AI
11: Usurpers, Caretakers
10: Hive
9: Believers, Spartans, Cyborgs
8: University, Gaians, Drones
7: Pirates
6: PKs, Angels, Cult
5: Morgan
Thanks Maniac. Would you happen to know approximately how much more powerful the aliens tend to be? Like, is the power difference between the Morgans/Uni and Hive/Angels greater than the difference between Morgans/Uni and Userpers?
Wait a second...you said Aki can't popboom (i.e. by "popboom" you mean without a Golden Age), but Morgan can? Both Aki and Morgan need a golden age to popboom.
PK - I love them because they don't have any serious penalties, they're the only faction which so openly prefers vertical over horizontal development and they're very flexible, meaning they can fight, get +2 ECON or popboom as decently as your average faction. Still, they lack any serious bonuses, so they're no match to either true builder or true fighter.
Data Angels - my favorite faction for fun, but still they're weak. In my opinion, they are a blank faction, and the usefulness of those PROBE bonuses depend heavily on the other players' gamestyle and map. They kinda force you to be creative. But they're cool and they have the jazz. :)
Sparta - I remember I spent a lot of time searching for a good opening strategy for Sparta and I found out that early FM works best. Sparta is the only faction which can still harvest MW under FM. Use the money to make up for the INDUSTRY, go for air and attack. But the -1 INDUSTRY, no Wealth and the fact that Power sucks is a serious deterrent for me.
Believers - I don't know, I played them like twice in my life, I can't stand this... noble woman. I can't imagine how you can make up for the RESEARCH hit in MP games against serious players. Yes, I heard about "build many formers/CPs", but this advice is good for any faction in the game, so it sort of doesn't count. Miriam is a mistery to me.
Cult - a transgender albino with jaundice who looks like the Japanese from WWII-era racist comic books, and with faction bonuses and penalties to match. What were they thinking? Playable only if you have a reason to take a serious handicap. My only advice (I also experimented with them in SP): go for early popboom.
Green1 mentions the Pirates. Well, in my games Sven has non-existent research
Sven not ICSing? Sven covers the sea with bases and chokes you.
Sparta weak? One game I played as Miriam I started next to the Colonel. She treated me like Colonel Sanders does chicken - fried and crispy.
Roze weak? One game as Lal, I fought off swarms of probes and could not get any headway because she put all these bases close together and shifted probes to MC anything I took.
I think the Pirates should be bumped a bit further up for SP. The Pirates are always a powerhouse when I include them in the game. They get air superiority, you have issues - even pirate AI vs Yang AI. Then again, it might be Kyrub's meddlings.As I said initially, the pirates as AI are an odd mix. On one hand, they tend to be one of the last to die and usually prove annoying with all those aircraft. On the other, once you get a few (even 2-3) decent cruisers with marine detachment and some 'copters (including a couple of anti air ones), his entire empire seems to fall remarkably quickly, since you take over a large portion of his ships while fighting them, heal by taking the bases your 'copters clear out, and can kill his air fleet very fast with 'copters.
Wait, the ability to get huge (and thus facility-efficient) bases with good stability isn't a serious bonus? Although I suppose that with ICS so powerful anyway maybe it's not so good.
Wait, the ability to get huge (and thus facility-efficient) bases with good stability isn't a serious bonus? Although I suppose that with ICS so powerful anyway maybe it's not so good.
Actually Lal is very good for ICS too. The extra talent means you can expand more before having to worry about bureaucracy drones.
Question: Why is Deirdre considered fairly good? I presume it's the Efficiency bonus (as Planet is really only useful if you're going for a strategy to which Cha Dawn is more suited anyway), but when going Green it's essentially redundant (unless going Fundamentalist or Police State, but who does that as Deirdre?), and when going Planned it only means a total of +2 efficiency, which isn't that great. So it does mean she's the only one who can get a non-golden-age pop boom with positive efficiency, but pop booming is usually for a fairly short period of time anyway, so it doesn't seem like such a big advantage.At +4 effic you can put the labs/econ slider anywhere without inefficiency penalties, and +3 planet lets you capture a whole lot more worms than +1 which is good however you look at it (pop popping, worm farming, or wormrush).
