Faction ranking

[Maniac]

Bureaucracy drones don't get worse under values lower than -2 Efficiency. So yeah, he'd get more bureaucracy drones than a FM ICSer, but still just as much, or less, (depending on his own economics SE) than a Planned ICSer.

[JarlWolf]

These are my takes on the factions and their overall strength and so forth, in terms of AI. In terms of playing, we all have our different styles, but I will state my grasp of them. The numbering is not in any particular order and is not a ranking of them.

1. Gaians: I find them to not be too much of a threat, they often have fairly decent sized territories and have a fair amount of population behind them, making them either a significant pain or a great ally on the council, but they are lacking in war. Mind worms can do damage if you know how to use them. For some reason, the Gaian AI doesn't.
In terms of actually playing, Gaians can be a monstrous power, using mind worms and ecological improvements or focus (blind research or not) will increase their mobility and overall strength, making them great for quick strikes and guerrilla tactics.

2.Hive: A faction with expansive population and I find is quite belligerent. The Hive is often lacking in technology for some reason I find, or at least in weaponry, but they have a fair amount of numbers to compensate and they often take valuable territory from you by merely expanding. Fighting a war against them is wearisome if you do not produce a large military force able to take hold of, and capture the Hive's cities. Cities that just taking seem to be difficult, even if you constantly bombard or sabotage.  As for playing the Hive, the Hive can be a juggernaught of a faction, using expansion to rule the day with encircling and starving your opponents out, fighting a war of attrition. Then again I tend to be an attrition fighter to begin with.

3. The University: The university tends to have decent technology, but for some reason isn't always the most advanced. The University also lacks production I find that doesn't help them secure secret projects. However they do create a rather formidable faction in their own right, utilizing air power when they get it, and the tend to have decently size territory and a fair amount of population. They are easy to attack and take over, though they are a useful ally if you befriend them, of which I often do. The University is fun to play and I find centralizing them as opposed to rampant expansion is the best way to go, maximizing mineral and energy output to have a large energy economy to help increase rate of discovery, winning by transcendence or by merely being ahead of your opponents in the arms race. And to defend against probes, just have units patrolling outside to intercept the backstabbing snakes before they get inside.

4. Morgan: Morgan is probably one of the most charismatic leaders in my opinion with the books. And for some odd reason, this hard lining capitalist generates a soft spot from me, a die hard communist. However in terms of actual game play Morgan is not very strong, but he is not exactly pushover either. The problem with Morgan's AI I find is that it does not expand very fast and it seems for some reason to always be behind in the arms race.  And oddly enough though it makes up for this strange deficit by just producing lots of units, utilizing it's energy and mineral bonuses no doubt to crank out units. Morgan tends to be a fair opponent in battle, and he can be a useful ally in terms of trade and the odd tech swapping. As for playing, Morgan and his faction can easily become overpowered and the leading force in technological development. The energy boon Morgan gets can easily secure secret projects and generally the rule of thumb is with research, the more wealth your faction produces, the more it can spend on research and thus faster rate of discovery. Combine this with a variety and plethora of cheap tactics the Morganites can become a mighty force indeed.

5. Believers: Miriam tends to be a little self righteous in my books, at least in terms of her faction. She is often compulsive and extremely aggressive, and has lots of problems regarding social policies. She is a dangerous enemy, and while she may lack technology for a fair while her probe teams and trade with other factions (if she does even trade) can make up the difference. The Believers are not to be taken lightly I find as they often conquer and decimate other factions and generally if I start next to them I eradicate and kill every single one of them. I show no mercy and I do not let them grow, as I know they will just stifle my growth and kill me if I don't.
The Believers are a worthy opponent, but a chaotic and somewhat unsettling ally. I rarely have good relations with them.
In terms of playing, I haven't played the Believers too much, but on contrary to what most people seemed to have I have played them occasionally. The Believers have an interesting playing style of reap and sow, climb and conquer as I call it. You expand and use the expansive, hardy population of your faction to produce units, probe teams and then you proceed to war on other factions. Seiging your opponents cities, slipping in probes you overcome your technological disparity through war.  I always find I am a war mongerer as I play Miriam's faction, and it is built well for it.

