16-08-2003 14:06									#61
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Laz,

Misotu is a she, not a he. I have savegames where I have her infiltrated from years ago, but I've forgotten the password.
On my limited experience, and from what I've heard, she plays builder early, then she gets to Air Power, and then you die.
She pays a lot of attention to diplomacy etc. Talks a lot of junk about how badly she's doing, how low her tech rate is, how she should never have taken the faction.

	16-08-2003 15:42									#62
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Ah, a whiner, just like me. Nice to see it can work on computer games as well.

	16-08-2003 20:28									#63
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Present some facts that aren't in dispute, and maybe someone will come up with a conclusion based on those facts. Here are some facts about Morgan: He's weak at the beginning, but gets very strong in the midgame. Properly developed, he can expand faster than any other faction. His support limitations encourage players to make bad defensive decisions, which can lose games in a hurry. With a solid opening, left unmolested, Morgan can run away with EVERY SP in the GAME. Good play with Morgan means you HAVE to know how to make the best use of your Energy Credits, you can't just switch to planned/police and rely on your huge support and industry to overwhelm your enemies.

I guess I don't understand what your asking. You want facts that are not in dispute such as numbers that show Morgan loses more than anyone else and a sample group of people saying no one is good at playing Morgan. Those are facts, why are you acting like none have been shown?

His being weak at the beginning is what makes him the weakest. He simply won't survive long enough to win human v human games. This is proven fact if thats what you want. We can see his faction loses way more often than any other faction percentwise.

You just stated the with Morgan it takes a solid start and a peaceful one just to get going. How often in human v human games are they peaceful and allow Morgan to get a solid start? His reputation for being strong late in the game even hurts him here because he will be targeted.

He isn't so bad that if given the perfect start you can't win, so I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm only saying it is the weakest faction hands down. There isn't going to be much proof against this.

	16-08-2003 21:53									#64
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

It does sound like a female name Curiousity just with being unsure put him since thats the majority of players, dont want to offend any macho guy by laughing at his girly name
Ah good old diplomacy, killing people with whispers. So if she ever starts to play again and appears in one of my games i'll smile and nod my head while she babbles away until my 10 recon/impact rovers are in her territory shooting every former and weak base in sight

	16-08-2003 22:46									#65
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: He isn't so bad that if given the perfect start you can't win, so I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm only saying it is the weakest faction hands down. There isn't going to be much proof against this.

NO! He's not at all. As was stated earlier, those numbers only show that the people playing Morgan were not as skilled as their opponents, that's it.

Here's a good example of why those numbers don't mean what you claim they do.

quote: Pirates 4/10 - 40% Spartans 3/9 - 33% University 7/28 - 25%

No one in their right mind would ever claim that the Spartans or Pirates are better than the University, but by your logic they must be. I would say that instead, these numbers show that more bad players choose the University than the other two factions. If you're a lesser player, why would you further hinder yourself by choosing a lesser faction? You wouldn't, thus the numbers show more University players than the other 2 combined.

People who think Morgan is a bad faction don't understand how to play as him correctly, that's it. End of story.

	17-08-2003 01:38									#66
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Well at the moment I am playing these MP:

Morgan ,transcend, all original starting players,
Spartan from the start( accelerated), Librarian, one change
Deirdre from start( accelerated), Librarian, one change
Cult from start, transcend, one change
Hive from start,transcend, two changes
Morgan ,replaced someone, awful position, weak being left alone as no threat.

Cult (replacement), transcend,
Hive, transcend, original
and other good games.

Data Angels, transcend (on island), played like at an idiot, lost.

Most of these MP games have some way to go before I could possibly pass serious comment: too many factors.

Perhaps a test, like the four same players(veterans at MP) playing different factions with the same AI and planet conditions might shed an interesting light on this debate.

	17-08-2003 02:40									#67
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

AMD4EVER: Morgan is bad at small maps with players starting close together when people concentrate on him. On large maps or a peaceful game he's hard to beat. Different factions are good in different games. Morgan is hardly the only one with a weakness and has more strengths than many others. Fungboy has more weaknesses and fewer strengths, making him worse. Spartan has fewer weakness and no strengths, making them worse.

	17-08-2003 04:20									#68
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

AMD: I wasn't ASKING anything, I'm telling you that your so-called FACTS are a load of unsupported hogwash, that the one collection of wins/losses was hardly scientific, and has little bearing on what makes a faction good or not. The one thing it does show is that it's difficult to play Morgan well, just as it's difficult to play any builder faction well.

As BustaMike points out, the Pirates and Spartans did better than University in that list of games. Does that mean that the University is soft? The moral here is that there's a difference between data and facts.

If you don't want to play Morgan because you can't seem to be able to make him work for you, fine. If you don't want to listen to the tons of other posters here reiterating the fact that industry penalties are crippling, and keep crippling you the entire game, fine.

quote: You just stated the with Morgan it takes a solid start and a peaceful one just to get going.

Funny, I don't recall saying that. What I said was that with a solid start left unmolested, Morgan will RUN AWAY WITH EVERY SP, and probably the game. At no point did I suggest that you'd be unviable if you didn't get that peaceful start.

I've won pleny of games with Morgan where my start was so shitty that I couldn't have made it work with any other faction. Because Morgan can grab RTs early on, he's much less vulnerable to starting out on bad terrain than almost every other faction.