Wait, the ability to get huge (and thus facility-efficient) bases with good stability isn't a serious bonus? Although I suppose that with ICS so powerful anyway maybe it's not so good. Perhaps if ICS were nerfed, and nerfed hard? (I envision a good mod to be one that, among its other features, makes an ideal momentum spacing be half to a third the density of pure ICS, and ideal builder spacing roughly a fifth of that.)
Although there is something to be said for your probe teams being only a monolith away from elite on creation (without having to run Fundamentalist and pay for covert ops centers everywhere, particularly if there are no AI players or the rules prohibit "farming" AI players for levels).
Another idea that seems it might work is to grab the Command Nexus, run Fundamentalist, and send freshly produced units through a monolith for early-game 2-move infantry and 3-move rovers, then use those to overrun a few other factions.
Seems to me (though I'm unexperienced) that the Believers' best approach might be to use probes as needed for some sort of tech parity and try to tech to AMA; with a midgame Fundamentalist/Power (and Planned to mitigate the INDUSTRY bonus), they can store up an absolute horde of elite (once they're run through a monolith) attack troops and just overrun the enemy forces. They do have slow production, but when your infantry can keep pace with everyone else's rovers and you don't have to worry about support that makes a big difference.
They'll still be somewhat weak, as running POWER does cut heavily into crawler production (have I mentioned that crawlers are overpowered?), but that seems the way you'd want to run them.
Wait, isn't Cult essentially the ultimate worm rush faction?
And Green, remember that Kirov is talking about MP primarily, rather than AI.
Well, in the first AAR he did have naval probes because I messed up and he used his auto marine ability and stole some elite probe skimships from me.
Sven not ICSing?
Actually Lal is very good for ICS too. The extra talent means you can expand more before having to worry about bureaucracy drones.
Maybe if you could provide a download of one of those games? Because as things stand, Sven seems he should be extremely good at research (though his production is low and in an unmodded game he'd be well advised to hurry everything). With specialists and tidal harnesses (and of course appropriate facilities) he should be able to match anything except heavy ICS.
At +4 effic you can put the labs/econ slider anywhere without inefficiency penalties
and +3 planet lets you capture a whole lot more worms than +1 which is good however you look at it (pop popping, worm farming, or wormrush).
Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to “forest&forget” heavily for several reasons, some of them being that I can’t depend on grabbing WP and on starting on a rainy patch. And when I don’t, I popboom big time only with the advent of EcoEng/EnvEcon, i.e. Condensers and Tree farms. This is midgame and I can be overrun beforehand by a faction with low population and lots of crawled minerals.
Also, ICS. You may have seen me complaining about air power, CBA or EG but in fact, the worst offender in terms of game-breaking style is ICS.
“I will always test my assumptions in my random last savegame before I post them as facts, whether I’m a prospective modder or not”. :P No, monoliths do not affect probe teams, as they are non-combat units.
There is no faction which is not forced to beeline to IA, unless it is a very specific situation, like you have landed on the top of Usurpers.
Same as above. Sure, you can overrun another player if you happen to be placed very close to him. But balanced MP games never do that and you have to assume that your opponents have time to get to midgame relatively undisturbed. Otherwise, what you’re doing is called rush and you may know from Starcraft that it’s a very risky business. If it fails, you’re down.
When I present my opinion on factions, I always assume that you’re not playing settings explicitly beneficial to such a faction. Yes, Cult is a very good faction for a tiny planet with abundant life forms. But put it on the Vets map and it can only cry for help from the Planetmind.
Seems to me (though I'm unexperienced) that the Believers' best approach might be to use probes as needed for some sort of tech parity
That sounds like a strong bonus for Deirdre, but really it isn't. To get +4 she can't be running Police State or Planned, and of course she can't run Free Market at all, so it only applies when running Simple or Green. When running Green, she can be running either Frontier, Democratic, or Fundamentalist, but with Democratic/Green anyone without an efficiency penalty can get that +4 effic.
That's a reason to forest, but not a reason not to switch it for condensers later on.
Firstly, I feel that the best way to get a balanced MP game is just have a random map and random starting positions, and on average it'll be balanced.
If your supposed "balanced MP games" mean that some factions are underpowered, that's not very balanced, is it? The factions are meant to be balanced on the assumption that you don't know how long you have until you run into any particular faction; that's how the game is meant to be played.
