Faction teamup combinations

[ete]

Something that seems to be happening more in the MP world is games where each player controls multiple factions. This is cool because it allows a more complex and diverse game without having a slower turn rate. Many current games follow the resource heavy island setup which heavily favors builder factions, but I (and likely others soon if my guess from a conversation with Kirov) are developing maps with the aim of making all factions effective. A tiny land world is a win for heavy rushers, a big island world is a win for builders, but it must be possible to find a middle ground map on which they are fairly evenly matched. Assuming an approximately balanced map (my Balance beta is an attempt at this), I was wondering.. what faction combinations would be especially effective? Here's a few I was considering:

Spartans+Believers
Perhaps the ultimate rush team, especially if backed up by a good researcher or prober. Santiago's high Morale units given to Mirriam running PS or Power for +3 Support so army size is of no consideration (and mind control immune so Morgan can't buy them off you) with the Fanatic bonus sounds extremely deadly. Neither of them is a good researcher though so probes would help a lot, and Spartan Industry will slow you a bit. Likely especially deadly with the spartans having the command nexus and a monolith.

Cult or Gaia+anyone but Mirriam
Given that the capture formula is based mostly on how many native life forms you control (less controlled=more chance of catching).. a faction which gets a whole lot of worms then gives them away should be able to just keep catching worms endlessly. Obviously requires a good patch of fungus and works best with the Nexus around, but this could be a way to turn the helpful at the start but a bit meh worm catching thing into a long term supply of useful units. Especially helpful due to worms having no support when in fungus.

Peacekeepers+Morgan
A more builder trick.. but to bypass Morgan's population issues, you could get the two factions HQs very near each other to reduce ineffic and give PK bases to Morgan whenever they hit size 9, giving you huge bases operating with Morgan's amazing cashflow. PKs can pop boom relatively easily with GAs thanks to their bonus Talent and ability to get all the +2 growth things (demo/planned/creche). PKs likely to get governorship for infiltration is nice (maybe send them lots of bases for one turn then send back?).

Hive or Drones+Believers
Somewhat similar to Sparta/Mirriam, but with mass production rather than high morale. Again Mirriam's support bonus lets her control a very large army without paying for it, and again she gets the Fanatic bonus. Having a few Hive units to capture bases makes those bases much harder to take back thanks to the perim defense, but drones do build faster. Either way research starved so heavy probing or a research ally is needed.

Drones+Researcher
Drones build stuff fast but can't research well, researchers.. research but are not amazing builders otherwise. Pretty clear how this one goes well .

Lets see what cool tricks you could do with combinations of factions you guys can come up with.

[Kirov]

Two technical comments:

1) Re. Sparta+Beliebers - any units you transfer adjust their morale for the recipient's SE. Elite Sparta units will become Commando Miriam units (the bonus from morale-boosting facs is retained).

There is a funny thing in my tests that if Sparta gives a unit to Dee, it loses 1 Morale, but if it is the other way around, the unit gains 2 Morale. It has something to do with that her inherent penalty and if you give Deedee disciplined units via the editor, they will turn out green.

BTW - any given unit can visit a monolith only once, regardless of its faction colours. So there goes a trick that came to my mind.

2) Re. PK+Morgan - can 2 human factions peacefully trade a base? If so, I'm not aware of that. I just don't see any relevant option at the diplo screen. And if this trade had to take place by force, it would be a huge pain to execute.


Coming back to the point - maybe it's because I'm better builder than warrior, maybe I've met this kind of people, but I've always believed that builders are much stronger in SMAX than warriors. If only because they are not so map-dependent.

And I've never played a multifaction game and somehow am not eager to try it yet. However, I'd never pick two Momentum factions like Sparta+Believers. Uni+Drone looks to me like the ultimate combo, as do many other brains+brawns combinations. Barring that, two energy-oriented builders (Uni, Aki, Morgan) together can get to IA (for a quick and nice Wealth boost for both), then D:AP and Fusion way before Santiago and Miriam can figure out how bidets work.

In my opinion, all those Morale, Support and Fanatic boosts pale when Zak is the first to D:AP or Chaos guns. And he gets there several techs before Santiago, which is more than enough to build, say, 5 needlejets. Without SAM you'd never penetrate an opponent's territory if he's got only a handful of jets on standby. And he's away ahead in the information war as with jets he can safely patrol his borders and prevent any ambush.

