Realistic Balanced Custom Factions....

[Dis]

I fail to see how mine is not balanced. Many factions have an equal number of bonuses and counteracting negative SE values.

[Natalinasmpf]

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

Yes. Green economy recognises the human need for resources, but tries to maximise them. It doesn't penalise extreme terraforming either, but instead maximises them.

Decreased ecological damage, for example.

[Chaos Theory]

Dissident: find me a SMAX faction that has balanced bonuses and penalties. Consider all bonuses and penalties, not just SE modifications. The closest such faction I can think of is Miriam, but she also has her fanatic bonus, or Cha Dawn, who has bonuses with native life, but is rather weak overall.

[livid imp]

I had been wanting a faction whose strength was population and had gone through a few variations. The wild card in a pop faction, is the pop-booming. Pop booming too early allows a faction to run away with the game.

I think the whole population based faction is attractive because it is one angle that hasn't really been done in the game. I wrote up three pop based factions with three different styles of play. Give me your opinion of these over in the Creations forum.

[fender]

Miriam always reminded me of someone and it took me awhile to figure out whom it was. When I did, I decided to make a faction that is close to the character that she reminded me of. Kai Winn Adami of DS9! She’s a lot like Miriam, but is interested somewhat in knowledge. She is big into power, but remember, she was voted into office, so she can use Demo.

Temple of the Prophets: Kai Winn Adami

Tech: Social Psych

Facility: Network Node

Probe +1
Support +2
Planet –1

Priority: Support
Social Priority: Power
May not use Free Market
Willingness to use force: Yes
Fanatic Bonus 25%
Immunity to mind control


She does quite well against the others. I’ve watched the computer play her for a few games now. She is not bad to play yourself, but a little slow out of the gate.

She has started beside The Hive and taken him out, which is something, but of course she is not all that powerful, just a great replacement for Miriam. Or if you want two fanatics in your game try them both.

She likes to run Fundamentalist, Planned most of the time, but she does switch it around. I’m surprise at how well she can do against the AI.

[Chaos Theory]

Well, compare her to Miriam. She dominates Miriam, except for the inability to use FM:

Kai - Miriam

Free net node
+2 research
Immunity to Mind Control
Aversion FM
-Aversion Knowledge

All those boosts far outweigh losing FM, and the AI doesn't use FM well anyway, so what did you expect?

[GeoModder]

Gone with the Network Node at least...
And the Immunity is not really necessary as well.

[livid imp]

Originally posted by fender
Kai Winn Adami of DS9!

Nurse Ratched's power hungry great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grand daughter!

She was more Miriam, than even Miriam could be. One of the few great TV villains (and this is coming from a guy that hates TV). She was just subtle enough to be believable. You would never see her discussing evil plans and then cackling manically. Louise Fletcher had to have been the inspiration for Miriam, they even look similar.

[fender]

OK, I removed the Free Network Node and the immunity to Mind Control. I feel the later is not true to her character.
As livid imp said. She is more Miriam than Miriam.

However, even will these changes, she is a very well balance faction. At least as balanced as any faction in SMAC.


If you want to give her a go, let me know and I'll send you a .zip. I just haven't done the "blurb" part of the faction. Everything else is done. The base graphics are from Rose.

[livid imp]

As I implied before, I don't watch a lot of TV, but I have seen a few epsiodes of DS9 with Lousie Fletchers character. What exactly would make her adverse to FM?

[fender]

As I implied before, I don't watch a lot of TV, but I have seen a few epsiodes of DS9 with Lousie Fletchers character. What exactly would make her adverse to FM?

The way I see it, Kai Winn would not like Free Market as she would have little or no control over it. Yes, she has Demo, as in the show, but it's more like something she has to put up with.

I picture her running Planned, and that's what the IA does with her most of the time.

[Commy]

Looks like Yang with a feminine touch...