Faction ranking

[ete]

You may have seen this project, which aims to balance custom factions with lots of community input. Yitzi suggested ranking official factions by power, and after some thought, I decided to put up the opening post despite my lack of multiplayer experience. Please give suggestions about the ranking of as many factions as you have significant experience with. Rankings will range from 5 (weakest official faction) to 10 (strongest human official faction), with aliens being given a higher rating. There will be separate ranking for the power of a faction in human hands and in AI hands.

Multiplayer
University, Hive, Morgan, Gaians, PKs, Spartans, Believers, Cult, Angels, Pirates, Drones, Cyborgs, Usurpers, Caretakers
10:
9:
8:
7:
6:
5:

AI
University, Hive, Morgan, Gaians, PKs, Spartans, Believers, Cult, Angels, Pirates, Drones, Cyborgs, Usurpers, Caretakers
10:
9:
8:
7:
6:
5:

I will base the rankings by consensus (with more weight given to veteran/high skill players), granting my own opinions no special importance. If enough feedback for a more fine-grained system is practical then that will be created (e.g. rating each faction by ability as builder, hybrid, and momentum, with the average(?) score taken as the overall score, allowing some specific scores to be outside 5-10).

[ete]

Since I do not have multiplayer experience and have not read over a significant number of multiplayer games, I'm sticking to AI for now. Note that I play without pop booms and with minimal/no crawlers to make it a more even game, since AI basically never uses those.
First draft of my opinions (subject to change)

AI
11: Usurpers, Caretakers
10: Hive
9: Believers, Spartans, Cyborgs
8: University, Gaians, Drones
7: Pirates
6: PKs, Angels, Cult
5: Morgan

Reasoning:
Aliens are very strong, but significantly mitigated by them always being at war with each other.
AI plays the Hive extremely well, it can be challenging to deal with the huge flood of units.
Believers can be quite hard to deal with if you start too close, same to a lesser extent with Spartans. Cyborgs can be a midgame threat if you can't ally with them and they get a good start.
University,  Drones and Gaians have one big advantage each (Tech, floods of cheap units, and wormrush), but are otherwise average. Uni would be higher if not for the easy probing.
Pirates are a very odd one. I find they're often the last AI I take down,  and they often have a large empire with a lot of aircraft, but once you get marine detachment cruisers and some air support their entire empire crumbles remarkably fast. In shear annoyingness they rival the Hive with their air harrassment while I'm off fighting someone else.
PKs are all around average, with a good start they can be slightly annoying, but they've rarely been much of a threat. Angels can do some damage with a few well placed mind controls if you don't prepare, but are unimpressive otherwise. The Cult can be a bit tough to deal with on high native and close proximity, but they don't have much of a follow up and tend to get killed off by other AIs a lot.
I've practically never seen Morgan come out on top of any other AI, and even when he's left alone by the time I reach him he gets torn apart.

Edit: You don't need anything like this much reasoning, or even to include all the factions.

[Maniac]

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.

[ete]

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?

[Yitzi]

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.

[Maniac]

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?

I wouldn't know. Aliens were never played in multiplayer. I wouldn't be surprised though if Morgan and UoP turned out to be more powerful than the aliens.

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.

Woops sorry. Anyway, Morgan was still, besides the UoP, considered the most powerful faction due to the huge economy bonuses.

[Green1]

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.

Morgan is definately the weakest for SP. I can not put my finger on it, but I think it has to do with the AI not able to handle FM very well or avoiding the powerful Green/Wealth wartime choice with Morgan that a sane player would use. Then again, Aki likes FM, and the AI does okay.

[Kirov]

I summed it up recently in another thread, but here it is:

Tier 1: Uni, Domai, Hive

Uni because you know why, the best egghead with almost negligible penalties. As Flubber once said, the only real weakness of Zak is that all the rest of players happily gang up against him. In 1v1 games definitely the best.

Domai was considered the most powerful faction by many people I knew, with the Hive following shortly. This is mainly because the INDUSTRY SE choice is so powerful and useful, probably the most important one apart from +2 ECON. Just build network nodes and remember you have a leg up with SPs and you should be fine.

Hive is also very easy to play, almost vulgar. Set PS/Planned/Wealth, steamroll, win. I fear him and despise him at the same time.

All three rely heavily on ICS.

