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The inability to run Wealth is bothersome, yes, but the -1 Industry is not as crippling as it's made out to be.
Aside from the very bottom grade factions, nearly all the faction's weaknesses can be handled with. If they didn't have weaknesses, then they'd all be strong, and thusly boring.
Yang, for instance, might rate pretty low, but nest him together with a Morganite, interleaving bases like a checkerboard pattern, but conventional ICS diagonal spacing. That, can be awful tough to invade -- Morgan can unleash hoards of probe teams, while Yang's bases take the beatings, and together they survive. As Yang, you'd simply forgo any investment on Economy, as your pactmate can fill in the gaps without difficulty, and dump everything into psych. You shouldn't have any drones anywhere to speak of, and if you had +4 Support and big bases, you could crank out an unholy number of cheap troops. Heck, Morgan could probably dump spare cash in Yang's coffers to rush-build for even more power.
Any one single faction, aside from the bottom of the barrel Fungboy and Roze, can be crushingly powerful. It depends on your position, your alliances, your timing, and overall performance. So the list there is more of a general guideline, for if you were running strong as Zak but were blindsided by Miriam tossing a bucketful of 6-3-1 missile infantry and Yang scooping 8-4-1 infantry and chaos rovers with enough needlejets to poke someone's eye out, it doesn't matter anymore what your tech lead is.
I suppose, sure, if every faction was given identical starting locations, equal opportunity, and equal-ish players, some would do quite a bit better than others, but that's not the way the game actually works out. If it wasn't for CMNs, you might have the "best faction" but get stuck on a 4x8 island in the middle of nowhere.
Maybe I'm saying all this because the Spartans got rated pretty low. XD The industry penalty can be compensated for by running a large cash focus and rush building. The Wealth inhibition just means you spend more time with specialists.
As for the Drones, here's my notes I scribbled up last night:
democratic planned knowledge: +1 effic, -2 support, +4 growth, -2 probe, +3 industry
democratic planned wealth: +1 econ, -2 support, -2 morale, +4 growth, +4 industry, -2 research
democratic free market wealth: +3 econ, +2 effic, -2 support, -2 morale, -5 police, +2 growth, -3 planet, +3 industry, -2 research
democratic free market knowledge: +2 econ, +3 effic, -2 support, -5 police, +2 growth, -3 police, -2 probe, +2 industry
If you run Democratic Planned Wealth Eudamonia, you get +6 Industry. Power is a waste of time for the Drones. I do like Power in the late game with the Spartans but you need a SP to cancel the hurtful Industry penalty. I need to get back and play Yang, Lal and ... well, probably every other faction except Miriam to learn more about them. Drones to me are boring and their research is slow. But that's because building for me is uninteresting. Transcending doesn't interest me: warfare does.
Aside from the very bottom grade factions, nearly all the faction's weaknesses can be handled with. If they didn't have weaknesses, then they'd all be strong, and thusly boring.
Yang, for instance, might rate pretty low, but nest him together with a Morganite, interleaving bases like a checkerboard pattern, but conventional ICS diagonal spacing. That, can be awful tough to invade -- Morgan can unleash hoards of probe teams, while Yang's bases take the beatings, and together they survive. As Yang, you'd simply forgo any investment on Economy, as your pactmate can fill in the gaps without difficulty, and dump everything into psych. You shouldn't have any drones anywhere to speak of, and if you had +4 Support and big bases, you could crank out an unholy number of cheap troops. Heck, Morgan could probably dump spare cash in Yang's coffers to rush-build for even more power.
Any one single faction, aside from the bottom of the barrel Fungboy and Roze, can be crushingly powerful. It depends on your position, your alliances, your timing, and overall performance. So the list there is more of a general guideline, for if you were running strong as Zak but were blindsided by Miriam tossing a bucketful of 6-3-1 missile infantry and Yang scooping 8-4-1 infantry and chaos rovers with enough needlejets to poke someone's eye out, it doesn't matter anymore what your tech lead is.
I suppose, sure, if every faction was given identical starting locations, equal opportunity, and equal-ish players, some would do quite a bit better than others, but that's not the way the game actually works out. If it wasn't for CMNs, you might have the "best faction" but get stuck on a 4x8 island in the middle of nowhere.
Maybe I'm saying all this because the Spartans got rated pretty low. XD The industry penalty can be compensated for by running a large cash focus and rush building. The Wealth inhibition just means you spend more time with specialists.
As for the Drones, here's my notes I scribbled up last night:
democratic planned knowledge: +1 effic, -2 support, +4 growth, -2 probe, +3 industry
democratic planned wealth: +1 econ, -2 support, -2 morale, +4 growth, +4 industry, -2 research
democratic free market wealth: +3 econ, +2 effic, -2 support, -2 morale, -5 police, +2 growth, -3 planet, +3 industry, -2 research
democratic free market knowledge: +2 econ, +3 effic, -2 support, -5 police, +2 growth, -3 police, -2 probe, +2 industry
If you run Democratic Planned Wealth Eudamonia, you get +6 Industry. Power is a waste of time for the Drones. I do like Power in the late game with the Spartans but you need a SP to cancel the hurtful Industry penalty. I need to get back and play Yang, Lal and ... well, probably every other faction except Miriam to learn more about them. Drones to me are boring and their research is slow. But that's because building for me is uninteresting. Transcending doesn't interest me: warfare does.
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