Thinker mod attempt 7

[bvanevery]

MY 2198.  I ask to trade techs with Roze.  She gives me E2 Biogenetics and signs off.  Game still figures I suck.

MY 2201.  My Truce with Svensgaard has expired.  Will he resume hostilities? 

MY 2202.  I believe I'm first to B4 Environmental Economics.  I had an old Secret Project copy going in one city.  I switch it to the Planetary Energy Grid.  I also switch to Wealth, which should make Svensgaard happier with me since that's his fixation.  I cash my last Artifact and 560 credits to rush the Grid immediately.

Details continental powers

continental powers

MY 2203.  Roze has obtained maps of the other factions.  A lot of them are battling on a continent close to me.  I buy Nonlinear Mathematics from her for 100 credits.  She has a fair number of techs that I don't, and I don't think I can research Conquer faster than I can just buy what I need from her, so I change my research focus to pure Build.  Possibly I can out-Build these warmongers.

MY 2206.  Yang threatens me and declares war on me as I infiltrate his base.  I buy a number of techs from Roze for 100 credits each.

[bvanevery]

Details the absurdly powerful

the absurdly powerful

I'm doing ok, but I can't escape the feeling that the game I'm playing is ridiculous.  The Pirates have 33 Recreation Commons and the Peacekeepers have 28, indicating they have at least that many bases.  In contrast I have 12 bases.  I've expanded as much as was reasonable.  I've been trying to win Secret Project races, in particular trying to keep the Weather Paradigm out of the hands of an AI that will grossly abuse it.  And I've been at war.  I don't have a bunch of resource buffs to cost shift these things, nor the patience to spend a huge number of mouseclicks to develop perhaps 3 times as many bases.

In every single Thinker test game I've played where these 2 factions were given a fair start, they have been monsters.  They're also pretty darned strong even with the stock binary.  In particular I always expect the Pirates to swell and swell and swell.  I am forced to conclude that they're not at all balanced in my mod, and I need to do something to rein them in.

Fixing the Peacekeepers is easy: take away their +2 GROWTH bonus.  I don't know what their relative standing among the factions will be without it.  It could have changed with tech tree changes, just depending on what an Explore, Conquer faction tends to get.  If they become too weak, I suppose I'll have to adjust something else, but I'm pretty clear that right now they're too strong.

I also believe the Hive has become weak.  I've seen them underperform in game after game after game, and this one is no exception.  I need to improve them somehow.  Maybe I should make them Aggressive and give them +1 MORALE?

I think the Believers are weak too.  They just don't seem to grow and sprawl the way they used to, despite the requisite Explore, Conquer focus.  Could their +1 ECONOMY actually be conflicting their priorities?

But the big question is how to rein in the Pirates.  If only I could take their +1 minerals out of the game, that would solve a lot of problems.  They chose Democratic Socialist in this game, giving them +3 JUSTICE, so I don't think a JUSTICE penalty is going to do anything to them.

Anyways I'm done with this game.  I might do fine, I might not, but I think it's pointless from a testing standpoint to continue.  I need to make some more changes.