The Unity Engineers

[Simpson II]

Yes, another new faction that no-one else will ever play! Well, hopefully I'm being pessimistic. Download The Unity Engineers at www.angelfire.com/games2/simpson/ This is an early version, with no special graphics etc, but on the up side it is about 2k. Here is the readme info.

The premise
A ship like the unity would have carried more than religous maniacs, security guards, politicians and pure scientists. There would be a group of skilled professional engineers, for the purpose of directing and executing development on Chiron. Being engineers, they would probably have formed their own clique, from which a faction would naturally emerge.

The specifics
+1 Industry, 3/4 normal rush buying cost and 1/2 price raise/lower terrain : well, they're good engineers!
+1 commerce : they have many saleable skills
-1 growth : Workaholics
-1 planet : Building sites are dirty places
Tech applied physics
Oh, yes, and they salvaged some construction equipment from the unity before leaving.. so they start with a free terraformer.

The AI plays them quite well, but I think they are reasonably balanced. Please try them and tell me your opinion!

[This message has been edited by Simpson II (edited July 22, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Simpson II (edited July 22, 2000).]

[Googlie]

SII

I clicked on the link, and here's what I got:


Sometimes we like to get a little crazy and
type in totally random URLs to see what happens.
This is what happens.
Actually, we couldn't find the page you requested. Please check the URL.

What gives?

G.

[Simpson II]

Googlie,

My apologies. The link www.angelfire.com/games2/simpson will take you to my home page, and the link there works. I didn't check the link here because the link on the homepage works, and I stupidly assumed a link to the same place would work . Angelfire insists on you seeing my gorgeous homepage, grrr.

Note: Actually I now know that's not what happened, the forum took the full stop to be part of the link. But if that hadn't been there, you couldn't have gotten through anyway. Ho-Hum.
[This message has been edited by Simpson II (edited July 22, 2000).]

[joer]

At first glance, they look rather weak to me. -1 growth hurts a human player a lot. Compare to what the CyC gets in exchange for -1 growth -- I think their benefits far outreach those of the Engineers, and they don't have the Planet problem.

I can imagine that the AI is ok with them, as they don't need the growth as badly as the human player on higher levels.
-joer.

[Simpson II]

joer, yes, they are slightly underbalanced by the difficulty of pop-booming, especially in Smac 4.0. And yes, the AI really makes them hum, especially with build/explore instructions.

However, don't underestimate the +1 industry *with* reduced rushing costs, plus more cash piled on top. Running planned/wealth, you can buy up facilities and units for fractionally over half the 'standard' price, or two thirds of what someone else with the same SE would pay. Also, you have the option to play builder or momentum with equal ease, and for really fast conquests you can afford to skip Centauri Ecology until you bully it out of someone else.

So I agree they need a nudge in the right direction, but I'm hoping not a huge one...
I'm just trying to judge how great it needs to be, and I'd rather err on the low side than the high. Borrowing from CyC a little, immunity to negative effects of wealth? (since 'wealth' doen't mean quite the same thing in this faction.) I'm very much open to suggestions! Please, play the faction and tell me what you think.