Because I like making those.
The way I see it: Aside from Pirates (which have a unique gameplay), in AC, you basically either rush, or build. Good factions can do both, or mix approaches. Weaker factions can only do 1 thing and struggle heavily if they can't. Ie. a builder nation will struggle if they are cut off from "lebensraum" by a powerful neighbor like Spartans. A rush nation like Spartans will struggle to catch up to others if they can't take neighboring cities and tech by force, and easily fall behind in the long run.
S Tier: Pirates.
Pirates are
broken against the AI, for multiple reasons.
First - the +1 minerals @ sea squares is gamebreaking because you can create a city that is full of working +4/5 energy squares AND ALSO 20 minerals per turn, hassle-free, without making a single borehole, with no food problems, without the need for mineral resources on the map, and you can make that city pretty much
anywhere on the map and in quantity limited only by map size (and not borders/terrain availability).
Second - Pirates are (in an unmodded game) left alone to take whatever they want at the sea for many, many turns. Nearly no pressure, and the AI can't even use foil probes, so you don't have to care about espionage either, so going to war has pretty much no repercussions at all.
Third - once you get a few techs, you can create copypaste cities full of worked mining platforms, giving +4 minerals each AND providing food, so you can literally flood the map with cities capable of easily topping 100 minerals/turn production once they grow tall. Of course other nations also can attempt this, but they max out at 3 minerals per mining platform, making it less amazing.
The Pirates are also a faction that really don't need to go wide - ie.
https://www.reddit.com/r/alphacentauri/comments/n4a9bc/returned_to_smax_to_beat_transcend_some_thoughts/ - That was my first Transcend game back then, works brilliantly with less than 10 cities, though will scale when ICS-ing, of course. Getting to a tech advancement per turn is almost trivial. Also, getting a super science town outputting thousands of labs per turn is kinda funny. The Pirates can do it all.
A Tier: Usurpers, Caretakers
I'm pretty sure it's well known by now that the Progenitors are overpowered in hands of a human: direct tech, stupidly strong traits, a combat bonus, and you get energy from developing your bases. The AI doesn't utilize their biggest weakness against them at all (and that is the ability to use chemical weapons against them without commiting an atrocity, which hurts quite a damn lot against human players - to the point of getting roflstomped by factions with inferior tech and having cities wiped out by a single siege - I've been there before). However, what makes them better than Caretakers is the offensive bonus. You cannot fight for space with +25% defense, but you certainly can with +25% attack bonus and another +12,5% innate bonus from +1 morale (all of that while being able to direct tech, lol). Usurpers don't NEED to go to war though, because their only peacetime penalty is -1 PLANET, thus, they can use direct tech to outdo their opponents in any way they deem necessary. The Usurpers' superpower is their ability to produce Elite units with +25% racial bonus slapped on top, which is just silly overkill.
What Caretakers miss in terms of offense, they can (hilariously) regain through mindworms due to their +1 PLANET, however, it does take some RNG for this to work properly and isn't really reliable. Still, +25% defense, progenitor bases and direct tech - with pretty much no negatives at all - is amazing.
B Tier: Hive, Morganites, Cyborgs
Hive is probably the most balanced "hybrid" faction with many unique tools to play the expansion game well while not being afraid of war (free defense perimiters, immunity to inefficiency, industry bonus). They can do Police/Planned and not get murdered by inefficiency while growing - the same thing enables them to keep the peace relatively easily in their cities, which means fairly big cities from the get-go due to high POLICE rating. This makes them capable of snowballing from any position, though they do need space and against Spartans/Aliens, all they have is +10% production rates, which is way less than some guides seem to imply. Their midgame problem is gold (and thus weak espionage) so not falling behind in tech is important, they aren't that great in closing the gap through warfare + probe teams.
Optimal Morgan gameplay is maddening (spamming 2-3 pop colonies EVERYWHERE in fairly tight clusters) and takes a toll on sanity, but it works on limited territory and works fairly well (Morgan can kiss ass better than most factions due to easy wealth, so they can buy a lot of time they need to develop), but it's just too tiresome to do. Without this maddening Morgan version of ICS, Morgans aren't that fun to play, because they have nothing to help with ICS when faced by a strong opposition blocking your expansion path. No industry bonus, no offense bonus. They can recover well from a poor starting position (and buy the army from their opponents in process), and they can kinda do whatever with crazy amounts of money. It is both unique and effective, but can be - like I said before - maddening due to micromanagement necessary to make this work.
Cybernetic Consciousness (or Cyborgs for short) are the kind of thing Zak wishes to be, without any of his faults in the long run (like Probe susceptibility or unhapiness). Their massive efficiency and research puts them in paradigm economy in their sleep and they can out tech nearly everyone from there. If forced to war early on, they can easily tech to a powerful weapon and defeat their enemy - and they don't even need probe teams, they can just take the "peacetime" techs along with the cities. Of course, this will not work every time and is RNG dependent, but it does tend to work rather reliably unless you need to fight Spartans or aliens.
