Spoils of War

[Adam_Smith]

This thread is to document how people feel about Spoils of War.

I have always played with it on. I started out playing IP games. I never used to play PBEM games. Now that I have less time to play, and most of the people who still play IP are newbies, I have resolved to playing PBEM mostly.

I have played with Spoils of War on since my Civ2 days. I never thought it was a bad aspect of the game. I think that people should be rewarded for successfully completeing a military campaign. So you can see that I don't like to just build the whole game.

Anyway, the real problem I have with not having Spoils of War enabled is that without it the Believers and Drones are too weak.

I know that some of you will say that that is what probes are for. In fact, you can get twice as much tech from a faction with Spoils of War enabled and you might not even need probes. Probes are an extra cost.

Since I don't have much experience with Spoils of War off, I welcome some comments here. With Spoils of War on the Drones and the Believers are definitly the best factions out there. I have my doubts about that with Spoils of War off. I think the most important thing is to have the factions as balanced as possible. So the question is:

Are the factions more or less ballanced with Spoils of War on?

[YT]

I think that's going to be a very hard question for people to answer. I'm sure most people have their preference, and have always played with the setting on or off, but have little experience with both. Please correct me if I am wrong

Regarding Spoils of War OFF:

I have played all the factions multiple times in single play, and most of them on a LAN. This means I don't have a lot of experience with multiple styles of play (it's usually the same folks on LAN). But, I think that the Drones and Miriam are plenty powerful enough as they are. The only factions I can be more destructive with are the Aliens (who take the cake for imbalance). The only balancing factor for thesse two factions is that with a comparable population/# of bases, they will not have as high a tech level. However, the comparable population is a rarity, precisely because they are so capable at war. Even if they are not actively conquering other faction's bases, they can easily stymie them while growing themselves. In most games I've played, these two factions (especially the Drones) quickly reach parity with other factions as far as researching goes, due to the fact that the outnumber their opponents. And don't discount the probe factor, especially in the early game. A single critical probe can bring a much needed facility or weapon.

Anyhow, in my view, Spoils of War would far unbalance these faction. They are already dangerous. Tech is their limitation. If they are two techs behind everyone else, why should they be able to catch up by conquering two bases? Especially given that this is a very likely occurance (SP, AI factions will fall before them relatively easily, and MP with AI factions, just conquer a couple of AI bases.) The one exception I can imagine to this would be a 7 human MP game, in which conquering even a single base from anyone might take serious thought and planning.

So that's my 2 cents. Have a ball shreddin' my theories.

------------------
Yours Truly

[Kinjiru]

*Making a surprise cameo apperance*

In SMAC, it does not matter if you have spoils on or off. Spoils on benefits the momentum players more, Spoils off favors the builders. There is no balance.

In SMAX, spoils off makes the game more balanced, since the CC is designed to always be able to get a tech advance when conquering a base. To turn on the spoils negates this advantage.

Personally, in single player games, spoils on makes things far too easy. In MP games it depends on what kind of game you are hoping for. If the match will be played as a military game, then by all means, spoils on makes it more fun. If you are hoping for a hybrid or builder match, then take the spoils off.

[joer]

All right, I bite.

First off, I don't think that the factions are balanced 'per se', but different settings always favor different factions. Bigger maps favor building factions while smaller maps favor momentum factions more. Other aspects that create advantages for different factions are SP/MP, aggressivity of the AI, difficulty level (UoP's drone problem isn't as bad on lower levels), amount of fungus (Gaians+Cult), blind/directed research, etc.
Since every faction has a different 'feel' and 'style' to it, I think it's impossible to say that the factions are always balanced.

Obviously, spoils of war on creates a big disadvantage for the CyC. If everybody has your special ability, you are not all that special anymore, after all.

I have never played the Believers, but I thought that the Drones are a pretty good faction even with Spoils off. My own experience with them in SP is very good.

However, I could imagine that, especially in MP, typical momentum factions get seriously stronger than builder factions in MP with spoils on, since there is no reason for them to bother about infrastructure. You just roll them over and take what tech you need.

Even without the ability to research tech and with spoils off, momentum factions have lots of possibilities to acquire it: probes, trading tech, Planetary datalinks. And with very cheap attackers that have a 2:1 ration against more expensive defenders, war campaigns pay off even without spoils.

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the game with spoils of war off is that it's much much harder to tell which faction is the strongest. However, since I am not a early-war-player (mostly because I don't enjoy that style of play), I can't make a definate judgement here about their balance.

I think they are more balanced with spoils off, but I cannot think of any evidence to support such a claim. In the end, the question of wether builder, momentum or hybrid strategies are the best is still open, after all.

However, I would not shy away from playing the Drones with Spoils of war off.
-joer.

[Garth Vader]

I really don't see it as a big deal. If you are attacking somebody you will want probes along anyway to prevent subversion of your units/new cities. It's easy to use some of these probes for probing. I see spoils as one of the LEAST critical options.

[Velociryx]

My view: Spoils of war turns the game into a slugfest. It creates game mechanics that negate most of the advantages for building infrastructure. With spoils on, there are better ways to gain tech.