Please bear also in mind that tradings techs is instant as compared to trading units or bases. Another goody for a builder marriage.

[ete]

I was not aware of the Morale adjustment, that removes that trick. Still, I guess it makes passing units from the Drones to Sparta or something more practical. And I guess running Power becomes less terrible for the spearhead player in multifaction, since units coming in from several faction's production get the bonus. Also no human base swapping, was not aware of that but I guess there are potential exploits like passing on a base every turn.. so not surprising.

As for the whole builder factions are inherently favored bear in mind that I am specifically talking about a map designed for inter-faction balance, and consider:
Make the map small enough/connected and contact quick enough and the rushers will win every game, there will be no time to tech to things like Chaos weapons or D:AP and raw production/combat bonuses (plus some probing) will end it.
Make the map big enough/disconnected enough and builders will always win because they have time to build enough to outweigh any combat/morale/wormrush.

Between those two extremes, there are maps which are small enough that it is possible for aggressive factions to either kill a passive builder before they get going OR put enough pressure on them to force them to build an army before they want to and slow their building down enough to give a more even game. I am specifically talking about and trying to create maps which both builders and rush factions can win on. Unless there are no maps aggressive factions can win on (this seems highly unlikely) balanced maps are possible, although likely much easier with multifaction since you can have a mixture of very close and further start positions in one map.

[Kirov]

I understand and commend the intention, but what I had in mind was that Sparta+Miram combo, which for any kind of map will be either way too stron or way too weak. If a builder-fighter balance is a problem, then 2builders-2fighters balance is the same problem squared.

The only setting I would recommend is two teams of builder+fighter. I'll let you know if I come up with something interesting. The Pirates seem like a potential here, with their exploration abilities.

Oh, I have it: Morgan and Pirates:
Use Morgan's cash to fund exploration by Ulrik. Find any kind of land connection betwen Morgan and his enemies and drown it to hell! You may need a nearby Pirate base to pull it off cheaply, but it can ensure safe expansion for Morgan. With an edge in exploration, all sea pods are yours, you can bombard boreholes from fungus, easily infiltrate and sabotage navy production at coastal bases, etc.

The con of it is, raising/lowering is cheaper for land formers. But you can still buy a whole lot of time this way.

One minor thing - if the base trade is not in the diplo screen, you don't want to do it by force - no money from pacts, the pop is down by 1, buildings are destroyed, drone affairs set to 'captured base', etc. More hassle than it is worth it.

[ete]

My map, which unfortunately you're not wanting information on due to playing on it blind, is designed in a way that *hopefully* will favor a mixed builder+rusher team over both double builder or double rusher, without making the other options entirely useless. However, I don't think 1v1 map balance between rush and builder is impossible.. just hard to get right and requiring a lot of testing, which may not happen. Thought experiment: If you can make a map where rush is too strong and build is too strong, then one change at a time turn the rush is too strong one into build is too strong surely at some point you will hit maps where it's pretty fair? Therefore maps with inter faction balance must be possible?

Pirates are a strange case.. I should play some more games with them, but it's frustrating that the AI does not know how to fight on sea properly and never becomes a real threat. Other than that one time I put virtually my entire late game navy (~30 ships with Shard or Chaos and a mixture of abilities and armor levels.) in one small base I'd just taken and had it mind controlled. That was funny.

[Yitzi]

Ok, some good choices:

Drones/Cyborgs/(Spartans).  Drones/Cyborgs is the same drones/researchers you mentioned, but on top of that the cyborgs can give their bases to the drones to grow and build facilities (and since the drones aren't doing their own research anyway, they might as well run dem/planned for easy pop booms), after which they're returned to the cyborgs for heavy research (and once they have network nodes and large bases, nobody techs like  ).  With three, the Spartans are a good choice for the third, so the drones can build units and give them to the Spartans for a heavy and cheap punch.

Morgan/Roze.  This is for when you want heavy subversion.  Morgan makes money, gives it to Roze, who uses it to subvert.  Both can help out with tech.  A good choice for the third is again the Spartans (running police state/power), to take the stolen units and use them in a more conventional manner.

University/Believers.  University provides techs, believers provide probe security and conventional forces.  Cult is a good third, to provide psi combat capability.

[JarlWolf]

For original factions,

 +

You get a fairly good army and growing, industrial empire that is great at defencive wars with an avid researcher. Let the Chairman protect our dear Provost and you have a very powerful combo.