Equalizing SMAC and SMACX factions

[Foreman Domai]

After purchasing SMACX, I was disappointed to see that almost all of the new factions were overpowered compared to the original SMAC factions. I really enjoy mixing the new and old factions and I have noticed that the new ones usually win. Therefore, I tried editing their profiles in order to make them all more equal. I would like input from anyone who thinks I could make some improvements.

First of all, with the Aliens, I don't like the creators' philosophy that the Aliens must be ultra-powerful because "humanity must unite against them." To me, that is utter BS. The diplomacy in this game is not real-world; there is no way to get all five human factions to ally and kill the Aliens. Therefore, I buffed down the Aliens as well as all the SMACX human factions.

I began with changing some game mechanics. I changed Resonance-3 armor (which the Aliens would start with) to Adaptive Doctrine (the same as Pulse-3 armor). I felt this would balance it somewhat.

Now to the interesting part:

Caretakers:

• TECH: Progenitor Psych, Field Modulation
• +10% defensive combat
• +1 PLANET
• "Energy Grid"
• Mk I Battle Ogre and extra Colony Pod
• prototyped combat units have 2-square sighting radius
• Can direct research efforts
• Possess a physical scan of Planet's surface

I thought that starting with five techs was absurd. I also thought free tanks didn't really make sense. The +25% defensive combat seemed too strong. They can however, use any social engineering.

Usurpers:

• TECH: Progenitor Psych, Field Modulation
• +10% offensive combat
• +1 GROWTH
• +1 MORALE
• -1 PLANET
• "Energy Grid"
• Mk I Battle Ogre and extra Colony Pod
• prototyped combat units have 2-square sighting radius
• Can direct research efforts
• Possess a physical scan of Planet's surface

Same reasons here. They also get to use any social engineering.

Angels:

• TECH: Planetary Networks
• +2 PROBE
• -1 POLICE
• Get tech known to 3 other factions with infiltration
• Free COVERT OPS CENTER with Pre-Sentient Algorithms
• May not make Thought Control choice

I gave them only planetary networks because I thought 2 techs would be too much. I removed their - cost to probe actions because I figured it made them too strong. I took out Thought Control because it was powerful and it also would be against their faction ideology more than Power would be.

Pirates:

• TECH: Doctrine: Flexibility
• -1 EFFICIENCY
• -1 GROWTH
• Enhancements may be built in ocean and trench squares
• Sea colony pod & sea former prototypes FREE
• Bonus mineral from ocean shelf squares
• Marine Detachment FREE with Adaptive Doctrine
• May not make Wealth choice

I thought they would be too strong if they could choose from all social engineering. I also gave them only 1 starting tech. And I got rid of the free naval yard.

Consciousness:

• TECH: Applied Physics
• +2 RESEARCH
• +2 EFFICIENCY
• -2 GROWTH
• Impunity to CYBERNETIC penalty
• Can steal technology when capturing a base
• May not make Fundamentalist choice

I gave them a stiff growth penalty and got rid of the extra tech. I considered taking them down to +1 EFFIC, but I wasn't sure.

Cult:

• TECH: Centauri Ecology
• +2 PLANET
• -1 INDUSTRY
• -1 ECON
• Free BROOD PIT with discovery of Centauri Genetics
• Mind Worms do double police duty
• May not make Wealth choice in Social Engineering

All I did was reduce them to one tech. I thought about getting rid of the brood pit.

Drones:

• TECH: Industrial Base
• +2 INDUSTRY
• -2 RESEARCH
• Revolting bases tend to join drones
• -1 DRONES in every base
• May not use Green economics.

I think that they are balanced, I left them the same. BTW, I have never observed a base revolt. Could someone explain?

I left the SMAC factions exactly as they were.

I hope these new factions are equal. They seem OK in playtesting. Please give me your opinions.

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Agenda: Emancipation of the working classes

[Googlie]

Foreman Domai:

Not to say that others haven't found the new factions strong, but I think that the real problem is that whatever faction the astute player plays he/she is likely to give the AI a pounding regardless of whether they are SMAC or SMAX factions.

Most of the mods that get seriously considered are ones that strengthen the AI, not dumb it down - hence the tweaks to move choppers to the endgame, also crawlers (the AI hardly builds either) as well as spawning the various challenges such as one base/no facilities/forests only/prototypes only/ change to the weakest faction as soon as you've become dominant and so on.

I seriously doubt that many will make the changes you are suggesting.

(And there's a whole thread on base revolts - I'll search for it and bump it - only about 4 - 6 weeks old, I recall)

G.

