Reimagined Original Factions

[bvanevery]

I was about to say that Conquer factions do just fine in my mod, but then you raised the bar to being some kind of endgame powerhouse.  I'm not sure that's a valid way to look at what factions are supposed to do.  Factions are supposed to provide various kinds of pressure.  A Conquer faction that's going to kill you in the early to midgame because you started too close to them, and didn't take them seriously enough, is just as valuable as a "sleeper" faction that sits and waits, sits and waits, until there's an entire freakin' ocean of passive Pirates that have made more money than God.

If factions all succeed in the same ways in the same circumstances, they become very easy to beat.

[Nexii]

What penalties do people give the Pirates? They always were the strongest faction. Pushing Thermoclines and Aquafarms later helps a bit. It seems it's either give them big penalties or nerf down sea production in general. 3/1/3 is crazy early game production... 3/1/4 with free market...

I like the idea of aquatic it just seems to play out similar most games. They never have the land power to conquer anyone, and they have so much sea power it's difficult to conquer them also. Making them feel more like a growth faction than an aggressive one, which kinda goes against their whole theme.

Maybe Pirates could be non-aquatic, though that seems a little odd too.

[bvanevery]

What penalties do people give the Pirates?

I don't give any factions any penalties.  I don't believe in that as an AI design.  It just makes things harder for the AI to figure out how to do.  I start with the presumption that everyone is at "zero" in all things, then give bonuses that are appropriate to a faction.  I've done enormous amounts of playtesting over the course of 2 years, and I have strong opinions on the appropriate dynamic range of bonuses.  If you give too many bonuses, you're going to to overpower a faction, and not all the bonuses are created equal.

They always were the strongest faction.

They always were the most annoying faction.  Their antidote is on-shore artillery.  Then they wear themselves out endlessly upon you.

Pushing Thermoclines and Aquafarms later helps a bit.

Yes it does.  My Thermoclines don't come until late midgame now.  Subsea Trunklines not until late game.  Aquafarm doesn't come until E3 Ecological Engineering, which is when I give the Weather Paradigm, and where I lift the nutrient restriction.

They never have the land power to conquer anyone,

Not important.  They have this wonderful moat around them, called the ocean.

and they have so much sea power it's difficult to conquer them also.

But not impossible.  It's just really really pointless to do so, a lot of the time.  They sprawl and spam, and you have to be willing to clean out sprawl and spam.  Especially on a Huge map, that gets pretty boring.  If you insist on doing it though, it's best to attack from land using Marines.  As many bases as you can get to that way, building rails up coasts to get to all the bases.  The AI is too stupid to deal with it.  It's pretty much shooting fish in a barrel, and limited only by the speed at which you can build the rails and produce the execution squads.

Making them feel more like a growth faction than an aggressive one, which kinda goes against their whole theme.

Their original theme is stupid.  They voice acted these "pirates" with a guy that sounds like a college English major wearing a sweater.  I don't need a bunch of aarg, aarg to convince me it's pirates, but there's nothing credible about this voice performance or these lines of dialogue at all.  Someone didn't think very hard about what makes a Captain Nemo a Captain Nemo.  There have been a few films where that sort of character was done right, as well as other pirate archetypes that actually work, and this game doesn't basically do anything worth hearing out.  Narratively, the Pirates are some junk someone threw into the expansion pack.  And they're about as narratively well thought out as a lot of the other expansion pack stuff, i.e. grossly inferior to the narratives of the original game.

Game mechanically, the expansion pack actually has some merits.  It took me quite awhile to realize that, smarting from the lousy cartooney not-credible narrative choices.  The Pirates' +1 minerals is overpowered, but Aquatic factions is not basically a bad idea.

Since I don't give a rat's ass about the inferior Pirate narrative of the expansion pack, and I hate this guy Svensgaard above and beyond all other characters, my Pirates are not the violent sort.  Instead, they are Morganites of the Sea.  They pursue Wealth, because real pirates are actually all about the ca-ching!  They don't care about economic systems, they care about wealth.  Any way they can get it.  My Pirates sit back, relax, don't do anything to anybody, build up, and then eventually get into whatever ideological fisticuffs the world throws their way.  They can be scary dominant that way, if you don't know what you're in for.  Of course playing my own mod, I do know what I'm in for by now.

My Morganites of the Land aren't slouches either.  They get +1 SUPPORT, not -1.  They're like Haliburton military contractors / war profiteers.

[Nexii]

Decided I'm going to try Pirates as non-aquatic but with aquatic benefits. Free naval yard, free marine detachment, free amphibious units. Maybe personal preference but I just don't like how pure aquatics play out. Not sure why that is, I liked the similar concept in Master of Magic with the Myrror realm. It may be the clunkiness of small sea zones of control that do it for me, and that the AI isn't so great at multi continent warfare. Plus I feel that a faction starting in water is a bit of a stretch, early Planet days are supposed to be about basic survival.

[bvanevery]

You aren't going to be able to start the game with guaranteed sea colonists and coastal start position.  Not unless you are binary hacking.  If you are binary hacking, you might as well investigate removing the +1 sea minerals bonus.

[Geo]

You aren't going to be able to start the game with guaranteed sea colonists and coastal start position.  Not unless you are binary hacking.  If you are binary hacking, you might as well investigate removing the +1 sea minerals bonus.

Maybe not guaranteed coastal start position, but letting a non-aquatic faction start with a sea colony pod is entirely possible.
Or letting an aquatic faction start with only land colony pods for that matter. Of course you'd need a couple transport foils in the start mix to avoid them drowning.

