Hello. While i really appreciate being able to create custom factions, i think they are badly balanced in their current state.


Now i don't mind being able to create custom factions which are stronger than the built-in races. Most games with customizations give better/stronger results when players customize their race/hero/ship/car/whatever rather than using some pre-built ones. Trying to create a powerful custom race can be a fun game on its own and multiplayer isn't even an issue since custom races can be disabled by the host, and if they are enabled creating a good race becomes part of winning the game. The issue however is that there's a few choices that really stand above everything else when creating a custom faction, reducing the diversity and making custom faction creation an exercise in cheasing rather than a real strategic choice.


The biggest offenders are population traits. Empire traits are varied and interesting. Some negative traits can be easily negated by the choice of Affinity or government but due to the limited number you can't really chease that part by stacking neutered penalties to gain free point. When it comes to population however, the situation is very different.


Considering population bonuses giving 1 point of FIDSI output are worth 5 population points and those giving 2 are worth 10 points, it's easy to see that the basic balance is 5 race point / FIDSI output. A few exceptions however totally throw away the balance.

  • Gargantuan Population gives +4 each of FIDS (total of 16 FIDSI) and costs only 15 population points rather than 80. It comes however with a hefty food penalty possibly making it balanced.
  • Agriculturalist provides +5 food for 15 points rather than the expected 25. It's extremely specific thought so it might be balanced if population points were more scarce but as it stands, there's really no reason to limit yourself to a primary bonus with a cost below 15.
  • Meritocratic Cosmopolites gives +2 all FIDSI for +10 total which would be worth 50 points but costs a miserable 15. I could understand that a bit of everything isn't as good for a particular strategy as a lot of something but currently you have a choice of +2 either F/I/D/S/I for 10 points or +2 each for 15. Looks like a no brainer for me except maybe ...
  • Adept Workers. +5 IDS for a total of +15 which would be worth 75 points and costs 25!

None of the 5 or 10 points population bonuses are worth looking at when you can get so much more for only 5 more population points. This is made even worse du to the fact that population points aren't worth much apart from selecting that primary bonus. You get 60 to begin the creation process, required governments all costs 10, just like required preferred party. You can free 10 by not selecting a collection bonus but even if you take one you still have 30 points for 2 bonuses and your political "sheningans". The secondary bonus will never be better than a strong primary and only Adept Workers will limit you to the 5 points secondaries. Political sheningans can be easily ignored as the pressure of your primary population and election actions are usually enough to keep the selected party in the senate for anything but democracy, and those sheningans are not enough to give you any real control over the senate if you choose democracy anyway. Excess population points don't give you bonus traits points so there's really nothing to dissuade you from choosing some of the more expansive bonuses when they give you so much more than the 5 or 10 points bonuses


Last but not least, you can get even bigger FIDSI by simply selecting Extreme Foremen primary and Planet Menders secondary. You will deplete and heal planets at the same time, allowing you to maintain the huge bonuses from Extreme Foremen indefinitely without any penalty all for 25 race points, giving you enough points for one political sheningan. The 150% bonus from Extreme Foremen quickly outpaces any of the other population bonuses making this combination the absolute chease and all other bonuses moot, not to mention the contradiction of being able to choose those 2 bonuses simultaneously.


Suggestions :

  • Forbid the combination of Extreme Foremen and Planet Menders much like some empire traits are mutually exclusive.
  • Link Adept Workers to the Riftborn's requirement to build new populations, but not the Riftborn's ability to ignore food (population would be some sort of semi-organic cyborgs that still need food to sustain them). This would give a penalty to go with the hefty bonus provided without changing pre-built races balance. Sophons or Vodyani visuals would make good cyborgs.
  • Make Meritocratic Cosmopolites +1 each rather than +2. It's not used by any default races so it won't affect them. +1 everything or +2 something could be a real choice when +1 everything is more expansive. It would still be good for all-around good races but not that great for a more focused custom race.
  • Reduce Agriculturalists to something more reasonable like +4 for 20 points and add other expansive specialized traits to give some alternatives to players who want a strong population.
  • Allow leftover population points to transfer to empire traits or simply give a single pool to choose traits and race bonuses. We could then create a weaker race (population) with more empire traits or a stronger race with a weaker empire. Some of the default races seem to be balanced that way as they don't use all of their population points but have more than their allowance of traits so why not allow this for custom races?