The modifier which prohibits a factions from accumulating research for the first however many turns (found in the Believers) does not exist in the .txt file. Any idea how to edit it?
I mod such that you can make Formers and build road, mine, sensor, and solar without Centauri Ecology. But the tech is needed to plant forest or farm. It makes the -RESEARCH for X turns penalty a little less harsh, and the tech a little less mandatory to get right away.
I kind of like the terraforming ideas though I'd keep solars baseline. Formers should be able to make something by default and there's still the -ECON problem (that if you go -3 ECON or below, the HQ makes 0 energy).I continue to fiddle with the concept of giving the Believers +1 Growth since the spread of AI priorities for the faction gives them an inherent bonus to select models with this social effects. I play with 2/1/2 in the base square. This allows the bases for believers to provide better income (and potentially research).
Well the only way to really make Believers relatively better is to make +SUP and +PROBE more powerful. Generally cheaper troops helps them. I found flat unit+ability costs made SUP more powerful with the downside of a bit more troop spam. Boosting up Fundamentalism (+2 morale, +2 growth, -5 research) helps them relatively since they get only -3 research net due to the bottom range. 2/2/1 on the base square also helps them some and makes the early game a little less dull (more troops). Something like a sliding scale on SUP's free minerals on new base might help them early on. Like +/- 5 minerals per SUP (so they'd get 20 minerals for new bases rather than 10). Boosting up mines somehow I think would also help...the only M-heavy strategy early is forests..
I'd say that higher E per base actually hurts Believers relatively, since they have bad energy efficiency into labs. +1 GROWTH or removing their -1 PLANET goes far to helping them out.
The other reason I think is that +PROBE is kind of lacking. It's a bit better if you take out all the free probe morale boosts though. Being even a level up on probes means you'll win probe vs probe battles, helping with tech steal a lot. I had been playing with 2/2/2 base square but found that a bit too pro-ICS/PS.
You wouldn't have to tweak Fanatic with exe modding. You could just give the Believers the Progenitor offensive bonus, provided you're using SMAX.
What do you think of adding +2 talent to Fundamentalist? It seems too weak otherwise. Traditionally, I've always played University, so I wouldn't know by experience.
Morale giving ~20-25% power per rank might do that. Point for point it's not as strong as say INDUSTRY even if you go full military. +5 INDUSTRY is double troops for example (not counting SUPPORT, so this isn't entirely accurate). Whereas +4 MORALE is only +50% unit power and +1 move.
The X turns of no research...my opinion on it is that it should be removed. It's too steep of an early game penalty in most cases. IMO the simplest way to mod around this would be to give Believers, Drones, etc another starting tech (Laser, perhaps).