As ES is a 4x game, I've looked at all of the factions on those terms to create a broad (and highly subjective) rating system. Most of these ratings are based on the idea that, due to the 'snowball effect,' the best bonuses are the ones that effect you from Turn 1 on, and are not 'ally' or other situation dependent, while the worst maluses are those that hit you hardest on Turn 1 and stall your expansion (with that in mind, things like 2nd Tier Homeworlds are actually a real issue). As such, my read on the factions:



For Reference: 4x- Explore (Find New Systems, Claim Events), Expand (Add Systems to Empire), Exploit (Gain Benefits from Systems, FIDS Modifiers), Exterminate (Warfare)

Ratings: ++: Very Good; +:Good; 0:Balanced; -:Bad



Factions:

United Empire (++):

-Explore (0): No Bonus/Malus

-Expand (0): No Bonus/Malus (Slight Malus to Approval if using I Bonus for Tax Rate)

-Exploit (+): Significant Bonus to D/No Malus (Bonus to I if using high Tax Rate)

-Exterminate (+): Bonus to Ship HP and Harder to Invade/Slight Malus on Hero Abilities (very slight considering D Bonus)



Sophrons (++):

-Explore (+): Cheaper Explorer Ships, Bonus to Ship Speed and Sensors/No Malus

-Expand (0): Cheaper Colony Ships/No Malus (Slight Bonus to Approval if using low Tax Rate for S Bonus)

-Exploit (++): Major Bonuses to S/Minor Malus to I for Improvements (Even more S Bonus/Slight Malus to D if using Tax Rate for S Bonus)

-Exterminate (-): No Bonus (other than what Tech Advantage accounts for)/Malus on Ease of being Invaded



Hissho (+):

-Explore (0): No Bonus/Malus

-Expand (0): No Bonus/Malus

-Exploit (-): Significant Bonus to FIDS following Invasions/Significant Malus to S

-Exterminate (++): Significant Bonus to Accuracy, Damage (gets better after Victories), Ship Costs, and Hero XP/Slight Malus to Hero if Retreating



Amoeba (+++):

-Explore (++): Starts with Map revealed, Cheaper Explorer Ships/No Malus

-Expand (+): Cheaper Colony Ships, Slight Bonus to Approval for Peace/No Malus

-Exploit (0): Bonus to Trade/No Malus

-Exterminate (0): Bonus due to Allies/No Malus



Automations (0):

-Explore (0): No Bonus/Malus

-Expand (+): Bonus to Approval and Population Cap/Slight Malus to Approval on Home System

-Exploit (0): Interest for Unused I, Bonus to Trade/Significant Malus to D

-Exterminate (-): Slight Bonus to Ship HP and Harder to Invade/Malus to CP



Cravers (++):

-Explore (0): Cheaper Ships/No Malus

-Expand (+): Cheaper Ships, Bonus to Population Cap/No Malus

-Exploit (-): Major Bonus to FIDS for first 40 turns on world, Bonus to S for each CP Destroyed/Major Malus on FIDS after 60 turns on world, 2nd Tier (Arid) Homeworld

-Exterminate (+): Cheaper Ships, Bonus to CP/No Malus



Horatio (+):

-Explore (-): No Bonus/More Expensive Ships

-Expand (+): Bonus to Population Cap/More Expensive Ships

-Exploit (+): Bonus to F, Major Bonus to Influence, Hero Cloning/2nd Tier (Arid) Homeworld

-Exterminate (0) Hero Cloning/More Expensive Ships



Sowers (-):

-Explore (-): No Bonus/Malus to Ship Speed

-Expand (+): Tolerant, Bonus to Approval/No Malus

-Exploit (-): Major Bonus to F due to I, Bonus to I for Improvements, Small Bonus to D for each CP Destroyed/Crushing Malus to F, Significant Malus to S, 2nd Tier (Tundra) Homeworld

-Exterminate (0): No Bonus/Malus



Pilgrims (+):

-Explore (0): No Bonus/Malus

-Expand (+): Evacution Ability, Bonus to Approval/No Malus

-Exploit (+): Bonus to Hero XP, Bonus to Trade, Small Bonus to S for each CP destroyed/No Malus

-Exterminate (-): Bonus to Hero XP, Bonus due to Allies, Bonus to Invasion Ownership (Winning)/Malus to Ship Storage, Malus to Invasion Ownership (Losing)



Sheredyn (++):

See United Empire



Adding in bonuses for Unique Tech, the Sophrons, Automations, and Pilgrims all get another (+), the other races don't alter Tech enough to really matter.