6. Spartans: Colonel Santiago and her faction of militarists have always annoyed me for some reason. As a military man I am not sure the interpretation of the militarists was done on purpose to be a paranoid bunch of border zealots or they were to represent a more nationalist faction that has issues of xenophobia in the first place. Either way Santiago typically is a thorn in my side if I do not crush her immediately, I regret it later when she is slipping units into my flanks and being a general discomfort. She puts up a fight, but her military efforts for some reason do not translate well with her being an ally. I often find her to be an untrustworthy, backstabbing traitor who will use excuses to break her alliance with you once you become too powerful or if you are at a vulnerable position. Usually I just butcher her and her followers. As Genghis Khan believed, as do I. Traitors, no matter who's banner they switch to are not to be trusted, and must be dealt with accordingly. Without trust, and with severe punishment. And thus I put Santiago's head on a pike for that. I myself do not deal with traitors kindly, and I do not hide my true feelings towards the subject. If I put traitors down back in my service days I will do so again, just this time in a game, to ensure safety and security.

As for playing her, she is a little bit more redeeming. Her faction is fairly interesting to play as, and contrary to war mongering, as she often as problems with supplying her forces due to mineral costs, playing a cautious and calculated war of logistics, and choosing your enemies wisely is your best bet. Her technology rate goes over smoothly and the Spartans, if played as proper militarists should, are organized and can inflict damage upon their enemies. - I would like this faction more if it wasn't for the hypocritical praise of Loyalty that this faction inspires, and fails to deliver. And traitors are not something I have sympathy with.

7. PeaceKeepers: As much as I hate the modern U.N and bureaucracy in general, and my general disfavour of democratic politics and their weakness to the control of the wealthy, I have considerable degree's of respect for Lal and I find his faction can be, while not a very strong ally, a very loyal ally. The Peacekeepers tend to be behind in the arms race a little and I find they are often beating and broken down by other factions and often quite savagely. Its for this reason why Lal somewhat reminds me of General Dolaire, the man who was in charge of the U.N at Rwanda. Dolaire being a man who in my eyes was betrayed by his own organization. Fighting Lal seems to be rather easy, unless he is built up. He can secure council votes and if he has had chance to build, secure projects, but he rarely gets a chance to peacefully expand without one of the factions brutalizing him. Unless I am playing a particular faction, for some odd reason I am often playing Big Brother to Lal diplomatically.

Playing the Peacekeepers is rather different then what is described AI Wise. The Peacekeepers have some rather nice bonuses, the extra talents proving their worth when combined with base upgrades and secret projects. The peacekeepers are great at expanding and building I find, their population and talents providing good economic bonuses, and their political advantage at the council is also a nice side touch. Playing the peacekeepers for me often ascribes to their name, being a peacekeeper. I do not often jump into conflicts with them unless I am forced to, and it's mainly only if there is small marauders or a large threat attacking me directly.

8. The CareTakers: H'minee is an odd one to me. I find her quite aggressive, as are the Usurpers, but she can be a somewhat useful ally, just do not trust her(regardless of faction). As an enemy I find she can be a pain to fight and combining fairly good technology, defencive bonuses and planet bonuses she can be a mixture of an annoying pest to a serious threat. I often keep my distance, and if that is not possible, enter a cautious treaty with her and wait for her to invade me, so I can grind down her forces with attrition and then take the fight to her home, ravaging her in the process.

I barely play the Alien factions, and even then I mainly play the Usurpers, but H'minee is sort of like Diedre on steroids. She has planet bonuses but is not a hippy pacifist faction that has penalties during war.

9. The Usurpers: The Usurpers are a belligerent, treacherous faction. While not exactly a total backstabber, Marr is never to be trusted. However due to this reputation of being a war mongerer the Usurpers have less friends then the Caretakers, and he is often weaker just for the fact all the other factions often hate him. He can be a somewhat useful ally provided you are stronger then him, but I personally find it is not worth it and I often just put his head on a pike whenever I get the chance. He is no friend of mine and I am no friend of his and we both know it. A rather worthy opponent in combat, Marr is fun to play with in game.
As for playing him, the Usurpers are fun to play as if you want a challenge. And yes, I am aware their bonuses give them an almost overpowered edge, but the reason I say challenge is because they do not generate friends, and you play as the conqueror through and through. You are constantly in a war of survival and it's a do or die faction in my eyes.

