Oceanic Pack - 7 Aquatic factions [input requested]

[Sigma]

Yep, that's even better.

Also, running an AI only game with all three+Pirates/Yang/Usurper. The Covenant have an awesome start, nerve gas lets them rush brilliantly, but they kind of fall apart later on. Seasteaders have a horrible start, lose like five sea cps to the nrx, but are currently leading. Everyone hates the Covenant (nerve gas) and Yang (nuked the covenant HQ). The UN Charter got repealed, and King Colton nuked the Usurper's HQ and destroyed Mt Planet along with most of the Usurper core continent. Usurpers had been basically tied for first with nrx until then, but they're dropping back now. Seasteaders are still rising, perhaps they need some penalty that only matters lategame? Anything that hurts them a lot early may be too much for their already weakish start.

Are the Seasteaders performing as expected, i.e. major city sprawl to compensate for their population cap?

Sounds like most games with these people tend to dissolve into total chaos, which is kind of awesome.

As for the Monarchs, if we want to make the King Greek, here are some suggestions:

FIRST NAMES
Konstantinos
Kriton
Ioannis
Stavros
Petros

SURNAMES
Agrippa
Apostolos
Xarchakos
Arsenis

I kind of think "King Kriton Agrippa I" has a nice ring to it.

[ete]

Perhaps a substantial RESEARCH penalty, but bonus research per base.  So early game when each base produces only a small amount of research, they have a teching advantage, but later on they have a disadvantage.  It even fits well thematically with a loosely organized semi-anarchic society and encourages lots of bases regardless of EFFIC considerations.

That.. is actually pretty brilliant. Each base they have is another social and technological experiment, so the more they have the better they do, but at the same time co-ordinating and integrating that is not easy. Will need to be carefully tuned&tested, but I like it a lot. May also need some other economic penalty to reduce their huge surplus of energy.. but running close to the 8 limit already.

Are the Seasteaders performing as expected, i.e. major city sprawl to compensate for their population cap?

Sounds like most games with these people tend to dissolve into total chaos, which is kind of awesome.

Yep. They got a bit stunted this game by starting too close to aggressive neoreactionaries and losing a load of cps, but once they had a chance they ballooned into loads of bases.

As for the Monarchs, if we want to make the King Greek, here are some suggestions:

FIRST NAMES
Konstantinos
Kriton
Ioannis
Stavros
Petros

SURNAMES
Agrippa
Apostolos
Xarchakos
Arsenis

I kind of think "King Kriton Agrippa I" has a nice ring to it.

Okay, that sounds good to me too, changed.


Made an alpha version of the Pragmatist Order, which is at least a better name than green builders, so it can be tested alongside the others. Suggestions for art and everything else appreciated.

The Pragmatist Order, The Pragmatist, Pragmatist, M, 1, Helen, F, -1, 0, 0, 1, 1,
  TECH, CentMed, TECH, DocFlex, PSI, 25, FREEFAC, 34, FUNGMIN, 2, SOCIAL, +INDUSTRY, OFFENSE, 50, DEFENSE, 75, AQUATIC, 0
  Economics, Planned, INDUSTRY
  Economics, Green, nil

Giving them a good array of bonuses to start with, may need nerfing but I'm not sure how crippling the conventional combat penalties will turn out to be.

[ete]

We've also still got two entirely free slots for factions. No aliens so far, so we could change that. afaik there's only two aquatic alien factions Procyon (massive growth+energy) and Bree (fungmin/fungnut, native, but bad research).

Or something else? Maybe that trader faction, even if it's a bit dull? I wonder what happens when you give a sea unit drop pods.. or finally use the Heavy Transport ability for someone? Or start from ideology? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_ideologies has a ton of ideas.

[Sigma]

We've also still got two entirely free slots for factions. No aliens so far, so we could change that. afaik there's only two aquatic alien factions Procyon (massive growth+energy) and Bree (fungmin/fungnut, native, but bad research).

Or something else? Maybe that trader faction, even if it's a bit dull? I wonder what happens when you give a sea unit drop pods.. or finally use the Heavy Transport ability for someone?

Heavy Transport is absolutely the way to go for Traders. Their leader can be Chinese and take inspiration from Cheng Ho.

Did you post a test .txt for the Armada somewhere? If not I'll whip it up.

[ete]

Heavy Transport will work well, yea. Maybe Carrier Deck & Repair Bay too? Make them love transports. I did not yet, though there's an outline I've been editing in the second post. They were the ones I was least sure of my vision for the faction after the Covenant, you're welcome to put some flavor into it if you like.

[Sigma]

Can do. I've got some ideas that we can implement.

[Sigma]

Aramada test file attached.

(click to show/hide)

#BLURB
In the beginning, it is enough that we survive, that we claim each breath of clean
air and each swallow of potable water as a victory against an ecosystem bent on
expelling mankind from its sphere. We will build ships and train soldiers, and they
will gaurd the seeds of a second Earth which we will cultivate. We will grow a garden
walled with fire, anchored in the sea and soil of Planet by iron roots.
 ^
 ^        —Admiral Jovelyn Reyes,
 ^           “Lament of a Lost Earth"

#DATALINKS1
^LEADER: {Admiral Jovelyn Reyes}
^BACKGROUND: {Republic of the Philippines, Unity Marine Ecologist}
^AGENDA: {Ecological Transformation}
^TECH: {Centauri Ecology, Doctrine: Flexibility}
^

#DATALINKS2
^+1 SUPPORT: {Focused on naval expansion}
^-1 PLANET: {Intent on transforming Planet's ecosystem}
^Free Sea Formers at Planetfall
^Formers Gain Fungicide Tanks with discovery of Synthetic Fossil Fuels
^Free Naval Yard with discovery of Doctrine:Initiative
^{May not use Green Economics}

[ete]

Cool.

