Which standard faction is the strongest?

Ail

VIP

6 400g2g pts

12 years ago

Oct 8, 2012, 12:02:19 PM

Amoeba.

Alone the advantage that their very 1st colony-ship will be used to it's maximum-benefit is huge.

Making contact, starting trade-routes, planning wars. Everything is so much easier when you know the exact situation all the time.

Also the AI does really well with them.

However, I wouldn't nerf them but instead buff others. Also I feel that Hissho are extremely good too.

Pilgrims, Automatons and Horatio do very good too. The Approval-Boni those races have seem to have a much bigger impact than it's budget-cost makes it seem to.

UE and Sophon seem pretty mediocre.

Cravers disadvantage of no trade and no peace is huge and their bonus-fleet-size is much weaker now due to the increased maintainance.

Sowers, as said before. I think if the malus from food-production was removed they would be really good but not like they are.

LordShotGun

Newcomer

LordShotGun

Newcomer

12 years ago

Oct 8, 2012, 10:28:40 AM

For player ability Horatio and Amoeba are possibly the strongest as both are easy to exploit. For Horatio just stick an admin/whatever (hopefully corporate but that really doesn't matter) into a pirate busting fleet and gain a dozen levels or so then clone it into creating amazing "forge worlds".

Amoeba just need to expand early and expand fast onto all the class 1 planets and planets with valuable resources. This is more valuable on smaller galaxies where luxury resources can easily be monopolized.

Fresh_Undies

Newcomer

Fresh_Undies

Newcomer

12 years ago

Oct 8, 2012, 10:09:23 AM

Strongest among the AI players in single player games is Hissho hands down and without question. The bonus to weapons ensures that it always pwns other AI factions.

The Cravers come in second place due to fleet size advantage however in low resource games the Cravers do suffer big time.

Sowers are the weakest in terms of factions that are placed under computer control since it has a severe negative trait that mauls both food and industry.

Sowers in my experience always end up having the weakest/smallest empire in single player games.

lujo

Newcomer

lujo

Newcomer

12 years ago

Nov 27, 2012, 10:22:12 AM

I voted Pilgrims in the end because - wow. Just wow. I think the poll indicates that more people are into spaceship combat or something, because as far as population strats go, I don't think you can beat the pilgrim affinity with anything in the game. Also, since you're seeding from a "pop boom world", and also transporting basic infrastructure, you can pretty much build ships on all your other worlds and get exploration and swarm the opposition pretty easily. The only reason it's balanced is because you don't actually get a set of stuff that works well with your broken affinity mechanic, but on the flipside you're the only one with "blocade runners" which really should've been someone's affinity bonus rather than something you can slap onto any faction.

(And if were talking customisation, fleet errant is a structure rather than a ship, so you can slap -X shipbuilding penalties on yourself and still get to colonize everything)

There's a good guide to Pilgrim affinity on the forums, check it out people. Fleet Errant might just be one of the best things out there.

ThatMG

Newcomer

ThatMG

Newcomer

12 years ago

Dec 2, 2012, 11:40:06 PM

there are also many ways to win so races are op in different means, its basically comes down to if the game/you let a race do what it does best its gonna be powerful.

I do find amoeba skill to be a bit lolsie what a free map hack you got to be yoking.

Hissho, amoeba, cravers, in my view would be the common way to win, oddball players might use sophon or another race for a non exgressive victory

if you want to talk about races in a box and only use AI i think the aggressive races are the best who expand early and get the best starting resource planets because currently the AI are brain dead retards (no offence to the programmer lol) their fleet making skills fail, they fight with dumb half empty cp fleets, they sit tons of fleets in their area doing nothing, they don't use their races benefits to win games. they can get shafted easily by other AIs. they are blind to massive control areas like stellar guardians and won't instant war. They don't make anything but glass cannons or ships with hardly any firepower

Igncom1

Craver

Infantry win firefights. Tanks win battles. Artillery win wars.

