Please critique this faction...

[Afterburner]

I'll spare you the bells and whistles and just give you the meat:

Social Ideology: WEALTH
Emphasis: RESEARCH
Anti-Ideologies: GREEN

Free Tech: Social Psych
SOCIAL: +RESEARCH
SOCIAL: +++PROBE
SOCIAL: --EFFIC
SOCIAL: --GROWTH
SOCIAL: ---PLANET

Use of Force: YES
Interest in Power: YES
Interest in Tech: YES
Interest in Wealth: YES
Interest in Growth: NO

Morale Modifier: -1
Psi Combat Modifier: +20%
Extra Drone per every 3 citizens
Immune to Mind Control
Worm Police


Whatcha think? Too easy? Too harsh?

[Travathian]

---Planet AND Worm Police?

Ok, I gotta hear the explanation for this one!

[Afterburner]

What? That's all the critique I get?


Oh, very well.

The faction I'm creation is the Cthulhu Cult faction. The frustrating thing is that I don't have the option of preventing them from Transcendance. In a perfect world, they would be a human faction in every respect, save that they couldn't achieve victory through Transcendance, but could achieve victory via Summoning Cthulhu (read: Building sub-space generators like the Alien factions). However, the only way to do that so far as I can tell is to pick the "ALIEN" option, which carries with it a host of other baggage I'm not interested in.

So okay, here's the justifications.

The Cult of Cthulhu has, as their goal, the eradication of all non-believers and the summoning of their deity, the Great Cthulhu.

Their social preference is Wealth because that is the key to power.

They emphasize research for the same reason.

They cannot choose Green because caring about the fate of the ecology is really of minimal importance if your goal is to summon an evil deity to ravage the planet.

Their free tech is Social Psych because they're master manipulators.

They get +RESEARCH because they're prone to digging around in ancient, arcane tomes.

They get +++PROBE because they're masters of infiltrating day-to-day society in order to spread the cult's power.

They get --EFFIC because aside from the leaders, the rank and file cult member is a little on the...erratic side. (The leaders are, too. They just control it better.)

They get --GROWTH for pretty much the same reason as the --EFFIC.

They get ---PLANET because Planet has a vague idea of what they're up to, and she REALLY doesn't like it. (If YOU were Planet and you knew that a particular group of creatures crawling all over you were planning to summon a big, evil deity to tear you apart, you might be a little miffed, too.)

They get a -1 Morale modifier to reflect the fact that it's difficult to mold a half-crazed rabble into an elite fighting force.

They get a +20% to psy combat because after you've communed with Cthulhu himself, your psyche becomes pretty hardened to mere mindworms and such.

They get an extra Drone every 3 citizens to reflect the fact that half-crazed rabble often can't find anything better to do than stir up trouble.

They're immune to mind control because they're either (A) completely, totally and wholly dedicated to Cthulhu; or (B) they're f**king nuts.

And finally, they get Worm Police because the worms that have been bred by them (or captured by them) are corrupted by the will of Cthulhu. They're like Chthonians, and the leaders use them as terror troops to keep the half-crazed rabble in line.

And there you have it.

[This message has been edited by Afterburner (edited March 15, 2000).]

[Enigma]

-- growth REALLY REALLY hurts. Big time expansion dampener. Only way to make this up is to give them impunity Democracy or Planned (don't ask me what fits the flavor). A penalty that big would all but stop their early game expansion, combined with the fact that they are horrible at psi combat. Really a few probe bonuses and a token extra research do not make up for the massive penalties.

Don't know much about the cult of cthulu, so I can't offer suggestions.

[korn469]

quote: Whatcha think? Too easy? Too harsh?

Too much

you have 11 modifiers...with that many it is very hard to gain a proper balance to a faction and allow it to have a good variety of strategies...you should really cut it down to where you only have at the most six pluses and minuses

also you do not need to max out every category...in fact you should never max out a category from the start

scale them back but keep the same flavor and see what you get

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korn469