Here is another thing I want to touch upon. For some reason, there is this lingering misconception that factions with positive PROBE setting are somehow better probers; this is not really true!
And since probe teams can't be green or very green, Zak is as a good prober as anyone else.
Stealing techs from bases without security lock always works, the morale affects only the chance of survival. So Miriam's hardened probe teams have just 17 percentage points more (from disciplined 100%/50% to 100%/67%) for surviving the mission. Not even close to set off her -1 RESEARCH penalty, and certainly not enough to call her an aggressive prober. With Fundie it's commando for 100%/80% (non-Mirian Fundie factions have veteran probe teams, 100%/75%, so Miriam is better by 5 p.p. here). You still need to get to elite to do more fancy stuff like framing, targetting specific facilities or override the security lock (75%/67%), and that chances are quite low if you ask me.
In my opinion, the best prober is Morgan for his money, and then Roze but for her discount, not PROBE bonus. The rest are more or less the same, with rich builders still better than Miriam.
You're right with the SE problem for Gaia, it seems there is no golden SE choice for her. But don't forget that EFFIC higher than 4 is still beneficial. 1) You have more bases without b-drones (I think +2 EFFIC translates into 3 more bases on the medium map).
2) You lose less energy in your distant bases. There is no cap here, I checked and +7 EFFIC (Deirdre/Demo/Green/Knowledge) is better than +6.
This is not that simple. If a Uni player knows there is Miriam nearby, he may prepare very well for her assault or even come to attack her.
If Zak lands near a river, he can get IA as early as 2112/13. From there go to 2-1-2 and build crawlers in the meantime. Soon such Zack may have a decent army (and robust early empire) when Miriam just finishes her second former. This is what I meant that you need strong economy to wage wars. Apart maybe from Sparta in some specific conditions, the best monumentum factions are those with good industry, lab or cash.
Bureaucracy drones don't get worse under values lower than -2 Efficiency. So yeah, he'd get more bureaucracy drones than a FM ICSer, but still just as much, or less, (depending on his own economics SE) than a Planned ICSer.
Some comments. Note I read most of the thread but not everything. Sorry if I say something redundant.
Lals Talents actually disappear if you use specialists. This is due to the fact that talents will be made into specialists before workers and drones.
Alright, my description of the mechanics is faulty. It's been some time. Your description is correct.
My conclusion, however, stands. Your example actually proves my point. The example Peacekeeper base has one worker, the Spartan base has only normal drones. Thats an advantage of 2 Psych for Lal when he should have 6! Add one more specialist and Lals Psych advantage vanishes entirely.
I also disagree with your point about psych spending. Lals talent bonus would be quite good if he could actually use it in a reasonable way (ie. not completely excluding specialists). For instance, it would mean Lal could boom with less infrastructure than other factions.
QuoteSame as above. Sure, you can overrun another player if you happen to be placed very close to him. But balanced MP games never do that and you have to assume that your opponents have time to get to midgame relatively undisturbed. Otherwise, what you’re doing is called rush and you may know from Starcraft that it’s a very risky business. If it fails, you’re down.
Firstly, I feel that the best way to get a balanced MP game is just have a random map and random starting positions, and on average it'll be balanced.
If your supposed "balanced MP games" mean that some factions are underpowered, that's not very balanced, is it? The factions are meant to be balanced on the assumption that you don't know how long you have until you run into any particular faction; that's how the game is meant to be played.QuoteWhen I present my opinion on factions, I always assume that you’re not playing settings explicitly beneficial to such a faction. Yes, Cult is a very good faction for a tiny planet with abundant life forms. But put it on the Vets map and it can only cry for help from the Planetmind.
I'd count the Vets map as settings explicitly beneficial to builder factions. For "default" settings I'd either use the map of Planet (random start positions) with default rules, or a randomly generated map taking the "middle" approach on map customization and with default rules.
Have been mulling this over on and off, and I pretty much agree with this assessment. Especially after trying out Cult in a v AI game (large random map, 50%-30% land, several laughably broken enemy factions, middle choices for everything else), I found it remarkably easy to overcome them because I got to much more pods than anyone else, and even though my bases were pretty weak.. I overran one foe quickly, made another surrender, then was in a comfortable position. Killed off the custom alien sea faction, and bullied everyone into a political win. It was a very different game, but it was arguably easier than the standard builder style. And I imagine holding off a well played +4 Planet MW swarm which is constantly replenished for free would be extremely tough challenge even for a human. Of course if it's a long way away without much of a fungal bridge, or separated by sea, then you're going to fall behind and be overwhelmed.
