Alternate original seven faction mod

[Dio]

This is the second to last faction posting. This time it is Stepdaughters of Gaia compared to the Gaia's Stepdaughters

Gaia's Stepdaughters:
TECH, Ecology, SOCIAL, -MORALE, SOCIAL, -POLICE, SOCIAL, ++EFFIC, SOCIAL, +PLANET, FUNGNUTRIENT, 1
^+1 PLANET: {Environmental safeguards; can capture mindworms}
^+2 EFFICIENCY: {Experience with life systems & recycling}
^-1 MORALE: {Pacifist tendencies}
^-1 POLICE: {Freedom loving}
^+1 Nutrients in fungus squares
^{May not use Free Market economics.}

Stepdaughter's of Gaia:
TECH, Ecology, SOCIAL, +EFFIC, SOCIAL, +PLANET, SOCIAL, -POLICE, SOCIAL, -SUPPORT,  FUNGENERGY, 1, PSI, 25, MORALE, 0, POPULATION, 3,

^+1 EFFICIENCY: {Followers have extensive experience with life systems and recycling.}
^+1 PLANET: {Faction has in place and practices using enviromental safeguards.}
^-1 POLICE: {Followers are freedom loving.}
^-1 SUPPORT: {Followers are suspicious of large military deployments.}
^+1 Energy production in Fungus squares: {Extensive study of Planet's ecosystems allow them to produce extra energy from Xenofungus.}
^+25% during PSI Combat: {Troops have a deep emotional connection for the well being of Planet.}
^Immune to negative morale modifiers: {Government values and promotes well being of loyal troops.}
^The population limit at each of their bases is decreased by three: {Faction's enviromental policies limit space for population growth.}
^{Can not use the Free Market Economics in social engineering.}

Please tell me what you think.

[Dio]

The last of the factions. This time it is the Society of Archons versus the University of Planet.

Society of Archons:
TECH, InfNet, SOCIAL, +RESEARCH, SOCIAL, -MORALE, IMPUNITY, Knowledge, FACILITY, 8, FUNGENERGY, -1, TERRAFORM, 0, HURRY, 75, DRONE, 4,

^+1 RESEARCH: {Brilliant research}
^-1 MORALE: {Engineers are not trained to be excellent soliders.}
^Free Network Nodes at each base: {Excellent laboratory facilities}
^Is immune to the negative effects of the Knowledge social choice: {Complements their faction's beliefs}
^-1 Energy production in Fungus: {Lacks understanding of native habitat which hinders extraction of energy}
^Hurrying costs 75% of normal: {Engineers hurry efficently}
^Cost to raise and lower land is halved: {Engineers readily improvise during terraforming operations}
^Additional drone at a base for every four population: {Lack of Ethics}
^{Can not use Fundamentalist politics in social engineering.}

University of Planet:
TECH, InfNet, TECH, 1, SOCIAL, ++RESEARCH, SOCIAL, --PROBE, DRONE, 4, FACILITY, 8

^+2 RESEARCH:  {Brilliant research}
^-2 PROBE:  {Academic networks vulnerable to infiltration}
^Free NETWORK NODE at every base
^One BONUS TECH at beginning of game
^Extra DRONE for every four citizens {(lack of ethics)}
^{May not use Fundamentalist Politics.}

This is the last faction stats I needed to post. Please give me input on these factions.

[JarlWolf]

My thoughts thus far:

The Conclave has some nice changes, though I am not sure the +1 Talent is fitting. I think a 1+ Police would be more suitable, as it shows the control a religious theocracy would have on its people and it's beliefs: Not only that, a dogmatic religion is going to unite people into policing themselves. I am sure that many of the forumites here can attest to religious indoctrination/religion being shoved on them throughout their lives.

The Human Labyrinth seems pretty good to me, no changes needed.
For the Archons, I am not sure why they don't understand native life, they research everything don't they? Sure Zakharov hates mindworms but you'll research something even if you hate it. I would instead give them a support drawback, to show that most of the resources are pooled towards research and experiments, while also symbolizing the distrust citizens would have on the gov't. (They don't want to be the next test subject right?)

[Dio]

The Conclave has some nice changes, though I am not sure the +1 Talent is fitting.

Unfortunately, the +1 starting talent comes with using the extra talents per number of population rule. I can understand why the university would get a support penalty.

