Realistic Balanced Custom Factions....

[Nabvrimn]

Originally posted by Natalinasmpf Do I have to go into detail what true communism really is?

No, we know what communism is. We also know that human nature prevents it from working as you seem to think it would. Every time it's been tried on a national scale a Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot has cropped up and turned it into fascism with a humanitarian facade. Lessons of history and all that.

[Lazerus]

Exactly, we'd all love to live in a communist state if it could work, but as a species we're selfish and short sighted. If you want to create a nice true communist faction they'd probably have to be alien to be realistic (big bees/ants )

Yeah you can build boreholes without FM but everybody knows morgans boreholes are the deepest hence more pollution and more energy.
No point drilling a hole into the planet and putting a few plant pots around trying to be nice to the environment

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Natalinasmpf
But couldn't you build boreholes without FM?

a non police state orientated communism ? people just don't have the capacity for it,

Do I have to go into detail what true communism really is?

can you really justify drilling a 3 mile deep hole to the mantle in a green economy?

[Whoha]

How about this faction

+2 econ : Believe in wealth creation
+2 industry : Industrial infrastructure is likewise important
-2 growth : too preoccupied with wealth
-2 efficiency : many opportunities for corruption
-2 support : Extremely extravagant tastes

Prefered : FM
Aversion : None

The gist of this faction is that of rapid industrial growth, crawler abuse would really profit these guys.

Early game these guys have problems, later on those problems go away, but thats much the same for everyone, except that these guys have more severe problems early on.

[Commy]

If you think about it, you can't really do a true communism in the game. Communism is where the government OWNS everything, and practically CONTROLS everything.

Planned just simply means that the government sets numerous and restrictive regulations within the business world, mostly to help the people life better lives.

While both attempt to do the same thing, make the living standard of everyone high, and give more consideration to every social class, planned is simply a type of economic system, communism is a political and society system, two very different things.

[logic_error]

@Whoha, interesting combination. The bonuses are HUGE, but so are the penalties too. When playing that faction, it is very tempting to choose democracy, but that lowers support to -4 which means every unit costs 2 mins to support. Ouch! Power can negate that penalty but then the industry bonus is gone.

For better efficiency I might choose Green, because population booming is impossible (in the early game) with that faction anyway. Yeah, I think it's quite balanced.

[Nabvrimn]

Militant Libertarians:

-2 police : not accepting of government restriction
immunity police : accept the necesity of war (faction bonuses aren't affected by umpunities, are they? If they are this won't work)
+1 morale : armed citizenry
-2 probe : little tolerance of governments keeping secrets from the citizenry
Penalty Thought Control : It takes a lot of resources to control well armed libertarians
-1 pop limit : cramped quarters simply do not work for people who believe they have the inalianable right to play their accordians in the middle of the night.
May not use police state
preference democracy
goal economy


The main advantage is the ability to go free market without crippling their military. This is big, but the inability to use police before thought control comes around (and that being unaffordable without the cloning vats) should do smoething towards making up for it, and the hab limits should also help prevent them from becoming an uberfaction.

[Dis]

Aveage Joes

No SE bonuses or losses

Can choose any goverment.

You can't get more balanced than that.

[Chaos Theory]

Originally posted by Nabvrimn
Militant Libertarians:

-2 police : not accepting of government restriction
immunity police : accept the necesity of war (faction bonuses aren't affected by umpunities, are they? If they are this won't work)
+1 morale : armed citizenry
-2 probe : little tolerance of governments keeping secrets from the citizenry
Penalty Thought Control : It takes a lot of resources to control well armed libertarians
-1 pop limit : cramped quarters simply do not work for people who believe they have the inalianable right to play their accordians in the middle of the night.
May not use police state
preference democracy
goal economy


The main advantage is the ability to go free market without crippling their military. This is big, but the inability to use police before thought control comes around (and that being unaffordable without the cloning vats) should do smoething towards making up for it, and the hab limits should also help prevent them from becoming an uberfaction.

This faction is weak because it cannot reach size 2 without a facility, a doctor, or lots of psych allocation. In the early game, before FM is an option, this can kill you.

Besides that, you can't achieve your desired effect. With immunity police, I believe you will have at least 0 police at all times. With impunity Free Market, you don't suffer the planet penalty either.

Apart from that, their only other bonus is +1 morale, which is not very good.

