Tweet
I'm sure this topic has been done to death but I would like to re-open it just to see if any new ideas have surfaced. I'll just be posting my general view of the ability of a faction to win and then some of my ideas on bringing the laggers up to par.
Morgan- Weak but with some incredble tricks.
Hive- strong
Gaia- weak to average
Uni- average
Believers- v. poor endgame but otherwise a strong if somwhat offbeat option
PKs- Just fine.
Sparta- weak to average.
With the exception of the good Chairman, I'd say the original Smac factions are pretty balanced. I'd argue that all matchups across all maptypes average out as being won 5-5 or 6-4 between equally skilled players.
CyCon- Strong
Pirates- Another nonstandard faction. They're certainly average at the very least.
Drones- Strong.
Angeli- Bugged. Otherwise fine
Cult- v. weak
A group of strong factions, balanced between themselves (except for the cult) but degrading several original Smac factions.
Some changes that could be made:
Cult:
-possible improvements include +1 police, impunity for Green or all units gain empath song with tech discovery. The general aim of these improvements would be to make Police state/green a very viable option for the cult. With worms doing double police duty early game wormfishing could provide a police force to ignore drone control facilities and take the edge off of -1 econ and industry. +3 police with Police state would give the police effect doubled. See where I'm going with this? Nice to have but hardly making him a Yang. The impunity to Green or robust growth would just be increasing the viability of policestate/green.
I wouldn't be surprised if Cult was still weak after that though and perhaps one of a morale/support/probe increase would be necessary but not necessarily fitting with faction personality.
Sparta:
Sandtiago is a definite contender and would only need the most minor of improvements to be average. I had three options to pick and choose from in mind.
1. Free command centre on discovery of doctrine loyalty, maybe at the loss of 1 morale.
2. Impunity Power - self explanatory. I never saw the Spartans as foaming at the mouth like the Believers or brainwashed like the Hive, but as highly trained and professional. A war faction that can go to war without a necessarily requiring war government would add variety.
3: All units become trained with discovery of tech.
I'm not sure how to buff Gaia or morgan. Maybe free biology lab on tech for Gaia? They're pretty worthless.
I wonder if Morgan needs improvement. Humans seem to do well with him.
Neither do I know how to pull the teeth out of Domai and Yang.
I think the CyCon could happily lose one efficiency point and be brought down to peacekeeper equivalent.
One interesting idea I heard for fixing the angels was robust probe, allowing them to run knowledge + covert ops centre and have +3 probe each base.
Peaceful discussion please. The idea is to make weak factions better at what they do best and improving all factions rather than breaking them. Adding unusual functionality would be better than simply giving them industry increase.
Morgan- Weak but with some incredble tricks.
Hive- strong
Gaia- weak to average
Uni- average
Believers- v. poor endgame but otherwise a strong if somwhat offbeat option
PKs- Just fine.
Sparta- weak to average.
With the exception of the good Chairman, I'd say the original Smac factions are pretty balanced. I'd argue that all matchups across all maptypes average out as being won 5-5 or 6-4 between equally skilled players.
CyCon- Strong
Pirates- Another nonstandard faction. They're certainly average at the very least.
Drones- Strong.
Angeli- Bugged. Otherwise fine
Cult- v. weak
A group of strong factions, balanced between themselves (except for the cult) but degrading several original Smac factions.
Some changes that could be made:
Cult:
-possible improvements include +1 police, impunity for Green or all units gain empath song with tech discovery. The general aim of these improvements would be to make Police state/green a very viable option for the cult. With worms doing double police duty early game wormfishing could provide a police force to ignore drone control facilities and take the edge off of -1 econ and industry. +3 police with Police state would give the police effect doubled. See where I'm going with this? Nice to have but hardly making him a Yang. The impunity to Green or robust growth would just be increasing the viability of policestate/green.
I wouldn't be surprised if Cult was still weak after that though and perhaps one of a morale/support/probe increase would be necessary but not necessarily fitting with faction personality.
Sparta:
Sandtiago is a definite contender and would only need the most minor of improvements to be average. I had three options to pick and choose from in mind.
1. Free command centre on discovery of doctrine loyalty, maybe at the loss of 1 morale.
2. Impunity Power - self explanatory. I never saw the Spartans as foaming at the mouth like the Believers or brainwashed like the Hive, but as highly trained and professional. A war faction that can go to war without a necessarily requiring war government would add variety.
3: All units become trained with discovery of tech.
I'm not sure how to buff Gaia or morgan. Maybe free biology lab on tech for Gaia? They're pretty worthless.
I wonder if Morgan needs improvement. Humans seem to do well with him.
Neither do I know how to pull the teeth out of Domai and Yang.
I think the CyCon could happily lose one efficiency point and be brought down to peacekeeper equivalent.
One interesting idea I heard for fixing the angels was robust probe, allowing them to run knowledge + covert ops centre and have +3 probe each base.
Peaceful discussion please. The idea is to make weak factions better at what they do best and improving all factions rather than breaking them. Adding unusual functionality would be better than simply giving them industry increase.
Comment