Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: ete on January 24, 2013, 03:16:49 PM

Title: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: ete on January 24, 2013, 03:16:49 PM

We're going to be taking interesting custom factions and attempting to bring them in line with the official factions to increase diversity of play (I've played so many time with/against the original 14 that it's really refreshing to have some more options).

General principles (feel free to suggest more/reword/pick holes in):

• Each faction should have a distinct feel, both in gameplay and philosophy. Factions which appear to have the greatest potential for interesting distinctiveness will be balanced first.
• We should aim to make factions no more powerful than the strongest non-alien official faction or weaker than the weakest official faction in the hands of a competent human player. Custom alien factions may be on a par with existing aliens.
• Factions which are intended to be stronger or weaker (e.g. to give the AI a chance, to balance out a match with a large skill difference, to make a scenario) will have two versions, one standard (stronger or weaker) and one balanced with respect to other factions.
• Both single and multiplayer balance should be considered.
• Unless a faction is specifically designed for a modded game it should be balanced just for vanilla scient patched SMAX, with some attention payed to vanilla (or AI patched) SMAC. Depending on acceptance of his tweak mod, another version may be created to balance with Yitzi's patch if changes are necessary.
• Making a faction that's used effectively by AI is good, but not absolutely essential.

Okay, now for the fun part: I'd like nominations for our first project. Please pick a custom faction which you find interesting in mechanics or fluff, and briefly explain why you'd like to work on it first.

And if we could try to avoid skipping to specific things to change it's be good, just try and focus on the parts of a faction you like and we'll get ideas for changes later.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 03:24:28 PM

What of progenitor factions?

Those are not balanced by design. Although it is a bit offset by having constant War dec with other progenitor factions, if present. Mostly a single player thing, though. I have never seen anyone select one for MP.

I agree, though. We should cull some of the worthless factions to have a "best of" that increases replay value.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 03:28:52 PM

For flavor... so far out of what I have played, Antimind is in. What a cool concept. I have had this monster in the last 3 games. Though I do want to put it under a microscope.

We may even need to enlist BU to scan line the ones we select as "best of AC2 custom factions"

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 24, 2013, 03:35:59 PM

...I could probably be talked into doing a little graphic tweaking where needed...

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 24, 2013, 03:42:06 PM

I'd kind of prefer not to do a progenitor faction first, since they seem likely to be harder to properly balance given that we've only got two reference points rather than twelve, but if other people would like to do one soon or even first then we could. The Antimind is indeed very cool and a terrifying opponent in some situations, but.. I don't think we should take on the challenge of balancing such a monster as our first step.

Also, the idea is not to cull factions, but to have a big archive of all the factions we can get PLUS a category for factions which we've looked over carefully, and direct people towards the well checked/balanced ones first.

BUncle: That would be extremely helpful since my graphical experience is near nill and a fair few of these factions have problems (plenty of transperancy issues in leader pictures).

My first nominations: Freelancers, Dreams of Earth, Guardians of Morality

Freelancer info:

(click to show/hide)

TECH, DocLoy, TECH, Physic, SOCIAL, -MORALE, SOCIAL, --PLANET, SOCIAL, +++ECONOMY, SOCIAL, ++SUPPORT, FACILITY, 17, FACILITY, 1, ENERGY, 25, HURRY, 60, COMMERCE, 1, DRONE, 4
Values, Wealth, SUPPORT
Future Society, Eudaimonic, nil

^-1 MORALE: {Mercenaries fighting other peoples wars}
^-2 PLANET: {No respect for the environment}
^-3 ECONOMY: {Contract earnings} (note:+3 ingame)
^+2 SUPPORT: {Excellent supply lines}
^FREE FACILITIES: {Research Hospital (for casualties) at each base.}
^{Headquarters at each base}
^60% HURRY COSTS: {Factories geared up for wartime production.}
^{May Not use Eudaimonic future society (military regime)}

I like how differently they play thanks to the free HQ everywhere. It'll be quite a challenge to balance them effectively, and perhaps it'll encourage ICS too much or something like that, but keeping the core HQ everywhere+mercenary idea gives plenty of ways to go. Also, giving the AI the +3 econ version is very fun to play against.

Dreams of Earth info

(click to show/hide)

TECH, Ecology, SOCIAL, -PLANET, SOCIAL, -INDUSTRY, SOCIAL, ++MORALE, SOCIAL, --POLICE, FACILITY, 14, UNIT, 1, UNIT, 1, TERRAFORM, 0
Economics, Planned, MORALE
Economics, Green, nil

^-PLANET: {Large scale Terraforming ecologically disruptive}
^-INDUSTRY: {Industry ruined Earths biosphere}
^+2MORALE: {Fiercely protective of homelands}
^-2POLICE: {Independant and generally peaceful people}
^FREE FACILITY: {Hybrid Forest at each base due to terraforming skill}
^FREE UNITS: {2 free Terraformers}
^{Terraforming costs HALVED}

Free Hybrid Forest is the key idea here, along with teraforming bonuses. It's great fun roleplaying them too, just try and spread your forests as far and wide as possible. They've got a distinct philosophy and plan from any of the original 14, being directly anti-Planet but pro earth nature, which does make them slightly awkward on social engineering, but it's still interesting.

