy - psych, nonetheless. While non lethal methods is nice, I wouldn't spend a slot on that, especially since we already have mindworms making double police work (do you all agree on that one?). Brood pit I like too. As for punishment spheres... now that would be killing two birds with one stone; both complete drone control and crippled research. However, I am not quite convinced about giving that one as a free facility, as it would be quite exploitable. I can picture two situations:

1- Human player as "Planet". Loses a base (perhaps on purpose) and recaptures it, and the punishment sphere is gone. Player then proceeds to build a super science city, effectively circumventing one of the faction premise weaknesses.
2- Human player versus "Planet". Since this faction would have miserable research, any free facilities would be given without the necessary tech. Capturing just one of Planet's bases would make an early Free Market war trivial.

Originally posted by Darrell01
Ok. So looking at my previous post, I've come up with this.

Cult of Planet graphix

Social Ideology - Fundmentalist
Anti Ideology - Democracy

Interesting... I thought of a preference towards Green or Thought Control and aversion to Free Market or Wealth. Now that you mention it, democracy would be quite impossible to carry out in such a... "society", since there is no human will. Then again, that would leave most of the social engineering table superfluous. Anybody else, any ideas?

Originally posted by Darrell01
Fungus Nut/Min/Ene - +2/+2/+2

I am not sure about giving an energy bonus to the fungus. What would this faction use energy for anyway? Recruiting its "army" from the wilderness, building as least facilties as possible, having little or no research, and (as a consequence of the last) seldom upgrading... well, at least that was my idea.

Originally posted by Darrell01
Social Benefit
Support +3
Planet +5
Efficiency -5

We must be careful about social modifiers rolling back. I know about industry and probe, but what about support?
If support is set to the +3 holy grail, Democracy would make a good aversion. Too bad they won't pop boom easily. Also, we could give it impunity to Thought Control, but only if we end up with modifiers to spare (which I doubt).
I really like Planet+5 , it is the soul of the faction.
Efficiency -5 is a two edged sword which will have to be taken care of...

Originally posted by Darrell01
Interest -10%

The only problem I see with negative interest is that it may cause trouble at the maintenance phase. Of course, if there are to be few facilities...

Originally posted by Darrell01
Research Whatever you want, Might start out really weak

This factions should be able to produce all the varieties of native life from landfall. I still think an invisible tech and clones of the natives are the way to go on this one.

Originally posted by Darrell01
Population Bonus - Might mess with this. Maybe -8 or something outrageous

Hold on, you mean the actual population limit, or the way it is written in the faction.txt (its opposite)? That is, do you mean huge bases or really tiny ones?

Originally posted by Darrell01
Immunity to Mind Control
Alien Faction
Worm Police

Fine...

Originally posted by Darrell01
Things to fool around with here:
Efficiency can be changed out to -5 industry.

That could be problematic. What if the AI decides to run Power? There is no way to prevent that.

Originally posted by Darrell01
I took out disassociative wave because this faction probably won't research it and won't be able to have it unless you give it to it, and then the human players would grab it.

I see. Should we leave it for a custom worm, a "royal guard" of sorts?

Originally posted by Darrell01
You can tone down the fungus production to 2/1/0 like Chaos_Theory says, giving you one more slot. You could stick in a technology there. You might give them the tech that allows them to plant fungus.

I think I have a better solution - changing the prerequisites of planting fungus to none. It is clear that for some reason or other we will finish editing alpha.txt , so let's take advantage of that! Besides, who in their right mind would plant fungus before bonus giving techs are researched, anyway? It's not like you would send a former into enemy territory and spend six turns ruining his terraforming, when a simple "destroy improvement" would do.

Originally posted by Darrell01
I think allowing them to do some research is good. Better yet, if you do decide to just completely kill the faction research, you could give them Share Technology 2 or 3 without having to infiltrate them first. This would make sure they are either behind a little in tech, or right up with you, but nuever surpassing you, unless you share all techs you can, then turn in 40 alien artifacts.

Now that you mention it, why not make this race capable of creating some custom alien artifacts? I know Planet doesn't "create" them, but she may know where they are hidden, and might spend its psychic resources looking for them, so there you have a rushed excuse (sorry, I'm tired). I know it sucks, but I'm trying to make this original, please spare me! Does anyone know if the AI will build units with the alien artifact package? They look so neat, haven't you seen them? Artifact rovers, artifact foils... okay, okay, back on chiron. And what about those mindworm clones? We could make them cheap as dirt so that a low industry rating won't hurt. Also, we could borrow one of those wonderful land transports Darnsan just cooked. Psi armour and weapon, of course. Would be like fungal towers on wheels. And the fungal payload for simulating pops, I heard no comments about that one, at least say it's stupid! Pleeease...

...I'm getting annoying, I really should go get some sleep; .

[Darrell01]

Ok, Leon. I was just going to the beginning of your post and checking out what you originally wanted and making that fit in with the faction editor. I don't really do a lot of faction.txt editing. I'll see if I can answer some of these new questions.

Originally posted by mart7x5
So you mean it is 8 "limited" + 8 unspecified techs?
if unspecified can only add up to limit of 8, they are limited.
this can be tested, maybe i'll take a look

Ok, under the first section of the faction editor, there are 8 slots for specified bonuses. I'm not going to list them all here. Just let it be sufficient that selecting specific techs is one tech at a time and it fills up one of these 8 slots. The unspecified techs are in the "Rules" section and there are lots of things there to fool around with. Everything from there that I've given the faction is below the "Punishment Sphere" post. I would put the unspecified tech bonus there, but this faction didn't get it. So, you could give a faction 8 starting techs, but it would have no other SE benefits, free units, free facilities, or things like that.