"Even so, you can often overrun one or two enemies to get an advantage that lets you push the rest of the way."
Yep, sure, but this would be based on whether there's early conflict or not. A Cult sitting alone with no one to take over is going to have trouble, even with there super pod popping abilities.
Normally banned from multiplayer games.
Tier 2A: Aki, Morgan
These are the next best researchers. Morgan starts out much faster in research than Aki, but Aki's ability to shift to 100% research after Democracy can even things out in the long run.
Tier 2B: Pirates
On any map with sufficient water, Pirates can be very effective, particularly if the start for all of the players includes a couple of colony pods, a former, and a scout. (With a single pod start I would downgrade them by a tier.) Water bases start off with a free pressure dome (recycling center), giving them an extra 1/1/1 from turn 1. And with the speed of the colony pods, there is no reason not to put colony pods on or near the special resources. Pirates typically have an easier time contacting the other factions, providing early tech trade and treaty/pact energy.
If they can team up with someone who will feed them some early techs, they can become unstoppable, and I would rate them tier 1.
Angels benefit from a small map where they can put their probe ability to use early.
These factions need someone to kill early. Otherwise, the researchers and builders will be too built up for a successful attack. On a small map, they can be good, but otherwise, the production penalty and research penalty, respectively, weaken them too much.
QuoteTier 2A: Aki, Morgan
These are the next best researchers. Morgan starts out much faster in research than Aki, but Aki's ability to shift to 100% research after Democracy can even things out in the long run.
Actually, Morgan can shift to 100% research as well once he gets Green; he still ends up as a weaker researcher than Aki, though, since he then needs to run Wealth to get +1 energy/square, and Aki can run Knowledge for a total of +40% research.
However, with enough treaties/pacts and Global Trade Pact, I think Morgan can actually become a better researcher than Zak (though not in the early game), and even Aki beats him only because she can run 100% and in order to do the same he has to lower himself to his native +1 Commerce boost.
Aki can run either FM/Wealth/Democracy (which provides a 10% production bonus), or FM/Knowledge/Democracy, both at !00% labs. The Knowledge choice will probably provide a bit more research (easy to temporarily shift from one to another and check the lab status to see how much is gained), but the Wealth choice gets a 10% production bonus, so you have to weigh out your situation and see which one you want more. EIther way, the combination of FM and 100% labs makes for a great researcher!
If Morgan shifts to Democracy/Green/Knowledge, to run 100% labs, he comes up short compared to Aki running Democracy/FM/Knowledge by 20% I believe.
For multiplayer:
1. Morgan and University
2. Peacekeepers and Drones
3. Hive, Gaians, Consciousness, Angels
4. Believers, Pirates, Spartans
5. Cult
Economic advantages are the most important for a succesful game. Hence the top ranking of Morgan, UoP, PKs and Drones. They can popboom, run free market and have social engineering benefits in stuff like Research, Economy, Industry, or extra talents/less drones.
Hive, Gaians, Consciousness can't do all of those. Gaians can't run FM, Consciousness can't popboom and Hive can't do either but has a high Industry rating and free Police State to compensate. Angels can both popboom and run FM, but their SE traits don't directly aid economic development.
The last two tiers all have some penalty in SE factors like Research, Efficiency, Growth, Economy and/or Industry. The Cult can't even run FM on top of that. Edit: Well, they can, but they can't get +2 Econ. Same with the Hive.
For multiplayer:
1. Morgan and University
2. Peacekeepers and Drones
3. Hive, Gaians, Consciousness, Angels
4. Believers, Pirates, Spartans
5. Cult
Economic advantages are the most important for a succesful game. Hence the top ranking of Morgan, UoP, PKs and Drones. They can popboom, run free market and have social engineering benefits in stuff like Research, Economy, Industry, or extra talents/less drones.
Hive, Gaians, Consciousness can't do all of those. Gaians can't run FM, Consciousness can't popboom and Hive can't do either but has a high Industry rating and free Police State to compensate. Angels can both popboom and run FM, but their SE traits don't directly aid economic development.