Guardians of Morality info

(click to show/hide)

SOCIAL, +INDUSTRY, SOCIAL, +SUPPORT, SOCIAL, +++POLICE, SOCIAL, --GROWTH, SOCIAL, --RESEARCH, SOCIAL, -PROBE, SOCIAL, -TALENT, FACILITY, 22, POPULATION, -1, FANATIC, 0
  Future Society, Thought Control, POLICE
  Future Society, Eudaimonic, nil

^+3 POLICE: {ironfisted rule}
^+1 INDUSTRY: {Forced Labor}
^+1 SUPPORT: {dedication to war effort}
^-2 RESEARCH: {many subjects forbidden}
^-1 PROBE: {distrust computers}
^-2 GROWTH: {personal relationships controlled, many people escape or die trying}
^free genejack factory at each base: {may not use eudaimoniac // +25% attack {fanatic}}

These guys seem ideologically a cross between the Hive and Believers, a religious police state. There's no single concept in their bonuses I'm attached to unlike the others I've nominated, but they are an interesting faction to play, and forced some significant changes to my usual playstyle. The combined effect of -2 Research and -2 Growth massively stunts early game development, but at the same time Genejack factories and Industry give you much better production than anyone else, and the Support/Fanatic bonuses make for a great army. I think with a few tweaks this could be an excellent addition to the game.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 04:11:59 PM

Excellent choices.

I am going to look at more of the things in both our archives and others.

There IS one type faction I think is missing. We need a celebrity faction that is ultra media. Think Mars One/ Big Brother/ Cult of Personality or the times they wanted to put variuos celebrities in space. Makes sense they would want publicity from pop culture icons to provide Unity funding. I will hunt further through NN and see if I missed something, but I do not think there has been a serious fitting faction developed.

That was one of the reason I asked about Chuft's Stephanie because I thought it would be something simular, till I actually loaded it and was turned off by cartoonish graphics and kiddie show references.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 24, 2013, 04:28:03 PM

I played a game with a faction like that, I think it was called showbiz, let's see.. Got it.

(click to show/hide)

The Showbiz Enterprises, The Celebrity, Showbiz, M, 1, Titania, F, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1,
  TECH, IndEcon, FACILITY, 11, COMMERCE, 2, SOCIAL, +POLICE, SOCIAL, -PLANET, PENALTY, PLANET, INTEREST, 2
  Values, Wealth, ECONOMY
  Economics, Green, nil
  Showbiz, Showbiz

#BLURB
"Ah... that Showbiz!"
^
^        -- Fozzie Bear,
^           upon joining the Showbiz faction

#DATALINKS1
^LEADER: {Superstar Titania Crafter}
^BACKGROUND: {Holywood Movie Mission to film Planet, separate starship}
^AGENDA: {Making life on Planet more exciting}
^TECH: {Industrial Economics}
^

#DATALINKS2
^+1 POLICE: {Followers regulary brain-washed}
^-1 PLANET: {Not interested in the Planetmind}
^+2 COMMERCE: {bonus increases value of treaties, pacts, loans}
^PENALTY for other negative PLANET ratings
^Free HOLOGRAM THEATRES at each base: {Great movie industry}
^Interest rates of +2%: {Accumulates lots of wealth easily}
^{May not use Green Economics.}

This could also be something interesting, the Commerce/energy interest thing is cool, and Hologram Theaters is nice for flavor. I'd be inclined to change a fair amount though, make it more realistic.

Edit: I have managed to open and look at all the NN factions except for:
; COLLECTIVE
; TECH
; REPLCNT
; GENESIS
; ELITE
; DARK
; ACTIVE
; mech
; PEACERES
; MARAUDERS
; PERFECT

which seemed to crash for me. And played games with quite a few of those which don't crash.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 24, 2013, 04:29:31 PM

Quote from: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 04:11:59 PM

That was one of the reason I asked about Chuft's Stephanie because I thought it would be something simular, till I actually loaded it and was turned off by cartoonish graphics and kiddie show references.

...But. But... 

It's funny!  chuft is da bomb!

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 06:02:52 PM

Quote from: ete on January 24, 2013, 04:28:03 PM

I played a game with a faction like that, I think it was called showbiz, let's see.. Got it.

