New PBEM: Custom Faction Battle

[Lazerus]

Not sure, i love industry factions but big ++ bonuses always make people nervous no matter what counters you place against it, as seen by "the strangers" faction. However if theres no real extremeness to it then i may aswell be playing the Hive which counters the point of this game.

[Kataphraktoi]

The Monks of War. and maybe ill have a txt for you today,forgot too do it yesterday

zionists ,yeah, jews would work too

[Kataphraktoi]

if possible, i would like the coloring of morgan with cities of believers, but dunno how to do that atm. maybe copy+paste contents into morgan.txt for the lazy aproach? :P

[Flubber]

If you want 4 playes in each game, some of us could play in the other game.

I could do it-- If I play a second game, I hereby authorise the CMN to randomly assign me any custom faction that has been approved or any other one the CMN thinks is fair. Make me a gunea pig if you wish

[Flubber]

Lets try to make up something a little More extreme


POlice academy


#DATALINKS1
LEADER: {Commandant }
BACKGROUND: {}
AGENDA: {to set order}
TECH: {Centauri Ecology}

#DATALINKS2
+1 Planet
+3 POLICE: {Unquestioning obedience to authority)
+3 Support
-1 EFFICIENCY: {Maintaining controll of large groups is hard}
-1 Growth
-2 Research

Aversion Free Market


I just made these guys up on the spot-- do you think they are balanced?? Since they can't pop-boom easily of get to +2 Econ, I see them as having challenges but drone control should be relatively easy , and they should be able to build a former army but typical builder startegies would be tough to implement. I gave them formers to start since otherwise the research hit might be too crippling

.

[Senethro]

I'm not sure about the +1 planet. Support is going to give them enough free units as it is.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Senethro
I'm not sure about the +1 planet. Support is going to give them enough free units as it is.

That was kinda the point -- tonnes and tonnes of units-- The +1 planet gives them a momentum possibility that they wouldn't have otherwise ( too long to research good weapons and mobility)

I don't know what else could be done to hamper them since growth and research penalties means they are seriously behind.

I was going for something that looked a bit different. With no FM and no popbooming PLUS an efficiency penalty and a research penalty, I thought they might be UNDERpowered as it is. The Planet + was to compensate for that. I feared without something to give them another edge, researchers or industry factions would just plow plast them

[Chaunk]

The main unbalancing thing with your faction above Flubber, would be their ability to run democracy with no real negatives. That cancels your effic and growth penalties at a stroke. They still have crippling research, and no pop booming though, leaving them to ICS like crazy. I could see them playing like the hive for the most part. In fact, I think this looks a little better:

Police academy


#DATALINKS1
LEADER: {Commandant }
BACKGROUND: {}
AGENDA: {to set order: Power}
TECH: {Centauri Ecology}

#DATALINKS2
+2 POLICE: {Unquestioning obedience to authority)
+2 Support
-2 EFFICIENCY: {Maintaining controll of large groups is hard}
-1 Growth
-2 Research
IMPUNITY: Police State

Aversion Free Market

I think that these guys look a little better balanced to my mind. The desire to run police state will presumably be strong (+4 support and police!!!) but that then refuses the easy demo, leaving effic penalties and growth penalties.





Anyway, these guys will be mine I think.

Wonderful Lovers

#DATALINKS1
LEADER: {SteveDave the Awesomeific}
BACKGROUND: {Aboard unity as Earth's greatest lover}
AGENDA: {Free love}
TECH: {Biogenics, Social Psych}

#DATALINKS2
+2 GROWTH {Making lots of babies}
-2 SUPPORT {Can't afford those childcare checks}
-2 EFFICIENCY {Who has time to rule, when the chicks are calling?}
120% Tech costs {Their minds are focused on other things}
Aversion: Power

These guys have one bonus: Growth. They have very easy pop booming, but in order to do so, they'd have crippling penalties. In demo they have -4 support (2 min cost for every unit!) and in planned they have -4 efficiency (No energy outside HQ). In addition, they never recieve free mins when building a base, and have increased tech costs.

Have at!

[Senethro]

Originally posted by Chaunk
#DATALINKS2
+2 POLICE: {Unquestioning obedience to authority)
+2 Support
-1 EFFICIENCY: {Maintaining controll of large groups is hard}
-1 Growth
-2 Research
IMPUNITY: Police State
Aversion: Knowledge

Aversion: Free Market would leave them without a reasonable econ to run. I also think -2 effic is excessive when you remember that growth and research penalties are some of the worst penalties in the game.