Consider the rewards you automatically reap when you conquer a base. You gain a new production center. You gain a new bit of strategic ground. You become stronger, compared to all the other factions in the game, and this effect is doubled relative to the faction you took the base from. Even if you plan to burn the base down, you get a cash gain by selling off the most expensive facility at that base before the fact. Adding a tech to the mix as well makes conquesting far and away the most efficient means of both expansion and research.

Spoils on also greatly reduces the possible uses of probes, generally relegating them to defensive roles (as mentioned above).

Again though, it mostly depends on what kind of gaming experience you're looking for. If you want a knife fight, without having to worry about infrastructure, turn spoils on, stand back, and let the festivities begin! If you want a game which explores more of the subtleties of the game, leave spoils off, as it renders some of the more fascinating game mechanics not worth the mineral investment.

-=Vel=-

[Adam_Smith]

quote: Originally posted by joer on 05-03-2000 02:16 PM I think they are more balanced with spoils off I would not shy away from playing the Drones with Spoils of war off. -joer.

Thanx joer, and everyone else you has made a definite statement about spoils of war and faction balance so far.

One more question. joer says he will jump at taking the Drones with spoils of war off. How about the Believers?

[Enigma]

Personally I do not think having spoils on or off makes a massive difference.. past a certain point in the game taking over someone's base is not a cheap proposition. Besides that you only gain 1 tech from conquering a base.. whereas with probes you can get many many techs in 1 turn. Probing a defenseless base with 6 infantry probe teams at a cost of 120 clean minerals will almost certainly yield more tech more easily than conquering 6 bases. Especially in the late game..

Generally though spoils should stay OFF.. to retain early game balance.

[WhiteElephants]

I'm for spoils of war: OFF. In civ2 it didn't matter much because you had the same abiity to wage war if you were the greeks, celts, or anyone else. In SMAC that is not the case. It's obvious some factions are more geared toward war than others. So instead of asking whether you'd play the Believers or the Drones with spoils of war off maybe you should ask which factions you would play besides those two with spoils of war on. Morgan? University?

And I'd definetly play the Believers with spoils off, I think they are a war machine already.

[Adam_Smith]

Well, I would certainly play Morgan or anyone else with spoils of war on. Like I said, "I've always played with it on."

I will just have to try it out. Trying a single player game with Miriam now. I haven't even really had the opportunity to conquer yet so it's not really making a difference. I look forward to trying it out on Multiplayer.

[Fistleaf]

At least in single player, spoils of war should be off. Turning it on gives the human player too much of an advantage. Humans have brains, the AI doesn't. Let's give the AI a bit more of a chance.

[Basil]

As I've posted elsewhere, I tried "spoils of war on" once and never will again, at least in a normal game. Almost all of my reasons have been given above, except three:
- "Spoils on" reduces the value of forcing an AI opponent to submit, which is an interesting aspect of the game.
- If you want to balance an AI-controlled momentum faction, you can give them techsteal. They still won't get half (a tenth) the techs that they could controlled by a player with better use of probe teams and submissives.
- In principle you could go to Fundy, or Fundy+Thought Control, as a means of protecting your tech lead against enemy probe teams, at least in SMAC. Not that I've ever seen a situation where this would be useful. But it isn't particularly useful even in theory with spoils on.

Now, if I ever played the SNAC modpack I'd play with spoils on. But SNAC is designed from the ground up to be played with spoils on - probe teams can't steal tech, fundamentalism gives more military bonuses and fewer probe bonuses, etc. Just as a standalone change from the default, I don't like spoils.

[joer]

Basil made a good comment, one that wasn't mentioned so far.

There are various ways in the mid-game to protect yourself against probe teams stealing tech, such as high probe setting, the Hunter Seeker or Secret Ops center.
Those measures would loose a lot of their value with spoils on.

Would I play the Believers in MP with spoils off? Most likely not. I cannot say whether they are weaker or not, I just don't enjoy momentum playstyle as much as I enjoy builder playstyle, and I have very little experience with it.

The Drones can still do research at the beginning (much better than Hive or Believers). It just takes 20% longer, big deal. They can also be used as a great builder faction, concentrating on snagging away SP's with their fabolous industry rate (and less drones). Once they got Planetary Networks (which is probably the most important tech for them to research), they can build masses of probes, go planned to increase their excellent industry rating further and simply make lots of money, since they don't have to worry about researching new techs themselves. No real need to immediatly play beat-down rover-rush.
A very flexible faction, in any case.
-joer.

[Adam_Smith]

I think that point goes both ways. If you are playing the Believers and someone builds the Hunter-Seeker Algorythim and Spoils are Off you are in bad shape.

I see that I am severely out voted. However, I'm beginning to see that. as someone metioned, it is not that big of a deal really, Miriam is still one of the best factions, even with spoils off. I actually think that Miriam is better than Domai with spoils off, due to +1 probe. It runs down to a little increase in cost for probe teams.

[WhiteElephants]

I don't understand (and it wouldn't be the first or last time for me). Why doesn't it make a difference whether spoils of war are on or off?