Originally posted by Flubber
1. +5 PLanet ?? I would be interested to see how that works .generall the number of captured natives tops out at or around 10 for +1, +2 or +3 Planet. I'd be curious where it generall tops out at with +5 Planet. Have you experiemented with this feature alone to see what happens?

2. I don't understand the thought behind -5 efficiency or industry. Each cripples this faction badly -- Since it already is a unidimensional worm rusher, I don't see the point in making building most stuff impossible

1. I'm not making the faction, I'm just streamlining it to Leon's *original* specifications as much as I can and

2a. Same idea. Leon will have to do some research on this industry thing. I know it flips over somewhere. Someone let us know or provide a link pls. So you'll have to take this into account of the faction chooses Power. Perhaps make it -2 Ind.

2b. Same idea as #1 and Leon doesn't want this faction to research at all.

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
This faction is not supposed to do any research.

The -5 efficiency will take care of that quite nicely as well as a penchant for fundamentalism and the Punishment Spheres with immunity to mind control. Which brings us to our next concern...

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
As for punishment spheres...
...
However, I am not quite convinced about giving that one as a free facility, as it would be quite exploitable.

Yes, a human player playing this might well exploit this, but you said here...

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
*** DISCLAIMER ***

Before you all start throwing empty datapods at me, let me say that this is not supposed to be a balanced faction. This is supposed to be overpowered, and should only be played by the AI.

So that takes care of the human player playing it and for the Free Marketer getting a free punishment sphere, well that sounds like a very profitable strategy that someone like CEO Morgan might actually make a large investment in a hostile takeover of such a facility. Besides, he'll have +50% empaths to deal with with the +5 planet.

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky about Fungus Energy +2
What would this faction use energy for anyway?
...
well, at least that was my idea.

Yes it was your idea, that's why I said you could nix that like Chaos_Theory said to streamline it a bit more. You seems to agree with this, so only other thing to add is look up to my second answer on this post, hereby reffered to as Q.2 part 1, meaning I'm just streamlining it to Leon's *original* specifications as much as I can.

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
We must be careful about social modifiers rolling back.

Yes. There is a treatise somewhere about this. Anyone have a link?

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
Hold on, you mean the actual population limit, or the way it is written in the faction.txt (its opposite)? That is, do you mean huge bases or really tiny ones?

Yes. You seem to be editing the alpha.txt. I looked into this idea here
about the population thing. The Peacekeepers have a -2 setting in here and Morgan has a 3 setting in here. So my idea would be to make the initial max 15. That would make their bases huge, doing 2 things. Increasing the amount of industy a city makes, thus producing more fungal >pop< for the faction, making their bases create fungus by virtue of growing and polluting. Its sort of like a big human/alien infested fungal tower. Secondly it makes them overpowering like you originally wanted. If they cannot research new techs, they'll need some other powers besides +5 planet. A bonus is if a human takes them over, all these colony pods leave, kinda like spore colonies.

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
Now that you mention it, why not make this race capable of creating some custom alien artifacts?

I thought you wanted this faction to *not* research. Wasn't that the idea? That's why I put in the sharetech option. You really won't have to add much to the game if you just use this, and how are you going to get the faction to make them? Seems like more editing then needs to be done, IMHO. Think of it as the Planet has these worm humanoids as a result of the human landing on the planet. One pod hits this fungal tower in just the right spot and this faction is created. Kind of a turnaround of Prophet Chawed On. Worms turned human. The effect of the sharetech thing is that since it is all psychic and all, if a couple faction (2 or 3) have the tech, it gets it without having to infiltrate, thus making up for the no research restriction of the faction.

Finally, the disassociative wave thing. You can switch the -5 Efficiency for that if you want. It just seems to be a largely wasted bonus for a faction that will not be researching the tech to put on its units. If you give it to the faction as a unit with a bogus tech, that's 2 benefits slots, at least, further getting away from the original intent of the faction. Personally, I don't edit things and make all these 2 square moving land transports and Zombie Worm Artillery. If you want to go thru all that, then more power to you, my friend.

[dmm1285]

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
Thanks! I know I wasn't being original at all...



Now I am confused... Master Chaos says this faction is cannon fodder, now you tell me you had problems balancing fungus resources... my head a splode!

Well, my version is a little bit dfferent than yours, but you need to be careful with the fungues resources

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
Interesting. I think that I'll use no bonus energy. The less energy this faction has, the better. I don't want it subverting bases, cornering the global market, or *gulp* making research breakthroughs.



Hey, that's a good one. Not only does it lower native lifeforms costs, but it also frees me one social engineering slot.



Do Alien Offense/Defense only affect conventional combat? Or by "really high" you meant really, really high in order to compensate?



Let's get scouring...

I mean REALLY high to compensate. Here is my thread on the idea:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=136617

Another cool bonus that I wanted to use is free fungul tower. It wil turn back to alien after one turn. but you can build a base on it in turn 1, giving you a fungus producer for your first base, and protection from native worms (I don't think will attack the native tower in your HQ)