10. The Free Drones: One of my favourite factions both ideologically and gameplay wise. And I often play as them, but here is the funny bit; I actually don't quite know how they act in game. From what I have seen in the past they seem to be behind big time in the arms race but can secure projects fairly well and they are good economic allies, and a bit of an tiring enemy if you lack good defencive lines. Playing the Drones, which I am more accustomed to is fun to say at the very least, and it fits my style well. Using industry and such to pump out units and holding the line, bombarding and fighting a war of attrition on my opponent. The Drones make a formidable faction and they are certainly a top tier one.

11. Cha Dawn: Cha Dawn is an odd faction. And looks deceptively weak. However, they can be a rather threatening war mongerer, and are deadly if encountered early on. As for alliances, I entered alliances with Cha Dawn quite rarely due to my usual playstyle and industrial ambitions, but if you play a planet friendly faction he tends to be a supportive military ally. They fight well early on, but as time passes they tend to lose their strength as other factions eclipse them, and eventually butcher them. I often don't have to kill Cha Dawn and his followers as other factions often do it before I do.

I have barely played Cha Dawn and his faction, but basically I find they are ironically like the Drones, just with a few key differences.
They have terrible research, and they cannot bolster this research with industry like the Drones because they have penalties for that as well, and they rely on planetary life as opposed to machinery and good old fashioned soldiers to do a war of attrition. The best strategy I find with them is expand their populations and make many cities and honestly, just spam mind worms, spore launchers and take territory as fast as you can.

12. Cybernetic Consciousness: Aki Zeta leads an interesting faction that can be a useful ally, and a poor enemy. I often find Aki Zeta to be easily crushed as they have low populations to begin with, and my hammer and anvil tactics of attrition seem to devastate them. However, as an ally they are a good tech trading partner and can offer a little support to you on the frontlines, and they have good technological development overall.

Playing them on the contrary, while the AI doesn't expand very fast, I find being expansive with them is better. The more population they can muster the better, however I do not enter war frequently as them and I tend to avoid it as playing them unless I have a clear edge over my opponents. They are probably one of my most peaceful builder type factions I play.

13. Data Angels: I love jazz, I find Roze to have a fun and interesting personality (and she isn't hard on the eyes to boot) so immediately I like this faction. Being a rather useful, if somewhat weak ally they can provide good tech trading, and while they may not be very advanced while on their own, and alone, if you drag them into the front line with you they prove their worth. Providing them opportunity to snatch technology and reverse engineer things, they become your technical savants you turn to.
Fighting them for me is little more then a joke, and I often avoid it as to how pointless the outcome is. They have small territories that can be easily crushed, and they do not have the resources to capture or get past my lines. I suppose if you were someone with expansive territory and poor security you could have a serious problem, but they are often a weak opponent for me, and more useful to me alive and well.
Playing as Roze offers a unique challenge you won't really get with anyone else besides perhaps Cha Dawn or Miriam, and their probe strategies aren't as entertaining. Roze plays an interesting guerrilla warfare tactic, using probe raiders in small, fortified positions, sabotaging and pilfering technology and draining your opponent, eventually using an ally or breaking down your enemy so much you can capture them. I find expanding too fast with them is not a good idea, especially if you cannot defend it. It is why oddly enough I take to the sea's with them or find more remote area's to boom population and I usually focus on the acquisition of wealth, and I always enter war through the request of allies.

14.The Pirates: I find the Pirates to be a faction you barely have problems with until late game or if you take to the sea's. Ulric is a standup guy I find and often he will not attack you unless provoked, but he can be demanding. Often though he is stuck to the sea's most of the time and he can't back his threats with anything so he's relatively harmless. Fighting him is only a problem if you have issues with defending against air or if you can't defend your holds out at sea. He is a fair ally, but he is noting spectacular and he is not often very advanced.
I have played the Pirates a fair amount, of which may surprise some people. The pirates are something of an empire builder and their bonuses make them overpowered, as they can grow and expand with almost no competition. They can grab projects too, but the problem with the Pirates is they stagnate horribly if you do not enter a war by the time you have 7 or 8 settlements. And you must make sure you have a land outpost on every major continent or else your just going to be stuck to the water and limited to pissant islands.

