15-03-2003 10:30									#1
	races aren't balanced too much Support Apolyton

Why is it that some races aren't balanced too well? It might have something to do with playing from tutor to average, but I still find average to be very beatable (I'm a new player, only played a few days) with some races but pretty difficult with others.

For instance, the Psilons and the Elerians are broke races. The Elerians are almost flawless actually seeing as they are pretty good at espionage, the feudal government isn't much of a drawback. You don't really need to have better technology than your enemies because of your combat bonuses and I could even take out a few nice homeworlds before they even had time to assemble a good fleet as fast as I could (good technology, fast ship production). It was a very different game, but I really enjoyed all the specials of the elerian race.

The Psilons are pretty easy to use. I don't have to explain too much of them.

The main problem I have is with the Meklars or the Klaggons. I thought production on the meklars was supposed to be good, but often times you are get a very, very slow start to research since you have less people available. When you get automated factories, it starts to balance out, but I found that average production races probably start out just as well if not better. Technoloy was also hard to aquire since the spies were not so effective either.

The Klaggon's uncreative trait really blows too. It really puts a curse on your technological development and I find that I get unlucky a lot of the times (not getting the right fuel cells, etc.). I try to trade, but they don't like me sometimes (I guess that has a lot to do with the races I'm playing against).

The Silicoids were pretty descent actually. Some people say they are bad, but I found that tolerant & Lifovoire (or however you spell it) was better than aquadic or subterranian farms. I expanded very quickly and had many good production and research colonies much more earlier than the other races. This more than made up for population growth (since it just gets spread out among more planets) and your research improves over time, so that puts you on par with the best of them.

Many other races are pretty bad too. The Mrrshans, Burathi and Gnolans are all pretty unbalanced in my opinion. For the first two, if you don't rush, you are in a lot of trouble. I guess I have to give the gnolans some more tries, but their lucky trait seems to be fairly useless for the most part. I guess I have to put the rare events on to many to take advantage of it more, but I don't see it being as good as some other attributes.

The Alkari are okay, but nothing greater. The Trilians are descent because they don't have anything that makes them bad and fast ships make exploration and colonization easy and fast.

By the way, what are the penalties for tutor, easy, average, etc. games? Does research go slower each difficulty level? That kind of sucks actually since you have to click the turn button more times before anything interesting happens and it's a chessy way to make the game harder. All it does is make you rush to attack your enemies before they have a chance to defend themselves properly so you can aquire enough planets to make up for the lack of research.

Anyway, thanks for the help. It's a great game, but I'm already finding it to be lopsided a bit and I figured I just needed some help.

	15-03-2003 19:15									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Play with custom races, make whatever you like, and you will never go back. Its fun to experiment with different combinations of traits. See threads nearby.

	16-03-2003 00:04									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

From an ai point of view, some of the balancing factors are dynamic -- ie. some of the races have stonger starts, others will pull even during the mid game and some will only shine if the game lasts. It seems pretty balanced to me. Also at Hard & impossible, the ai races get extra picks, so even then they’re not quite the same game after game.

I’m usually playing at the hard level (been at this for about a month, so I’m no expert), and use the custom feature for my 1.2 version (so creative is still 6 instead of 8). I usually pick creative (not only does this avoid some tough choices, but in the late game, the ai may not have the other techs for me to acquire) & subby (extra pop helps in all sorts of ways). Right now I’m playing soft -- get 3 to 5 systems with a bunch of planets each & develop them to the max, wade out for Orion, and then let the others ‘talk amongst themselves’.

When I have most of the techs all researched, I’ll let the vote swing to an ai during the election & refuse the outcome -- letting the other 80% of the galaxy come get me. Then I sit back and watch my eight doom stars blow away the four rows of junk thrown my way.

	16-03-2003 19:47									#4
	Inflate your Upload Space

Or just go kill them all.

Moo2 is still really a fun game despite its age.

	28-03-2003 16:24									#5
	Put an end to popups!

quote: Originally posted by Kaptain Ken Play with custom races, make whatever you like, and you will never go back. Its fun to experiment with different combinations of traits

Right therefore you've the editor. I haven't played with even one standard race the first game and I immediately created my own species. Ahh I love it to play god

And in the end you know, you're destined to rule the galaxy so every other race have to go anyway

	28-03-2003 23:36									#6
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

The Moo races were never intended to be balanced. Playing Psilon, Elerian or Silicoid is almost too easy. Playing Bulrathi is more difficult.

Of course, if challenge is what you're after, play 300% races only (only negative picks). Compared to that, all the stock races are quite excellent.