Pop based factions

[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 have three pop based factions that have been swimming in my head for a while now. Chew on these and give me your opinions. Everything about these are prototype, including the names (which aren't all that good), I have not yet even plugged these into a faction editor, so it is likely there are mistakes.

Aquafarmers
Builder equivelent of Pirates that is pop boomable. Aquafarmers are a collective of farmers which took to the sea to avoid the constant raids by waring factions.

+1 Police: {Crave stabiblity over freedoms}
FREE UNIT: Sea Terraformer
Enhancements may be built in ocean and trench squares with the discovery of Advanced Ecological Engineering: {Trained for life at sea}
Sea colony pod & sea former prototypes FREE: {Advanced oceanic technology}
Bonus mineral from ocean shelf squares: {Culture and technology adapted for the ocean}
Free Tech: Doctrine: Flexibility
Free Tech: Centuari Ecology
No Priorities or Adversions


Planet Cancer
A paranoid splinter group which believes that Planet wants to kill off the invader humans, and the best way to insure human surival is to quickly spread to every corner of Planet much like a virus.

+2 Efficency {Narrowly specific societial goal}
+4 Fungus Food Production {Blind willingness to eat fungus in order to spread}
-3 Planet {Planet senses the Cancer's intent and actively seeks to eliminate them}
-2 Support {Most support goes into building colony pods}
-1 Economy {Hastily developed infrastructure}
Free Tech: Social Psych
May not use Green {Growth resricted}
May not use Cybernetic {Again, slowed reproduction}
Interested in Pop growth
Use Force: Sometimes


edit: Upon further review I realised the Planet Cancer is just a weakened version of the Gaians. I will try to come up with a "grows out" style pop faction and repost it here.


Metropolotians
The ultimate in OCC style SMACing. A loose confederation of megacity-states that build up, rather than out.

-4 Efficiency {Redundacy between each city-state}
May excede hab complex by 10 {Mega-Highrise structures}
+1 Economy {Concentrated markets}
+1 Research {Upper class education system)
-1 Industry {Little room for industry}
Free Tech: Biogenetics
Interested in Pop growth
No Priorities or Adversions
Use Force: No

[Whoha]

I dont think you can harvest from fungus if you have a negative planet rating.

was that done on purpose?

[Natalinasmpf]

You should give the planet cancer thing a psi bonus of perhaps 50% however, since they would be skilled at eliminating native life. Overall effect would be about 20% combat bonus in fighting. And try actually giving some of the factions a growth bonus?

[Zeiter]

Aquafarmers faction sounds cool. Kind of a Svensgaard on steroids. You might wanna throw at least one negative in there, but otherwise sounds good.

I believe that the Planet Cancer faction would only get 1 nutrient from fungus because of the -3 planet, so it's kind of counterproductive. Maybe if it was just -2 planet, it would work better. Then, they'd get 3 nuts from the fungus, but would still have some trouble fighting worms. And then change that +2 efficiency to +2 growth, and I think they'd be great.

Metropolitans sounds really cool.

Have you looked at my "Familial Tribes" faction? It's a real growth monster, even from the very start of the game it has +4 growth, but it has plenty of penalties to balance it out. They are also flexible - build or conquer strategies work equally well. And the huge specialist bases that you could have by mid-late game after nutrient satellites!!! This faction would be weak with the AI, but very strong with a human player, I would think.

The Familial Hordes

+2 Growth - Society puts heavy emphasis on family life and encourages large families
-2 Research - Society tends to stick with old family traditions and customs, and is reluctant to adopt new technology
-1 Support - Faction dislikes diverting local community resources to support units in the field
-1 Econ - Most business transactions are at a small scale, local level, and families prefer to do business with people they know instead of huge megacorporations
-2 Probe - Society is very welcoming and open

Agenda: Planned - Citizenry likes to make sure that their communities and families will receive the resources they need.
Aversion: Green - Citizenry dislikes any regulations that restrict the gathering of resources for their families and communities.

Faction gets a free children's cheche in every base. - Emphasis on family care and development.
Faction can exceed hab limits by 10. - People are used to cramped living quarters.
Faction starts with social psych

[livid imp]

Originally posted by Whoha
I dont think you can harvest from fungus if you have a negative planet rating.

was that done on purpose?

Yes, the theory is (and god knows I really don't know for sure) that the +4 fungus and the -3 planet will equate to a +1 fungus production. I admit I have no idea if this will work out or not. I meant to test it last night but I have a very busy family life at home.

The idea was to allow easy spreading while still leaving the mindworms as a major challenge. That is also the reason I didn't add a Psi bonus Natalinasmpf.