Drones have impressive +2 Industry, but at the same time, they suck at research and have none of Yang's perks (such as immunity to inefficiency or free perimeter defense). However, having 20% more units is essentially the same as having +20% to offensive/defensive powers, so the Drones are nowhere near defenseless, can still launch some decent offense, and their ability to build things fast is amazing throughout the early and mid game. They really need to ICS hard however (to have more cities than opponents) which may be bothersome - extra happiness helps a lot, however. If their "chance for a revolting city to join the Drones" ability worked against the AI, they would be easily A-tier, but, sadly, IIRC it does not, so it's essentially doing nothing. I think the Drones are the bottom of B tier and that Hive is essentially better as a complete package, but the Drones still have things going for them and are not helpless in any scenario, be it expansion or agression, which is great.
C Tier: University, Drones, Peacekeepers, Gaians, Spartans
University is somewhat similar to Cyborgs in its ability to tech for early victory OR grow: Zak pretty much needs to ICS and he NEEDS virtual world, because that gives him free infrastructure right away, and thus, fuels up rapid growth of his new cities (along with +2 science) that allows him to spiral out of control. However, he's very weak to probe teams, which can be really frustrating if you have aliens or spartans as neighbors since you can't easily overpower them even with superior weaponry. While he can try to out-tech the enemies early, I feel he's not that great at war (and he doesn't get free techs upon capturing cities like Aki), making him a builder faction by default. He's easily the best of C tier, tho.
Peacekeepers are a kind of nation that is really good at building and expanding, but feels somewhat weak if cut off from expanding due to a powerful neighbor or bad land RNG, IMO. You need the population to win the election for Governor, but if you start on an island with Spartans/Aliens as your neighbor, you'll struggle hard to develop. They also feel weaker than University because of this - they don't have the tech advantage to attempt to overpower the neighbor with shiny toys quickly, they have to do it the hard way. Their extra talent is rather helpful in the early game on Transcend, where every calm citizen counts
This is a very "vanilla feeling" faction. No early game gimmicks, just plain old balance in all departments.
Spartans are a very powerful faction that can pull off Impact Rover rushes easily, but having an industry malus kinda sucks when you have no research/economy boosters altogether. It's a "rush or die" kind of nation IMO. Reminds me of Civ4, where you either succeed at axeman rush against your opponent, or restart
That being said, Spartans _are_ the rush faction of this game and can pull it off almost everywhere, so while they are rather limited in their options, they do their thing extraordinarily well.
Gaians have good efficiency and can simultaneously build and capture an army of mind worms to bother enemies/defend territory with, which is quite a unique way to play the game, however, they are neither the best scientists, nor builders, nor warriors. The morale penalty kinda sucks in worm warfare, and efficiency alone doesn't make up for lack of economy/industry bonuses. No free buildings to speed up growth either. Also, worm RNG. You're not guaranteed to get many worms early on (it's just 25% chance with +1 PLANET), and without them, you're just another limited builder faction with very crappy warfare.
D Tier Believers, Cult of the Planet, Data Angels
Believers - much like Spartans, but with weaker earlygame. All you get is +25% offensive bonus, which is neat, but Spartans (for early game at least, before you can produce Elite units) get a +25% offensive/defensive bonus AND start with Rovers AND can tech right away (thus getting to impact weapons fairly easily since they start with a prerequisite) AND do well against mindworm attacks. Believers have strong espionage, but without a neighbor to defeat (and strip off techs via probe teams), they will fall behind quickly. A very momentum based faction, heavily dependent on an early war IMO.
Cult of the Planet - entirely dependent on RNG worm capturing and neighbor situation. Cha desperately NEEDS to get many worms and rush the neighbor, or he falls behind quickly due to weak industry and economy. This will not work if you fail at RNG (though you have 50% chance due to +2 PLANET) OR you don't have a neighbor that is easy to defeat (Spartans or both Progenitor factions aren't) OR you don't have any close neighbors, making you unable to fully utilize captured cities due to maddening distance penalties. This makes it a fun faction when RNGesus smiles upon you, but very one dimensional because Cha, among all leaders, is probably the most screwed one when he has to build an empire rathar than conducting warfare, with nothing but penalties on his ECO/IND scores.
Data Angels - I really can't find a role for this nation. It's supposed to be the "spy faction", but their bonus can be translated to "actions cost less" and you can achieve the same result by "having more money" with Morgan, only that having more money also allows other things than espionage, ie. rush-buying. In their defense, they don't have significant disadvantages, but they also lack something to cling to when either expanding or rushing, which makes them kinda vanilla. Not a terrible faction, but it's hard to find a unique playstyle for them. I feel that being jack of all trades, master of none kind of gameplay is done better by Peacekeepers (and they DO have mastery in something - the elections, of course).
Let me know what you think!
New SMAC quizzes available.
