Another new faction

[Smeagol]

Another new faction I'm working on of genetically engineered individuals. I made this one a while ago but I lost the file (actually messed up the computer that the file was on), so I'm making it again:

1 Talent/4 citizens
+1 Efficiency
Free Research Hospital
Hab Limits of 5/12
-1 Growth
-1 Morale
-1 Police
Aversion: Thought Control

It seems a little powerful to me... I like the research hospital but I'm not sure if it's too unbalancing. Some of the minuses (morale, police) aren't really that limiting. Just wondering if anyone has suggestions to tone it down without losing the research hospital. I'd go -2 Police if necessary (the idea was that nerve stapling won't work, but -2 Police actually hurts a bit while -1 does little). Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[korn469]

how about

+2 Efficiency
-2 support
Talent for 4 citizens
Free Research Hospital
needs hab complex to grow past size 5
tech:
Aversion: police state

korn469

[Smeagol]

Oof... no Police State and if you use Demo you're dead meat (each unit costs 2 to support!).

I liked the -1 growth penalty (it eliminates easy population booms, and also works with the faction as it takes longer to produce genetically engineered people).

I do like the aversion to Police State, but not the support penalty. How about -1 Growth and -2 Police instead of the -2 Support?

[TeknoMerc]

on a related topic, smeagol inspired me to develop my own version of Khan's genetic superhuman outcasts.

here is what i playtested as well as a new idea based upon this discussion. here we go:

original
--------
0, 1, 1, 0, 0
+1 talent
talent/5 pop
offense/defense 110% ;;superhuman
-industry
-effic
-police
economics, planned, growth
politics, police state, nil

in 4 test games: transcend, huge map, all AI run, they were always in 3-4th place. they
just didn't expand as quickly.

new suggestion
--------------
0, 1, 1, 0, 1
talent/5 pop
offense/defense 110% ;;superhuman
free research hospital
-growth
-police
hab limit: 5/12
economics, planned, growth
politics, police state, nil

comments? i will try some tests this weekend.

TeknoMerc

[Smeagol]

Tekno-- Yeah, the first one sounded a little too weak, but your second version looks OK. One thing I changed was to make the free Research Hospital available with Gene Splicing instead of right when you start, and I recommend you doing the same.
Question: what does that 0,1,1,0,1 thing mean?

My version:

1 Talent/4
+2 Efficiency
Free Research Hospital w/Gene Splicing
-1 Growth
-2 Police
Hab Limits of 5/12

and some considerations are to add -1 morale or make the efficiency only +1 (my version of it are intellectuals, and see fighting as a waste of time and energy).

I found my old file for this faction at the Sidgames.com forums (which apparently took up all of the old Firaxis forum threads), so I have the entire faction done already. I just need to get it perfectly balanced.

[TeknoMerc]

smeagol,

the following determine what the AI-run faction concentrates on with empire-building and resaerch. these are as important as the other details we discussed.

fight (-1, 0, 1): 0 (erratic)
power (0, 1) : 1 (likes power)
knowledge (0, 1): 1 (likes know)
infrastructure : 0 (will do some)
growth (0,1) : 1 (likes growth)

i agree, the research hospital should with pre-req tech, so FREEFAC X, whatever X is. i will look it up later today.

only one thing worries me about my new version: the faction is likely to run Dem (=2 grow), planned (+2 grow) for a +4 total -1 grow = +3 net grow. this could potentially overpower this faction. i will test a few times and see if a -2 grow social is needed.

TeknoMerc

ps. if we have two good versions of this faction, all the better!