The last two tiers all have some penalty in SE factors like Research, Efficiency, Growth, Economy and/or Industry. The Cult can't even run FM on top of that. Edit: Well, they can, but they can't get +2 Econ. Same with the Hive.
You certainly cover the basics of what a human player needs for any remotely successful game, but with flaws as explained below.
1. Chiron ("Planet") needs to be thought of too; and the PLANET/POLICE hit of the Market Economy is completely atrocious. High
populations and grandiose INDUSTRY also damage the Planetary Ecosystem (in other ways, yes; but nevertheless, they still do).
2. Early to mid game pop-boom requires the Planned Economy, which the Morganites can never use. Therefore, they can only do the pop-boom tactic in the late game, when they get the Eudemonic Future; and by then, Chiron has become so suspicious of the civilized world, that at least one Fungal Bloom will be experienced at least once every several turns no matter how optimized your Engineering Scores (i.e. minimum INDUSTRY/GROWTH and/or maximum PLANET). This can make your harvested squares go from being powerhouses of civilized activity, to completely unharvest-able wilderness. It's particularly bad with high Engineering Marks in things like GROWTH, INDUSTRY & ECONOMY, since the squares, in question, have to actually produce their respective resources to make those areas of any real use. Also, the Morganites have terribly low Habitat limits until you can get the proper technologies.
3. Energy lost to Inefficiency does literally nothing. Therefore, the Green Economy can be just as powerful as the Market one; and with less overall drawbacks. The Gaians have a direct EFFICIENCY/PLANET Bonus, whereas the Peacekeepers, the Morganites and the University do not. (In fact, the Peacekeepers begin with a slight EFFICIENCY Penalty that's only counter-able once they can get out of Frontier Politics, Survival Values and Simple Economics. On the other hand, the Planned Economy does give a nasty penalty to EFFICIENCY unless you're the Hive. [At least anyone else can be a Democracy in order to counter this.])
4. Harkening back to reasoning #1, there is occasionally no other way to deal with Drones directly, especially when you can't afford to deal with them indirectly (i.e. convert enough Workers into Talents). The Spartans, for example, gain a POLICE bonus by default; and Police State Politics & the Thought Control Future give more, but with a severe EFFICIENCY drawback except for the Hive. The Thought Control Future Society, on the other hand, has a crippling SUPPORT penalty unless you have The Cloning Vats. (At least you can still use Clean Reactors by then, since those units never cost anything to maintain.)
5. You forgot to mention something else about the University: they've got extra Drones until you can suppress them directly.
6. At least the Cyber-guys have direct bonuses to EFFICIENCY and RESEARCH. On the other hand, it can be pretty hard to deal with their GROWTH penalty unless you know exactly what you're doing. They can also have the Cybernetic Future without drawbacks.
7. The Data Angels only specialize directly in PROBE, which is only useful if you like to use Probe Teams. Otherwise, PROBE is made a moot point if you can get The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.
8. You also forgot to mention the Future Society options at all. With Eudemonic, Wealth and Market, you can have either +3 or +4 ECONOMY, even as either the Hive or the Cult. With that much ECONOMY, there's really no way to get any richer unless you've got enough EFFICIENCY to otherwise be able to actually use all of that Energy. Anyone else meanwhile, is guaranteed to have an insane +5 ECONOMY. (The Morganites would have +6; but since the bonus doesn't stack after +5, it won't actually do anything. The same goes for every other Engineering Score except EFFICIENCY itself. This makes both Knowledge Values and the Cybernetic Future as either the University or the Cyborgs only good until +5 RESEARCH [-50% Labs Costs, no further stacking]. As either the Gaians or the Cult {or anyone else for that matter}, it's too little too late to truly stop the Mind Worms anyway. [At least they won't eat you alive, however.])
9. On top of all that, the Free Drones can't even have a Green Economy.
10. You made no direct mention of the Values Engineering systems. This is important because 1) the Angels can't use Power; 2) the Spartans and the Cult can never use Wealth, and 3) the Believers can't utilize Knowledge.
11. At that, a higher population creates extra Drones anyways unless you can suppress them.
These are all of the reasons that I can really think of now. Edits will be made as necessary.
