This could definitely contribute to the steamrolling I see. I only play pre-warp start and it took me a while to figure it out.
ComJak
Imbalanced AI?
RE: Imbalanced AI?
I'll add in that where you set your galaxy sliders, particularly the ones that dictate the number of suitable colony worlds and number of independent colonies, will have a huge impact on the speed at which the game progresses (IE how fast the empires grow).
Distant Worlds Fan
'When in doubt...attack!'
'When in doubt...attack!'
RE: Imbalanced AI?
Gizurean always seem to be doing the best in my games. I think it is there high pop growth. I did half the growth rates for all the races. I may change that back.
RE: Imbalanced AI?
Hey Guys, Ill be working on a race mod soon, hopefully, and was wanting to address balance across governments and races.
I think the best way to do this would be to create some basically "blank" races with lets say one bonus.
Equalizing Pop Growth across all Blank races, except for the Race intended to test the efficacy of Pop Growth.
All bonuses would have to be of the same percentage or equivalent point values.
Then run tests with said races, using a special map, or editing home systems for control, providing identical environmental factors.
After a good sample size, we should be able to create a racial Bonus metric, by which we can balance the races.
This metric could also be used to balance government types.
Giving an educated guess, I would expect Monetary/Growth/Research Bonuses to generally fall into the 3 highest percentages.
In my race/government Mod, I will be attempting to balance the vanilla races, with my additions.(Governments & Races)
I kindly entreat any of you that can, to start testing.
Thoughts, & Comments appreciated!
I think the best way to do this would be to create some basically "blank" races with lets say one bonus.
Equalizing Pop Growth across all Blank races, except for the Race intended to test the efficacy of Pop Growth.
All bonuses would have to be of the same percentage or equivalent point values.
Then run tests with said races, using a special map, or editing home systems for control, providing identical environmental factors.
After a good sample size, we should be able to create a racial Bonus metric, by which we can balance the races.
This metric could also be used to balance government types.
Giving an educated guess, I would expect Monetary/Growth/Research Bonuses to generally fall into the 3 highest percentages.
In my race/government Mod, I will be attempting to balance the vanilla races, with my additions.(Governments & Races)
I kindly entreat any of you that can, to start testing.
Thoughts, & Comments appreciated!
RE: Imbalanced AI?
Honestly, I think 'metrics' are almost impossible to judge things by. The huge problem is that some bonuses can be shared if that race has a substantial number in the empire, some bonuses only apply if that race is the majority on a planet, some bonuses only apply to the troops of that race, and some bonuses are not sharable at all.
Basically, I think trying to attain perfect balance is foolish and impossible. I would be perfectly happy with 'Good nuff' balance, basically avoiding situations like the Atuuk whom have absolutly -zero- redeeming features to justify their suck. Even as a happiness-focused race they are lousy since their happiness is only 3rd best, beaten by the Securans and Shandar.
Here are my thoughts so far:
Ackdarian: Strong, gets the highest military ship size bonus in the game, bonus to colony construction, and very powerful ship maintenance/research bonus. Probably their only bad side is that their racial tech is not very good, but still saves you an enormous amount of RP
Atuuk: Weakest, their only bonus is a mediocre happinness bonus (+30%) and they have absolutly no redeeming features, even their colonies build slower
Boskara: Not sure, I am unfamiliar how war weariness works in this game, but the Shakturi Firestorm is an amazing weapon if you fight like the Covenant and prefer to glass planets as opposed to occupying them, since the Shakturi Firestorm enables you to build ships that can both fight off enemy defenses than burn the planet to a crisp
Dhayut: Worse racial bonuses than similar races, but one of the strongest racial techs in the game, the only downside is that im not sure the upgrades to that racial tech are worth it. You gain only an additional 50% speed but energy consumption doubles, might actually be betetr to stick to the initial tech if your worry is fuel efficiency
Gizurian: Decent. They provide ship maintenance bonus, high reproduction rates, hive mind, and, IIRC they will never generate a new leader which is awesome if you start with a really decent leader.
