New Faction: New University Commonwealth

[GM Blues]

Sorry Cybergod, things have been pretty busy for me lately ... I did give the faction a quick few turns though and something does bug me: I got my first tech in 4 turns, and my next one in just about as much time. I think the +2 Research points per base is a bit unbalancing.

Consider that most bases at the beginning of the game harvest no additional energy (on top of the 2 provided by default by the base square) and half of this is spent on research. Your first base will likely accumulate 1 RP per turn. Now, with the +2 RP per base bonus, that base's scientific output has tripled for the early game!! I'm not sure if this is balanced out by other factions later in the game, but it seems a bit unbalance atm...

[GM Blues]

Oh, but on the positive side, I like the leader pic a lot

Not in that sense, you silly! I just think it fits in well with the other pics... can't put my finger on it... maybe it's the neutral colours.

The base pic looks... odd though. What sort of theme does it represent?

[Cybergod]

Is it that unbalancing? I never thought about that...

Oh theb ase pictures are weird - it used this picture to create them...

[Cybergod]

SO do you think I should get rid of "RESEARCH, 2" and just make it a "SOCIAL, ++RESEARCH" (ie. add another +)?

[RGE]

So when this faction runs Democratic/Free Market/Knowledge they gain +1 energy/tile, +4 efficiency for no efficiency loss when going 100% research, and then pretty much ignore the effects of -2 police since FM puts it at -5 anyway? And when they reach Cybernetic Society they end up at the same +50% Research as the regular University. All this at the price of -1 Planet, no extra tech at the beginning and 10% lower research until Cybernetic Society, while Zakharov has to put up with all those extra drones (and -2 Probe until Hunter-Seeker)? That's some powerful streamlining there, but I suppose that was the idea?

[GM Blues]

Ooo, pretty picture I like. Although I still think the ingame pic looks like a starfish I can't do any better so I won't complain anymore

I do think you should get rid of the Research, 2... but I'm not sure what to replace it with. I haven't juggled with any of the SE settings yet to judge the game balance there.

Another thing I noticed, though, is that the Faction TXT file, when imported into the SMAX Faction Editor, has one Faction Characteristic more than what the Faction Editor had available, so I was wondering if the game would accept the last input.

To test whether or not the last characteristic (that being Free Research Hospital at every base) was accepted, I switched it with (Free Network Node at every base). Since the Info Network is available at the beginning of the game for Unicon, when I started up a game w/ Unicon, the first base should receive the free Network Node; it didn't.

So my recommendation: well, maybe remove / trim / reallocate the faction's characteristics while making sure you have no more than 8 (I think?) characteristics b/c SMAX won't accept more than that.

HTH!

Great work btw

[Cybergod]

Wow!

First of all thank you guys for that much feedback!

Secondly, I've been thinking, well a bit hard to think while listening to Armand Van Helden and "Koochy" but you get the point...

So what would this variation be like?

TECH, 2, SOCIAL, +EFFIC, SOCIAL, +RESEARCH, SOCIAL, -PLANET, SOCIAL, --POLICE, FACILITY, 8, FACILITY, 17

Here's the new text file:

[Cybergod]

I was just reviewing ther faction as whole again and found one major flaw about its name - around the text file you can find both Unicon and Unicom. Now that I think of it, it should be Unicom from University Commonwealth.



Gosh, here are the files again - part1

[Cybergod]

And part2

[Centauri18]

Can't see the pics.

I can't get the files to work. The txt file works just fine, but... the pictures won't download.

[Cybergod]

Have you used the new name - Unicom? Maybe you are using the Unicon pictures/text file?

[gwillybj]

Cybergod:

Looks like I finally got back here only to be very late in the game. I had connection problems at my end - nothing to do with Apolyton's travails - and have not been here since before you posted the altered txt files. The bright side is it gave me time to play the game - and play with the game.

Anyhow, I played as UniCom and enjoyed it a lot. Playing against them I found them worthy opponents. In neither case did I find them at all overpowered.

Now for the qualification: I played them in SMAC, not SMAX. In order to do this, I had to make a very minor change in their stats, since "FREEFAC" does not apply in SMAC. This is what I used:

TECH, Physic, TECH, InfNet, TECH, Biogen, SOCIAL, +EFFIC, SOCIAL, +RESEARCH, SOCIAL, -PLANET, SOCIAL, --POLICE, FACILITY, 8, TALENT, 5

As you can see, the only change (from the 16-03-2002 txt) is replacing "RESEARCH, 2, FREEFAC, 17" with "TALENT, 5". They still have to wait for Fac17 (Research Hospital), but they have to pay for it, which isn't really much of a loss. I don't remember why I took out "RESEARCH, 2" in favor of "TALENT, 5".

Although they may appear to be super-scientists early, they lose the lead eventually, but remain formidable, nearly always among the top three.

A seemingly strange thing happened, though:
When I played them I used Demo/Planned/Know/Cyber.
When I played against them, they chose the same combination!

[Cybergod]

Thanx a lot for the feedback gwillybj!

Modify it as much as you like - its not like I own it! As long as I've enhanced people's Alpha Centauri experience, I am pleased...

[Centauri18]

The pics don't work for me. I mean, they look great, but my computer can't unzip the files. The text file works great, but not the graphics.