For multiplayer:
1. Morgan and University
2. Peacekeepers and Drones
3. Hive, Gaians, Consciousness, Angels
4. Believers, Pirates, Spartans
5. Cult
Economic advantages are the most important for a succesful game. Hence the top ranking of Morgan, UoP, PKs and Drones. They can popboom, run free market and have social engineering benefits in stuff like Research, Economy, Industry, or extra talents/less drones.
Hive, Gaians, Consciousness can't do all of those. Gaians can't run FM, Consciousness can't popboom and Hive can't do either but has a high Industry rating and free Police State to compensate. Angels can both popboom and run FM, but their SE traits don't directly aid economic development.
The last two tiers all have some penalty in SE factors like Research, Efficiency, Growth, Economy and/or Industry. The Cult can't even run FM on top of that. Edit: Well, they can, but they can't get +2 Econ. Same with the Hive.
For multiplayer:
1. Morgan and University
2. Peacekeepers and Drones
3. Hive, Gaians, Consciousness, Angels
4. Believers, Pirates, Spartans
5. Cult
Economic advantages are the most important for a succesful game. Hence the top ranking of Morgan, UoP, PKs and Drones. They can popboom, run free market and have social engineering benefits in stuff like Research, Economy, Industry, or extra talents/less drones.
Hive, Gaians, Consciousness can't do all of those. Gaians can't run FM, Consciousness can't popboom and Hive can't do either but has a high Industry rating and free Police State to compensate. Angels can both popboom and run FM, but their SE traits don't directly aid economic development.
The last two tiers all have some penalty in SE factors like Research, Efficiency, Growth, Economy and/or Industry. The Cult can't even run FM on top of that. Edit: Well, they can, but they can't get +2 Econ. Same with the Hive.
You certainly cover the basics of what a human player needs for any remotely successful game, but with flaws as explained below.
1. Chiron ("Planet") needs to be thought of too; and the PLANET/POLICE hit of the Market Economy is completely atrocious. High
populations and grandiose INDUSTRY also damage the Planetary Ecosystem (in other ways, yes; but nevertheless, they still do).
2. Early to mid game pop-boom requires the Planned Economy, which the Morganites can never use. Therefore, they can only do the pop-boom tactic in the late game, when they get the Eudemonic Future; and by then, Chiron has become so suspicious of the civilized world, that at least one Fungal Bloom will be experienced at least once every several turns no matter how optimized your Engineering Scores (i.e. minimum INDUSTRY/GROWTH and/or maximum PLANET). This can make your harvested squares go from being powerhouses of civilized activity, to completely unharvest-able wilderness. It's particularly bad with high Engineering Marks in things like GROWTH, INDUSTRY & ECONOMY, since the squares, in question, have to actually produce their respective resources to make those areas of any real use. Also, the Morganites have terribly low Habitat limits until you can get the proper technologies.
3. Energy lost to Inefficiency does literally nothing. Therefore, the Green Economy can be just as powerful as the Market one; and with less overall drawbacks. The Gaians have a direct EFFICIENCY/PLANET Bonus, whereas the Peacekeepers, the Morganites and the University do not. (In fact, the Peacekeepers begin with a slight EFFICIENCY Penalty that's only counter-able once they can get out of Frontier Politics, Survival Values and Simple Economics. On the other hand, the Planned Economy does give a nasty penalty to EFFICIENCY unless you're the Hive. [At least anyone else can be a Democracy in order to counter this.])
4. Harkening back to reasoning #1, there is occasionally no other way to deal with Drones directly, especially when you can't afford to deal with them indirectly (i.e. convert enough Workers into Talents). The Spartans, for example, gain a POLICE bonus by default; and Police State Politics & the Thought Control Future give more, but with a severe EFFICIENCY drawback except for the Hive. The Thought Control Future Society, on the other hand, has a crippling SUPPORT penalty unless you have The Cloning Vats. (At least you can still use Clean Reactors by then, since those units never cost anything to maintain.)
5. You forgot to mention something else about the University: they've got extra Drones until you can suppress them directly.
6. At least the Cyber-guys have direct bonuses to EFFICIENCY and RESEARCH. On the other hand, it can be pretty hard to deal with their GROWTH penalty unless you know exactly what you're doing. They can also have the Cybernetic Future without drawbacks.