Realize that all in-game factions have more bonuses than penalties (Dissident, you read this, too!). If you try to balance the two, you get a weak faction. They need to do something well, possibly two things. For example:

Gaians - native life and efficiency
Morgan - energy and labs
Zak - labs and labs
Yang - drone control, minerals
Santi - combat
Believers - combat, probe, support
Lal - drone control, votes, flexibility
Aki - labs and efficiency, particularly the ease of hitting +4 effic
Sven - naval combat, naval building
Roze - probe, flexibility
Domai - building, drone control
Cha Dawn - native life

Your proposed faction's sole significant strength is the ability to fight with abandon in free market? Morgan can do that already, and then some.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by logic_error
@Whoha, interesting combination. The bonuses are HUGE, but so are the penalties too. When playing that faction, it is very tempting to choose democracy, but that lowers support to -4 which means every unit costs 2 mins to support. Ouch! Power can negate that penalty but then the industry bonus is gone.

For better efficiency I might choose Green, because population booming is impossible (in the early game) with that faction anyway. Yeah, I think it's quite balanced.

if you choose green then you need a childrens creche or demo to get any growth at all, -3 is iirc zero pop growth. Later on demo/green/knowledge/cybernetic will probably be the best, but it takes a while to get there.

Fundy/FM/knowledge and Demo/FM/Power are probably the only setups that don't bone over that faction early on.

[Chaos Theory]

Originally posted by Whoha


if you choose green then you need a childrens creche or demo to get any growth at all, -3 is iirc zero pop growth. Later on demo/green/knowledge/cybernetic will probably be the best, but it takes a while to get there.

Fundy/FM/knowledge and Demo/FM/Power are probably the only setups that don't bone over that faction early on.

Forget Fundy, unless you're actually fighting someone and need it. Anyone at -2 morale without Fundy can also benefit by running it because it helps morale-boosting facilities work. Otherwise, no - Frontier is better if both Demo and Police State are intolerable.

[Zeiter]

This faction could be fun to play:

The Familial Hordes

+2 Growth - Society puts heavy emphasis on family life and encourages large families
-2 Research - Society tends to stick with old family traditions and customs, and is reluctant to adopt new technology
-1 Support - Faction dislikes diverting local community resources to support units in the field
-1 Econ - Most business transactions are at a small scale, local level, and families prefer to do business with people they know instead of huge megacorporations
-2 Probe - Society is very welcoming and open

Agenda: Planned - Citizenry likes to make sure that their communities and families will receive the resources they need.
Aversion: Green - Citizenry dislikes any regulations that restrict the gathering of resources for their families and communities.

Faction gets a free children's cheche in every base. - Emphasis on family care and development.
Faction can exceed hab limits by 10. - People are used to cramped living quarters.
Faction starts with social psych

The early growth is just huge! +4 immediately, then instant pop boom when switched to planned or demo. The lack of early research hurts, but is somewhat offset by the huge growth. The best econ rating this faction can get early on is +2, so that's somewhat of a drawback. And support and the probe rating could make military operations more difficult. But with the hab limits relaxed by 10, (size 17 w/o hab complex, size 24 w/hab complex) you could have some mega specialist bases later on in the mid-game, especially after orbital improvements. This faction has negatives in both the builder and momentum categories, but the huge growth enables them to do either. And, of course, they have a great shot at the planetary governorship. The AI would suck with this faction, as it wouldn't know how to handle the drone problems well enough to make use of the huge population, but a human could have some real fun with this faction.

[Chaos Theory]

Consider that the Ascetic Virtues is pretty nice with its +1 Police and +2 hab limits. Guess which one is more appealing most of the time? +10 is large enough players might have trouble using all of it efficiently, though, so it's not 5 times as good. Still, it's pretty good, and children's creches are one of the best facilities.

This faction would be a total monster in Demo/FM/Wealth:
+4 Growth (really +6)
-2 Research
-3 Support
+2 Econ
-2 Probe
+1 Industry
+2 Effic (+4 for inefficiency purposes)
-2 Morale (mostly nulled out by creches)

You can simultaneously pop boom and reach the magic +2 Econ, and still have good efficiency.

The early lack of research hurts, but with Social Psych, Rec Commons will be available early to help stem the drones resulting from rapid growth. Of course, you could always pump out colony pods as fast as possible, too. If you have nice terrain, you should dominate; on poor terrain, you could stagnate for a while, then do quite a bit better.

Verdict:
Strong, but not ridiculously so. It would take some play testing to see just how much this faction needs pruning.

[logic_error]

Chaos Theory, this thread is about balanced custom factions...

[Chaos Theory]

I know, which is why I'm commenting on how these custom factions aren't balanced, and why. I suppose I could submit an oddball of my own...