New Faction - Children Of Chiron

[Famyn]

Native life forms, a.i. sentient life that elvolved (or, in this case, was forcably evolved by the fungus), submitted for your approval. Considered 'alien' but of course native to Planet. They use Fungal Towers for cities.

And so I sleep for ages, perhaps eons... once birthed from nothing, I became one with the nothing, until one day, that fateful day, when the sound of a thousand minds screaming all at once awakened me... us... from our eon sleep, and we walked once more.
^
^ -- SporeFather XenGrala,
^ "Conversations With Outworlders"

#DATALINKS1
^LEADER: {SporeFather XenGrala}
^BACKGROUND: {The First Born Of The Planet Mind}
^AGENDA: {Eliminate Those Alien To Planet}
^TECH: {Centauri Ecology}

#DATALINKS2
^+10% Psi Combat Bonus, Powerful Psi Warriors
^+2 PLANET: {Native Life Forms}
^+1 SUPPORT: {Already Adapted To Environment}
^-1 RESEARCH: {Lowered Interest In Technology}
^-2 GROWTH: {Much Slower Maturity Rate}
^+2 nutrient, +1 mineral in fungus squares (from Centauri Ecology and native fungal culture)
^Alien Faction: {Recycling tanks, energy grid, directed research, map survey}
^{May not use Free Market economics}

As any good player knows, not all SE choices are created equal. The -2 growth is a killer, and with this faction utilizing fungus (with no energy to start) then the -1 research hurts too. I have playtested this faction, and while more powerful then the other non-alien factions, they just aren't up to snuff with the other aliens. Thoughts?

[AlexanderIII]

Well, the +2 Planet already gives them +20% to psi combat, so the +10% is a bit redundant; I would sub that for a +1 Morale rating instead. And -2 Growth, given that they are native to the planet, does not make much sense -- granted, you have to give them negatives in something, so why not -2 Industry instead, since they are not able to fashion tools and production as efficiently as not native-lifeforms who have only their tools (i.e. technology) to survive the harshness of the planet. Dunno if all that you outlined would fit into the max 8 allowed 'slots' in the faction.txt file. Great idea though.

^+10% Psi Combat Bonus, Powerful Psi Warriors
^+2 PLANET: {Native Life Forms}
^+1 SUPPORT: {Already Adapted To Environment}
^-1 RESEARCH: {Lowered Interest In Technology}
^-2 GROWTH: {Much Slower Maturity Rate}
^+2 nutrient, +1 mineral in fungus squares (from Centauri Ecology and native fungal culture)
^Alien Faction: {Recycling tanks, energy grid, directed research, map survey}
^{May not use Free Market economics}

[Famyn]

Well, the psi bonus is there to give them the encouragement to use a large native life form army. Growth, of course, is from a purely game balance point of view. Being they get 2 nutrients and 1 mineral from every fungus square right off the bat, then they really don't have a 'bad' place to land... two or three fungus squares and their cities are good to go. The only real way to slow them down is to give them a negative growth.

I just got done with a thinker ironman game with these guys. They are extremely slow to start, researching very slowly. They almost need a native army just to survive. Tech superiority is almost not possible early game.

However, this factions gets... well... INSANE late game. When all tech is developed and Manifold harmonics are built, the fungus squares were producing 4 nutrient, 5 mineral 5 energy. Each of my cities were producing 100+ minerals and growing to size 50 and beyond. I guess the hard early game is a good balance though.