LEAST Favorite Faction

[CEO Aaron]

Honestly, I'm not suprised Aki doesn't have any detractors, her only drawback is the inability to POP boom, which I personally don't like, but she's hardly the only faction with that restriction.

[Ivellios]

True, she doesn't have the dismal Probe modifier of Zakharov and those drones can be very annoying. I suppose Zakharov really needs to secure the Virtual World and the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm to solve his problems, while Aki-Zeta's problems can be easily offset by running Democracy and/or Planned. And there's always the Cloning Vats for popbooming

I suppose Zak's pros are more significant, but so are his cons.

[CEO Aaron]

Having to rely on the Cloning Vats for your pop booming _is_ a huge disadvantage, IMO. If you can pop by running either Demo-Planned or Demo/FM, then you can get your faction up to its hab limits just after you get Tree Farms. The Cloning Vats come _much_ later, and if my population is twice yours due to an early pop boom, there's no guarantee you're getting them at all.

That being said, its not impossible for Aki to pop boom, just expensive. You need to run Demo/Planned/Wealth and allocate 30-40% to Psych, and it won't hurt to have the Human Genome in the mix as well.

[Chaos Theory]

Aki's big advantage is, like Morgan, being able to run FM while also having +4 effic. +3 economy allocated to 100% labs or 100% energy really helps in getting those secret projects.

Edit: Morgan can't run FM and be at +4 effic, but he can have that magical +2 econ with +4 effic.

[HolyWarrior]

I will NEVER play the Commie Bastard Hive--end of story.
The Believers kick ass as a faction.
Morgan can't fight to save his life.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Morgie can be extremely kick ass if played correctly.

Fundy/green/wealth - Good probe rating, great energy for probe actions, can be a green warrior with worms to help offset some of his support issues.

Running Fundy/wealth he can build a creches and with command centere/bioenhancement facs and (high morale or a monolith upgrade) can pump out elites like mad.

True I do like the believers, and they rock if on land and playing spoils on, but don't discount Morgie as a capitalist warrior.

[Harvestor32]

I actually think the Believers are abusively good. But only with the cheap strategy I use.

You know how they have +2 support? In the beginning, dump all your energy into economy since you don't get any reseach points anyways. You can switch once you actually start research.

Then get formers as fast as possible. 4 free units... droolz. The trick is to mass formers and population boom with planned, and children's creche.

At sufficient size, switch to green and behold!

You will soon have so much tech that the University will look like... like the Believers!


And Morganites actually can turn their weakness into an advantage. Not having more than 4 pop seems like a very bad thing. However... supply crawlers build much faster than population can grow in the early game. If you build many cities, you will overcome the voting by population difficulty. Planetary Transit...

If you don't have a huge pop/base, you don't have to build anything to make your citizen happy. No big population/city means no drone problems. And you don't even have to pay the 2 energy a turn for hab complex. Mines and Boreholes to get a super mineral advantage. Use formers to make forest and solar collectors. Place crawlers everywhere. No need to waste time getting too many farms because you only have 4 pop/city. Just mine/forest/collector. And if you have crawlers on forest/mines already, you will pump out crawlers so fast. Overcome the pop disadvantage with Athestic Virtues.

The only difficulty is that crawlers can only extract 1 type of thing and citizens can extract 3. Overcome this by having wide borders in which you can mine. Note that supply crawlers can be armored... They can have trance to stop worms... When you decide to switch to Free Market, you will have so many armored crawlers protecting your bases. You are practically invincible. Notice also that crawlers cost nothing to support. Early clean defense! Alternatively, you could go Green because your pop has been stuck at 4/6 and growth doesn't really matter since you get all your energy from crawlers anyway.

Alternatively, notice that you can sell hab complex after the population has grown above 4...

[Datajack Franit]

Someone please tell me who invented the Cult of Planet

[Jac de Molay]

That's a good strategy for Believers, H32. I'll have to try that out.

[laurentius]

I just hate the Drones and Believers, both are like somekind of cancer in the game

[Kaptain Ken]

Miriam is just not as much fun to play by us builders. The Aliens are too strong and should not be played.

[CEO Aaron]

Harvester32: That is PRECISELY the strategy I use playing the Believers. Crank out scounts and colonies until tech restriction is lifted, then grab Centauri Ecology asap. Use 4 support to build 3 formers per base, terraform like mad, and roll research toward Planetary Networks. Once PN is bought, its time to send out probes and tech-rape all your neighbors. If done correctly, your extra growth and vast t-forming power will allow you to outgrow your competition, while maintaining technological parity with your rivals.

[The Vagabond]

The Believes is definitely the worst faction to play.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by DetroitDave
I echo for Miriam, because she usually dominates the other AI players in an SP game. The last 3 out 4 games I've played, Miriam has eradicated 2 or 3 factions and rolled over a huge continent.

I like to keep as many factions alive in the game for as long as possible, even offering remote/sea bases. But Miriam just fouls everything up.

Then use Probe Team to free the captured faction leaders. In this way you can get a bunch of submissive allies almost for free.

[Frankychan]

Wow, threads like these never die....nor fade away.