(click to show/hide)

The Showbiz Enterprises, The Celebrity, Showbiz, M, 1, Titania, F, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1,
  TECH, IndEcon, FACILITY, 11, COMMERCE, 2, SOCIAL, +POLICE, SOCIAL, -PLANET, PENALTY, PLANET, INTEREST, 2
  Values, Wealth, ECONOMY
  Economics, Green, nil
  Showbiz, Showbiz

#BLURB
"Ah... that Showbiz!"
^
^        -- Fozzie Bear,
^           upon joining the Showbiz faction

#DATALINKS1
^LEADER: {Superstar Titania Crafter}
^BACKGROUND: {Holywood Movie Mission to film Planet, separate starship}
^AGENDA: {Making life on Planet more exciting}
^TECH: {Industrial Economics}
^

#DATALINKS2
^+1 POLICE: {Followers regulary brain-washed}
^-1 PLANET: {Not interested in the Planetmind}
^+2 COMMERCE: {bonus increases value of treaties, pacts, loans}
^PENALTY for other negative PLANET ratings
^Free HOLOGRAM THEATRES at each base: {Great movie industry}
^Interest rates of +2%: {Accumulates lots of wealth easily}
^{May not use Green Economics.}

This could also be something interesting, the Commerce/energy interest thing is cool, and Hologram Theaters is nice for flavor. I'd be inclined to change a fair amount though, make it more realistic.

Edit: I have managed to open and look at all the NN factions except for:
; COLLECTIVE
; TECH
; REPLCNT
; GENESIS
; ELITE
; DARK
; ACTIVE
; mech
; PEACERES
; MARAUDERS
; PERFECT

which seemed to crash for me. And played games with quite a few of those which don't crash.

You are not the lone ranger, ete. Many of those factions are not SMAX compliant, some have bad misspellings, and others have awful formatting. It makes me wonder if some of those kids back in the day actually played the creations before uploading. Network Node needed a content moderator to enforce standards.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 06:20:43 PM

Alright... did not get a chance to play with showbiz. I like some of the content, but do not like the delivery of this faction.

Quote

#DATALINKS1
^LEADER: {Superstar Titania Crafter}
^BACKGROUND: {Holywood Movie Mission to film Planet, separate starship}
^AGENDA: {Making life on Planet more exciting}
^TECH: {Industrial Economics}
^

#DATALINKS2
^+1 POLICE: {Followers regulary brain-washed}
^-1 PLANET: {Not interested in the Planetmind}
^+2 COMMERCE: {bonus increases value of treaties, pacts, loans}
^PENALTY for other negative PLANET ratings
^Free HOLOGRAM THEATRES at each base: {Great movie industry}
^Interest rates of +2%: {Accumulates lots of wealth easily}
^{May not use Green Economics.}

My suggestions.

- rename to something more fitting to AC universe
- Fozzie Bear audio blurb has no place
- increase POLICE to +2. We are talking a society with cameras everywhere.
- commerce is okay. planet is okay
- to offset commerce and for more immersion, -2 Efficiency penalty. Hollywood actresses would not be the most effecient rulers.
- +interest rates? I do not see how this fits faction concept.
- maybe +1 GROWTH. I could see a society where sex is glamorized.
- misspellings (holywood instead of Hollywood)

I will get to work on these changes. I also need to put this in game so I can make sure there is no silly .pcx.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 24, 2013, 06:35:04 PM

If you'd like to test things yourself that's fine, but I'd like to keep this co-ordinated and not jump ahead to changing a faction officially before we've even selected which one we're doing first. If you'd like to nominate that for our first that's cool, but as I edited into the OP let's not do specific suggestions for changes in this thread (though most of your are sane, but still. wait for the change suggestion thread.).

Edit: This is mostly to prevent there being loads of semi-official forks which only one or two people have checked, if we can get everyone's attention on one faction at a time (or a few overlapping ones) that'll ensure higher quality and more ideas. Also, prevents going off topic. This topic is just to get ideas about which factions we should work on, next will be a poll, then we'll work on the top one. Later on maybe streamline the process.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 06:59:17 PM

Sane..lol. That is a new one.

Yeah.. I did load it up and test it. The faction color is god-awful. However, the .pcxs all seem in order and not too ridiculous.It even has BU -approved scan lines. I would nominate it for the mere fact it is a legit idealology that Alpha Centauri is missing as long as it is altered accordingly.

However, the arguement could be made that in the 1990s widespread "reality" dramas were in thier infancy. Also does not explain what happened to Los Angelos and Hollywood if the United States moved to a fundy Christian state like most of the wargamers and roleplayers at the time thought it was. Remember, SMAX was made during the time DnD books were being burned and video games like DOOM were a sure path to a life of worshipping the devil and becoming a serial killer.