That leaves the standings at:

+++: Amoeba, Sophrons (Amoeba better for SP due to diplomacy Exploits, Sophrons better at MP)

++: UE, Cravers, Pilgrims, and UE again (Sheredyn) (UE and Cravers are balanced, Pilgrims slightly better at SP)

+: Hissho, Automations, and Horatio (Hissho in MP due to constant warfare, Automations requires too much micromanagement for MP, Horatio balanced)

and... -:Sowers (Why? What did they ever do to you?)



Obviously, there is a lack of balance here.



The Amoeba simply aren't bad at anything, and get better with allies. That, teamed with them knowing the whole map, allows them to focus on quickly gobbling up the best worlds in reach and B-lining for first contacts so they can start cranking out their trade bonuses. By the time the AI knows what hit it, the Amoeba have good worlds, better tech than everyone but the Sophrons, and money to upgrade their fleets to counter the attack/defense of whoever they get attacked by (if they're not already allies). Obviously, in MP, they are not as good, as players don't react the same way. Still, in team games, they are great to have (they give their friends the map, too, and get some of their ally bonuses.)



Sophrons get speed (which matters in the early to mid game, which is all of MP), radar range, and, oh yeah, TECH!! They begin a stone's throw away from having +40 S buildings on all their systems, which gives them even more tech. Drop your taxes to make people happy, you get even more tech. By the time you get in a fight, your weapons should be a full tier (or two) ahead of your opponents, as should your defenses. All you really have to worry about is being out produced (or CP'ed, or maybe a good hero), which you can fix with, wait for it, TECH!! As usual in 4x, it's science geeks for the win.



The UE, Cravers, and Pilgrims are all pretty well balanced. They don't have glaring weaknesses, and, if played to their strengths, are all competitive, even against the Amoeba and the Sophrons, given decent worlds to work with.



The Hissho and Horatio are both situational. If you start with someone you don't have to cross a wormhole to beat on, then the Hissho are fine. If they are trapped behind wormholes giving the others a chance to 'tech-up' before first contact, they are a lot less fine. Likewise, the Horatio need a good hero (or two, one fleet, one colony) to level and clone to keep in the game. Given that, they do fine. Without it, they get eaten.



The Automations are a lot like a custom race min-maxed to no real good end. While they are playable, they require constant attention to each colony to take advantage of their ability (which the AI will not do for you, so go micromanagement), and are quite hard to start out with due to that terrible CP penalty (3 ships to 5 matters; 3 ships to 7, well, Cravers eat you.) If you can work through the micromanagement and don't get munched in the early game, you can break into early terraforming and grab some mid-game goodness, but from there you are coming from behind for an uphill win. While you kick, scream, and fight your way to an underdog victory, the Amoeba and Sophrons are cruising happily along, and they will probably beat you anyway. Sorry.



Then you have the poor, poor Sowers. These guys do literally nothing well. They explore slowly, breed slowly, and, best of all, they make no money. That lovely bonus to making stuff allows them to design a space-age poor house where they can build pretty buildings and fleets that they can never seem to get enough money to pay for. The only option for making it through is to make a bunch of Desert worlds, optimizing money and production, and, unfortunately, leaving you even farther behind in precious technology. By the time you think you may be able to afford the massive fleet you can crank out quickly, it won't matter, because everyone else will have as much firepower in one ship as you have in three. Thanks for playing. Also, it's really great that the Endless designed 'paradise engineers' are worse at terraforming than the Automations, which doesn't matter anyway because they are tailored for making the whole universe a Desert wasteland. Somewhere along the way, they missed the mark on these guys.



So, where to go from here? Slap the Amoeba with a penalty to combat so they can be beaten down. Slap the Sophrons with the same inverse taxation problem that the UE has to keep them from getting far more Tech than everyone else without having happiness issues to go with it. Keep the UE, Cravers, and Pilgrims where they are. Give the Hissho easier access to wormhole tech so they can bust out if they are trapped behind the walls. Give the Horatio an extra couple of heroes in their starting pool, and give them a 1st Tier Homeworld. Think hard about making the Automations less micromanagement intensive (the ability works fine in theory, but sucks to play with in practice for most of us), and think hard about that CP penalty, it's rough. Finally, take the Sowers back to the drawing board. Whatever you wanted to do with them, you missed, and you need to start over.



These are my thoughts on balance. Questions, comments, and other analysis/opinions are welcome.

i have already said soo much to that Topic...

iam atm to tired to wrote a new novel why the races are not balanced and Sophons are Overpowered and Overused...as you said too in your statement

But add an Epxand bonus to the Sophons...u forgot their 50% cheaper Seed modules which is their biggest advantage.



So many races needs a decent buff ...especialy Sowers at the very very first place

You bring it to the point my friend...i couldnt say it better atm.

