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MysticWind
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Has anyone visted there before? What do you think of the quality of the custom mods there?
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Senethro
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lol
They score high for effort.
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Well... you can certainly say they have a lot anyway.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Chaos Theory
Most of the factions are awful, from a balance standpoint. However, many are based on interesting concepts, and can be refined to usability. |
I agree. I looked at them a while back but thought that most were horribly unbalanced
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MysticWind
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Ah, we can criticize them savagely? What do you think of the concepts and story elements?
I think that a lot of the mystic-magical ones and alien ones simply make no sense. Factions have to leave for some reason, not just because they are all hermaphrodites.
In my Second Ship Project, the AXIS is a response to the "sudden flood" of robot factions, psychic factions, etc., even though those factions don't exist in the set. Additionally, my New Athenians also left for no good reason.
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jadenstriker
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Aside from making some sort of equile offset in the political mods (support, probe, knowledge, green), what else owuld go into balance?
I am pretty sure you would have to have positive values of those and negitive ones of equile potintal, but are the effects of the mods liner enough to pull +1 by -1, or because they all do diffrent things is there a lot more involved then a random +moral and -police?
Thought a little about making a faction, but do value the importaince of balance. The faction would end up have certon extream potintals, but also have extream and equil shortfalls as well. It would be kind of an odd faction, with a spacific overspecailisation, that also had an easy and potintally lethal weakness.
Last edited by jadenstriker on 21-07-2005 at 05:07
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Senethro
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There is a lot more to it than making sure that their base values on the SE table add up to 0, or some arbitrary number.
Balancing a faction requires that you test them with all stratagies for their performance and comparison with other factions. You need to work out all possible permutations of SE settings you can have and if anything ridiculous would result. (e.g. Police/Planned/Wealth for free is ridiculous, but countered by lack of demo/free market. Cyborg Demo/market/[knowledge/wealth] + 100% labs/econ is offset by inability to popboom)
Secondly, assuming your faction is not over powered, they must be sufficiently different from existing factions to be worth playing. In 2 years of playing I've only managed to make one faction with a variant on the normal playing style, all other creations might have as well been variations on the Firaxis factions.
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jadenstriker
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Heh, I thought it would be more indepth then just number balancing.
Right now though I can't mess with making a faction atm though  my planet pack is missing, so all I got is my old SMAC copy that I can bring up from my parents. May not be picking that up for a while though, 4 hour drive 1 way. I wonder where my SMAC/X PP is hiding in the mean time?
Last edited by jadenstriker on 21-07-2005 at 05:30
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Senethro
There is a lot more to it than making sure that their base values on the SE table add up to 0, or some arbitrary number.
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QFT
Take a simple example-- I design a faction and give it +2 ECON and +2 Growth-- I give it -2 Probe and -2 Morale. Does anyone think such a faction would NOT be very powerful/unbalanced??
The various categories are not equal. IN fact, a one integer increase in a given category is not equally valuable. Consider the incremental benefit of +2 Econ over +1 for instance
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Ghidorah
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Wow, there's a faction over there with +4 growth and free children's creches and hab complexes per base. I think it's the careful balancing that attracts me most.
I'm also not entirely sure why the world needs a David Bowie faction, but I'm sure I'm just overlooking something.
To be fair though, some of the factions are pretty decent. The Atlanteans (aquatic nature faction) look like they could be very cool with only minor nerfing.
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Senethro
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Anyone feel like having a custom faction PBEM battle? All submitted factions should balance as between the Gaians/Spartans and the Uni/Hive/Drones for strength.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Ghidorah
Wow, there's a faction over there with +4 growth and free children's creches and hab complexes per base. I think it's the careful balancing that attracts me most.
. |
Wow-- So a size 14 base as soon as you can crawl the necessary food
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Chaos Theory
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Missouri / Misery; CC
Oct 2002
time: 04:37
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A faction with +4 growth and free creches *could* be balanced. Start with damping their ability to grow - low police rating, lowered hab limits, and/or extra drones. Next, damage their mineral and/or energy flow, with low industry, low econ, low effic, low research, increased research costs, increased hurry costs, negative interest and/or low support. Additionally, you could give them other crippling flaws, such as OFFENSE, 50 or -5 Planet.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Chaos Theory
A faction with +4 growth and free creches *could* be balanced. Start with damping their ability to grow - low police rating, lowered hab limits, and/or extra drones. Next, damage their mineral and/or energy flow, with low industry, low econ, low effic, low research, increased research costs, increased hurry costs, negative interest and/or low support. Additionally, you could give them other crippling flaws, such as OFFENSE, 50 or -5 Planet. |
True-- Theoretically you could balance any faction ( minus 6 efficiency would be pretty crippling  )
I just see a faction that can pop boom on turn one as wildly unbalanced. With the free 10 minerals , every new base could be ready to produce its first colony pod two turns after being planted. Only cash and the ability to find tiles with nutrients would be the limitation.
Sure I can "balance" them but it would bea very tough job. How do you balance pretty much unlimited growth? Even offense 50 or -5 Planet would be insufficient IMHO since this faction will get so big, so quickly. You would probably have to damage them on pretty much every other category since otherwise their overwhelming size could be telling
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Ghidorah
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quote:
Originally posted by DarkCloud
That would be a good exploit for PBEM games
PLAYER 1 - Look- I'm playing an ultra-underpowered faction here! I'm so much better than you.
PLAYER 2 - How the heck are you producing so much with -10 Industry? |
I try to tell the AI that, but it doesn't believe me and sticks my powergraph way into the air anyway out of spite. And then it just sulks and sends wave after wave of colony pods directly into the mindworms.
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dmm1285
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you can check out my new factions over in the creation forum, I could use some feedback
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21-07-2005 00:57
thats them screwed
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