In terms of my ranking for strength, I cannot myself exactly rank them as everyone's experience may be (and probably will be) different then mine, but I hope this helps in discerning your choices by me adding my perspective of it.

[Yitzi]

Question: Why is Deirdre considered fairly good?  I presume it's the Efficiency bonus (as Planet is really only useful if you're going for a strategy to which Cha Dawn is more suited anyway), but when going Green it's essentially redundant (unless going Fundamentalist or Police State, but who does that as Deirdre?), and when going Planned it only means a total of +2 efficiency, which isn't that great.  So it does mean she's the only one who can get a non-golden-age pop boom with positive efficiency, but pop booming is usually for a fairly short period of time anyway, so it doesn't seem like such a big advantage.

[ete]

Thanks jarlwolf.

Question: Why is Deirdre considered fairly good?  I presume it's the Efficiency bonus (as Planet is really only useful if you're going for a strategy to which Cha Dawn is more suited anyway), but when going Green it's essentially redundant (unless going Fundamentalist or Police State, but who does that as Deirdre?), and when going Planned it only means a total of +2 efficiency, which isn't that great.  So it does mean she's the only one who can get a non-golden-age pop boom with positive efficiency, but pop booming is usually for a fairly short period of time anyway, so it doesn't seem like such a big advantage.

At +4 effic you can put the labs/econ slider anywhere without inefficiency penalties, and +3 planet lets you capture a whole lot more worms than +1 which is good however you look at it (pop popping, worm farming, or wormrush).

[Kirov]

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.)

Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to “forest&forget” heavily for several reasons, some of them being that I can’t depend on grabbing WP and on starting on a rainy patch. And when I don’t, I popboom big time only with the advent of EcoEng/EnvEcon, i.e. Condensers and Tree farms. This is midgame and I can be overrun beforehand by a faction with low population and lots of crawled minerals.

Also, ICS. You may have seen me complaining about air power, CBA or EG but in fact, the worst offender in terms of game-breaking style is ICS. It is seriously one of the worst things about SMAX (the worst is stupid AI), because ICS truly is the best generic strategy, all things equal. Civ4 is great when it comes to that, with its city maintenance geometrically proportional to the number of cities. Pity it doesn’t have half of the SMAX style…

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).

“I will always test my assumptions in my random last savegame before I post them as facts, whether I’m a prospective modder or not”.  No, monoliths do not affect probe teams, as they are non-combat units.

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.

There is no faction which is not forced to beeline to IA, unless it is a very specific situation, like you have landed on the top of Usurpers. And when you do beeline to IA (even Sparta has to, for crawlers at the very least) but you don’t take care of your economy, it will take ages to get to Doc:Loyalty, because of this increasing tech cost. If you do research once in 12 or 15 turns, you’re dead. I’m afraid there is no way you can win a war without a strong economy. Sometimes you can rush, but most of the time you can’t and you definitely can't start a game just kinda hoping to do so.

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.

Same as above. Sure, you can overrun another player if you happen to be placed very close to him. But balanced MP games never do that and you have to assume that your opponents have time to get to midgame relatively undisturbed. Otherwise, what you’re doing is called rush and you may know from Starcraft that it’s a very risky business. If it fails, you’re down.

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

When I present my opinion on factions, I always assume that you’re not playing settings explicitly beneficial to such a faction. Yes, Cult is a very good faction for a tiny planet with abundant life forms. But put it on the Vets map and it can only cry for help from the Planetmind.

[Kirov]

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

Thanks ete, yes that is the case. Green, the AIs are very similar to each other in that they all suck big time. There’s really no controversy here. There is this point in your SMAX experience when you need to self-impose serious limitations and play very hard challenges just to give the AI something that resembles a sliver of hope, if only for some turns. And then you’re never afraid of the AI never again under any circumstances, which means it’s high time to join a multiplayer game.

[Kirov]

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.

The only way to really help him in this matter is to implement the Darsnan’s idea, putting the destroyer probe team into your alphax.txt file.

Sven not ICSing?

What do you mean by ICSing? I say you can’t ICS on water at all. There is no point in tight spacing, the price of sea CPs and formers is very high, and there is no high-tech improvements to let you not work but crawl.