Haakonish: Very Strong, very similar to Ackdarians, except instead of a research focus they get an espionage focus instead. Their ship size bonus is also slightly weaker, but they get a special government and a much better racial tech. With Mercantile guild they can spam ships almost as well as Gizurians. The best jack of all trades race in the game, their espionage is strong, they can build lots of big ships, and even their research gets a boost with higher chances of scientists appearing
Human: Bad, their racial bonuses are not shabby but, to realize how bad they are, they only get an extra intelligence agent and a terrible special government while Haakonish get the extra intelligence agent, bigger ships, amazing fuel cells, and a decent special government
Ikkuro: Strong, ship maintenance, colony income, and troop maintenance, combined with RP discount on colonization techs, faster colony construction speed, and one of the best racial techs in the game. While not as amazing as Haakonish they are on par with Ackdarians
Ketarov: Strong, but a one trick pony. Aside from their espionage, they have no bonuses worth anything. However, their espionage is very, very, very strong. On top of the +50% bonus, they also get 3 extra intelligence agents which gets them a max of 9 intelligence agents total. They can wreck a lot of havoc with that. If you are a pirate, it might not be a bad idea to just exterminate these guys because otherwise they will incessantly harrass you with sabotage
Kiadan: Mediocre. Similar to humans in that they have decent racial bonuses, but no bonuses aside from that. Only thing that puts them above humans is Shadowghost ECM which is really, really good. But considering you can steal racial techs it might be better to just play another race and steal their techs.
Mortalen: Not sure, nice racial tech though.
Naxxilian: If you want the troop maintenance bonus, just capture a planet with this race dominant and build troops. Aside frmo that, they just have +10% tourism which is not that great.
Quameno: Strongest. +40% Research combined with Technocracy is just plain overpowered. They also have Novacore which is extremely strong early-game and while it is eventually surpassed by Hyperfusion, it still remains more fuel efficient (2 fuel points per 1000 energy points vs 2.5)
Securans: Mediocre. Strongest happiness bonus combined with a small tourism bonus and an insane reproduction rate. I am suprised they do not have an espionage bonus, even a small one. Its is sort of odd that they are just simply better than the other two happiness races, Atuuk and Shandar, but still fairly mediocre.
Shandar: Bad. Not Atuuk levels of terrible but their only unique feature is the spaceport armor bonus, which I am not even sure works.
Sluken: Not sure, but I really like the Starburner, they also get faster troop regeneration which is also unique to them.
Teekan: Ok-Decent. Bonuses to mining, trading, and colony income which, alongisde merchant guild, lets them print money. Only downside is that they get a military ship size penalty. An interesting strategy might involve turning their civilian fleet into armed merchant ships, setting their AI accordingly, than have the merchant ships do most of the fighting. With extra civvie ship size you might even be able to build ships on par with military ships.
Ugnari: OK-Decent. While, on first glance, they are watered down Teekans, unlike Teekans they do not get a penalty to military ships and they get a very nice racial tech, Raptor Targeting. A good pick if you want a merchant-focused race but not overly so like the Teekans.
Wekkarus: Not sure. Never used/experianced wave weapons, and on paper they are money-focused but without Merchant Guild or any trading bonus. I never see them do much in my games.
Zenox: OK-Decent, If you want proof that Technocracy is overpowered, this is it, aside from technocracy the Zenox are not that great, a small ship maintenace, happiness bonus, historical locations and megatron Z4. Megatron Z4 is probably the best of those bonuses, it is absolutly amazing early game but late-game Meridian shields probably are either better or worse, depending on weither you like shield regen or shield capacity. Historical location knowlege is useless because historical locations are extremely easy to find as soon as you get long range scanners
Basically, I think trying to attain perfect balance is foolish and impossible. I would be perfectly happy with 'Good nuff' balance, basically avoiding situations like the Atuuk whom have absolutly -zero- redeeming features to justify their suck. Even as a happiness-focused race they are lousy since their happiness is only 3rd best, beaten by the Securans and Shandar.
