14-08-2004 18:31									#31
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These analyses do leave out one factor that, in my view, is critical to economic strength, economic flexibility, and military strength: exploration of Chiron, and popping pods. In this, the Gaians can overcome almost all of their initial disadvantages by:

• Worm capture (military strength with free, self repairing units – a huge benefit in the early game when the Gaians are vulnerable)
• Killing worms (getting lots of ECs, and making up for not being in FM from a cash point of view)
• No penalties for popping pods and getting lots of worms (either new Gaian worms, or cash, since worms don’t attack allied/friendly worms)
• Many more artifacts (since you’re popping and surviving more pods, and may get more AAs than other insular factions), which can fix a tech deficit when nodes are built in the mid and late early game; this can also goose your chances of getting critical SPs (like stealing VW from Zak – hehe)
• Free range hunting on land and sea while other factions (except possibly Morganites in Dem/Green/Wealth) are hobbled by FM restrictions, and have more limited ability to explore (sea foil probes, probe teams wandering around land – all are poor at popping pods, and likely to die fast if they do)

Does this make the Gaians uber-powerful? No, not even close. But, if executed properly and aggressively it can give the Gaians a boost in the early game when they are the weakest, and can be a continuing strength throughout the game. Their only remaining limitation is energy for research, but this can be fixed to a limited degree by cranking your SE energy allocation to 80 percent or so (high efficiency helps here) and riding on your banked planet pearls to offset an energy deficit. This does not quite make up for not being in the glorious +2 eco of the free marketers or Morgan, but it does come close.

My conclusion is that ranking factions is more an artifact of how an individual player sees them as being played. In the end their advantages can be used to good effect by a creative player, so a ranking of any faction may not be all that useful.

	16-08-2004 02:53									#32
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Well, as I said, Gaians are a niche faction; they excel in mindworms and expansive colonizing. Just like Morganites excell in energy and probes. But I have some complaints.

Mindworms are good units, but only on offense. Even hypnotic trance only evens out the defense, morale and other bonuses do the rest.
Creds from Mindworms is only a marginal solution because 1. anyone can get them (gaians are better at psi combat, but they get none if it's captured) 2. Creds go strait into ECON, no PSYCH or LAB benefits from that extra income.

As for exploring and finding things like Artifacts, it can be more easily argued that Spartans are better at that, because they get rovers from the start, and have higher morale to survive Mindworms on the attack AND defense than the Gaians. And your last point banks on the assumption that the other AIs or players are retarded.

I'm not rating the factions on how I think they should be played. I'm ranking them on concrete logic on how their advantages and disadvantages affect the use of all possible strategies.

I'm not taking any ratings (like EStrength vs OFlexibility) and saying which is better; its up to the player's taste and style of playing that determines which ranks are more important to them and their strategy. If you love FMarket, EStrength and EFlexibility may be more important, for example.

	17-08-2004 02:57									#33
	Increase the size of your Attachments

On low fungus maps Sparta may explore more effectively, but on higher fungus maps the ability to captre mindworms creates a cascade effect. You start out with a scout patrol and pretty soon you have a scout patrol and a mindworm, and then two mindworms, and then three mindworms. Mindworms move three spaces per turn through fungus, but rovers move only one space per turn through fungus. Without mindworm cascades you can get free explorers only through unity rovers and dimensional rifts from pod popping. Anyone can do cascading explorers, but only Diedre and Fungboy can do it before ceentauri empathy.

	17-08-2004 03:29									#34
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quote: Mindworms are good units, but only on offense.

Not necessarily. They kill with neural amp. And they always defend with an "armor" value of 2 vs an enemy 3. This is a good thing, where in the future, common ratios are 1:2, and thats only if your armor is the latest.

	17-08-2004 07:52									#35
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quote: Originally posted by binTravkin It's like when probes start singing/talking rap?

Put your hands together for your favorite MC!

You know who I'm talkin' about, Spymaster Z!

	17-08-2004 14:58									#36
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Put your hands together for your favorite MC! You know who I'm talkin' about, Spymaster Z!

Just remembered that rapping should be abundant amongst the best probers - The Data Angels!
They are The Stylish after all..