[Kirov]

Actually Lal is very good for ICS too. The extra talent means you can expand more before having to worry about bureaucracy drones.

Agreed (and hello Maniac!), but when you think about it, no particular faction really sucks at ICS. But Lal is the only one to have incentives not to do so.

[Kirov]

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.

I was actually referring to my most recent game, PK with a self-imposed rule - no SPs. Sven has 9 bases and 2 points of research. Scary!:)

I'm sorry for the post bombardment, but so many people replied.

[Buster's Uncle]

...I think quintuple-posting was the best way to keep it managable, K...

[Yitzi]

At +4 effic you can put the labs/econ slider anywhere without inefficiency penalties

That sounds like a strong bonus for Deirdre, but really it isn't.  To get +4 she can't be running Police State or Planned, and of course she can't run Free Market at all, so it only applies when running Simple or Green.  When running Green, she can be running either Frontier, Democratic, or Fundamentalist, but with Democratic/Green anyone without an efficiency penalty can get that +4 effic.
So that's really only a benefit when running Frontier/Green (and who runs simple after the early game?), Fundamentalist/Green (have you ever run fundie as Deirdre?), and Democratic/Simple (also fairly rare after the early game.)
More specifically, that efficiency bonus allows her (and nobody else, except Aki) to get:
1. +4 Efficiency and +2 Growth (even Aki can't get this).
2. +4 Efficiency and neutral support (Miriam can get this too, though she has her own problems.)
3. +4 Efficiency and +2 Probe (Roze can get this too.)
4. +4 Efficiency in the early game (before getting both Ethical Calculus and Centauri Empathy)

So which of those is worth anything near giving up the ability to use Free Market?

and +3 planet lets you capture a whole lot more worms than +1 which is good however you look at it (pop popping, worm farming, or wormrush).

But anybody else can get +2, which isn't that much worse than +3.  It's an advantage, but not a huge one.

Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to “forest&forget” heavily for several reasons, some of them being that I can’t depend on grabbing WP and on starting on a rainy patch. And when I don’t, I popboom big time only with the advent of EcoEng/EnvEcon, i.e. Condensers and Tree farms. This is midgame and I can be overrun beforehand by a faction with low population and lots of crawled minerals.

That's a reason to forest, but not a reason not to switch it for condensers later on.

Also, ICS. You may have seen me complaining about air power, CBA or EG but in fact, the worst offender in terms of game-breaking style is ICS.

ICS contributes seriously to the overpoweredness of CBA and EG (if by EG you mean energy grid and not empath guild); it also contributes to the power of the Cyborg Factory, which of course further exacerbates air power.  So yes, ICS is a huge target for any balance mod, and is in fact the one feature most nerfed by the mod I'm planning.  (Some rules, such as weakening recycling tanks and specialists, are primarily designed to weaken ICS; others, such as the ecodamage mod, started with other goals but hurt ICS as a nice side benefit.)

“I will always test my assumptions in my random last savegame before I post them as facts, whether I’m a prospective modder or not”.  No, monoliths do not affect probe teams, as they are non-combat units.

Whoops...so in fact to get probe teams elite before their first mission you still need to run Fundamentalist (or Thought Control in the late game) on top of other stuff...

There is no faction which is not forced to beeline to IA, unless it is a very specific situation, like you have landed on the top of Usurpers.

Or a fairly small map, where you can rely fairly well on rushing.
Or of course when playing Roze; when everyone else is beelining for something, she doesn't have to, as she's never worse than tied for third to a tech.  (Somehow, it seems appropriate that Roze is well-advised to be contrarian in tech choices.)
But yeah, crawlers are overpowered.

Same as above. Sure, you can overrun another player if you happen to be placed very close to him. But balanced MP games never do that and you have to assume that your opponents have time to get to midgame relatively undisturbed. Otherwise, what you’re doing is called rush and you may know from Starcraft that it’s a very risky business. If it fails, you’re down.

Firstly, I feel that the best way to get a balanced MP game is just have a random map and random starting positions, and on average it'll be balanced.
If your supposed "balanced MP games" mean that some factions are underpowered, that's not very balanced, is it?  The factions are meant to be balanced on the assumption that you don't know how long you have until you run into any particular faction; that's how the game is meant to be played.

