Spartans Modification -- Need comments

[Midnight]

I've been thinkering a bit with the Spartan faction, and I'd really appreciate some comments on weither or not the changes I made are unbalancing.

The "typical" Spartans have theses parameters:
TECH, Mobile, FREEPROTO, 0, SOCIAL, ++MORALE, SOCIAL, +POLICE, SOCIAL, -INDUSTRY

Here are the changes I made:
I changed ++MORALE to only +MORALE.
I added -ECONOMY, +PROBE and ROBUST, EFFIC.

I think removing one +1 from Morale is a fair trade for halving efficiency penalties.

However, I'm much more conserned about the +PROBE. Is it overly powerfull? Maybe putting --ECONOMY instead of simply -ECONOMY to compensate for it?

Comments would be greatly appreciated.

-Midnight

[Maniac]

I think they're much too weak now. Even makes them the weakest of the 14, I think.
They can't get +2 Economy any more and they still have that nasty Industry penalty. You even lowered what makes them so good in war: Morale. All that for just +1 Probe. Which isn't really a nice bonus, unless you combine it with Fundamentalism. But if you do that, you don't make use of the halved inefficiency, so not much of a benefit either. BTW, personally I would even still find a -1 or -2 Efficiency penalty (from PS/Fundy-Planned) too much, so I wouldn't use that benefit anyway.
So I find the modifications very unbalancing.

But of course, you don't have to care one bit about what I say.

[Maniac]

Indeed: no FM! That's the problem!

[XxShatterxX]

To be frank, I think you butchered the Spartans. They're one advantage is their +2 Morale, and the -Industry is a B!tch of a penalty. I think it seriously unbalances the game and puts the Spartans ad a severe disadvantage. If the +2 Morale was returned then the other negative changes you made would be balanced out.

[Midnight]

Okie, and I was worried of exactly the opposite! Back to the drawing board then.

The thing is, I really don't want to put IMMUNITY, EFFIC, because the Police State / Planned combo would be way too powerfull (++SUPPORT, ++POLICE, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, and no penalties at all).

If I got rid of the -ECONOMY, would ROBUST, EFFIC and +PROBE be enough to compensate for the move from ++MORALE to +MORALE? Or should I had something else to sweeten the deal?

-Midnight

[Midnight]

OR... I got look at it the other way around.

Keep ++MORALE, but add -ECONOMY in exchange of +PROBE and ROBUST, EFFIC.

Then again, -ECONOMY will hurt in the long run. Hum...

[Maniac]

Perhaps you could give them Inefficiency immunity. Would make them a great conquer faction, with PS/Fundy-Planned. No need for FM then, you would never be playing uilder with them anyway. The problem then however, is that they could start to resemble the Hive too much.