[bvanevery]

When you give a land faction a ship, it just dies, because it has been placed on land.  Pretty sure it doesn't helpfully shoot off to one side, in a body of water.  And you may not even have a body of water to shoot off to anyways.

[Geo]

When you give a land faction a ship, it just dies, because it has been placed on land.  Pretty sure it doesn't helpfully shoot off to one side, in a body of water.  And you may not even have a body of water to shoot off to anyways.

If you settle on the spot where the ship(s) are on turn one, they survive. They have a (probably land-locked) harbor, but are available to do things with. Even if it is only to disband them for minerals.

[bvanevery]

The Swiss Pirates.  I'm not amused.  Would take forever to get anything maritime going.

[Geo]

Even in the worst case, a gun skimship could be used as an artillery deterrent.

[bvanevery]

You know another thing that would suck, is that if you're given free sea colony pods, they can't be used to boost the population of a land base.  Even if there was enough food to do such boosting.

[Nexii]

Yea I didn't try to give the Pirates any free sea units. Since there's more faction bonuses there's no free units at the start for anyone. Pirates have some decent over land bonuses but they don't compare to Sparta there.

Drones I redid a bit as well, to make them feel more unique. They are sort of a Morgan/PK hybrid still but not with quite the research penalty of Believers. Hurry cost isn't the most exciting faction ability but it is very strong.

[Nexii]

After many test games I can say this faction set is at least as balanced as the originals. That being said the original 12 weren't that balanced, University was way out ahead. Free Drones were solid then there was like... everyone else. And a few that were really weak like Cult, Morgan... arguably Gaia too.

I expected CyCon to dominate, solid bonuses and never having to worry about drones. But I suppose not having Fundamentalism as an aggressive faction or being able to pop boom is a big downside. And lack of other support / facility bonuses. Most games they get blown out but when they snowball they snowball hard, AI transcended by 2350 in one game.

Cult is sorta so-so, though on abundant life maps they're downright terrifying. Saw them get a few of the fastest victories. Oddly they don't use just mindworms rather a mix of normal units and PSI. May give them -2 ECON yet, Cult being able to run and benefit from Free Market just feels odd. The games where they dominate it feels like they cut through enemy factions even faster than Spartans, they're hard to predict.

Data Angels seem to love Fundamentalism too much. I guess it really is the AI's love of MORALE SE. Basically they turn into a hacking cult that uses propaganda but isn't good at making their own technology. Which is a bit strange lore wise.

Number one factor really is starting location, far above and beyond faction benefits. If the AI has a decent area to colonize in the first 50-100 turns, it does okay. If it's boxed in usually it doesn't know to go to the sea or other islands hard enough. I've also noticed that sea bases tend to expand to the sea much more than land ones. So typically getting down a few sea bases early is a good marker for future growth/victory. This is sort of why the original Pirates did so well, not because of their faction benefits so much as just playing smarter.

[bvanevery]

After many test games I can say this faction set is at least as balanced as the originals.

A very low bar.  Original 7 factions weren't balanced, additional 5 human factions weren't balanced, 2 Alien factions were grossly overpowered.  Equivalent statement is thus, "not balanced".

Cult is sorta so-so, though on abundant life maps they're downright terrifying.

My Cult has never done especially well on Huge maps with normal fungus.  And their RESEARCH can't drop below 0, that's one of their powers.  They are not pushovers, but their function in my mod has evolved to be, "to take up space".  They will never win games.

There is basically no reason to test abundant fungus.  Fungal mazes cripple the AI players, they get all their colonists killed.  In my mod I've partially mitigated the problem by making Clean Reactors available from the beginning of the game, and by making Clean Reactors available for free on land and sea colony units.  So at least when they're milling around and not settling, or getting outright killed in the bush, the faction's SUPPORT is not being wrecked. 

I guess it really is the AI's love of MORALE SE.

That's why I removed it before Power.

If it's boxed in usually it doesn't know to go to the sea or other islands hard enough.

I made E1 Doctrine: Flexibility a Tier 1 tech, cross-listed in a few research areas.  AI will pick it up quickly and will make sea colony pods.  However, no land faction can hope to do as well at sea, as another faction that starts with good land.  It's just not possible.

I've also noticed that sea bases tend to expand to the sea much more than land ones. So typically getting down a few sea bases early is a good marker for future growth/victory. This is sort of why the original Pirates did so well, not because of their faction benefits so much as just playing smarter.

I disagree.  My faction AIs go to sea just fine when forced.  The Pirates' +1 minerals is clearly an overwhelming advantage.

[Nexii]

I'm not sure what the X factor really is for factions expanding to sea well or not. I've observed a lot of games, and I don't think it's faction bonus or agenda specific as I've seen all factions do it. Sometimes the AI gets caught in a loop and just keeps shuffling land colony pods on its island all game. And sometimes it decides to create a sea colony pod. Rarely it will make a sea transport. Once it makes 1-2 sea bases it tends to make a lot more.

I've seen even stranger behavior where the AI makes a few units and disbands them out in the open, repeatedly. There seems to be some sort of code to free up support in the early game expansion phase that's at odds with making 'enough' military. I also think the AI may only tend to make colony pods until a given year, or has a strong disincentive to stop expanding at some point over land.

Probably the Thinker mod and some others have improved AI behavior in this area. I prefer to mod on Yitzi's work though due to the unit costing features and ecodamage features. I guess that's a side topic, too many forks in this community