*(Why? What did they ever do to you?)*





keep on working maybe one day we will be heared.

Sovereign wrote:
...But add an Epxand bonus to the Sophons...u forgot their 50% cheaper Seed modules.

Right you are, the bonus is now mentioned, though I don't think it's enough to alter the scales (population cost is still the same). None the less, just one more reason they are better.

Yeah that bonus to seed modules + the movement speed increase would actually make their expand +, because the seed module production cost is actually a REALLY big deal. Some people have likened this to the sophons having 1 and a half affinities instead of 1.

Also I believe that you should add a 5th option as tech. You mentioned tech slightly but tech is, at least to me, a big factor in my choice of faction. You say they don't alter much, but in reality they do. Horatio's early academy cap tech for example really can be a game breaker to help with cloaning admins. Now for my personal opinion on the relative tech strengths:

Sophons unique techs are very strong all game (++)

Automatons hydrosequencing is very powerful. If it wasn't for the terran terraform needs materials further down the tech tree it would be ++, as it is (+).

Sowers production increasing tech is a pretty big deal since it's always per population (+)

Horatio has the academy cap increase, which can be huge enough early game to secure a strong lead (+)

Cravers have the ability to get early revenue zen, and also have more fleet cap early game, along with the added ability to decrease the locust points gain by 50% (+)

Ameobas have extra approval for corporation treaties, but it's unlikely they'll have more than 1 active, but they do have adaptive tarrifs, which in the right situation can net a serious amount of wealth, giving more dust than revenue zen (+)

United empire have OK tech due to exploitive algorithms(0)

Pilgrims really have no unique tech other than the factory missions, which on it's own is a dead end research, making it only moderatly desirable (0)

Hissho have poor tech. This is completly made up for by the hissho trait bonus, but weapons are never really good researches to do unless your desperate (-)



All this just further proves sophons dominance, and yet they still haven't actually used up all their points. This is why sophon affinity is used so much in MP.

Ok, it seems this is a comparison of the default factions, and not the faction affinities themselves? in which case this really shouldn't be applied to MP at all, since almost all games are with custom factions.



Should really only compare the faction affinities, not the traits that come with the default factions. Default factions are really just awful from a gameplay standpoint, and are really more of a lore thing than meant to be balanced.



Another way of comparing these affinities relative strenth would be to equate them to actual trait points. For example, Sophons (not Sophrons) get science boost, so scientists 3 is 30 points. you also get seed module, which is roughly equivalent to masters of illusion, so another 10 points. Sophon's affinity is worth about 40 trait points.



Craver's have 25% FIDS boost for the first 80 or so turns (the locust reduction...) most games are decided by around turn 100 unless it is very drawn out, so cravers bonus could also be equated to approximately 40 trait points, or more.



Really though, the amoeba affinity? imbalanced? no. Trade is just simply not as powerful as it used to be. having the map revealed can let you colonize the best systems a little faster, but after that you literally have no affinity bonus. They also don't get any special tech until so late in the tech tree that almost all games are already over. Scouting out the galaxy, even a large or huge one, is not hard with only 2 or 3 scout ships. By the time trade would get you any decent amount of and you can very very easily have the whole map revealed.



I think a major flaw in this comparison is that you assume all +'s are equal. They are not. The + for amoeba are very very small, and 2 of the +s you have are from traits, not the amoeba affinity.



just to clear up some misconceptions here

Cravers have the ability to get early revenue zen, and also have more fleet cap early game, along with the added ability to decrease the locust points gain by 50% (+)

revenue zen costs so much industry that you just can't build it. Your systems are never developed enough to build it that early. That said, the +4CP is a huge huge huge deal and is very powerful.

Ameobas have extra approval for corporation treaties, but it's unlikely they'll have more than 1 active, but they do have adaptive tarrifs, which in the right situation can net a serious amount of wealth, giving more dust than revenue zen (+)

As i said before, amoeba tech comes so late it the game its almost insulting. They get precisely no bonuses until turn 120+ in a normal game.

Pilgrims really have no unique tech other than the factory missions, which on it's own is a dead end research, making it only moderatly desirable (0)

pilgrims have very nice tech. factory missions is possibly one of the best system improvements in the midgame, and can make even a terrible system have decent industry. Colonize gas, faster heroes with more exp, and later better trade, pilgrims tech is very well rounded and pretty useful.

Gameslayer989 wrote:
Yeah that bonus to seed modules + the movement speed increase would actually make their expand +, because the seed module production cost is actually a REALLY big deal. Some people have likened this to the sophons having 1 and a half affinities instead of 1.

I don't agree. You are still hemmed in by the standard problems of planet size and approval. The only + I gave out for expansion were for alterations of those parameters. Being able to colonize a turn or two earlier isn't as much a deal as being able to have more population per colony or having more colonies. Is it a bonus, yes. Is it a major factor, no.