Igncom1

Craver

11 400g2g pts

12 years ago

Dec 2, 2012, 6:27:16 PM

Depends on the situation, its not hard to beat the AI at their own game, but just be weary of an AI that doesn't need to kill you to win.

lujo

Newcomer

lujo

Newcomer

12 years ago

Dec 2, 2012, 5:02:45 PM

Don't count on it, I've tried endless a few times and haven't really noticed a difference.

jdb

Old Timer

something witty

jdb

Old Timer

30 100g2g pts

12 years ago

Dec 2, 2012, 4:56:39 AM

Romeo wrote:
I think you might be the exception, rather than the rule. Not only do the Cravers annihilate early on, but they can be brutally hard to uproot, thanks to the fact they leave behind worthless husks of systems. Sure, pitted up against Hissho or UE, the Cravers don't fare so well. But against any of the other factions, they'll rip them apart nine times out of ten. It's not a gameplay imbalance, they just work really well with the way the AI is set-up.

You may be right, and perhaps I also need to be playing at a higher difficulty level than Normal... But honestly when I see them next door my usual reaction is relief because I don't have to waste resources on buying peace and can instead use those resources to contain the Cravers while they wither on the vine or snatch up a few systems from them if they haven't consumed them completely. I'm usually highly expansionist and colonize to the brink of unrest, though, so I almost always end up with more planets/systems than them.

Perhaps my mileage will vary with a less forgiving difficulty setting.

vonbron

Newcomer

vonbron

Newcomer

12 years ago

Dec 2, 2012, 4:07:15 AM

not sure about what factions the best

Romeo

Literary Transformer

Never shift in to reverse without a backup plan.

Romeo

Literary Transformer

38 900g2g pts

12 years ago

Dec 1, 2012, 5:47:10 AM

jdb wrote:
I think a lot of this depends on what galactic conditions you set. I've had several single-player games where the Sowers were on top for a while. In very few of my games, however, were the Cravers ever near the lead.

I think "strongest" depends greatly on context, playstyle, and whether a human is "behind the wheel" or the AI is.

I think you might be the exception, rather than the rule. Not only do the Cravers annihilate early on, but they can be brutally hard to uproot, thanks to the fact they leave behind worthless husks of systems. Sure, pitted up against Hissho or UE, the Cravers don't fare so well. But against any of the other factions, they'll rip them apart nine times out of ten. It's not a gameplay imbalance, they just work really well with the way the AI is set-up.

jdb

Old Timer

something witty

jdb

Old Timer

30 100g2g pts

12 years ago

Nov 30, 2012, 7:00:20 PM

Fresh_Undies wrote:
Strongest among the AI players in single player games is Hissho hands down and without question. The bonus to weapons ensures that it always pwns other AI factions.

The Cravers come in second place due to fleet size advantage however in low resource games the Cravers do suffer big time.

Sowers are the weakest in terms of factions that are placed under computer control since it has a severe negative trait that mauls both food and industry.

Sowers in my experience always end up having the weakest/smallest empire in single player games.

I think a lot of this depends on what galactic conditions you set. I've had several single-player games where the Sowers were on top for a while. In very few of my games, however, were the Cravers ever near the lead.

I think "strongest" depends greatly on context, playstyle, and whether a human is "behind the wheel" or the AI is.

Neowitch

Newcomer

Neowitch

Newcomer

12 years ago

Nov 29, 2012, 9:25:51 PM

I'm a newbie at this and played as UE, Automatons and Amoeba so far. My BF likes to take Horatio (hero cloning ftw). My impression is Amoeba>Horatio>UE>Automatons

In all my previous games the UE, Hissho and Horatio AI had the most points, while Sophons, Automatons and Sowers got annihilated pretty fast. I avoided getting Cravers for AI players since I like to avoid conflict as long as possible. Pilgrims can be pretty annoying, colonizing systems I had an eye on just a turn before I can reach them. Grr!