It would be nice to keep that flavor intact for any official recommended AC2 approved Network Node factions.

Any changes, though, I think we should still give credit in the .txt to the original designers. Maybe an "edited and adapted by xxx at Alpha Centauri2.info (2013)" in the credits, too if we decide to go that route instead of dumping it altogether.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 24, 2013, 07:04:46 PM

Yep, we'll definitely leave any original credits in there. I'm comfortable with making flavor changes which make factions more fitting for the AC universe (unless the factions were not really intended to be in the AC universe, like Star Wars factions or more jokey ones).

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 07:27:52 PM

Quote from: ete on January 24, 2013, 07:04:46 PM

Yep, we'll definitely leave any original credits in there. I'm comfortable with making flavor changes which make factions more fitting for the AC universe (unless the factions were not really intended to be in the AC universe, like Star Wars factions or more jokey ones).

Yeah. It is not in the Network Node, but there is a Star Trek faction that all the bases are just Enterprise saucer sections crashed into planet. Just silly.

I have seen various incarnations of the Borg including BU's OTHERBORG which is the superior effort and more representative of what the faction actually is. However, in playtesting, I found some things that put me off. For one thing, the Borg would never have treaties of friendship with anyone. If they were getting butt handed to them like in Star Trek: Voyager, they would truce but never back down from assimilation. They sure as hell would not be on a council with any votes.

I could see a "borg-like" progenitor -type faction, though. The borg were basically the over powered progs of the Next Generation  universe.

But enough about prog factions :) I just like the crossfire deal of "OMG! What am I going to do about these monsters!" gameplay occasionally.

Let me play through some more, and I will come with more nominations and downvotes.

I will say ANYTHING with the word "magic" in it automatically gets the boot. Get your fantasy RPG out of my sci-fi survivalist playground, thank you :)

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 24, 2013, 07:53:00 PM

Quote from: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 07:27:52 PM

Quote from: ete on January 24, 2013, 07:04:46 PM

Yep, we'll definitely leave any original credits in there. I'm comfortable with making flavor changes which make factions more fitting for the AC universe (unless the factions were not really intended to be in the AC universe, like Star Wars factions or more jokey ones).

Yeah. It is not in the Network Node, but there is a Star Trek faction that all the bases are just Enterprise saucer sections crashed into planet. Just silly.

Yo' momma.  That faction had Spartan bases before I did something about it.  You got a better idea?

(http://www.hickorychessclub.org/Custom22.gif)

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 08:02:03 PM

Yessindeed.

I am aware of the lack of competence you had to deal with sometimes and having to fix things over the ages.

I think if Picard was stranded on Planet for ages, they would have at least moved out of the decay of the saucer section, lol!

Maybe something that looked like San Fransisco Starfleet Academy.

Still, not knocking you too hard. It IS a joke/fan faction.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 24, 2013, 08:07:31 PM

;)

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 24, 2013, 08:11:16 PM

Quote from: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 07:27:52 PM

I will say ANYTHING with the word "magic" in it automatically gets the boot. Get your fantasy RPG out of my sci-fi survivalist playground, thank you :)

Eventually I suppose we'll balance all the factions, but personally I also won't be voting for magic factions without some brilliant mechanics twist for some time.

And, anyone else got nominations? I'd like to get the poll up asap (tonight ideally) and pick a faction tomorrow for people to debate over the weekend.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 08:17:59 PM

The five we got are an excellent start.

One of the things we will have to edit straight out regardless of if a faction is okay as-is is the faction color. that way these things play nicely with each other and the 14 canon factions

Unfortunately, I am not sure the specifics of how to do that. However, I do know I am in the right place to learn :)

Also, ete, have you run into a problem with the number of custom factions SMAX lets you load? After a certain number, it is either not displaying or not loading and I can not select those. I have to continuously edit alphax and delete some to make room for others.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 24, 2013, 08:32:10 PM

Quote from: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 08:17:59 PM

One of the things we will have to edit straight out regardless of if a faction is okay as-is is the faction color. that way these things play nicely with each other and the 14 canon factions

Unfortunately, I am not sure the specifics of how to do that. However, I do know I am in the right place to learn :)

Only if two have the same color exactly, and even then.. there's so many we're not going to be able to avoid conflicts. I'd say leave almost all of them the same.

Quote

Also, ete, have you run into a problem with the number of custom factions SMAX lets you load? After a certain number, it is either not displaying or not loading and I can not select those. I have to continuously edit alphax and delete some to make room for others.

