Worst Faction

[Curiosity]

Laz,

Misotu is a she, not a he. I have savegames where I have her infiltrated from years ago, but I've forgotten the password.
On my limited experience, and from what I've heard, she plays builder early, then she gets to Air Power, and then you die.
She pays a lot of attention to diplomacy etc. Talks a lot of junk about how badly she's doing, how low her tech rate is, how she should never have taken the faction.

[Gufnork]

Ah, a whiner, just like me. Nice to see it can work on computer games as well.

[AMD4EVER]

Present some facts that aren't in dispute, and maybe someone will come up with a conclusion based on those facts.

Here are some facts about Morgan:

He's weak at the beginning, but gets very strong in the midgame. Properly developed, he can expand faster than any other faction. His support limitations encourage players to make bad defensive decisions, which can lose games in a hurry. With a solid opening, left unmolested, Morgan can run away with EVERY SP in the GAME.
Good play with Morgan means you HAVE to know how to make the best use of your Energy Credits, you can't just switch to planned/police and rely on your huge support and industry to overwhelm your enemies.

I guess I don't understand what your asking. You want facts that are not in dispute such as numbers that show Morgan loses more than anyone else and a sample group of people saying no one is good at playing Morgan. Those are facts, why are you acting like none have been shown?

His being weak at the beginning is what makes him the weakest. He simply won't survive long enough to win human v human games. This is proven fact if thats what you want. We can see his faction loses way more often than any other faction percentwise.

You just stated the with Morgan it takes a solid start and a peaceful one just to get going. How often in human v human games are they peaceful and allow Morgan to get a solid start? His reputation for being strong late in the game even hurts him here because he will be targeted.

He isn't so bad that if given the perfect start you can't win, so I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm only saying it is the weakest faction hands down. There isn't going to be much proof against this.

[Lazerus]

It does sound like a female name Curiousity just with being unsure put him since thats the majority of players, dont want to offend any macho guy by laughing at his girly name
Ah good old diplomacy, killing people with whispers. So if she ever starts to play again and appears in one of my games i'll smile and nod my head while she babbles away until my 10 recon/impact rovers are in her territory shooting every former and weak base in sight

[BustaMike]

He isn't so bad that if given the perfect start you can't win, so I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm only saying it is the weakest faction hands down. There isn't going to be much proof against this.

NO! He's not at all. As was stated earlier, those numbers only show that the people playing Morgan were not as skilled as their opponents, that's it.

Here's a good example of why those numbers don't mean what you claim they do.

Pirates 4/10 - 40%
Spartans 3/9 - 33%
University 7/28 - 25%

No one in their right mind would ever claim that the Spartans or Pirates are better than the University, but by your logic they must be. I would say that instead, these numbers show that more bad players choose the University than the other two factions. If you're a lesser player, why would you further hinder yourself by choosing a lesser faction? You wouldn't, thus the numbers show more University players than the other 2 combined.

People who think Morgan is a bad faction don't understand how to play as him correctly, that's it. End of story.

[Hercules]

Well at the moment I am playing these MP:

Morgan ,transcend, all original starting players,
Spartan from the start( accelerated), Librarian, one change
Deirdre from start( accelerated), Librarian, one change
Cult from start, transcend, one change
Hive from start,transcend, two changes
Morgan ,replaced someone, awful position, weak being left alone as no threat.

Cult (replacement), transcend,
Hive, transcend, original
and other good games.

Data Angels, transcend (on island), played like at an idiot, lost.

Most of these MP games have some way to go before I could possibly pass serious comment: too many factors.

Perhaps a test, like the four same players(veterans at MP) playing different factions with the same AI and planet conditions might shed an interesting light on this debate.

[Gufnork]

AMD4EVER: Morgan is bad at small maps with players starting close together when people concentrate on him. On large maps or a peaceful game he's hard to beat. Different factions are good in different games. Morgan is hardly the only one with a weakness and has more strengths than many others. Fungboy has more weaknesses and fewer strengths, making him worse. Spartan has fewer weakness and no strengths, making them worse.