And no, Growth bonuses are very easy to be imbalancing, I left them out very intentionally.

[livid imp]

Originally posted by Zeiter
Aquafarmers faction sounds cool. Kind of a Svensgaard on steroids. You might wanna throw at least one negative in there, but otherwise sounds good.

Actually it is the Pirates without their military bonuses and the SE differences. Keep in mind once aquafarmers hit the land all they get is a +1 police, so not too terribly strong.

Originally posted by Zeiter
I believe that the Planet Cancer faction would only get 1 nutrient from fungus because of the -3 planet, so it's kind of counterproductive. Maybe if it was just -2 planet, it would work better. Then, they'd get 3 nuts from the fungus, but would still have some trouble fighting worms. And then change that +2 efficiency to +2 growth, and I think they'd be great.

As I posted earlier, the 1 nut from fungus was what I was going for, not 4. The 4 was to negate the -3 planet. Not very elegant, but it gets the job done. +2 Growth? No way. Once they got Demo/Planned they would be unstoppable. Constant pop boom with 2 nuts in every patch of fungus, scarey. This faction was designed to growth out, not up.

Metropolitans sounds really cool.

Yea, they are my favorite of the lot too.

Originally posted by Zeiter
Have you looked at my "Familial Tribes" faction?

Yes I saw it when you posted it earlier. At first I thought it is a good design, but I am now thinking it might be a little too strong even with all the penalties. Being able to pop-boom that fast (I believe) would more than make up for the penalties. Really the only way we'll know for sure is by play-testing.

[Quezacotl06]

A cool thing I think that could balence pop factions would be +2 Growth and -2 Planet and -1 Efficiency. They both are major penalties that realy harm the factions ability to deal with late-game problems. So they get the large bases, but they also get more problems.

But a Pop Faction SHOULD be like the believers or spartans, in that it's realy an early game thing for them, y'know? Since they get the perks of huge pop very early, they should get the consequinces of having a large population much harder.

[Leon Trotsky]

I have been pondering the idea of a personal socialist-esque faction that emphasises living conditions over financial gain. I pretended to create a faction that lived and died on its specialists, it even showed in its blurb.

Agenda: Planned Democracy
Tech: Ethical Calculus
Free children's creche at each base
May exceed population requirements by 3 (grow, specialists, grow!)
Economy: -2 (that's it, no extra energy per square for you, one year!)
Efficiency: -1 (even more energy lost, more b-drones)
Police: -1 (mainly to prevent people from switching to Police State)
No free market (the premise of the faction)
Two less drones per base - since this wouldn't work with vainilla SMAC, I changed it to two extra talents

So there you go, a faction that starts two techs away from pop boom (in the way to IA). It somehow looks like the bastard son of Lal and Yang. Perhaps a long term bonus is missing, a research increase might be in order.

[Darrell01]

Leon, you are a genius. That looks fantastic. [Warning: Rant Coming] When Network Node was still running, (Is it somewhere else?) I would download these factions and they would have something like +5 econ and +5 industrial and all other sorts of benefits. In other words, the faction was way out of balance. This looks playable and a faction that I might enjoy fighting against.

I just made this one.
Marylinn Conner - Former Gaian Doctor
Constitutionists - The Populist
Loves Democracic Politics but hates Green economics.

+1 SUPPORT Large population to draw from
+1 PLANET Civil Cleanup Work - Gaian background
-1 ECONOMY Strained by social programs
-1 Population Bonus - Slight overcrowding

The plus one planet gives the faction the ability to capture some mind worms right off, that is why I haven't given it any more than that. They cannot select Green because population growth decreases.

[Maniac]

My SMAniaC popbooming faction, the Genesis. Easy popbooming, but -1 economy and -1 support means small bases don't pay off quickly, which results in few but large bases in the early game.

#BLURB
Why let your offspring inherit your imperfections?
Let us correct them and enter the new age of enlightenment.
^

^ -- Creator Johanna Chaue,
^ "The Perfect Code"


#DATALINKS1
^LEADER: {Johanna Chaue}
^BACKGROUND: {Argentina, Buenos Aires University genetics research team}
^AGENDA: {Improve the human genetic code for all}
^TECH: {Biogenetics}

#DATALINKS2
^Free HATCHERY with discovery of the Exowomb
^May exceed HAB COMPLEX population requirements by 2.
^-1 ECONOMY: {Universal eugenetic programs are a heavy economic burden}
^-1 SUPPORT: {Genetically boosted troops are expensive}

Hatchery is the creche, and the Exowomb tech has Biogenetics as prerequisite.