Yea, I deal with it by having this:

(click to show/hide)

;
; AARDOM
; acol
; adve
; AGRI
; ANARCHY
; androgyn
; ANTIMIND
; ARTISAN
; ATLANTS
; BARD
; bree
; synth
; huxley
; CAF
; CCF
; FEDERATION
; CHILD
; ISIS
; DREAM
; DROID
; EMPATH
; exile
; FREELCE
; guar
; hell
; IMP
; ISHBU
; JEODDRA
; GEBAZZU
; GEM
; GENX
; mcs
; JURIDIC
; SEEK
; cons
; neoborg
; PATH
; phs
; plat
; RANGERS
; barb
; SAINTS
; Show
; slayers
; STRA
; TERRAN
; unicon
; SYNDCT
; van
; entr
; Yeer
; YPUNAG
; ### broken, will crash on load ###
; COLLECTIVE
; TECH
; REPLCNT
; GENESIS
; ELITE
; DARK
; ACTIVE
; mech
; PEACERES
; MARAUDERS
; PERFECT

#CUSTOMFACTIONS
DREAM
bree
FREELCE
BARD
guar
unicon
JURIDIC
RANGERS

You can have 8 in #CUSTOMFACTIONS at a time, just copy from the big list the ones you want.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 08:38:54 PM

Add: for the first batch, I DO strongly recommend one Prog faction. We are in Alien Crossfire regardless of SMAX haters :) Plus, there are not that many of them!

Of the three (unless I am missing some - many of the faction are unloadable or have post Win XP ACEdit format errors) there are  the Bree, The Manifold Seekers, and the Antimind.

The Bree have history to them. They were featured in a forgotten early community mod then adapted and changed throughout thier existance. Now, thier gimmick is they are some kind of genetic experiment combining humans and worms with some prog underpinnings.

The Manifold Seekers

The base looks like crap. The original Usurper Bases would be okay. There is a bug with them in diplomacy were words spill over into choices. I would have to reproduce this and screenshot it. Thier catch is they are religous zealot fundy Progs who worship planet. But, the "ancient tome" concept does not fly. Progs would not have books or tomes but thier equivalent of old datalinks. Grey colr for faction is okay. AI does not play them too well, but the two times I played them was with 4 prog factions which REALLY hurts progs.

The Antimind.

I can not say how badass these guys are. the only things I would change would be some of the wording in the diplomacy texts. "Ecodaft" may describe Diedre, but does not describe this horrible monster. Keep this OP!

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 24, 2013, 08:46:42 PM

There's quite a few other alien ones, off the top of my head.. mcs, GEBAZZU, and JEODDRA should be.

And, hm, I guess we could do them in batches. But probably max batchsize of three to avoid too much chaos? Still, doing a prog right away feels awkward to me, they.re not meant to be balanced the same way humans are. As you say, Antimind is designed to be waaaay overpowerd, making it balanced would kinda defeat the point. We could make a really toned down version for fair human use.. but it'd cut the heart out of the faction.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 24, 2013, 09:08:34 PM

Prog factions are not designed to be used by humans. For the original two, there is a storyline.
But, it is a SP storyline thing.

I can just see it: "Earthmicheal! I challenge you, T_ras, Kirov, funbot and others to a duel! I select Antimind!"
I would be laughed at.



But.. more than 3.

The ones we just named are a start.

I agree nothing insane like 10.

If we go that route - over any objections or AC2 folks chiming in on something else - we have:



Freelancer
Dreams of Earth
Gaurdians of Morality
Showbiz (I vote for rename/ total rework. Let me have my fun!)

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 24, 2013, 10:37:10 PM

hm... thinking more, it would be reasonable to make a version which is balanced for humans. there's nothing innately broken about progs. but that would require major changes. Even bringing antimind to Caretaker/Usurper level would require massive changes.

We want to do many, but I don't want to do loads at once. Let's figure this out and get plenty of input on each faction. Especially for the first one we're doing, it's important to not just get swept up in making changes individually. If these versions are to be accepted as valid, we've got to do them as a community, and right off the bat doing loads at once is not an easy thing for the community to join in with. One, maybe two, for the first round. We can add in more later, and later may be pretty shortly afterward (under a week perhaps), but I want to keep this vaguely co-ordinated and on track.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Kilkakon on January 25, 2013, 02:17:02 AM

If Antimind gets some tweaking, I made a few extra base names in my personal copy, if anybody wants me to throw those up.

Tech Triade is another Prog one.

I've always liked a few factions from the set, but I'm happy to update them myself... Well I sorta started, but then got busy... I can post what I did in another thread if people like. I've liked the Neveral Order (I weakened him slightly as he was a bit strong), the Children's Alliance (perhaps an experiement to see if plural leaders can be done properly in script.txt).

