Could Aliens be good in PBEM?

[smhfan86]

i was thinking. in most pbem games, the aliens are banned. understandably, they are weak, because they're easily killed by nerve gas, and it's not considered an atrocity when used against them.

of course, they can use it freely too, but since, there are only 2 alien factions, who hate each other, and a ton of human factions that can work together, the aliens are at a disadvantage.

is there any way to make them better? maybe change the rules a bit, possibly disallowing nerve gas in the game altogether?

would that then make them too powerful?

what do u guys think?

[RedFred]

I have never banned aliens from PBEM; I just don't happen to know any. If you have met some aliens I suggest contacting the authorities at once.

With free base improvements, front-loaded tech advantages, I doubt that the aliens' vulnerability is the cause of many PBEM bannings.

For me and I suspect many others playing the aliens is somehow less fun. But they are okay as an occasional change of pace. In order to keep the game in balance, consider playing with seven alien factions. Or at least have all the non-AI participants in the game play either all humans or all aliens. You can load up seven Caretakers and Usurpers, or you can get creative and add in your own new custom alien factions.

[BustaMike]

Lol, Aliens are banned because they are too powerful. Free recycling tanks, start with more tech, directed research always, free attack or defense bonus, commerce income is same in peace or war (energy grid), start with more colony pods and a battle ogre. Besides, don't forget that aliens can gas humans with no consequences also.

When I play with my friends, the aliens are banned because we consider them unfair.

[GeneralTacticus]

Another effect the Aliens have in PBEM is to disable the Planetary Council if there is a human playing them. This is presumably so that the other players can't go melting polar caps and stuff w/o the Aliens being able to stop them.

[smhfan86]

they aliens can disable the planetary council? how? i thought they had no say in the council whatsoever.

true BustaMike, i realize the aliens can gas too, but since it's usually 2 aliens and five humans, or such, the humans can gang up on the aliens, as they'll be seen as the major threats.

[GeneralTacticus]

No, it's not an option, the Council just doesn't appear when the Aliens are being played by the humans. Very annoying.

[smhfan86]

ic. that sux.

[Flubber]

I agree with those that say the aliens are banned as being too strong. As for humans ganging up on them, I believe that that will happen to anyone that seems to be too strong as the game progresses regardless of the faction choice. Human players do not seem to care one little bit about ideology or faction politics when trying to win a PBEM

There are ways to make the aliens playable however, if you modify the attributes of other factions so they can be competitive. Aliens do appear under AI control in some of my PBEMs and while they can build an impressive empire, the other players in the game saw them as a threat and tech-traded to the point where the aliens are so far behind in tech as to be a mere annoyance.

[Basil]

I've played in two-player games against the Usurpers three times. I won 2 of the games, and lost one.

In the game I lost, my Peacekeepers landed about 10 squares from the landing spot of the Usurpers. Not too surprisingly, he killed me pretty quickly. The two games that I won were played on extra-large maps, and I started on different land masses than the aliens. They lost lopsidedly in games that were long-term contests of economic development. This was because the Usurpers are a very weak faction in such a game, easily the weakest of the 14.

But first, some comments on points that others have raised:
If one of the human-controlled factions in a PBEM game is an alien faction, that does not disable the Council. The player of the *aliens* does not see any sign of its existence, true, but it's there for the player of the "human" faction. Not only that, but it's very easy to manage, partly because there are only 5-6 factions on the Council. But also consider that the Council can become hard to manage in SP because if you become a dominant power the AI power in the #2 position will automatically oppose you. In a 2-player game against a player-controlled Alien faction, the #1 or #2 power (the other player-controlled faction) won't be on the Council, only a bunch of AI's that will hate the Alien faction for being Alien. It's a dream to manipulate . And the Aliens don't get any of the benefits of Council decisions .

The recycling tanks are an Alien advantage.

Their starting advantage in techs is not a major advantage, because someone else having more tech than you makes techs cheaper to research. I don't know about the Caretakers but it's easy to overtake player-controlled Usurpers with the Gaians or the Morgans, let alone the University!

The directed research advantage doesn't work in MP, the game is either directed research for all players or blind research for all players.

The attack/defence bonus is a real advantage.

The energy grid is an advantage in the opening game, but the energy it generates is nothing compared to the energy trade can generate in the mid-game (especially if there's a global trade pact, and if there's a human-controlled Progenitor faction in MP there *will* be a global trade pact!) This was actually a major disadvantage to the Usurper players in both the games that went long.

The Usurpers are very weak in an economic contest because they can't run Democracy (which means they can't pop boom) and have no factional economic benefits. Furthermore, running Planned (the other early-game SE choice with a bonus to Growth) gives them a -2 Efficiency. You wind up running SE combos like Frontier/FM when you aren't in a position to attack anyone.

So the Usurpers could be an interesting faction against a military faction like the Believers or the Hive on a smallish map, but against a builder or hybrid faction they have to succeed in an early rush or they will lose. This doesn't make for an interesting game.

The games I played were fun, and if you're playing primarily for fun (let's see how the colonization of Chiron develops this game!) I'd certainly recommend the Aliens (although you might want to tweak the Usurpers a fair bit if you wanted a longer-running game on a larger map). For games that are primarily competitive in nature, and where the players don't want early rushes, I wouldn't recommend them, not because they're better but because their advantages are lopsided: they're better in the early game and worse in the late game on the bigger maps.

[smhfan86]

I agree with Basil, the aliens are powerful early on and if you're next to them, you're dead. However, since PBEM games are usually set up by a CMN, everyone usually gets their own little continent to start off on. And that allows the human factions to gain close the gap.

of course, there is that one little problem of aliens starting later in sp games, whereas, in mp games, they start at the same time. one way to counter this, is to give the human factions an extra colony pod and scout to start.

[Kataphraktoi]

So the Usurpers could be an interesting faction against a military faction like the Believers or the Hive on a smallish map, but against a builder or hybrid faction they have to succeed in an early rush or they will lose. This doesn't make for an interesting game.

i thought the aliens were unstopable in all parts of the game

or thats what my friends tell me i dont have the xpac myself...

[Flubber]

With adequate space, I believe the aliens are very tough in all aspects of the game. IIRC they start with an extra colony pod which means they start with a 3-2 advantage over human factions. Throw in a free rec tanks and their bases should be growing faster than humans particularly in arid conditions but even in rainy. This is key in the a=early game when the main restriction on getting new bases out is waiting for existing bases to grow to size 2. This means that bases 4-6 get set up quicker with the corresponding advantages to tech, energy and unit production.


I agree with Basil as to the problems faced by the usurpers but I compare them with the Hive and see enough corresponding advantages in the usurpers to offset the inability to run democracy. I do prefer the caretakers for an easier pop boom though and find their +1 Planet very handy to scare up a small worm army.

I won't say that the aliens are a crushing advantage but I suspect that Basils victories against the usurpers are more a matter of relative skill levels than a good test of the relative strength of the factions. basil has good points about the council but I find that the aliens should grow real fast and be able to rush any nearby faction, adding bases and strength to become a real juggernaught.

[smhfan86]

Yeah, the aliens are pretty powerful, with or without space, but like any faction, it all depends on how you play em. Flubber, you proved that when you used the Cult to great effectiveness in our game.

I always thought of them as a pretty weak faction, till I saw you use them.