Here are my thoughts so far:
Ackdarian: Strong, gets the highest military ship size bonus in the game, bonus to colony construction, and very powerful ship maintenance/research bonus. Probably their only bad side is that their racial tech is not very good, but still saves you an enormous amount of RP
Atuuk: Weakest, their only bonus is a mediocre happinness bonus (+30%) and they have absolutly no redeeming features, even their colonies build slower
Boskara: Not sure, I am unfamiliar how war weariness works in this game, but the Shakturi Firestorm is an amazing weapon if you fight like the Covenant and prefer to glass planets as opposed to occupying them, since the Shakturi Firestorm enables you to build ships that can both fight off enemy defenses than burn the planet to a crisp
Dhayut: Worse racial bonuses than similar races, but one of the strongest racial techs in the game, the only downside is that im not sure the upgrades to that racial tech are worth it. You gain only an additional 50% speed but energy consumption doubles, might actually be betetr to stick to the initial tech if your worry is fuel efficiency
Gizurian: Decent. They provide ship maintenance bonus, high reproduction rates, hive mind, and, IIRC they will never generate a new leader which is awesome if you start with a really decent leader.
Haakonish: Very Strong, very similar to Ackdarians, except instead of a research focus they get an espionage focus instead. Their ship size bonus is also slightly weaker, but they get a special government and a much better racial tech. With Mercantile guild they can spam ships almost as well as Gizurians. The best jack of all trades race in the game, their espionage is strong, they can build lots of big ships, and even their research gets a boost with higher chances of scientists appearing
Human: Bad, their racial bonuses are not shabby but, to realize how bad they are, they only get an extra intelligence agent and a terrible special government while Haakonish get the extra intelligence agent, bigger ships, amazing fuel cells, and a decent special government
Ikkuro: Strong, ship maintenance, colony income, and troop maintenance, combined with RP discount on colonization techs, faster colony construction speed, and one of the best racial techs in the game. While not as amazing as Haakonish they are on par with Ackdarians
Ketarov: Strong, but a one trick pony. Aside from their espionage, they have no bonuses worth anything. However, their espionage is very, very, very strong. On top of the +50% bonus, they also get 3 extra intelligence agents which gets them a max of 9 intelligence agents total. They can wreck a lot of havoc with that. If you are a pirate, it might not be a bad idea to just exterminate these guys because otherwise they will incessantly harrass you with sabotage
Kiadan: Mediocre. Similar to humans in that they have decent racial bonuses, but no bonuses aside from that. Only thing that puts them above humans is Shadowghost ECM which is really, really good. But considering you can steal racial techs it might be better to just play another race and steal their techs.
Mortalen: Not sure, nice racial tech though.
Naxxilian: If you want the troop maintenance bonus, just capture a planet with this race dominant and build troops. Aside frmo that, they just have +10% tourism which is not that great.
Quameno: Strongest. +40% Research combined with Technocracy is just plain overpowered. They also have Novacore which is extremely strong early-game and while it is eventually surpassed by Hyperfusion, it still remains more fuel efficient (2 fuel points per 1000 energy points vs 2.5)
Securans: Mediocre. Strongest happiness bonus combined with a small tourism bonus and an insane reproduction rate. I am suprised they do not have an espionage bonus, even a small one. Its is sort of odd that they are just simply better than the other two happiness races, Atuuk and Shandar, but still fairly mediocre.
Shandar: Bad. Not Atuuk levels of terrible but their only unique feature is the spaceport armor bonus, which I am not even sure works.
Sluken: Not sure, but I really like the Starburner, they also get faster troop regeneration which is also unique to them.