Tier 2: Aki, Morgan, Deirdre

All have significant energy bonuses, but have some drawbacks which must be overcome. Aki is probably the strongest here, but only slightly and she has a hard time popbooming. Morgan is a very good faction, but also very demanding, probably one the most difficult factions to play. It is worth noting here that Morgan popbooms (with GA) easier than Aki when he gets +4 ECON. At default 20% PSYCH at FM, many of your bases popboom spontaneously.
Deirdre - use your EFFIC bonus to get more bases and put slider to TECH to catch up with the true researchers and you should be fine. Also, her penalties are negligible. -1 MORALE is offset by Creches, -1 POLICE means just she can't staple, big deal.

All in all, three factions on the comparative level. Aki and Morgan should ICS, Deirdre is more flexible here (I think, I haven't played her for ages).

Tier 3: PK, Data Angels, Sparta, Believers

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.

Tier 4: Pirates, Cult

Pirates - a weak-and-demanding faction. I also spent considerable time playing him (in SP) and I believe he should come out on land as soon as possible, and also run very early FM like Sparta. Otherwise his research plummets. It takes skill to tackle his penalties and even then you're still worse off than the others. I recommend it for players who seek challenge.

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.

I don't know about Aliens, nobody plays them, but they look too strong for MP. On the other hand, like Maniac said, they may still be weaker than Zak.


It's hard for me to comment on AIs, as I don't think the differences are that huge. Once you get to midgame, you pancake every one of them. Still, Hive and Aliens manage quite well. Uni would be stronger but he always the techs to Supercollider too early, all those polymorphic software and whatnots clog his research.

Green1 mentions the Pirates. Well, in my games Sven has non-existent research, sometimes several lab points when others research air. If he used naval probe teams, then maybe...

Deirdre fares quite well, if I recall correctly, so does Aki. At the moment I can't recall any more opinions.

[Green1]

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.

He could profit from having that in his build list always for SP.

He could also profit from using cheese marine/transport tricks vs coastal bases. Still, he had tremendous air that was a lot harder to counter than it looked till I just out teched him and tipped air superiority into my favor.

[Yitzi]

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.

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.)

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wait, isn't Cult essentially the ultimate worm rush faction?

And of course late game he's got toys like Brood Pits and (if he can sacrifice enough to build it or can manage enough steal it) the Dream Twister.

Green1 mentions the Pirates. Well, in my games Sven has non-existent research

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.

[Green1]

Sven not ICSing? Sven covers the sea with bases and chokes you. His only problem is he does not do land enough as an AI.

Miriam weak as AI? Miriam is legendary for being a nasty, evil AI even unmodded. I would dare say she is one of the nastiest and psycotic AIs of any TBS game that has been made short of Civ 4's Montezuma or Shaka Zulu. But even Monty does not have the staying power of the Sister. Could profit from more use of probes as a AI, but that would be insane.

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.

Cult? On a abundant lifeform map, he dominates and has large territory till you hopefully hit air and decimate him.

Then again, I am using an AI mod.

[Yitzi]

Sven not ICSing? Sven covers the sea with bases and chokes you.

A sea-based Sven can't match a land-based borehole-based real ICS (with bases in half the squares and boreholes in the other half).  A tightly packed but not real ICS-ing (say, a base every 8 squares) Sven seems he should be able to (before Social Engineering is considered) match any other land-based builder strategy until AEE becomes available, and more than match them until Fusion Power or Retroviral.
Remember, with aquafarm and transducer and FM, each non-base square is producing 2 surplus food and 5 energy.  Put those 2 food into librarians and run 50% labs, and that's 5.5 labs and 2.5 economy per square.  (Plus 1 mineral if he bothered to raise it to ocean shelf.)  With a network node, energy bank, research hospital, tree farm, and hybrid forest, that's 11 labs and 7.5 economy (mostly for rush buying because his minerals suffer horribly) per square, difficult to match (much less surpass) without an extremely high borehole density.
And of course Sven has a huge amount of territory available...

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.

It seems that Sparta will be stronger than Miriam in the early game, but Miriam will be stronger in the midgame.

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.

Better Lal than Zak.

[ete]

Thanks for all the replies, especially Kirov's detailed analysis.

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.

And Green, remember that Kirov is talking about MP primarily, rather than AI.

[Maniac]

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.

[Yitzi]

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.

Although on the flip side his efficiency penalty hurts there...but either way, Lal's main strength is his population and stability.