I was going to make a faction set with 7 factions in it, some from NN and some community ones, but once again, there's only so many hours in the day, haha.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 25, 2013, 02:31:16 AM

I just thought of something scary. What if each antimind base functioned like a Fungal Tower popping off mindworms depending on how much fungus is around it. I know... six flavors of can not be done, but still.

Evil....evil...

Speaking of which while we wait to hopefully lure these lurkers to chime in (I was a LURKER too.. come to the light!), I am fixing to find 6 prog factions and put Morgan right in the middle of them since I have nothing but time to hang on forums and work on spreadsheets with ete.

I should be crushed easily.

I need a break from spreadsheets...lol.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 25, 2013, 02:41:33 AM

@Kilkakon: When the wiki's running we'll store copies of the text files on subpages. There'll have to be quite strict rules about editing factions outside o the balancing project to avoid too much forking, but adding basenames will be encouraged. Other tweaks should wait for community balancing, but feel free to nominate ones you'd like to see have some attention!

And weeeee spreadsheets. I've got a few sketches of formulas worked out, but need those SE values to move on really.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 25, 2013, 03:12:40 AM

lol...  I will tag along to make sure the common man can get past all these regs too without needing a beer. Not to say beer is a bad thing or that spreadsheets are either.

You are stuck with me, ete.

I have a gift that turns spreadsheets into cohesive text.

But yeah, Kilk and Ete. Network Node suffered from lax standards.

It contributed to Buster's hidden inner nerd rage.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 25, 2013, 03:17:20 AM

It sounds worse than it'll be. I'm mostly trying to avoid it turning into a free-for-all, or a situation where one person just makes changes to the factions without any input from others :p. It's not just faction balancing, it's community faction balancing. Rather than it being a few people's edits to the NN factions done chaotically, it's carefully improved with everyone watching and having their say before we decide.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: Green1 on January 25, 2013, 04:59:30 PM

Quote from: ete on January 24, 2013, 08:46:42 PM

There's quite a few other alien ones, off the top of my head.. mcs, GEBAZZU, and JEODDRA should be.

While they are alien in flavor, JEODDRA and GEBAZZU are not pure prog factions. They have votes in the council and have human type bonus structures.

I did not think I was missing anything.

I had fired up what I was hoping would be a Morgan vs 6 Progenitor pain train. I was disappointed.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 25, 2013, 05:03:44 PM

ops, sorry, I'd not actually played them just looked at their info. mcs should be prog though.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 25, 2013, 09:59:20 PM

Ok, let's make this a poll. Please order the nominated factions from most to least wanted (you don't have to include all of them). I'll do an instant runoff poll ending tomorrow or the day after and we'll start on the winner right away, then add those in second and third place with a few days between them. Then we'll review the process.

Factions:
Freelancers, Dreams of Earth, Guardians of Morality, The Showbiz Enterprises, The Antimind

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Nominations
Post by: ete on January 25, 2013, 10:08:19 PM

1. Guardians of Morality
Interesting and different flavor, and a playstyle which encourages a set of tactics I'm not usually accustomed to.

2. Dreams of Earth
Distinct flavor, strongly encourages a style of play (heavy forest, free market, peace).

3. Freelancers
Free HQ everywhere is very cool, decent flavor concept.

4. The Showbiz Enterprises
Could become good flavor with some tweaks, definitely potential but nothing draws me to them like the others.

5. The Antimind
"Community custom faction balancing" - Balance and the Antimind are not very compatible. Let's pick something a bit easier first off.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: Green1 on January 26, 2013, 01:34:26 AM

The Antimind scoffs in the face of your "balance" as he eats Marr for lunch once again, this time with a side of Diedre salad. Poor Marr, my last 5 matches.

I say leave Antimind as is, but tell people what it is. It is beatable. But it is meant to be a monster. A horror even Progs have nightmares about.

It has now, of all the NN factions, earned a permanent place in my alphax.txt and in my heart. May not be everyone else's style.

I think the world would be a better place if more people could follow in Antimind's footsteps (if the thing even has feet).

I have no problem with going with your suggestions if you are determined about just three. Showbiz was not so much a tweak as me wishing for an ideology I do not think is represented. I would have to murder the faction and strip it for art. Then, why would I want a NN faction when i could make my own?

I conceed with your choices.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: Kilkakon on January 26, 2013, 09:23:21 AM

Yeah agreed. :) I think any Antimind tweaks should just be fixing up any spelling mistakes, adding a few cities names, etc. He's awesome as is, and the only way to make him fair is to really cut down his bonuses.

I like the choices. I must admit I don't particularily like the graphics for Freelancers or Dreams of Earth, but hey. I do like the work that's gone into Guardians of Morality though, especially the voice having the right accent for a believable preacher type.

