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These analyses do leave out one factor that, in my view, is critical to economic strength, economic flexibility, and military strength: exploration of Chiron, and popping pods. In this, the Gaians can overcome almost all of their initial disadvantages by:
• Worm capture (military strength with free, self repairing units – a huge benefit in the early game when the Gaians are vulnerable)
• Killing worms (getting lots of ECs, and making up for not being in FM from a cash point of view)
• No penalties for popping pods and getting lots of worms (either new Gaian worms, or cash, since worms don’t attack allied/friendly worms)
• Many more artifacts (since you’re popping and surviving more pods, and may get more AAs than other insular factions), which can fix a tech deficit when nodes are built in the mid and late early game; this can also goose your chances of getting critical SPs (like stealing VW from Zak – hehe)
• Free range hunting on land and sea while other factions (except possibly Morganites in Dem/Green/Wealth) are hobbled by FM restrictions, and have more limited ability to explore (sea foil probes, probe teams wandering around land – all are poor at popping pods, and likely to die fast if they do)
Does this make the Gaians uber-powerful? No, not even close. But, if executed properly and aggressively it can give the Gaians a boost in the early game when they are the weakest, and can be a continuing strength throughout the game. Their only remaining limitation is energy for research, but this can be fixed to a limited degree by cranking your SE energy allocation to 80 percent or so (high efficiency helps here) and riding on your banked planet pearls to offset an energy deficit. This does not quite make up for not being in the glorious +2 eco of the free marketers or Morgan, but it does come close.
My conclusion is that ranking factions is more an artifact of how an individual player sees them as being played. In the end their advantages can be used to good effect by a creative player, so a ranking of any faction may not be all that useful.
• Worm capture (military strength with free, self repairing units – a huge benefit in the early game when the Gaians are vulnerable)
• Killing worms (getting lots of ECs, and making up for not being in FM from a cash point of view)
• No penalties for popping pods and getting lots of worms (either new Gaian worms, or cash, since worms don’t attack allied/friendly worms)
• Many more artifacts (since you’re popping and surviving more pods, and may get more AAs than other insular factions), which can fix a tech deficit when nodes are built in the mid and late early game; this can also goose your chances of getting critical SPs (like stealing VW from Zak – hehe)
• Free range hunting on land and sea while other factions (except possibly Morganites in Dem/Green/Wealth) are hobbled by FM restrictions, and have more limited ability to explore (sea foil probes, probe teams wandering around land – all are poor at popping pods, and likely to die fast if they do)
Does this make the Gaians uber-powerful? No, not even close. But, if executed properly and aggressively it can give the Gaians a boost in the early game when they are the weakest, and can be a continuing strength throughout the game. Their only remaining limitation is energy for research, but this can be fixed to a limited degree by cranking your SE energy allocation to 80 percent or so (high efficiency helps here) and riding on your banked planet pearls to offset an energy deficit. This does not quite make up for not being in the glorious +2 eco of the free marketers or Morgan, but it does come close.
My conclusion is that ranking factions is more an artifact of how an individual player sees them as being played. In the end their advantages can be used to good effect by a creative player, so a ranking of any faction may not be all that useful.
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