Let's sketch out the Merchants.. There's a name conflict with both Merchants http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Morgan_Merchants and Traders http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Planet_Freight though we could rename the text file of Planet Freight easily enough.

Bonuses:
Abilities: Heavy Transport, Repair Bay, Carrier Deck (?)
Commerce bonus?
Small energy interest?
+1 Support ?
Maaybe +Economy, but then we need some hefty penalties.


Penalties:
Penalty: Green (?) - They're not against it, but it costs them more due to heavy fuel requirements?
Not sure what else here.. ideas welcome.


If we had faction specific custom units I'd give them an awesome souped up transport with loads of extra abilities (clean reactor, the psi ones, deep pressure hull, antigrav struts, dissociative wave, high morale, polymorphic encryption) rather than the three transport-only abilities, but we can switch over to that when the virtual technologies change happens. I'm not sure about penalties, or specific other bonuses, and they feel kinda bland currently.


Armada looks good. Well characterised in the quote. I'll run another sim with all five factions we have ready for testing.

[Sigma]

Cool.

Let's sketch out the Merchants.. There's a name conflict with both Merchants http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Morgan_Merchants and Traders http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Planet_Freight though we could rename the text file of Planet Freight easily enough.

Bonuses:
Abilities: Heavy Transport, Repair Bay, Carrier Deck (?)
Commerce bonus?
Small energy interest?
+1 Support ?
Maaybe +Economy, but then we need some hefty penalties.


Penalties:
Penalty: Green (?) - They're not against it, but it costs them more due to heavy fuel requirements?
Not sure what else here.. ideas welcome.


If we had faction specific custom units I'd give them an awesome souped up transport with loads of extra abilities (clean reactor, the psi ones, deep pressure hull, antigrav struts, dissociative wave, high morale, polymorphic encryption) rather than the three transport-only abilities, but we can switch over to that when the virtual technologies change happens. I'm not sure about penalties, or specific other bonuses, and they feel kinda bland currently.


Armada looks good. Well characterised in the quote. I'll run another sim with all five factions we have ready for testing.

So far we have two factions with Aversion: Green (The Armada and the Pragmatists), and I think we can take a page from Morgan and give them Aversion: Planned.

I say +Economy, -Growth, and with their Aversion to Planned they have a very limited ability to improve their prospects in that area. +Commerce fits as well. Maybe give them -Probe to round out their social weaknesses.

Character wise, if they are Traders then we can describe them as basically spending most of their lives on ships, hence the low Growth rate. This ultimately makes them prone to infiltration as well, since by necessity they have to have a fairly open boarder system to facilitate their trading. Thus they can be capable of gathering huge amounts of wealth, but in turn they can wind up as Credit and Tech pinatas for other factions.

[ete]

hmm, yep, all seem like reasonable suggestions. I think perhaps at sea with the overabundance of nutrients growth penalties & lack of Planned are less of an issue than they would be on land though, so maybe they'll need more of a downside to counteract that +1 Econ? -2 probe would be an option?


I ran another test game, the armada took an early lead, though Seasteaders again rule the late game. Will try Yitzi's suggestion.

Edit: Alpha version of traders ready, running another test, and dropping Seasteaders pop by 1.

[Sigma]

Some alternate names for the Pragmatists:

-Neptune Harvesters (since they specifically make use of the xenofungus for their construction purposes)
-Praxis Society (Praxis being the use of theory for practical application)
-Nereus Order (Nereus is the Old Man of the Sea in Greek Mythology and the father of the Nereids, sea nymphs)
-Proteus Order (Proteus is another Sea God, who represents the every changing nature of the sea and water)

Proteus Order is an interesting one because it gives the adjective Protean, which means Versatile, Mutable, Flexible, Capable of assuming any form.

[Buster's Uncle]

I AM keeping up with this, BTW - just having a low-energy day about anything that requires much concentration, like commenting intelligently on all this.

[ete]

All good suggestions.. what do you think of recombining to Praxis Harvesters?

Test game is going well, picking up a few minor bugs with the factions and fixing. This time the Seasteaders got stuck on two bases for some reason. Pragmatists are winning, but not by a huge margin. Traders are close with them, and Pirates are only a little behind. Pragmatists basically get to use fungus as forests after cent eco, which is.. useful and cool, but I think not gamebreaking. They've lost a lot of units due to their normal combat being terrible.

@BU: Okay, noted.

[Sigma]

Are the building native units like we want them to?

I like referencing Proteus and Nereus because it identifies them (in somewhat obtuse terms) as an aquatic faction more than Praxis Harvesters. What do you think?

[ete]

Yes, they built 15 IoDs (5 dead). They're still making a fair number of conventionals.. but enough native to live by. Maybe upping the Psi bonus would be worthwhile, see if the AI responds to that.

hmm.. my main hesitance is we've already got one somewhat obscure god in the name of a faction, two seems a bit repetitive? I also quite like Harvesters, and Praxis gets across their core philosophy very well. And unlike the Triton Monarchy, I can't really see these guys looking back to ancient myths to decide their faction name.

Edit: Sigma, fancy popping by irc sometime in the next hour or so? http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?spage=Chat say ete in the channel to ping me.

Edit2: Combat penalties apply to Psi combat. That's why they're losing so many IoDs. Okay, new plan, Support and Morale as well as smaller combat penalties and a larger Psi bonus?