I will say that Dreams of Earth seem a little strong--Hybrid Forests come with a lot of bonuses and I don't know if the disadvantages counter that effectively. One of the factions I had in LE was similar, and I had to cut him out eventually. Still, if people think that'll work, then hey. :) As it stands, the faction would be good on the offence and defence, due to the morale bonus and high production from forests.

As far as choices go, I'm happy with the three you've picked.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: Darsnan on January 26, 2013, 11:51:26 AM

An aquatic Cha Dawn: Having watched the various AI(s) play, the first thing they do with their initial CPs in MY2101 is pop pods if there is one adjacent. This is OK for the other factions, as between MY2101 - MY2105 if the CP has to battle a worm from a bad pod-pop, then (even if the CP is in fungus) it will survive the MW attack. However Cha Dawn doesn't arrive till MY2107, and if there is a pod next to his starting CPs, he will use the CPs to pop the pod, which if it ends up being a worm, Cha will lose the CP. This is very devastating for any faction to lose an initial CP, but for the production-starved Cha it is catastrophic, and is one of the main reasons he plays so poorly (i.e. an extremely retarded start).
What I have done in the past to counter this is to aquatize Cha. Then if there is a pod adjacent to his starting location, if its a bad pod-pop then there is a chance the Sea Colony Pod will be able to escape, or that the initial starting military unit (you can replace the MW with an IoD) can come to the rescue, or snag the wild NL. The other benefit for the AI in an aquatized environment is the increased nutrients and minerals: the AI (especially on higher difficulty settings) can really put to use the +2 sea nutrients, and can use this to neatly compensate for the industrial penalty. A human playing an aquatized Cha Dawn would have to contend with additional drones from the nutrient rich environment, so would not receive as muich benefit from the additional minerals.

D
 

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: ete on January 26, 2013, 01:18:26 PM

Darsnan: Is that a nomination? Because we're working on custom factions here, mostly NetworkNode ones. Maybe there'll be some faction creation projects later and we could make something along those lines?

Green/Kilka: Glad you guys are ok with the choices, if there's no objections I'll probably close the poll this evening and we can start on the actual balancing.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: Darsnan on January 26, 2013, 01:40:58 PM

Quote from: ete on January 26, 2013, 01:18:26 PM

Darsnan: Is that a nomination? Because we're working on custom factions here, mostly NetworkNode ones. Maybe there'll be some faction creation projects later and we could make something along those lines?

Thats up to you. It can always be brought up later in a different thread (all I did was cut and paste the above text from another thread where it was discussed how to improve Cha Dawn, anyways). Here were the leaderhead graphics and faction description (Buncle did the graqhics for this one):

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: ete on January 26, 2013, 02:46:49 PM

Ah, right. If it's a custom faction (even based on an official) we could definitely work on it as part of this project. I should get around to downloading all the other factions people've made.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: BFG on January 27, 2013, 12:34:20 AM

Aren't you guys forgetting the 15th stock faction - Firaxis?

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: Green1 on January 27, 2013, 01:00:11 AM

Quote from: BFG on January 27, 2013, 12:34:20 AM

Aren't you guys forgetting the 15th stock faction - Firaxis?

Joke/fan factions are not considered in this iteration.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: Earthmichael on January 27, 2013, 07:02:24 AM

I had an idea for a faction that I posted somewhere eons ago.  Problem is, I don't know if the game programming could actually handle such a faction.

EXTREMISTS:
+2 Efficiency; -2 Growth.
Starting technology: Planetary Networks.
One extra drone for each 4 citizens.
Aversion: Free Market

All SE values from society choices, both positive and negative, are doubled.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: ete on January 27, 2013, 12:44:22 PM

@BFG: That's included officially, so not a custom faction. Plus Singularity at the start is.. really unstable. Get hit by probesteal once and your only advantage is gone, far from imbalanced I would imagine under most circumstances.

Earthmichael: I don't see any way to implement that without assembly changes, and this project is not about creating new ones, just running some quality control on existing custom factions. We'll probably have some faction creation stuff once my text file creator is working (which will be a while, it's below faction ranking formula and wiki in my priorities).

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: BFG on January 27, 2013, 02:36:53 PM

Quote from: ete on January 27, 2013, 12:44:22 PM

@BFG: That's included officially, so not a custom faction. Plus Singularity at the start is.. really unstable. Get hit by probesteal once and your only advantage is gone, far from imbalanced I would imagine under most circumstances.

Whoa...I didn't realize they got Singularity at the start.  I never actually use 'em.  Forget I asked!

