Opinion about new faction

[Panzer]

Well, I've made this new faction with the editor and I was wondering whether it was balanced or not. So I decided to ask you guys about it.

Here are the new faction's stats:

The Empire of Planet (I know, not very original )

Description: Scientific Empire

+2 Research: Research is well-funded

+1 Efficiency: Military-like command structure is very efficient

+1 Support: Army stands at the centre of society and is well-funded by the government

-1 Economy: R&D and military upkeep costs vast amounts of money

-2 Probe: Callous disregard by traditional military for special operations leads to vulnerability to Probeteams

Morale Immunity: Well-trained military

Prototypes are for free: As said before, R&D is well-funded

So, any comments? It's basically the University on steroids !

[Maniac]

IMHO it seems a balanced faction which can serve all purposes, both momentum and builder. Though it may be a bit too easy to work away all its negatives. Just build the HSA (or build a few more probes) and go Wealth (morale is no problem here) and everything is fixed.

[Apocalypse]

Just try it in a few games in which you are not that faction and see how it does compared to others.

[aaglo]

IMHO that is a bit too powerful faction. It could be more balanced if you increase the negatives (-2 economy for example) or decrease the bonuses (remove the free prots&effiency bonuses for example)...

[Blake]

Too powerfull, for a number of reasons:
Running Wealth, they have no significant negatives, only probe.
Running Demo/Knowledge they achieve +4 Effic (altough this cant be combined with +2 Econ, so not too bad....)
Running Police state (or Power), they achieve +3 Support, for a pop-booming faction with good tech, this could be dangerous.
Running Demo they still have -1 Support, enough to get free minerals at new bases.

Conclusion: Some interesting combinations, probably too many good combinations. Need another negative, possibly no Democracy. Both PS and Fundie are viable choices for this faction, so that should work. Also the free prototypes may be a bit over the top.

So with the inability to run Democracy (or prehaps Penalty under Demo), and no free prototypes, I think they would make a fairly well balanced faction with some interesting SE choices.

[Panzer]

Well, I've chosen Knowledge as the preferred value and Fundamentalism as the big no-no. It's more of a personalized faction. The +1 Efficiency can be removed, since I usually play with University and I always end up with an Efficiency rating of +4 (Demo/Green). I've played a few games on Transcend with this faction and I'm having a hard time keeping the money coming in, so -2 Economy may be too much. I usually (well, actually always) choose Knowledge as my Values (I'm a science geek ). I've tried applying -1 Industry as an extra penalty but that quickly ensured that my faction got waaaaaaaay behind the other factions so I scrapped that one.

I'll run a few testgames and see what happens. If it is necessary I'll remove the free prototypes and the Efficiency bonuses. Thanks for the comments everyone!

EDIT: Oh, my usual Social Engineering choices are Demo/Green/Knowledge/Cyber. Probably not the most optimal or the best combination but it gets the job done .

[Panzer]

Hmmm, what if I replace the Morale immunity with Efficiency immunity (like Yang) and replace the +1 Efficiency with +1 Morale? I myself usually choose Demo/Green, so the Efficiency Immunity wouldn't be too useful for myself.......

[Panzer]

Okay, here are the new stats:

+2 Research
+1 Morale
+1 Support
-1 Economy
-2 Probe
Free prototypes or Efficiency Immunity (I still have to decide which one)

Can't run Fundy (I know, I know. Demo would be a more obvious choice. Let's just say I REALLY don't like Fundy ). Preffered Value is Knowledge.

Any comments ?

[aaglo]

This is better...

[Flubber]

Hmmm if you go with the efficiency immunity, don't they become almost a Hive-UNi hybrid and probably stronger than each as it can use the advantages of each

Comparing with the Hive

1. you eliminate the +1 growth but leave a much easier pop boom

2. -2 economy becomes -1-- huge as it allows the benefits of +2 Econ from FM/Wealth and also adds keeps 1 extra energy per base in the early days

yes comparatively the Hive has +1 industry and free perimeters but the new faction has +1 support and +1 morale and +2 research and -2 probe. Note that -2 probe usually does not seem all that important anyway if you are probe-defending your bases.


Lets compare with the uni

You lose free nodes, the bonus tech and the extra drones and get -1 economy balanced by +1 support and +1 morale. If this was it, I would say ok, a faction comparable to the uni but IMHO efficiency immunity is a VERY strong power due to the possibilities of PS/Planned

With efficiency immunity I still think the new faction is a bit strong. I think the ability to boom much more easily is a strong attribute, and combine it with the ability to do a Hive-like PS/Planned/wealth or the energy lovers Demo/FM/wealth and I see a very strong and versatile faction.

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Free prototypes

This is a much weaker power IMHO as it is not as game changing as the ability to go PS/planned without penalty. With this ability, the new faction is much less Hive-like and looks more like a more warlike uni. THat might be the balance you seek

[Panzer]

Great points, Flubber. I came to the same conclusions last night while playtesting my faction. The ability to use PS/Planned with virtually no setbacks is far too powerful. So I dropped the Efficiency Immunity and settled with the free prototypes. Thanks everyone for their advice!

[Maniac]

How do they now compared to the Cyborgs?