	17-08-2003 06:22									#69
	Support Apolyton

quote: Originally posted by Curiosity Well, the results are in - here's the last word on the matter... yeah, right. I've compiled the stats from the Apolyton tournament games (too much time on my hands) and here they are - the factions from strongest to weakest, based on games awarded points out of games played. Hive 11/18 - 61% Drones 7/13 - 54% Believers 2/4 - 50% PKs 8/20 - 40% Pirates 4/10 - 40% Spartans 3/9 - 33% University 7/28 - 25% CyC 2/8 - 25% Gaians 4/19 - 21% Cult 1/5 - 20% Angels 1/5 20% Morgan 2/19 - 10% Of course, this is all of quite questionable significance. However, the very poor performance of Morgan and the Gaians, and the very strong showing by the Hive and Drones, is interesting.

Yes, but remember that many people consider two factions to be slightly unbalancing in tourney games - the PKs (because of their easy Planetary Governor) and the Uni (because of their massive tech lead). I've seen people purposefully choose not to play as them.

Just a note to the impressive findings you've conducted.

	17-08-2003 23:30									#70
	Got spare money?

I'm finding it odd that people are saying "you shouldn't play this faction". If I recall, we can play any faction we want.

Personally I think the drones are the stronger than morgan and university, -2 reserch means next to nothing and +2 industry is as good as it gets. Fewer drones never hurt either. If you can get the techs and go planned+wealth, there is nothing stopping you from grabbing most if not all of the early SPs.

	17-08-2003 23:35									#71
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

double

	18-08-2003 00:11									#72
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Qual, agreed. Drones are very tough, IMO the toughest faction out there, for the entire game. Good tech trades can get you the techs you need early, and once you've got foil probes, tech ceases to be an issue.

	18-08-2003 15:01									#73
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

...or if there's no-one to steal from, just take advantage of your good drone control and the low cost of RC's and run FM/Wealth... you'll be raking in tech (also due to numerous easily-rushed NN's) before you know it, and with so many minerals to go around, cashing artifacts for techs instead of minerals becomes attractive sooner as well.

Of course, it's always nice if you have somebody to steal from BESIDES all this. :-)

USC

	24-08-2003 01:27									#74
	Remove this text

Are you guys playing on minimal sea levels and tiny planet or something? Because I cant see how you can say the pirates arent good otherwise.

	24-08-2003 06:49									#75
	Tired of ads?

Here's the problems with the Pirates: Poor industry and growth make for a slow start, Pop booming is very difficult, so you can't catch up effectively. You can't improve sea squares with condensers, eschelon mirrors or sensor beacons before building bases on them, so it's hard to defend yourself effectively. And when all your early units are built on the sea-foil chassis, it adds even more precious lost turn advantage to better land-based factions. And if all that weren't enough, you've got to defend against IODs early on, which are much more mobile and harder to defend against than normal mindworms.

In exchange for these drawbacks, you get to have sea squares which can produce more minerals than normal, and a free facility which is instantly replaced by the Maritime Control Center, since you'd be a fool not to get it, playing Sven.

Sure, eventually Sven will enjoy large amounts of nutrient and energy production, but by the time he does, someone on land will have run away with the game.

Last edited by CEO Aaron on 24-08-2003 at 13:12

	24-08-2003 07:30									#76
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Forgot to mention, I 'm currently playing with the Pirate team in the acdg game. So lots of pooled advice and ideas in the private forum.

	24-08-2003 09:33									#77
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

The pirates in the ACDG seem to be running away with the early game.

	24-08-2003 15:22									#78
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Aaron, you forget that he starts with RT in his first two bases, which gives him atleast as fast start as anyone else. Add the speedy scouting to that and you have a fast starter.

In the late game you can pretty much ignore landbased defense if you play it right. Your navy will protect you against any intruders, leaving you as the only faction capable of holding harnessfields.

	24-08-2003 20:57									#79
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Really, the factions are soooo nicely balanced. I bet you could find good reasons why any faction is the best or worst, and someone to argue for or against them. The biggest factor is WHO'S playing and what terrain they get.

-Jam

	24-08-2003 20:58									#80
	Increase the size of your Attachments

What is the ACDG game?

	24-08-2003 21:05									#81
	Got spare money?

Its the Alpha Centauri Democracy Game.

Its a team PBEM game, with 5 teams, each of whom have a private forum where the moves are discussed/voted upon etc.

Teams are :

Hive
Pirates
CyCon
Uni
Drones

So far the game is still in the early encounter / expansion stages.

Why not join up to one of the teams?

-Jam

	25-08-2003 04:44									#82
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Where would I go to join up?

	25-08-2003 08:28									#83
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

The forum is here.

To sign up click your desired faction. Then email the faction leader.

CyCon
Hive
Pirates
University
Drones

	25-08-2003 15:30									#84
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Here's the problems with the Pirates: Poor industry and growth make for a slow start,

Give the Pirates both credit and discredit where they are due, please. Or at least make sure it's not too easy to misinterpret you. The Pirates start with a normal industry rating, and although they have severe trouble running Planned without Demo, they are not otherwise forbidden from running it, and thus are perfectly free to reach +2 industry. And with extra minerals from sea squares, their terraforming-less mineral production matches or beats that of other factions, as it is, in the beginning, nearly impossible for a base they found to NOT have access to a 1-1 (or 1-1-1) square.

Your notes on their development start from an incorrect assumption: that they must start at sea. Pick one of the paradigms mentioned earlier in (I think) this thread, and either use foils plus CP's or land transports plus CP's and STICK TO LAND IMHO until running Democracy, since before Demo a land base+RT is 3 rows cheaper (3+3) than a seabase with its built-in RT equiv. (7), and after demo the only disadvantage of the seabase is in the extra turns to production (in exchange for faster movement, access to otherwise hard-to-use areas, easier access to sea mins, and a first-turn RT equiv.).

AFAICR it's not IoD's you must fear with seabases BTW -- it's Sealurks.

USC