Gameslayer989 wrote:
Also I believe that you should add a 5th option as tech. You mentioned tech slightly...

I simply didn't go into detail. I included the techs that I believe shift game balance, and didn't add additional paragraphs about why. The main reason I didn't is because, overall, I consider the trees balanced against one another, and don't see them as the major cause of unbalance among the factions.

Affinity wrote:
Ok, it seems this is a comparison of the default factions, and not the faction affinities themselves?

That is exactly what it is. It is my belief that each 'out of the box' faction should be fairly balanced against one another. I am looking at the factions as an overall package, not taking each trait (or affinity) against each other. Costs per trait and other balance issues are beyond the scope my discussion.

Affinity wrote:
in which case this really shouldn't be applied to MP at all, since almost all games are with custom factions.

Which is another issue, but if the default races were well balanced, you would be able to see 'standard factions only' MP, which would be better, in my opinion, than a MP full of a bunch of min-maxes. It takes more skill to play as a known factor, and to deal with a sub-par build.

Affinity wrote:
Should really only compare the faction affinities, not the traits that come with the default factions. Default factions are really just awful from a gameplay standpoint, and are really more of a lore thing than meant to be balanced.

Once again, I don't agree. If you want to make (another) thread comparing the affinities, go right ahead. I'm looking at the factions as a whole. As I stated before, I think they should be well balanced against one another, and that the build should fall in line with the lore, but not necessarily be dictated entirely by it. The fact that they are sub-optimal from a build standpoint isn't a bad thing. For one, people need to be able to build 'better' races so they can inflate their tiny egos. For another, it takes more skill to work from a flawed foundation. I just think they should be equally flawed.

Affinity wrote:
For example, Sophons (not Sophrons)...

My bad. I won't change it so people can feel free to mock. *Shrugs*

Affinity wrote:




Craver's have 25% FIDS boost for the first 80 or so turns (the locust reduction...) most games are decided by around turn 100 unless it is very drawn out, so cravers bonus could also be equated to approximately 40 trait points, or more.

I would argue that it takes at least 10 turns before you can get the locust reduction up, so it's actually more around 60 turns, but even so I would argue it's more around 30 points than 40 simply because it doesn't last forever.

revenue zen costs so much industry that you just can't build it. Your systems are never developed enough to build it that early. That said, the +4CP is a huge huge huge deal and is very powerful.

Yes your systems arn't developed early enough to build it at the time you get it, but by mid game you should be able to slot it into your systems during periods where there is no war and still have it long before your rivals.

As i said before, amoeba tech comes so late it the game its almost insulting. They get precisely no bonuses until turn 120+ in a normal game.

Fair enough. I don't think ameoba get tech bonuses quick enough either, but there are some people who swear by these technologies in single player, so I gave them the

pilgrims have very nice tech. factory missions is possibly one of the best system improvements in the midgame, and can make even a terrible system have decent industry. Colonize gas, faster heroes with more exp, and later better trade, pilgrims tech is very well rounded and pretty useful.

Now here is where I have to disagree. Factory missions is a decent upgrade, but it comes at just enough of a science 'dead end cost' to be not worth it until later on when you can research it in one or 2 turns, which feels counter-intuitive considering it's a flat industry increase. Granted it is useful in planets with bad industry, but for your main systems the increased industry should not be that big of a deal. I've never really had a point where I've been like 'Factory missions are really useful' compared to the flat FIDS bonuses other improvements give. Maybe it's because I'm the type of guy who doesn't care much about his industry on lesser planets and would rather spend his dust on improvements within his main systems together with hardened framing for better ships overall. I've always been a quality over quantity player. Then again, conversly I would argue that bonus XP gain on heroes is pretty weak compared to, say, horatio's academy cap increase.



Also, I don't understand people's decisions to colonise gas giants. The happiness malus is a big deal, to the point where I try to avoid colonising them until I have no other option. Finally trade... just no. It's pretty useless right now since the game doesn't calculate trade routes correctly (or maybe it got fixed in this latest patch).

Perhaps you can argue it's a (+), but I personally don't feel their tech tree is all that useful.

1.the 50% disscount is a big deal the colony ships are are almost 50% cheaper at all. I have never problems with the Pops and constantly can bump out 1 colonyship every round on the Homeplanet where other races need 2-3 turns. Many players say that this is even a bigger bonus then the Science Bonus of 0-50%.



2. If the Sophons default are overpowered the Sophons custom are it aswell and vice versa.

If the default Sowers are underpowered the Sower custom are it aswell and vice versa.

why use one of these factions make your own :P