new faction, some input

[candle_86]

I made a faction based upon Texas, some input would be kinda cool though.

[Darrell01]

Faction Details:
Texans

Free Tech - Singularity Mechanics
Free Facility - Skunkworks
+3 Economy
+2 Talents
-2 Support
Immunity: Probe (Does not get the minus from Research SE choice)

Government: Anti-Green Democracy
Interested Techs: Power, Discovery, Wealth, Growth
+2 Morale Modifier (Not Social Engineering Benefit)
+5% Psi Combat Modifier
+1 Research point per base
Share Tech: 1
Population Bonus: 3
3 Starting extra technologies
Immunity to Probe Teams
Bonus Comm Freqency
+25% bonus attacking
Steals a tech when capturing a base

[Darrell01]

I assume you are playing this on SMAniaC or some other mod, because ++TALENT does not work under vanilla SMAC or SMACX.

+3 Economy is very powerful, ensuring you will have no problems building base facilities or researching technologies.

-2 Support is a crippling SE modifier at the start of the game. This is good, but not enough from all the benefits this faction recieves.

Immunity: Probe - Its a nice SE ability to have. It isn't all that powerful, but is really negated by the ability below.

Immunity to Probe Teams - Very powerful. I've noticed this on many custom factions, especially those coming out of the Network Node, which I hear is to be mirrored on Apolyton sometime.

Government: Anti-Green Democracy - Nothing wrong here. I see population booming in this faction's future.

Interested Techs: Well, I usually leave this at the max 2. I'd narrow this down a bit.

+2 Morale Modifier - This is basically a free bioenhancement center at all your bases. Once you get bioenhancement center, you won't need any of the other centers, save aerospace complexes for satallites if you make units with extra training.

+5% Psi Combat Modifier - This is a decent modification to have. 10% or 15% either way is more noticeable.

+1 research point per base - This is a nice way of giving a faction that has research minuses a boost to ensure they are not completely crippled from the builders like the Believers/Conclave is when played by the AI. It is also not an overpowering bonus with given to the human player unless he ICSes it.

Share Tech: 1 - I forgot what this does. I'm thinking it makes it so you get any technology 1 other faction has. I could be dead wrong on this. If it is, it is overpowering.

Population Modifier:3 - Caps the base size to 4 before a hab complex is needed. This is especially hindering to a faction with -2 support, but I think everything else clearly outweighs this.

3 Starting extra technologies: This screams beeline tech tree. Way too powerful IMHO. One is normal. 2 demands some negative to the faction. 3 screams it.

Bonus Com Frequency: An ok bonus. It is very powerful with +3 economy.

+25% bonus attacking: A nice bonus for a faction. Extremely powerful here with more tech, research and +2 morale modifier.

Steal tech on a base capture - This is powerful, but seems unneeded for this faction as it has all the research and technology already.

Conclusion - All in all, this faction is completely overpowering. I am happy to see you have filled in most of the base names. You can go into the file and add more base names if you wish. The Sea Base names did not have a lot of names in there though. The only way to beat this faction is in a toe to toe fight because you cannot probe the faction. Also this faction has superior attack capability combined with superior technological capability. This is faction has no real weakness aside from small bases and a cap on the units it can make. Both of these can be easily overcome with supply crawlers and a mass of colony pods bought with the extra energy. Instead of using the name "Texans", I might name it "Lone Star Confederation", "Hasinai Coalition", "Seventh Flag Metropocracy" or something like that. Also, having lots of base names is great, however just using the city names of Texas is kind of bland and SMACks of the normal Civ. Look up the articles on base names. I've made one or two myself. One is in the FAQ post, and I believe I linked that with the other two. Instead of "Houston", you could name your city "Hewed Stone Fortress". Galvaston could be "Galvanite Towers". You get the picture.

I know editing the faction cities is tuff to do. I hear GIMP is a free photoshop like program. You could at least that the cities of another faction and change the shade of the buildings. There are little color boxes on the bottom of the pictures that denot what color the faction is on the map. Remember that. You can also find some factions other people made and get ideas from them, or just completely rip them off. One thing I have noticed is people will take a building from a game like Starcraft or Warcraft III and use that for the cities. Seems to work.

Anyway, I rate this faction as completely overpowered.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Darrell01
I assume you are playing this on SMAniaC or some other mod, because ++TALENT does not work under vanilla SMAC or SMACX.

Maniac says it works, but doesn't show up in the social engineering screen. Otherwise he couldn't use it in his mod.