Teekan: Ok-Decent. Bonuses to mining, trading, and colony income which, alongisde merchant guild, lets them print money. Only downside is that they get a military ship size penalty. An interesting strategy might involve turning their civilian fleet into armed merchant ships, setting their AI accordingly, than have the merchant ships do most of the fighting. With extra civvie ship size you might even be able to build ships on par with military ships.
Ugnari: OK-Decent. While, on first glance, they are watered down Teekans, unlike Teekans they do not get a penalty to military ships and they get a very nice racial tech, Raptor Targeting. A good pick if you want a merchant-focused race but not overly so like the Teekans.
Wekkarus: Not sure. Never used/experianced wave weapons, and on paper they are money-focused but without Merchant Guild or any trading bonus. I never see them do much in my games.
Zenox: OK-Decent, If you want proof that Technocracy is overpowered, this is it, aside from technocracy the Zenox are not that great, a small ship maintenace, happiness bonus, historical locations and megatron Z4. Megatron Z4 is probably the best of those bonuses, it is absolutly amazing early game but late-game Meridian shields probably are either better or worse, depending on weither you like shield regen or shield capacity. Historical location knowlege is useless because historical locations are extremely easy to find as soon as you get long range scanners
I ate the batter of the bulge at Hans' Haus of Luftwaffles
RE: Imbalanced AI?
The Zenox are probably the second best race in the game precisely because they're getting both 30% more chance to get a scientist and technocracy. That means the second best science rate in the game, well ahead of Ackdarians and Kiadians. That's not bad, is it?
And regarding those Dhayut VeloDrives, if you compare their efficiency with the other warp drives, I think you'll find that they're pretty damn awesome. Those energy prices sound like a lot but you have to hold that up against their speed and measure them in distance per unit of energy.
The Teekans, for all their money, suffer from a pretty bad problem. It takes them ages to get decent ship sizes. That 20% penalty is actually pretty damn harsh. You can't build remotely decent combat ships before size 300 and size 400 helps a lot. Well, the Teekans only get size 300 ships after research size 400, which means they're always on the losing end unless they spam ships. Problem is, they don't have a maitenance bonus. Their troops are weak as piss too, which means invasion forces have to be bigger, which in turn means even more costly. And when you start expanding a bit, the corruption will eat most of your colony income bonus while your expenses simply scale up linearly.
Another thing to remember is that three races get a bonus per colony to research. The Ugnari and the Kiadians get a 5% bonus to HT and energy research for each colony, respecively. The Boskara get a 5% bonus to each colony that is mining emeros crystal. 40% of volcanic planets have that resource. These bonuses are neat but they won't get out of hand for a while and aggressive players will probably have won the game by then, but an aggressive person playing these races could probably exploit those bonuses a bit.
Final thing, you really shouldn't underrate good starting troops. Mortalen, Boskaran, Ikkoro, Sluken, and Naxxilian troops are fantastic for early homeworld invasions. They've got troop strengths in the 135-139 range and a 25-40% cost reduction. Wekkarus,
Shandar, Securan, Ugnari, Ketarov, Atuuk, and Teekan neighbors are quite out of luck if an aggressive player decides to take advantage of that.
Actually, one more thing. Wekkarus WavePulse cannons are pretty good. They match up with anything at point blank range short of Titan Beam 3's.
And regarding those Dhayut VeloDrives, if you compare their efficiency with the other warp drives, I think you'll find that they're pretty damn awesome. Those energy prices sound like a lot but you have to hold that up against their speed and measure them in distance per unit of energy.
The Teekans, for all their money, suffer from a pretty bad problem. It takes them ages to get decent ship sizes. That 20% penalty is actually pretty damn harsh. You can't build remotely decent combat ships before size 300 and size 400 helps a lot. Well, the Teekans only get size 300 ships after research size 400, which means they're always on the losing end unless they spam ships. Problem is, they don't have a maitenance bonus. Their troops are weak as piss too, which means invasion forces have to be bigger, which in turn means even more costly. And when you start expanding a bit, the corruption will eat most of your colony income bonus while your expenses simply scale up linearly.