[JarlWolf]

Still, I don't quite understand how a theocracy that suppresses anything not related to faith or not faith friendly could encourage development and creativity. Sure, maybe not a lack of talents, but having more then usual in those conditions? I just don't see it to be frank.

Also, a question, do you want alternate art for all of these? Or just the conclave? Mind I don't mind if its the former, but I think it'd be better if we had a second artist (or more) jump on board, that's a pretty big undertaking for little old me.

[ete]

Could you update post #2 so people can see the current status of all the factions in one place?

I'll go over them all for balance with respect to the official factions, which I assume you're aiming for?

Spartans:  hm.. Lost a Morale and a Planet point, extra hurry cost, gained a copter and +1 lab point per base.

Pretty sure this would be massively underwhelming. Spartans originally are pretty standard power level, decent rushers, slightly meh but not terrible builders. The real killer here would be the Hurry cost (hurried units cost them 1.375 as much as a standard faction thanks to Indust and Hurry penalties), though halving their main bonus, stopping them collecting wormcash so easily with - Planet, and giving them very little in return is not going to help. They need a buff.

Also, it would be really handy if you could make their name different. Having exactly the same name (and text file names, maybe add alt to the text file name of each?) will cause all sorts of name conflicts for my custom factions project.

Believers:
Lots going on here.. hard to be sure, but it feels like it should roughly balance out. They're not going to be rushing as hard without the support bonus, but can run demo and still have an army plus have other buildery bonuses. Quite a different faction from original, but probably approximately balanced.

Morgan:
Horrifyingly broken in human hands, possibly beyond any other faction bar some of BU's designed to get every bonus. The energy interest will give them impossibly huge reserves if a player specifically tries to maximize it. Even if not for that, they have an /amazing/ set of bonuses for a builder and insignificant penalties.

The Human Labyrinth:
Really quite weak, especially for a human. A few bonuses (Probe is meh, Support is kind of nice, bigger bases evens out with low growth, tech cost is partly canceled, especially early, by negative labs), but removing their immunity to ineffic and dropping their growth is going to hurt them a lot, because now they can't pop boom at all (even with GAs) and.. they can't get even decent growth. Most factions run Demo for +2 most of the game and Demo/Planned for +4. These guys are stuck at +1 with planned, and doing that with PS which they also want gives them a crippling -2 Effic.

Keepers:
Probably mostly balanced, though there's a lot going on here. Negative interest is a much smaller deal than positive, because you can keep energy low to avoid too much loss, but AI may struggle.

Gaians:
Stronger worm rush due to Psi, weaker builder due to a few things. Probably not too far off balanced.

Archons:
Hurry bonus is a big deal, so is removing both of their probe penalties (faction and Knowledge). Dropping 1 Research and some minor things does not compensate for this, and they were already an excellent faction. Probably moderately overpowered.

Sorry some of those were a bit short, I'm a little tight for time right now.

[Dio]

For the most recent updates look at post #2 in this topic.

[Dio]

I was having a moment of inspiration when I gave the gaians -2 Growth and Robust Growth .

[Dio]

I am very that this project is going somewhere postive. Also, I greatly appreciate the continued support from the community.

[JarlWolf]

Right, I am coming close to finishing the initial bases (walls still have to be added) but I've patched up and created the majority of the bases so far for  . I only have to do the later stages of her Water bases, and then I am complete with that set and leave someone to configure the walls in. Which set do you want me to do next? Also, do you want me to input her custom, alternate faction logo's and maybe a different picture, or keep them the same/her picture the same?

[Dio]

I can handle inputting custom bases from another file. Also, I can put in all of the custom logos.

[JarlWolf]

Right. I'll post my work for you in a little bit. Just got to finish up the last stages of these bases.

[Dio]

Made a lot of changes based upon your feed back. So please comment on what you see in Post#2.

[JarlWolf]

Here is the download for the Believer bases. All you have to do is copy and overlay walls, if you are using GIMP, just copy the bases out to another window that has all layers deleted, do colour select on the purple and then you can copy that and place as you need.

[ete]

Brief comments:

Morgan is less absurdly broken, though 5% interest is still a big deal with his economic bonuses, every credit saved 50 years is worth 11. And he still has pretty minor negatives compared to his awesome Econ/Indust bonuses.

Spartans still suck, they need a significant bonus to compensate for that hurry modifier you gave them, and the halving of their Morale bonus.