#DATALINKS2
+2 GROWTH {Making lots of babies}
-2 SUPPORT {Can't afford those childcare checks}
-2 EFFICIENCY {Who has time to rule, when the chicks are calling?}
120% Tech costs {Their minds are focused on other things}
Aversion: Power

What exactly is the effect of 120% tech costs? Does that extra 20% have a compound interest effect?

[Chaunk]

120% tech costs means you get the same tech cost as -2 research, but without the base tech output reduction and the 10 year no tech period.

Having considered (and playtested a little), my Lovers are amazingly underpowered. Simply put, their one strength is pop booming, but they are crippled when they do.

I think I'd rather have Lazerous's Ghandi faction, although I may work on tweaking my Lovers around a bit.

If Darsnan and Senethro would be so kind as to post their faction files, then I'll aim to get this one out before the end of the weekend.

[Senethro]

Originally posted by Chaunk
#DATALINKS1
LEADER: {SteveDave the Awesomeific}
BACKGROUND: {Aboard unity as Earth's greatest lover}
AGENDA: {Free love}
TECH: {Biogenics, Social Psych}

#DATALINKS2
+2 GROWTH {Making lots of babies}
-1 SUPPORT {Can't afford those childcare checks}
-1 EFFICIENCY {Who has time to rule, when the chicks are calling?}
120% Tech costs {Their minds are focused on other things}
Aversion: Power
Impunity Planned.

In that case, what about this?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Senethro

Aversion: Free Market would leave them without a reasonable econ to run. I also think -2 effic is excessive when you remember that growth and research penalties are some of the worst penalties in the game.

THat was my point. I saw a poster question whether we could get a little more extreme so thats why I went with the +3s for police and support and gave a +1 PLanet.

If they are too strong, is there some other negative you folks can give them. I agree with the poster that said that we seem to want to keep things relatively "vanilla".

What I am asking is what could be done to balance a faction if we start from the idea that it will be +3 support and police and +1 Planet? Take those 3 things as a given and give me ideas how to balance them

I tried minuses to efficiency and growth plus an aversion to FM thinking that an inability to get to+2 Econ and no easy popbooming was a toughie and then I added a -2 research . The more I look at these guys, the more I think they many be UNDERPOWERED on anything but smaller maps but I see two or 3 experienced guys saying otherwise. I think I actually have to delve into my faction editor and create this police faction and see how they play

[Lazerus]

Flubber :
I agree on the "Police Academy" they're quite badly underpowered imo, it's going to be quite some time before you get into demo with -2 research and aversion FM.
+2 support is no different to +3 or +9 when you're running survival really, +3 police is nice but again, in the early game your bases are going to be fairly small and it might save you the odd scout here and there with him effectively having non-lethal methods but nothing radical.
Balanced out against a negative in growth (can't be countered by planned or -3effic totally removes nearly all energy income) and efficiency which are only going to multiply that crippling early -2 research by stagnating expansion you'd really have your work cut out for you. I see no way you'd get any SP bar popping 3 AA's early on and sneaking one of the starting couple because you're going to lag so badly in tech.

On Chaunks edit - Same as before really, +2 police, support imo is little different to +4,+4. With no FM you're left with either green to counter the effic loss in which case -3 growth, -2 research or planned -4effic, -2 research. Both SE choices are crippling.
I'd much prefer to go democracy over police state still to try remove the growth and efficiency negatives.


It makes you wonder how many hours the developers spent getting the original 7 factions so balanced
was only a matter of time before somebody said it

[Flubber]

Wow Lazerus

Your take was similar to mine on the police academy. I was thinking that the Research penalty was too much and perhaps -1 research would be better. Or that I might have to drop either the growth penalty or the aversion FM in favor of some lesser type penalty


But it just goes to show how divergent views can be when you start throwing some large pluses into the mix.

I'm REALLY now thinnking that I should create these guys so that I can try this out. The problem is SP is always tough to tell. You can probe an AI silly for tech in a way that you would never be able to do against a human

[Chaunk]

If you add techsteal to the academy, then they become a good momentum faction. Lots of units, pooring over enemy territory.

Perhaps change the -2 research and -1 effic to -2 economy and go aversion wealth? They might then look like this:

Police academy

#DATALINKS1
LEADER: {Commandant }
BACKGROUND: {}
AGENDA: {to set order}
TECH: {Centauri Ecology}

#DATALINKS2
+1 Planet
+3 POLICE: {Unquestioning obedience to authority)
+3 Support
-1 Growth
-2 Economy
Steal tech when conquering a base.

Aversion Wealth