Another thing to remember is that three races get a bonus per colony to research. The Ugnari and the Kiadians get a 5% bonus to HT and energy research for each colony, respecively. The Boskara get a 5% bonus to each colony that is mining emeros crystal. 40% of volcanic planets have that resource. These bonuses are neat but they won't get out of hand for a while and aggressive players will probably have won the game by then, but an aggressive person playing these races could probably exploit those bonuses a bit.
Final thing, you really shouldn't underrate good starting troops. Mortalen, Boskaran, Ikkoro, Sluken, and Naxxilian troops are fantastic for early homeworld invasions. They've got troop strengths in the 135-139 range and a 25-40% cost reduction. Wekkarus,
Shandar, Securan, Ugnari, Ketarov, Atuuk, and Teekan neighbors are quite out of luck if an aggressive player decides to take advantage of that.
Actually, one more thing. Wekkarus WavePulse cannons are pretty good. They match up with anything at point blank range short of Titan Beam 3's.
RE: Imbalanced AI?
Also consider the races with preconfigured starting characters. The Ugnari and Ikkuro come to mind. The Ugnari start with an intelligence agent with very high espionage (70 something I think) and 28 sabotage. Ikkuro start with an INSANE colony governor. A few days ago I went back to the Ikkuro, hoping that they wouldn't be so OP after the recent change to 0% tax growth rates. I had over 10 billion pop by the time I was setting up mines outside my home system (pre warp start). Combined with their above average intelligence and bonus to colony income, they are sure to have massive income and research capacity if played by a human.
Going back to Ugnari, despite the powerful intelligence agent that allows them to steal a tech per year (and later every 3 months...) They have the third lowest intelligence and are tied second worst for growth rate. So research and GDP wise they are quite slow to get off the ground, despite their mercantile guild bonuses.
And yes, the zenox are very good. Decent growth rate, great scientist bonus, shields that are very handy for early pirate busting, and broken technocratic government. The historical location info is quite useful for getting a large early tech lead.
Quameno are brrrooooooooooooken
Going back to Ugnari, despite the powerful intelligence agent that allows them to steal a tech per year (and later every 3 months...) They have the third lowest intelligence and are tied second worst for growth rate. So research and GDP wise they are quite slow to get off the ground, despite their mercantile guild bonuses.
And yes, the zenox are very good. Decent growth rate, great scientist bonus, shields that are very handy for early pirate busting, and broken technocratic government. The historical location info is quite useful for getting a large early tech lead.
Quameno are brrrooooooooooooken
RE: Imbalanced AI?
My point is that Technocracy is pretty much all Zenox have. Historical location info is useless because debris fields/hidden bases are extremely easy to find with long range sensors, infact in my first empire game I had salvaged 3-4 of them rather quickly. They tend to spawn in only a few areas and the long range scanner is excellent for sniffing those areas. Aside from that, what do Zenox have? -10% Ship Maintenance and +20% Happiness, both very small bonuses considering that there are three races with larger happiness bonuses (Shandar, Securan, even Atuuk). As for the Ship Maintenance, the problem is that every race with ship maintenance has much higher and better overall bonuses. Ikkuro for example has the same -10% ship maintenance but they also have -30% troop maintenance, much higher (132) troop strength, +10% colony income, -10% Colonization Research Cost, and a racial component that is undoubtably better than Megatron Z4 shields. The Haakonish have -20% ship maintenance, +10% Espionage, +1 intelligence agent, +15% Military Ship Size, access to mercantile guild government and a fairly decent racial tech.
As for Quameno, its not Quameno whom are the problem, but Technocracy. +50% Research bonus without any substantial drawbacks is huge. Quameno can make obscene use of it because they have decent racial stats which compounds well. Zenox on the other hand is a lousy race whos only saving grace is Technocracy. Therefore the only possible balance solutions are to either nerf Quameno to roughly the same level as the Zenox, or nerf Technocracy and buff Zenox to compensate.