lujo

Newcomer

lujo

Newcomer

12 years ago

Nov 29, 2012, 10:59:53 AM

Yep

Well, they are misleadingly designed and labeled, and the blockade runners thing is broken by design. What the Pilgrims on a medium+map do is abuse the reliance of all fids on population, create a "perma pop-boom world" (bit of SMAC terminology there, used to be good at it), and just fill up everythign they colonize. Now since you only need an administrator and your affinity mechanic for that, your other traits could be whatever. Since one of them is blockade runners, and you're bound to have max pop everywhere (and I do mean everyhere) with little effort, you're a trading powerhouse with no effort except a bit of exploration (and since the early fleet errants are transporting basic infrastructure just because you need to build it to lvl your administrator, you can crank out cheap explorers in droves from everywhere else. Later, combat ships.). And then... whatever. You can buy up/build remaining infrastructure, you can have wars going all the time (even get tech from them), I mean, there's no downside except no focus and a need to win before anyone catches up (which anyone will be hard pressed to do if you know what you're doing).

Igncom1

Craver

Infantry win firefights. Tanks win battles. Artillery win wars.

Igncom1

Craver

11 400g2g pts

12 years ago

Nov 27, 2012, 3:33:39 PM

Almost ironic as my opinion tags it as one of the worst.

good old 4X games.

DEVMeedoc

Dev

I'm a cool guy.

DEVMeedoc

Dev

48 400g2g pts

12 years ago

Oct 8, 2012, 9:28:37 AM

Hello! We get a lot's of interesting opinion regarding the balancing of the traits for the custom factions (https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11381-opinion-requested-on-faction-traits). Thank you to everyone who posted there. It'll really help us to bring a better balance to their costs and their effects. If you did not give your opinion, we're still interested in getting more feedback!

Recently, I read a lot of thread on the standard faction's balancing so here is a thread to gather the discussion on which one do you find the strongest? And of course the most interesting is the why =)

Thank you for your cooperation!

RobM

Newcomer

RobM

Newcomer

30 400g2g pts

12 years ago

Nov 23, 2012, 4:39:38 PM

Apheirox wrote:
Automaton are crazy strong if you can avoid getting involved in wars.

Yes. Their affinity is extremely subtle and has a very zen "build by not building" playstyle. Your system improvement production should be running 5 turns ahead of your actual teching (as you'll be stacking the industry ahead of actually getting the tech, meaning you can build it instantly everywhere). If you can stay out of early wars, you can comfortably compete with empires twice your size by the midgame on your trade route income, at which point you'll want to be running huge fleets of destroyers just for the +15% per-system FIDS bonus on the racial tech. Keep fleet sizes small as long as possible to avoid hurting your dust income (you can pick up the fleet-cap increases in a turn when you need them). Then hard tech for Quadrinix, either arid or tundra terraform and get every planet to Terran as soon as possible.

Their weaknesses, as I see it, are their affinity is neutralised if they ever get forced into having to build ships as quickly as possible and can't rely on "stack a couple of turns, then build", and they can get heavily trade-route dependent and without blockade-breakers this can get wiped out by a late war declaration.

lujo

Newcomer

lujo

Newcomer

12 years ago

Nov 21, 2012, 8:49:28 PM

Err, as long as it's being necro'd, I'd vote sowers. I've played very little, but had no problems with the Sowers. Never ever having to pay attention to food as an existant resource, and never ever really having to pay attention to dust apart from setting the industry>dust most of the time is actually pretty good. The amoeba can see everything, and it's broken, sure, but the fact that you can actually settle anything and time your terraforming tech's (or ignore them) is quite a godsend.

Catma

Newcomer

Catma

Newcomer

12 years ago

Oct 22, 2012, 10:34:10 PM

On my first game with amoeba I had to stop about 5 minutes in because I felt like I was cheating. I didn't even think of the trade aspects of it! I just already felt all-powerful. I don't play them at all now.

Apheirox

Newcomer

Apheirox

Newcomer

6 000g2g pts

12 years ago

Oct 16, 2012, 11:20:16 PM

Automaton are crazy strong if you can avoid getting involved in wars. Anybody planning for a peaceful game should find them the hands down most overpowered faction.

ryousei

Newcomer

ryousei

Newcomer

12 years ago

Oct 16, 2012, 6:29:41 AM

Ameobas are good because they are the most specialised tactic I think. Hisshos were/are good for the same reason, but now its much weaker. Without bushido science, space cadets 3 is just too crippling.