7. The Data Angels only specialize directly in PROBE, which is only useful if you like to use Probe Teams. Otherwise, PROBE is made a moot point if you can get The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.
8. You also forgot to mention the Future Society options at all. With Eudemonic, Wealth and Market, you can have either +3 or +4 ECONOMY, even as either the Hive or the Cult. With that much ECONOMY, there's really no way to get any richer unless you've got enough EFFICIENCY to otherwise be able to actually use all of that Energy. Anyone else meanwhile, is guaranteed to have an insane +5 ECONOMY. (The Morganites would have +6; but since the bonus doesn't stack after +5, it won't actually do anything. The same goes for every other Engineering Score except EFFICIENCY itself. This makes both Knowledge Values and the Cybernetic Future as either the University or the Cyborgs only good until +5 RESEARCH [-50% Labs Costs, no further stacking]. As either the Gaians or the Cult {or anyone else for that matter}, it's too little too late to truly stop the Mind Worms anyway. [At least they won't eat you alive, however.])
9. On top of all that, the Free Drones can't even have a Green Economy.
10. You made no direct mention of the Values Engineering systems. This is important because 1) the Angels can't use Power; 2) the Spartans and the Cult can never use Wealth, and 3) the Believers can't utilize Knowledge.
11. At that, a higher population creates extra Drones anyways unless you can suppress them.
These are all of the reasons that I can really think of now. Edits will be made as necessary.For multiplayer:
1. Morgan and University
2. Peacekeepers and Drones
3. Hive, Gaians, Consciousness, Angels
4. Believers, Pirates, Spartans
5. Cult
Economic advantages are the most important for a succesful game. Hence the top ranking of Morgan, UoP, PKs and Drones. They can popboom, run free market and have social engineering benefits in stuff like Research, Economy, Industry, or extra talents/less drones.
Hive, Gaians, Consciousness can't do all of those. Gaians can't run FM, Consciousness can't popboom and Hive can't do either but has a high Industry rating and free Police State to compensate. Angels can both popboom and run FM, but their SE traits don't directly aid economic development.
The last two tiers all have some penalty in SE factors like Research, Efficiency, Growth, Economy and/or Industry. The Cult can't even run FM on top of that. Edit: Well, they can, but they can't get +2 Econ. Same with the Hive.
Edit: Since GROWTH doesn't stack after +6, this means that having Eudemonia as anyone who can use both Democratic & Planned and doesn't have an automatic -1 GROWTH doesn't really make sense, since building Children's Creches after that will then trigger an automatic pop-boom in those bases. For either Morgan Industries, the Cyborgs, the Pirates or the Human Hive, use whichever early to mid game system/s aren't/isn't your Aversion plus Eudemonia once you can get it. Just remember to build the Creches. Eudemonia, Planned and Wealth in combination is a guaranteed +4 INDUSTRY. As the Hive, it's an absurd +5. As the Drones, it becomes +6; but that's a moot point because it doesn't stack after +5. You also forgot to mention the -2 RESEARCH of the Drones; they share this disadvantage with the Believers. However, the Drones can still use Knowledge; whereas the Believers cannot. Therefore, the Believers can't possibly have >0 RESEARCH; while the Drones can never reach >+2 RESEARCH. Since the Cult & the Spartans can't use Wealth and have -1 INDUSTRY from the get-go, they can't have >+2 INDUSTRY.
For multiplayer:
1. Morgan and University
2. Peacekeepers and Drones
3. Hive, Gaians, Consciousness, Angels
4. Believers, Pirates, Spartans
5. Cult
Economic advantages are the most important for a succesful game. Hence the top ranking of Morgan, UoP, PKs and Drones. They can popboom, run free market and have social engineering benefits in stuff like Research, Economy, Industry, or extra talents/less drones.
Hive, Gaians, Consciousness can't do all of those. Gaians can't run FM, Consciousness can't popboom and Hive can't do either but has a high Industry rating and free Police State to compensate. Angels can both popboom and run FM, but their SE traits don't directly aid economic development.
The last two tiers all have some penalty in SE factors like Research, Efficiency, Growth, Economy and/or Industry. The Cult can't even run FM on top of that. Edit: Well, they can, but they can't get +2 Econ. Same with the Hive.