When I present my opinion on factions, I always assume that you’re not playing settings explicitly beneficial to such a faction. Yes, Cult is a very good faction for a tiny planet with abundant life forms. But put it on the Vets map and it can only cry for help from the Planetmind.

I'd count the Vets map as settings explicitly beneficial to builder factions.  For "default" settings I'd either use the map of Planet (random start positions) with default rules, or a randomly generated map taking the "middle" approach on map customization and with default rules.

[Kirov]

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

Here is another thing I want to touch upon. For some reason, there is this lingering misconception that factions with positive PROBE setting are somehow better probers; this is not really true! The first and foremost feature of PROBE is a defensive one, the increase in the price of mind control in your bases. Sure, it also gives one probe morale bonus, and it's nice, but it doesn't really change the day. And since probe teams can't be green or very green, Zak is as a good prober as anyone else.

Stealing techs from bases without security lock always works, the morale affects only the chance of survival. So Miriam's hardened probe teams have just 17 percentage points more (from disciplined 100%/50% to 100%/67%) for surviving the mission. Not even close to set off her -1 RESEARCH penalty, and certainly not enough to call her an aggressive prober. With Fundie it's commando for 100%/80% (non-Mirian Fundie factions have veteran probe teams, 100%/75%, so Miriam is better by 5 p.p. here). You still need to get to elite to do more fancy stuff like framing, targetting specific facilities or override the security lock (75%/67%), and that chances are quite low if you ask me.

In my opinion, the best prober is Morgan for his money, and then Roze but for her discount, not PROBE bonus. The rest are more or less the same, with rich builders still better than Miriam.

That sounds like a strong bonus for Deirdre, but really it isn't.  To get +4 she can't be running Police State or Planned, and of course she can't run Free Market at all, so it only applies when running Simple or Green.  When running Green, she can be running either Frontier, Democratic, or Fundamentalist, but with Democratic/Green anyone without an efficiency penalty can get that +4 effic.

You're right with the SE problem for Gaia, it seems there is no golden SE choice for her. But don't forget that EFFIC higher than 4 is still beneficial. 1) You have more bases without b-drones (I think +2 EFFIC translates into 3 more bases on the medium map). 2) You lose less energy in your distant bases. There is no cap here, I checked and +7 EFFIC (Deirdre/Demo/Green/Knowledge) is better than +6.

That's a reason to forest, but not a reason not to switch it for condensers later on.

Of course I switch to condensers, but we were talking about something different here, vertical development for Lal. It takes place only in the midgame, that was my point.

Firstly, I feel that the best way to get a balanced MP game is just have a random map and random starting positions, and on average it'll be balanced.
If your supposed "balanced MP games" mean that some factions are underpowered, that's not very balanced, is it?  The factions are meant to be balanced on the assumption that you don't know how long you have until you run into any particular faction; that's how the game is meant to be played.

This is not that simple. If a Uni player knows there is Miriam nearby, he may prepare very well for her assault or even come to attack her. If Zak lands near a river, he can get IA as early as 2112/13. From there go to 2-1-2 and build crawlers in the meantime. Soon such Zack may have a decent army (and robust early empire) when Miriam just finishes her second former. This is what I meant that you need strong economy to wage wars. Apart maybe from Sparta in some specific conditions, the best monumentum factions are those with good industry, lab or cash.

[Yitzi]

Here is another thing I want to touch upon. For some reason, there is this lingering misconception that factions with positive PROBE setting are somehow better probers; this is not really true!

Actually, I just meant probe to tech parity like anyone could potentially do with enough investment.  That said, there is a minor offensive advantage from morale as you noted.

And since probe teams can't be green or very green, Zak is as a good prober as anyone else.

Well, he's a bit worse because he can't get a positive Probe rating (anyone else other than Aki can run fundamentalist for +2 if they really need it, and even Aki can eventually run Thought Control for +2; Zak has no way to get more than +0.)  But yeah, the downside of a negative PROBE value is purely defensive.