[CEO Aaron]

AMD: I wasn't ASKING anything, I'm telling you that your so-called FACTS are a load of unsupported hogwash, that the one collection of wins/losses was hardly scientific, and has little bearing on what makes a faction good or not. The one thing it does show is that it's difficult to play Morgan well, just as it's difficult to play any builder faction well.

As BustaMike points out, the Pirates and Spartans did better than University in that list of games. Does that mean that the University is soft? The moral here is that there's a difference between data and facts.

If you don't want to play Morgan because you can't seem to be able to make him work for you, fine. If you don't want to listen to the tons of other posters here reiterating the fact that industry penalties are crippling, and keep crippling you the entire game, fine.

You just stated the with Morgan it takes a solid start and a peaceful one just to get going.

Funny, I don't recall saying that. What I said was that with a solid start left unmolested, Morgan will RUN AWAY WITH EVERY SP, and probably the game. At no point did I suggest that you'd be unviable if you didn't get that peaceful start.

I've won pleny of games with Morgan where my start was so ****ty that I couldn't have made it work with any other faction. Because Morgan can grab RTs early on, he's much less vulnerable to starting out on bad terrain than almost every other faction.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by Curiosity
Well, the results are in - here's the last word on the matter... yeah, right.

I've compiled the stats from the Apolyton tournament games (too much time on my hands) and here they are - the factions from strongest to weakest, based on games awarded points out of games played.

Hive 11/18 - 61%
Drones 7/13 - 54%
Believers 2/4 - 50%
PKs 8/20 - 40%
Pirates 4/10 - 40%
Spartans 3/9 - 33%
University 7/28 - 25%
CyC 2/8 - 25%
Gaians 4/19 - 21%
Cult 1/5 - 20%
Angels 1/5 20%
Morgan 2/19 - 10%

Of course, this is all of quite questionable significance.

However, the very poor performance of Morgan and the Gaians, and the very strong showing by the Hive and Drones, is interesting.

Yes, but remember that many people consider two factions to be slightly unbalancing in tourney games - the PKs (because of their easy Planetary Governor) and the Uni (because of their massive tech lead). I've seen people purposefully choose not to play as them.

Just a note to the impressive findings you've conducted.

[Qualicide]

I'm finding it odd that people are saying "you shouldn't play this faction". If I recall, we can play any faction we want.

Personally I think the drones are the stronger than morgan and university, -2 reserch means next to nothing and +2 industry is as good as it gets. Fewer drones never hurt either. If you can get the techs and go planned+wealth, there is nothing stopping you from grabbing most if not all of the early SPs.

[Qualicide]

double

[CEO Aaron]

Qual, agreed. Drones are very tough, IMO the toughest faction out there, for the entire game. Good tech trades can get you the techs you need early, and once you've got foil probes, tech ceases to be an issue.

[UnityScoutChopper]

...or if there's no-one to steal from, just take advantage of your good drone control and the low cost of RC's and run FM/Wealth... you'll be raking in tech (also due to numerous easily-rushed NN's) before you know it, and with so many minerals to go around, cashing artifacts for techs instead of minerals becomes attractive sooner as well.

Of course, it's always nice if you have somebody to steal from BESIDES all this. :-)

USC

[Pandir]

Are you guys playing on minimal sea levels and tiny planet or something? Because I cant see how you can say the pirates arent good otherwise.

[CEO Aaron]

Here's the problems with the Pirates: Poor industry and growth make for a slow start, Pop booming is very difficult, so you can't catch up effectively. You can't improve sea squares with condensers, eschelon mirrors or sensor beacons before building bases on them, so it's hard to defend yourself effectively. And when all your early units are built on the sea-foil chassis, it adds even more precious lost turn advantage to better land-based factions. And if all that weren't enough, you've got to defend against IODs early on, which are much more mobile and harder to defend against than normal mindworms.

In exchange for these drawbacks, you get to have sea squares which can produce more minerals than normal, and a free facility which is instantly replaced by the Maritime Control Center, since you'd be a fool not to get it, playing Sven.

Sure, eventually Sven will enjoy large amounts of nutrient and energy production, but by the time he does, someone on land will have run away with the game.