Faction Pack Testing Post-Mortem

[Sigma]

So I ran a test of my complete faction set that went on for about 200 turns. Here are the specs:

Librarian Difficulty
Average Planet Size
Average Rainfall
Average Erosion
30-50% Water
Average Native Life

I played as the Technocrats, but it wasn't until after that I realized that I messed up and used an earlier draft of their faction profile which had their -2 Population penalty backwards, which allowed them to exceed Hab Complex limits by 2. That probably gave me an excessively unfair advantage. Oopsie.

I'll be posting screenshots from Scenario Mode. This is sort of a A-AAR, an After After Action Report since I'm not planning on resuming the game. Instead I want to analyze how each faction faired up until this point in the game.

I'll probably use this thread for all such analyses as I continue to test and adjust these factions.

[Sigma]

Behold my empire. This is my starting location, very near the top of the map. One of the things I realized is that the Technocrat bases are way too big. The maximum size base basically spills completely out of its square and obscures anything behind it.

[Sigma]

The game started me off right next to the Sons of the Advent. I was able to stave off Joaquin for the first fifty or so turns by giving him a little bit of Tech. He declared Vendetta against me when I refused to turn over some of my meager energy stores, but he sued for peace after I took one base.

I researched up to Impact Rovers, then Apollo Industries contacted me and offered me a pact to go to war against Joaquin. I couldn't resist that offer and took it. The war went fairly well, though the Technocrats' severe Morale penalty meant my losses were fairly heavy at the start.

[Sigma]

The turning point was when I snagged Planetary Networks and switched to Police State/Planned. With the Technocrats' native +1 Efficiency and Robust Efficiency bonus, I was able to run this with only -2 Efficiency. The industry and support bonuses let me steamroll Joaquin, though the actual battles were fairly even.

Until I picked up Superstring Theory, that is. I bypassed Gatling Lasers and Missiles and went for Chaos Guns, and that was that. Once I researched Cyberethics and was able to run Knowledge, it was even sweeter. My income isn't great, but it's good enough.

[Sigma]

It looks like the Advent was able to capture Apollo Industries's HQ within the first ten turns of the game. I have no idea how they pulled that off, since they aren't even on the same continent, but they did it before Roark could build any additional bases on that landmass. I landed some Chaos Rovers there and took it out, thinking that it was the last Advent stronghold.

[Sigma]

Once I captured Olympus Heights from the Advent I assumed that they were done for, but I was mistaken. I spent the next fifteen year hunting down the remnants of Joaquin's faction, which I eventually found in a large cluster of sea bases waaaay far away from the Advent's homeland. I'm actually kind of impressed that Joaquin was able to establish such a foothold down there; more important they were sitting right off the coast of the Monsoon Jungle. If Joaquin was able to get some land bases there he could have re-established his empire handily. However, a flotilla of chaos foils put an end to that.

If you look at the minimap, the yellow arrow shows where the seabases are in relation to the Advent's homeland.

[Buster's Uncle]

Hate to do this to you, but those neat tower bases don't look quite right in-game.  I think it's perspective being a little off - if you stretched them taller by about 10-15%, I think it would fix it.  I am aware that it would probably require reducing the stage four base to do that and make it fit.  Sorry.

[Sigma]

Hate to do this to you, but those neat tower bases don't look quite right in-game.  I think it's perspective being a little off - if you stretched them taller by about ten%, I think it would fix it.  I am aware that it would probably require reducing the stage four base to do that and make it fit.  Sorry.

Fully aware of that. Before I run the next test I'm going to revise the Technocrat bases, in addition to redoing Federov's leaderhead, because the scanlines look like crap.

[Sigma]

Down near the southpole, the Genome Syndicate created the second strongest faction, next to mine. For the longest time they were actually in the lead, in fact. They really lucked out-- they got a real big landmass all to themselves, and some nice landmarks too.

[Buster's Uncle]

I believe there's a much larger version in the empty space of the Bases file to work with and get more consistency in resizing...

[Sigma]

I'll be sure to try that out.

The rest of the Genarch empire. Landing next to Garland Crater is another helpful little start-up boost. On the far left you can see Colony One, the HQ of the Colonial Authority. Like the Apollonians, the Authority got escape podded within the first twenty turns or so. If they were able to get a foothold on the crater I'm sure they would have been able to take advantage of their Support bonus to create a sizable army, but the Genarchs beat them to it.

[Sigma]

Social Engineering choices for the Genarchs. No wonder they were able to out-tech me, though not by much. You can see in the previous post that we both had air power and chaos guns, so if I kept the game going it could have turned into a real bloodbath.

The Genarchs actually declared war on me about 70 turns in, but were so far away that I didn't start seeing units landing in my territory until very late in the game, and only sporadically. Navarro is a lot more aggressive than I would have expected her to be; not that it's a bad thing though.

I'll post some more screenshots later.

[ete]

hm, where is an all in one download for the current version of all your factions?

[Sigma]

I'll upload one later today. There are some final tweaks I want to put through.

[Buster's Uncle]

I have to approve files, so mention when you're done for much quicker action.

Do try to go to a little trouble to make an appealing presentation in the description - give stats and img link your album shots of the graphics...