Stealing techs from bases without security lock always works, the morale affects only the chance of survival. So Miriam's hardened probe teams have just 17 percentage points more (from disciplined 100%/50% to 100%/67%) for surviving the mission. Not even close to set off her -1 RESEARCH penalty, and certainly not enough to call her an aggressive prober. With Fundie it's commando for 100%/80% (non-Mirian Fundie factions have veteran probe teams, 100%/75%, so Miriam is better by 5 p.p. here). You still need to get to elite to do more fancy stuff like framing, targetting specific facilities or override the security lock (75%/67%), and that chances are quite low if you ask me.

She is more of a tech-steal prober just because she needs it to attain tech parity.  (Of course, once she does she's downright dangerous in a war.)

In my opinion, the best prober is Morgan for his money, and then Roze but for her discount, not PROBE bonus. The rest are more or less the same, with rich builders still better than Miriam.

I'd put Roze above Morgan; if they both go FM/Wealth Morgan gets +2 energy in the base square and a bit more commerce, but I doubt that will come out to an extra 33% in his available funds for subversion.

You're right with the SE problem for Gaia, it seems there is no golden SE choice for her. But don't forget that EFFIC higher than 4 is still beneficial. 1) You have more bases without b-drones (I think +2 EFFIC translates into 3 more bases on the medium map).

True; this suggests that nerfing ICS will actually weaken the Gaians, meaning that removing clean minerals (weakens ICS, increases the importance of PLANET rating) will end up working in both directions.

2) You lose less energy in your distant bases. There is no cap here, I checked and +7 EFFIC (Deirdre/Demo/Green/Knowledge) is better than +6.

True, but unless you've got a very large empire it diminishes significantly after a while.
For a roughly circular empire with area equal to 1/8 the map and all bases producing equivalent raw energy, the difference between +4 EFFIC and +6 EFFIC is roughly 2.4% of your total energy production.

This is not that simple. If a Uni player knows there is Miriam nearby, he may prepare very well for her assault or even come to attack her.

But he can't know except by exploring...in which case she knows that he's there too.

If Zak lands near a river, he can get IA as early as 2112/13. From there go to 2-1-2 and build crawlers in the meantime. Soon such Zack may have a decent army (and robust early empire) when Miriam just finishes her second former. This is what I meant that you need strong economy to wage wars. Apart maybe from Sparta in some specific conditions, the best monumentum factions are those with good industry, lab or cash.

I wonder...how would that dynamic change if crawler costs were multiplied by 4, and borehole use made difficult (doable, but not really feasible to have more than 10% of your squares boreholed) until the late game?

[Hagen0]

Some comments. Note I read most of the thread but not everything. Sorry if I say something redundant.

Lals Talents actually disappear if you use specialists. This is due to the fact that talents will be made into specialists before workers and drones. A size 9 Lal base with 3 specialists does not have any less drones than a size 9 base of any other faction (except Zak). This is really devastating. Lals real strength is that he can ICS better than other factions due to his size 1 talent, particurlarly if he is in Free Market. For this reason alone Lal remains a strong faction.

Bureaucracy drones don't get worse under values lower than -2 Efficiency. So yeah, he'd get more bureaucracy drones than a FM ICSer, but still just as much, or less, (depending on his own economics SE) than a Planned ICSer.

Incorrect. Efficiency drones are capped at 0 efficiency not -2.

[Yitzi]

Some comments. Note I read most of the thread but not everything. Sorry if I say something redundant.

Lals Talents actually disappear if you use specialists. This is due to the fact that talents will be made into specialists before workers and drones.

This is not true.  What happens, based on my testing, is that specialists come from workers; if there are no workers (but are both drones and talents) and you try to make a specialist, then a drone and a talent will turn into the specialist and a worker.  So at Transcend, a size 9 Peacekeeper base with 3 specialists will have (before psych/police/facility/project effects) 3 specialists, 1 worker, and 5 drones, whereas a Spartan base will have (before such effects) 3 specialists and 6 drones.  At lower difficulty, it's even more pronounced.
The actual problem with Lal's talent bonus without ICSing is that once you have a few psych-boosting facilities, 1 talent every 4 population really isn't that much of a boost (assuming hologram theater, research hospital, and tree farm, it's the equivalent of only 2/9 energy per population; nice, but not really all that great).  And once you get empaths until you get engineers (and then again once you get transcendi) it's even less.