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: JarlWolf on August 20, 2013, 12:52:51 PM

Hrm. Not sure whether to give "balanced" versions of my factions... though I fear they may lose character then... hrm.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: Sigma on August 20, 2013, 01:28:00 PM

All of the factions that I've been designing in my main set are meant to be roughly balanced against the original 14. Whether they actually are is really up to testing.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: ete on August 20, 2013, 02:39:16 PM

@JarlWolf: The originals will still exist, and I'm pretty sure it's possible to balance them while retaining almost all of the original core playstyle.

@Sigma: Just having a fresh look at your factions, giving my thoughts:

Leviathan Body: Looks reasonable to me, main penalty is having a really hard time running market, and no police. But boosted offense and immunity to MC are very good long lasting combat advantages, so it's probably okay.

Sons of Advent: Still quite Cha-y, a bit weaker with initial wormrush, but more stable thanks to fungmins. Fanatic and being able to run Fundy is cool, reasonably strong rusher, poor builder. Maybe a little on the weak side. Dropping -1 Econ is possible, they still don't get +1 eng/square without a GA, it would have only a minor effect on energy production otherwise but let them Wealth/GA for +1 eng/square if they wanted.

House Satori: Possibly either great or terrible, mostly depending on whether they get good trading partners or warlike neighbors. Will have to test exactly how big a deal the interest is. Can't fight a conventional war for a long time, liable to getting rushed, but no economic disadvantages other than having to pay for former support.

Genome Syndicate: Slowish start due to growth, but partly counteracted by free rec tanks. Morale and Bio are handy. Probably balanced due to slowish start, though making bio labs only available with their preq tech is an option if their bases are too well equipped at the start, which is possble.

Colonial Authority: Hurry cost is going to be annoying. Boosted def and a larger army due to support.. probably fairly balanced, not a great builder but has enough with cheap former support and easy drone control to mostly offset research and hurry issues. Could rush reasonably with early rovers and support.

Apollo Industries: hmm.. Maybe a bit too strong a builder here. Two very good buildy bonuses (+1 Indust and 85% Hurry) which work excellently together (if you're rush buying after the first line, for each unit or facility a standard faction makes these guys make roughly 1.3, which is a Big Deal) plus a couple of helpful ones (good starting tech, free crawler for fast start), with mostly just drone issues to offset it. I'm not a fan of using primarily drone problems to balance a faction because as a human.. you can get around them. It's annoying and a bit of micromanagement, not a major weakness. Effic is also there, but small enough penalty to not make a big dent most likely? Should probably test it before making any changes, but possibly make Effic -2? That makes it very hard for them to run Planned at least.. but would maybe cripple them later on with Green disallowed. Or add another penalty?

Technocrat Foundation: I really like this faction. Variety of strategy given by the Robust Effic so you can run PS/Planned for war, but you'd lose out on the effic bonus. It's probably quite similar power to the Uni, Drone and Probe problems against Morale and smaller bases, but has its own twist. Probably close to the best official factions, but I think probably not quite overpowered.


In summary: I'd put Apollo and Genome under the microscope for testing, try out Satori in a few situations (lots of trading partners, few trading partners, isolated, early war), and like to see how the Technos deal with war (is their Morale bonus enough to stop them rushing well under PS/Planned). And maybe give the Sons of Advent a minor buff.

I think I'd be happy with having most of them played against me in MP.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: Sigma on August 20, 2013, 02:50:03 PM

Thanks for the breakdown ete! I agree that the Technocrats are probably the best conceived (they were the first ones I thought up) and Satori being a potential powder keg. Tweaking Apollo is a definite option, as I'm sure I underestimated how powerful their bonuses are. How often do AIs Hurry production anyway?

For the Sons of the Advent, maybe keeping -Econ but dropping -Industry? That way they're more capable of building more physical units to supplement their worm forces?

Once I have the graphics done I'm going to start testing them in earnest, maybe using a few AARs to showcase them.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: ete on August 20, 2013, 03:00:58 PM

Dropping the - Industry would be a much bigger buff to the faction, - Econ is not a huge deal most of the time (-1 Energy per turn from HQ, Wealth becomes a poor option, and midgame it stops GA/Wealth +1 eng/square), - Industry makes everything they build 10% more expensive. Without the Indust drop maybe they'd be too good at rushing, and they'd actually be not terrible builders (still no +1 eng/square, but they've probably got too many combat advantages for that to be their only disadvantage).

Not sure how much AIs hurry, though they don't have much else to spend on. I think they switch production a lot.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: Sigma on August 20, 2013, 06:11:35 PM

Hey, what if I replaced Satori's +2 Probe with a 75% Probecost instead? That way they are incentivized to use Probes rather than just protected from them.

Title: Re: Community custom faction balancing - Poll
Post by: ete on August 20, 2013, 06:25:34 PM

Makes them much more offensive probe users and drops their probe defense, which is maybe a bit more fitting?