I prefer the latter solution.
As for Zenox being second strongest? Nope. Even with the broken Technocracy I would still put Haakonish or Ikkuro ahead of them. They are definatly in top 5 or top 10 though.
I never underrated good starting troops. Infact, most of the troop races I put 'Not Sure' because I simply have not played that side of the game enough to know how strong those races are...
Well, except Ikkuro. Ikkuro are obscenely powerful. I can see why some people on the forum really really like them.
As for Quameno, its not Quameno whom are the problem, but Technocracy. +50% Research bonus without any substantial drawbacks is huge. Quameno can make obscene use of it because they have decent racial stats which compounds well. Zenox on the other hand is a lousy race whos only saving grace is Technocracy. Therefore the only possible balance solutions are to either nerf Quameno to roughly the same level as the Zenox, or nerf Technocracy and buff Zenox to compensate.
I prefer the latter solution.
As for Zenox being second strongest? Nope. Even with the broken Technocracy I would still put Haakonish or Ikkuro ahead of them. They are definatly in top 5 or top 10 though.
Final thing, you really shouldn't underrate good starting troops. Mortalen, Boskaran, Ikkoro, Sluken, and Naxxilian troops are fantastic for early homeworld invasions. They've got troop strengths in the 135-139 range and a 25-40% cost reduction. Wekkarus,
Shandar, Securan, Ugnari, Ketarov, Atuuk, and Teekan neighbors are quite out of luck if an aggressive player decides to take advantage of that.
I never underrated good starting troops. Infact, most of the troop races I put 'Not Sure' because I simply have not played that side of the game enough to know how strong those races are...
Well, except Ikkuro. Ikkuro are obscenely powerful. I can see why some people on the forum really really like them.
I ate the batter of the bulge at Hans' Haus of Luftwaffles
RE: Imbalanced AI?
The best races are tech races (Quameno and Zenox) and high growth races. Then races with maintenance+research bonus and finally purely economic races.
Bug/aggressive races (that are not gizureans)are the worst "category" in the game. Their bonuses are only relevant for early wars, then their lack of actually good bonuses hurt them way too much. War weariness is a mostly irrelevant bonus since it's only a nuisance if your going for short wars and even if the wars drags out, it's not enough to even out the huge happiness bonus you get from luxuries, 0 tax etc etc
There's a reason Military Dictatorship, Feudalism and the likes are crap governments (even if you're warlike race), despite their significant maintenance bonus (very good in late game).
With that said my list would be something like
Quameno
Gizurean
Zenox
Ikkuro
Ackdarian
which are the Tier 1 races. Gizureans are there because they have the highest base growth in the game (+ get a bonus pop growth for 2 years every 7 years) and get a leader that never dies and continually racks up insane bonuses over time (often pop growth to make it completely disgusting) and also get a the biggest ship maintenance reduction. The greenskin-lady race have comparable growth(better only with their special gov but that comes with INSANE disadvantages) but they're awful at waging wars and have no real bonus aside from growth like the massive maintenance reduction the gizureans have.
Anyways, with this race, your home world is at max population before you finish Warp Field Precursor [after researching energy collector+space construction](yes even with the latest patch)! Your colonies all have insane population growth and thus you can tax them much much earlier than other races. They get so filthy rich so early they snowball harder than any other race and is actually comparable to at least the Zenox when it comes to tech (crash every project).
Bug/aggressive races (that are not gizureans)are the worst "category" in the game. Their bonuses are only relevant for early wars, then their lack of actually good bonuses hurt them way too much. War weariness is a mostly irrelevant bonus since it's only a nuisance if your going for short wars and even if the wars drags out, it's not enough to even out the huge happiness bonus you get from luxuries, 0 tax etc etc
There's a reason Military Dictatorship, Feudalism and the likes are crap governments (even if you're warlike race), despite their significant maintenance bonus (very good in late game).