I do not have much experience with multiplayer sadly so this is mostly vs lackluster Transcendent AI.
S Tier: Pirates and Aliens
Pirates literally start very safe, far from being harassed by the worms & AI. AI rarely (if ever) goes to sea and it takes ages for them to get their first sea town so you can pretty much expand peacefully all over the map, unless you start at a small pond between land masses (in which case you're screwed). And because of the +1 minerals, even your wimpiest sea bases actually can develop grow well without resource stagnation and I think it's one of the only factions that can actually skip ICS and attempt to create spread-out bases because working sea tiles give you +5 food/+4 energy/+1 minerals which is usually better than small towns spamming specialists, at least for me. The only thing they kinda suck at is getting pop booms, everything else feels comfy and you always feel at an advantage.
The aliens start with massive tech advantage, they are powerful in combat, and can direct tech. From what I have seen they are the best faction vs. humans. Vs. AI it is easier for me to start at the sea so I value pirates more, but I can't deny how good it feels to be able to direct research. Perhaps I need to start disabling blind tech in my games.
A+ Tier: University
I mean, Zak only needs virtual world asap to deal with his drone problems, and then he can get far ahead in science, gets everything important 1st like crawlers or important wonders and he can snowball from there.
A: Peacekeepers, Cyborgs, Hive
Lal is one of the best ICSers around on Transcendent, and is the easiest one to win with due to easy diplo victory through his faction bonus. He can get his ICSed bases bigger and better, and thus outperform other ICSers with less effort.
Aki is like Zak but struggles with ICSing due to limited pop boom and doesn't get free +50% psych from the bases so her benefits start shining later on, and earlier=better.
Hive creates strong towns from the bat due to free perimeter defense which allows them to ICS even during wars, the -1 energy per base doesn't seem to matter that much when you can build stuff faster. Not my favorite faction but it seems to be rather good at stuff.
B: Morgan, Gaians, Drones
A weird case of a leader who benefits from pop booms but can't easily get them because he can't get planned. But he can get +1 sq energy without the cumbersome free market, just going for wealth, so his bases tend to generate a ton of power and he can easily outperform Aki or even Zak in research. He is however really tiresome to play, pretty much 100% ICS spam-cities-everywhere kind of playstyle and after your 50th city I just can't handle it anymore.
Gaians at least have a pretty leader with a pleasant voice, and can ICS well, but the -1 morale seriously pisses me off whenever I'm going for worms, though it probably doesn't matter that much.
Drones are not my cup of coffee, I always feel annoyed by them being behind the tech and needing to meticulously ICS like mad to get the best out of +2 Industry and -1 drones at bases. But I can't deny they are good at ICS-ing in general.
C: Angels, Believers, Spartans
I was excited for a spy-related faction 20 years ago as a kid when I first heard of an expansion for SMAC, but what I got was fairly disappointing and I am still not very happy with the result. All Roze really gets is -25% cost for probe missions and better odds at running away. Morgan is IMHO the better spy faction because he has much more money, which is decisive in the end.
Spartans and especially Believers really need someone to kill near them, otherwise they quickly fall behind others (Believers in particular) and lose their combat advantage offering nothing in return.
D: Cult
+1 on the planet side compared to Gaians isn't worth losing 1 eco and 1 industry. His bonuses feel pointless (double police duty for mind worms - umm, how about building a nonlethal method unit, same thing?, free brood pit takes ages because Centauri Genetics are quite a late tech) and all of that for what, +2 to planet that caps out at 3 anyway so going Green overkills it. Why would I want this guy over Gaians for a worm based game puzzles me.
In general I rate pirates high because I can play a game without being forced to do super heavy ICS which tends to be overwhelming and not fun at all. Pirates can do great with 10-15 cities and just feeding energy to a exchange+supercollider+theory of everything city to get ridiculous research rates without managing 50 towns like Morgan has to. I believe 1 crawler working a tidal generator would produce almost 40 labs in such a city with +70% research slider, which is kinda amazing.
I kinda wish there was a mod that imposes heavier ICS penalties to make going-tall viable (like Civ5), while modyfing the AI, but not changing other stuff.
all of that for what, +2 to planet that caps out at 3 anyway so going Green overkills it. Why would I want this guy over Gaians for a worm based game puzzles me.