Assasins faction

[ete]

Have been planning a new faction for a little while, looking for artists to help and some input on the faction. Basic aim is making a faction with Cloaking Device from the start on everything. This is useless against AIs, but will provide some new and hopefully interesting tactics when used against humans. The current lore I'm thinking of having is a human slave of Caretakers learns resonance manipulation by observing them, particularly manipulation focused on concealing him/herself and silent killing, teaches this to a group of disciples and escapes. The group spends huge effort training each gifted child to be able to hide themselves and those near them, and uses this to assassinate commanders of units they're fighting (Soporific Gas Pods -2 Enemy Morale).

Definite bonuses:
Free Cloaking Device and Soporific Gas Pods.

Possible bonuses:
Impunity - Police State
NODRONE - They just kill off weak/unproductive citizens
Techsteal
Support - Self-sufficient in the field
Morale
Fanatic

Definite penalties
Growth - high mortality rate in training, maybe large growth penalty

Possible penalties:
Industry - focus on personal training, not large scale industry
Penalty or anti-ideology to some important things, possible Wealth and Free Market
Hurry penalty
Probe - some will turn traitor if it seems like the best choice at the time


Their philosophy is focused on survival, with an emphasis on personal skill and proving themselves in battle to attain higher ranks. Different from the Spartans in their Resonance and tendency to pick off weak targets in small groups rather than try to outgun and use large well trained military force.

Art would be not completely over the top assassin, but someone who looks like a martial artist and has at least hints of assassin. Bases maybe a far east feel, Japanese or Chinese possibly.

[JarlWolf]

I have idea's for both the stats and the graphics.

I'll suggest the stats first:
Bonuses:

Cloaking Device+Soporific Gas Pods

Impunity to Police State: The Master Assassin has high amounts of respect, and the Assassins would give their lives on a whim for the Master.

Attack bonus of 200%: The Assassins are adept at striking first and from the shadows, and are masters at planning offensive ambushes and assaults. Their coordination in battle and prowess at targeting important enemy targets such as officers and other key opponents also greatly helps in attacks.

No drones: Rough training regimen weeds out the weak and discontent.

1+ Probe: They are stealthy infiltrators able to sneak into enemy bases with relative ease, and able to blend in through use of resonance stealth and as well as blending in with local populations through disguise.

Penalties:

2- Growth: The harsh regimens and training means a high mortality rate and many disciples do not make it out of training alive. The very nature of the Assassins job is also very perilous and with high mortality rates.

1- Industry: The Assassins focus on high quality, intensely trained individuals and stealth technology, and their insistence on pure training this leaves very little room to develop high amounts of industrial infrastructure.

Hurry penalty: The Assassins training regimen is very brutal, but if a student is rushed not only does it risk their lives even more, it stresses the education system as a whole. Plus the Assassins often lack heavy machinery and to do work in their communities and rely on labour for the most part, and it stresses workers.

Cannot use Wealth economics: The Assassins, while they are hired from time to time by various clients, are not a mercantile faction and are not focused on wealth or the obtaining of it. They value their skills, training and integrity as an Assassin over the material wealth they have in this world.



As for Art: I have idea's... but that will come later.. still need to think on it.

[Sigma]

I always saw the Cloaking Device's biggest penalty being that it allows you to ignore Zones of Control, which lets you maneuver through enemy territories unimpeded. That works equally well against humans and AI.

+Morale and +Support combined with -Growth and -Industry seems reasonable to me. They can support a large, well trained army, but actually building one is difficult.

[ete]

Mostly like the ideas, though as I found out from my AAR a 200% attack bonus is a really huge deal and not something I'd like to try and balance. I did consider a smaller bonus, but I'm finding it hard to figure out penalties to balance even the core bonuses I want for them and offense is a big deal. Also, I'd have NODRONE 1 or 2, not actually remove all drones. There'd still be some room for discontent, but not needing anti-drone facilities so early would help their otherwise very slow start thanks to Growth and Indust penalties, and help the AI handle them.

Also, I'm thinking another way to give them a notable penalty is to make them unable to use FM AND give a penalty to Wealth. This makes them almost unable to get +1 eng/square (they'd need GAs and take a -4 Morale hit), which slows down a teching human player but should not hurt the AI much, and may even help them by stopping them using FM to cripple their war effort.

My sketch is:
Free Cloaking Device and Soporific Gas Pods.
Impunity - Police State
NODRONE 1-2
-2 Growth
Aversion Free Market
Penalty Wealth
+1 Support
-1 Industry (?)
Hurry 120% (?)
+1 Morale (?)
Fanatic (??)
Small Offense bonus (??)
Techsteal (??)

Probe is possible, but it's getting bloated/probably over the 8 bonus limit and I think some of the others which may not make the cut are more interesting.

I'd definitely keep either Hurry or Indust penalty, but both may be too much (even with 20% and -1 they only get 3/4 the production of a normal faction, the Spartans and Cult have issues with 90% production).

Ignoring ZOCs is a handy bonus which I'd overlooked, though as a human you can bypass them generally with clever probe or air support.

Some fun things about this faction:
The choice between Demo and PS is actually really significant, both bring important benefits. PS gives the magic +3 Support (infinite former support or huge armies) and makes drone control easy, while Demo partially counteracts the horrible growth. Later on Demo is almost needed for efficiency, but.. dropping back from PS to Demo with an already large army may cripple mineral production because of the +3 to -1 swing in support.

With FM banned.. once inefficiency from Planned becomes significant, you're in trouble. PS+Planned is great really early (helps counteract their otherwise poor start), but -2 Effic is terrible mid-late. PS+Green and you hit -4 growth which means no growth. Demo+Planned is not really enough efficiency and misses out on the awesome PS bonuses, Demo+Green is standardish, but gives a pretty poor -2 growth and misses PS bonus. The +1 Effic from Knowledge helps a fair bit when you get that, but SE settings are tough for these guys and that's interesting.

I could totally see these guys running PS+Simple or Demo+Simple sometimes. Weeee.

Next fun thing: Giving them Soporific Gas Pods at the start = giving them a level 6 weapon at the start, so that's not happening. Cloaking device comes with an otherwise useless tech which is nice.

Amusingly.. I could give probably them Blink Displacer ability at the start more safely. They'd be able to build Psi Gates and the overpriced The Bulk Matter Transmitter (three times the price of a normal early game SP for +2 Mins (or is it +50% mins?) per base). That would allow them to take bases scarily easily and allow much more harsh penalties on Indust and Hurry.

[JarlWolf]

I have idea's for the artwork... and am willing to do the work (Because for some reason I find more motivation to do other people's work then my own  )

But I must ask a few questions:

What gender do you want for leader, and for idea's on themes,

do you want it blatantly oriental or do you want something a little different there? Because we already have oriental assassin factions/shinobi ones in existence. Up to you ultimately, can do whatever you desire. I do have idea's for base design/other stuff to make it unique.


Let me know your thoughts.

[ete]

I'm fairly open to suggestions on the faction leader's race and gender, I have a fair bit of their personality in mind (highly disciplined in a martial arts training the mind way, strong belief in the ability of a single/small number of powerful individuals to overcome large numbers of lesser foes, both highly valuing the individual who attains greatness and dismissing an unmotivated individual as almost worthless) but not much of how they'd look so I'm happy to have you pick. If you're really not sure/don't want to decide, I can come up with a bit more, but I don't mind you doing some character building. Happy to hear you're up for doing the art .

[Kilkakon]

I would suggest to keep things simple if you can. Having like 10 bonuses is hard to mentally process.

But it's a cool concept.

Funny how your assassins have a similar mentality to mine. XD