[Sikander]

Foreman Domai,

What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?

1) Even up the factions so that each faction wins with the AI about the same percentage of time.

2) Reduce the advantage that the human player has with certain factions for either SP or Multiplayer.

If your goal is #1, then you may want to take into consideration various starting conditions like planet size, and fungus etc. This seems to have a large impact on whether certain factions have a shot at success or not. For instance, I have rarely seen the Planet Cult do well (I usually play average fungus). Even when they have managed to get into a good position, their diplomatic ineptitude seems to seal their fate. Obviously Miriam and the other momentum factions are going to prefer a tiny planet with a large landmass.

If your goal is to balance the factions for human play, then you should listen to what the humans have to say about the factions and their power. The University and the Drones seem to be quite popular with human players, and for good reason. They seem like good candidates for toning down, as do the Pirates and the Conciousness (as you say). I have never heard anyone else suggest that the Planet Cult be toned down. They are far and away considered a weak if not the weakest faction.

The Aliens are usually barred as selections for Multiplayer, and most people consider them as too powerful to play in single player. I think they were included to give the human player some stiffer competition in single player mode.

[Foreman Domai]

What I am trying to do is this:

I want all the AI factions to win about the same percentage of the time. I know that whatever faction I choose, I will win, but I just don't like how SMACX factions are overpowered compared to the original ones. I am not trying to convince anyone to agree with my idea, but I just want suggestions as to how I may make the factions more equal. I know that the people who post here are mostly very good at SMAC, so I respect the input that they can provide.

In saying that, if anyone has any ideas for me, please share them. Thanks.

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Agenda: Emancipation of the working classes

[RedFred]

Forman, how many trials have you based your observation that the SMACX AI factions outperform the SMAC AI factions? The reason I ask is that, with the special exception of the two alien factions, I haven't noticed this tendancy.

WRT the aliens, it is my belief that the game designers were purposefully trying to make the game harder. IMHO they succeeded, but unfortunately tilted the game further from the builders, and toward the conquerers, at the same time. To detune the aliens would be running contrary to the designers' intended outcome of making the game a bit more challenging.

The problem may be that a lot of the players who post on the boards are already playing at transcend level and are looking for new ways to make single play against the AI harder. There is nothing wrong to adjust the game to make the aliens easier to contend with I don't think you will find a lot of support for it around these parts.

WRT the non-alien SMACX factions, I am not sure that I can agree that they are overpowered against the oldtimers. Apparently the SMACX designers found a way to make the AI play against itself and played tons of games and tweaked the special advantages to prevent any one AI faction from winning too many games.

Of course, in the hands of a human every faction will play very differently. Much of how each faction performs depends on the starting setup and individual playing style. Everyone has different favourites. For me, in general I would rate the UoP the strongest, with the Gaians, PK and Drones also very strong. My personal toughest are the Believers and the Data Angels. So for my particular playing style, there does not seem to be a problem.

For your particular play style, it is entirely possible that one whole set of factions is more powerful than the other. But, I doubt many others have a playing style that would also favour all seven SMACX factions over all seven SMAC factions.

[Basil]

I find that the SMAX factions are (mostly) too powerful relative to the SMAC factions. There are exceptions, I find the University overpowered and the Cult underpowered, but generally the SMAX factions are more powerful. This is normally a problem in MP rather than SP though, since I will simply not play factions like the Drones, the University, the Caretakers or the Angels in SP, which solves the problem. It's annoying that if someone picks the Drones I feel I have to pick the University to get a fair game, or alternatively that if someone picks the Cult I feel I can't pick the University, and IMO that's a game design flaw. But I'm getting off the topic of the thread.

I would say that the Usurpers in particular, and to a lesser extent the Caretakers, Drones and Angels, are more powerful than the other factions when run by the AI. I find the the Pirates to be reasonably balanced and the CyC and the Cult underpowered when run by the AI. Note that I'd rank the AI factions in a completely different order from the way I'd rank them when controlled by human players - for instance, I find the Caretakers much stronger than the Usurpers in the hands of a human player, but the Usurpers stronger than the Caretakers in the hands of the AI.

One thing I've observed is that the AI-controlled Drones and the Angels do a much better job of developing infrastructure than most of the SMAC factions. I suspect that this is because the Drones and the Angels have two priorities (eg Build/Conquer), whereas three of the SMAC factions just have one, so over the course of time the Drones/Angels build most of the facilities for two priorities, while the SMAC factions will only tend to build the facilities associated with one priority. So I suspect that the SMAC factions would play better if they were given a second priority. I'd tend to give the Gaians Explore/Build, the Morgans Explore/Build, and the University Discover/Build. I haven't had a chance to try this out yet.