With that said my list would be something like
Quameno
Gizurean
Zenox
Ikkuro
Ackdarian
which are the Tier 1 races. Gizureans are there because they have the highest base growth in the game (+ get a bonus pop growth for 2 years every 7 years) and get a leader that never dies and continually racks up insane bonuses over time (often pop growth to make it completely disgusting) and also get a the biggest ship maintenance reduction. The greenskin-lady race have comparable growth(better only with their special gov but that comes with INSANE disadvantages) but they're awful at waging wars and have no real bonus aside from growth like the massive maintenance reduction the gizureans have.
Anyways, with this race, your home world is at max population before you finish Warp Field Precursor [after researching energy collector+space construction](yes even with the latest patch)! Your colonies all have insane population growth and thus you can tax them much much earlier than other races. They get so filthy rich so early they snowball harder than any other race and is actually comparable to at least the Zenox when it comes to tech (crash every project).
RE: Imbalanced AI?
Nanaki:
Given the snowball that comes from early hyperdrive tech lead, getting to those historical sites way before researching long range scanners can be a pretty strong bonus. Of course it all comes down to tech priorities and cost. The more expensive your research is, the more valuable it is to retire ancient ships quickly. I'd never beeline long range scanners, so I see it as a useful bonus.
I guess if you normally get them pretty early, it would largely negate the usefulness of the trait.
Given the snowball that comes from early hyperdrive tech lead, getting to those historical sites way before researching long range scanners can be a pretty strong bonus. Of course it all comes down to tech priorities and cost. The more expensive your research is, the more valuable it is to retire ancient ships quickly. I'd never beeline long range scanners, so I see it as a useful bonus.
I guess if you normally get them pretty early, it would largely negate the usefulness of the trait.
RE: Imbalanced AI?
Your rankings are flawed for the following reasons:
- Quameno have nearly twice the research bonus as Zenox. Comparing the two is not even close
- You sell the Securans short. They do not HAVE to use Paradise government, and without it they are a high-growth race with +50% Happiness which lets you tax them very high, and a trade bonus on top of that
- Kaidan can match the Zenox in research, +20% Racial bonus plus +25% Republic bonus gives +45% Research bonus, humans can get +40%, yet nobody exactly rates them as top tier races
- Haakonish gets +15% Military Ship Size and +1 Intelligence Agent, which are usable by Pirates and are only obtainable by having them as your primary race
Honestly, theres only one Tier 1 race, Quameno. Tier 2 would probably be Gizurean, Ikkuro, Ackdarian, Zenox, and Haakonish. Tier 3 would probably be Kaidan, Human, etc.
Even then Zenox/Quameno are only where they are at because of how obscenely overpowered Technocracy is. If Technocracy gets nerfed, Zenox will likely be reduced to Tier 3 or even worse.
- Quameno have nearly twice the research bonus as Zenox. Comparing the two is not even close
- You sell the Securans short. They do not HAVE to use Paradise government, and without it they are a high-growth race with +50% Happiness which lets you tax them very high, and a trade bonus on top of that
- Kaidan can match the Zenox in research, +20% Racial bonus plus +25% Republic bonus gives +45% Research bonus, humans can get +40%, yet nobody exactly rates them as top tier races
- Haakonish gets +15% Military Ship Size and +1 Intelligence Agent, which are usable by Pirates and are only obtainable by having them as your primary race
Honestly, theres only one Tier 1 race, Quameno. Tier 2 would probably be Gizurean, Ikkuro, Ackdarian, Zenox, and Haakonish. Tier 3 would probably be Kaidan, Human, etc.
Even then Zenox/Quameno are only where they are at because of how obscenely overpowered Technocracy is. If Technocracy gets nerfed, Zenox will likely be reduced to Tier 3 or even worse.
I ate the batter of the bulge at Hans' Haus of Luftwaffles
RE: Imbalanced AI?
Not sure if you were referring to me but yeah I forgot the kiadians/humans never play as they're kinda uninteresting but it's true they're also top tier. Haakonish, I thought I had them in.
