Do some races have traits that doom them to fail?

[Sendrien]

I've noticed from several games that some races have traits which make them weak almost by default. Practically all the races that have economic or technological penalties suffer, and I never see them as the strongest race unless I go through supreme efforts to intervene and sometimes even that is not enough.

Anyone else notice this trend?

[Reefpirate]

The Fringe always seem to die pretty quick... Which fits their character I guess. But maybe it would be nice if they could hang in the fight a little longer.

[kerzain]

I haven't seen a successful Hive civ yet. I don't know if the bigger issue is that some of the races have traits that doom them to fail, or if it's that some other races have traits that guarantee success (basically anything related to expansion at this point).

[Shadow]

If some of the races are always weak we will rebalance them. In the end I want all of the races to be viable winners and fairly distinct from one another.

[fluffybot]

So far I've gotten a win out of every race (excluding the ones you can't play as) except the Fringe. It's not that it's impossible, it's just that the Fringe have a habit of acting like a bunch of brats and declaring war on everyone as fast as they possibly can; can't help but imagine their leader as some kind of bipolar schizophrenic. I had a good run with Fringe going (meaning I had to blast every other species into space dust every 10 minutes) but the Talon swooped in and squashed 'em.

Oh, and then there's the Brunt. Really shouldn't even bother trying to help those guys since I've had them whacked by Overlord/Talon/Legion every single time if they managed to survive the first 20 minutes. I think one of my first games got a win out of them, but it was more a stroke of luck than anything else: wiped out the Hive they were fighting with after defending the planet for a good 5 minutes straight from monsters. They liked me so much they accepted my alliance in no time.

[Sendrien]

Right now, the balancing changes I would suggest are:

- There should be a trade-off for being an expansionist (you may have many planets but all of them are weak and not too productive)
- Conversely, conservative races who prefer few planets should receive a bonus for well-fortified, well-developed planets (think Civilization, you can build many cities badly or a few cities really well)
- Hive's race penalties are too crippling
- Aggressive races (especially Fringe, but also Brunt and Drakk among others) need to evaluate their aggression vs. their ability to fight a war on multiple fronts. Keep in mind that the resources needed to fight a war on 2 fronts is not simply 100% more than fighting a war on a single front. It's definitely a geometric progression and should be evaluated as such.
- Cortex seems weak, but I cannot identify why. (Any ideas?)
- Shadow needs to be slightly stronger.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Sendrien

Right now, the balancing changes I would suggest are:

- Conversely, conservative races who prefer few planets should receive a bonus for well-fortified, well-developed planets (think Civilization, you can build many cities badly or a few cities really well)

Actually the problem with Civ and all other 4x games is that it's always a good idea to expand and build another city, and that's what you have here as well. They did something to counter this in Civ 4 but I don't remember what it was.

The general concept you want to have (I think) is that over-expansion can lead to lack of control over the empire, at which point it'll just fracture into sub-races. Without proper infrastructure investment which takes time, populations will rebel and there won't be enough police force to prevent them from breaking away. So a race can only keep up heavy expansion if it's aided heavily by an operative.

The other principle is that a large empire should be countered by an unfriendly alliance of the remaining powers, so that also nullifies the benefit of expansion somewhat.

[kerzain]

Originally Posted by Bluddy

Actually the problem with Civ and all other 4x games is that it's always a good idea to expand and build another city, and that's what you have here as well. They did something to counter this in Civ 4 but I don't remember what it was.

Happiness, pretty sure it was happiness.

[MOOMANiBE]

Originally Posted by Bluddy

They did something to counter this in Civ 4 but I don't remember what it was.

Corruption was how Civ dealt with this. It lowers a city's income. Corruption increases as you expand, and it can be reduced by investing in a city, but that takes time and money. The result is that if you expand very quickly you'll end up with a lot of cities that have negative income, potentially putting you very deep in a financial hole.

[ollobrains]

Planets themselves need to have a greater more expanded role a fringe outer settlement should require trading and technology to build up. They should be vulnurable , a similiar idea to corruption we need a thread here just for ideas on quests and a greater role for planet ( vastly expanded trades good system) i see some planets harvest food that however they dont sell any food to mineral strong planets and vice versa only thing ive found is terraforming and technology quests, seems atm its to fucsed on combat and background mechancis are lacking a little bit, strengthing of some expansionists races should lead to rebellions and each faction should have a rebels type of offset that can form ie human federation and then rebel human alliance or something that can act as a counter weight.

Larger empires could suffer from this and in a way incorparating the player as well through all the game mechanics have to invest in development this in turn could boost the trade system substantially and other quests