I rarely use the SMAX human factions in my games, and I haven't seen the Angels or the Drones interact with other AI factions enough to see a pattern. The Cult rarely develops much technologically - it needs to be strengthened in that respect, though I'm not sure how. The CyC always seems to end up losing its wars with the other AI's. I think it might do better with the Conquer priority added and if it were made aggressive. These two things would, not incidentally, make its ability to take tech when capturing a base useful. To balance the overpowered Drones, both when AI-controlled and, more importantly, when human-controlled, I'd reduce their industry bonus from +2 to +1. The University also needs to be cut back in some way but I'm not sure what, perhaps a -INDUSTRY (resources other factions would give to industry are diverted to research).

I don't agree that Progenitor factions are fine as they are. As played by the AI, they are not strong throughout the game: they are insanely strong in the opening game, with the result that you can only survive an early meeting with them by exploiting the stupidities of the AI diplomacy engine - how much fun is that? - but after that the AI plays them worse than almost any other faction. These factions would be more fun to play against if they were weaker in the opening game and did a better job of exploiting their position.

The fact that almost noone feels that they are fair to use in MP is an indication that there might be new and interesting things we could do in MP if we looked at what a MP-balanced Progenitor faction might look like.

These are things I'd do to make the AI play them better: give both of them Impunity: Planned, so that their research doesn't collapse in the late mid game when they are running Fundy/Planned/Power with an efficiency of -2 (which is what happens if you just use them the way Firaxis set them up). I'd give the Caretakers an aversion to Fundamentalism, which would make them tend to play Democracy/Planned, which is at least different from if not better than the Fundy/Planned that the Usurpers run. Of course these changes make the Progenitors more powerful relative to the other AI's rather than less. The ideas in the next paragraph for making player-controlled Progenitor factions less powerful would be useful if you wanted to balance the AI-controlled factions.

To balance them when controlled by a player, they would first have to lose 3 of their 5 starting techs, so that they start with just the two techs that the game gives any Progenitor faction. They would also have to lose their free recycling tanks. I would give the Caretakers an aversion to Free Market: this fits the faction, since they are portrayed as wanted to preserve Planet and Free Market is portrayed as being bad for the environment, and since they are portrayed as being a different species which is naturally adapted to something like a Planned economy. Both Progenitor factions should find Planned more useful than human factions do, since it is their species' natural way, so I'd give them both Robust, Effic and Social, -Effic. I don't know if this would be enough to balance them in MP - starting with a battle ogre and 3r infantry they are still very strong - but it puts them in the same ballpark as the other factions.

Edit: I like the idea of making the Data Angels' Aversion Thought Control: game balance issues aside, it fits the faction very well.
[This message has been edited by Basil (edited December 30, 2000).]

[mark13]

Basil,

I would argue the point that the new factions are overpowered, mainly due to one equalizer - map size. I would assume the majority of SMAC players would play a 'normal' game on a huge map - favouring the builder heavily. However, you play an MP game on a tiny map, and see how often the Consciousness/Universoty pull through - not too often. The fact that we play the game from a builder's point of view gives the impression that the momentum factions are underpowered.

The Caretakers/Usurpers IMHO should be made stronger - the idea was that they shouldn't be played by a human player, and that humankind should unite to fight off this menace. Unfortunately, this seldom happens - and that is a design flaw. As it is, the human player can overrun both the Progs with nerve gas - maybe there should be some impunity to nerve gas for the aliens, if that is at all possible. That, IMO, would be the best equalizer of them all.

Still, all of this is just my opinion - maybe I am mis-reading the intent of this thread - still, they are my thoughts on the subject.

[Helium Pond]

Two cents:

I've seen Yang wipe the Usurpers off the map.

[Misotu]

Interesting. I don't find the new factions over-powered, but perhaps it's the game set-up I play (huge maps etc).

When mucking around trying to create a fun but maybe unbeatable scenario, I chose the following enemy factions in a coalition: Pirates, Drones, Uni, Believers, Hive. Fighting against the human, playing as the PK, allied with the Gaians controlled by the AI.

Based on my previous game-playing experience, I wanted to make the opposition as tough as possible. I excluded the Aliens - too easy to beat if you're not right next to them in the early years.

You could make a case for including CyC in the AI opposition team (might try this in fact). Probably instead of the Believers. But otherwise, the new factions were not top of my list on "tough to beat". I still think that the Hive performs best of all the AI factions - the Drones can be cracking, but they need a good start or they disappear early ...