Securans, all you get aside from growth bonus is +50% happiness and that's awesome but it's also all they have. Meanwhile, worthless troops, no maintenance/research/income bonus or anything of note. Easily Tier 1 if you plan to play peacefully, otherwise I don't see any reason to pick them above gizureans. They're just a spiced up shandar.
Quameno I think are the best but I'm not sure. All they have is research. Yes it's freaking allot of research (which let's you do and have pretty much anything), but other races get large research bonuses and also economic& other bonuses on top of that. You can rush every single wonder tech with Zenox(/kiadians/humans with Rep or Dem) and even gizureans too. I don't think the research discrepancy between quameno and gizurean research is as large as the economic discrepancy once you get to mid game. But if this game was a multiplayer game, then yeah Quameno would be the best for sure.
Securans, all you get aside from growth bonus is +50% happiness and that's awesome but it's also all they have. Meanwhile, worthless troops, no maintenance/research/income bonus or anything of note. Easily Tier 1 if you plan to play peacefully, otherwise I don't see any reason to pick them above gizureans. They're just a spiced up shandar.
Quameno I think are the best but I'm not sure. All they have is research. Yes it's freaking allot of research (which let's you do and have pretty much anything), but other races get large research bonuses and also economic& other bonuses on top of that. You can rush every single wonder tech with Zenox(/kiadians/humans with Rep or Dem) and even gizureans too. I don't think the research discrepancy between quameno and gizurean research is as large as the economic discrepancy once you get to mid game. But if this game was a multiplayer game, then yeah Quameno would be the best for sure.
RE: Imbalanced AI?
I am certain. Fast research means they get Gainax hyperdrives first, which means they get first dibs on ruins, derelicts, and independants. Grabbing an independant with a valuable race lets them diversify and strengthen their economy. As for Gizureans, yes they are extremely prolific but generally they also benefit from lousy AI opposition. In a multiplayer match Gizureans would be screwed, both due to a human Quameno player enormously capitalizing on early tech, and other players sending assassins after the Gizurean's ruler (since, IIRC, if he dies he does not get replaced).
As for the other races, Humans and Kaidan have little to no economic bonus whatsoever. Zenox has a minor one, in the form of its +20% happiness and -10% ship cost combined, but even that is not a whole lot. There actually is not a race that has both research and tech bonuses, it is usually one or the other.
As for the other races, Humans and Kaidan have little to no economic bonus whatsoever. Zenox has a minor one, in the form of its +20% happiness and -10% ship cost combined, but even that is not a whole lot. There actually is not a race that has both research and tech bonuses, it is usually one or the other.
I ate the batter of the bulge at Hans' Haus of Luftwaffles
RE: Imbalanced AI?
ORIGINAL: Cauldyth
Yeah, I don't think the game even pretends to make the races balanced. Instead of comparing it to Starcraft, compare it to Europa Universalis. You can play as France or you can play as a one province minor in Ireland. They're very different experiences, and how well you aim to do in a given game is relative to how difficult you've made things for yourself by your race/nation choice.
Yes, indeed, except that DW is vastly more "balanced" in that its starts are like the French randomly starting in Ireland and the Irish in Japan next to the Nubians in Korea. It mixes it up a lot (though a player can set up each species in detail). Each must adapt to make the best of the its strengths in the given circumstances and opportunities while compensating for its weaknesses. And if a species is certifiably "Very Stupid" then shouldn't that prove out?
Also, the process of trying to balance a game is often damaging and can frustrate both the design concept and the players with iterative changes.
Let people rank the contenders and identify their asserted pros and cons - that can be fun as well - if the pros and cons don't change and invalidate yesterday's analysis today.
Such discussion helps us appreciate and pick among DW species that are not exactly iconic or stereotypes that players can identify with from a pre-existing fictional background (space orcs or space vampires or Romulans do tell you what you get by the label).