I think many of the posters here miss the point, or misunderstand the situation. There are only two statistics, logistics and miniturization, that are inherent to a civ, and can't be customized. The rest are interchangeable and are just dependent on what you want to put your points in. The Yor have both the highest logistics, and by far, the highest miniturization of any civ. That in itself would give the Yor an unfair advantage, but unbeliveably, they start off with the most techs of any civ as well! This creates a situation where if you want to get the highest scores possible on the metaverse, there is no compelling reason not to play the Yor. And indeed, a majority of the players in the top ten play the Yor. Now, all other things being equal, isn't it better to have races that are balanced rather than not? While it's true that it may not be as critical to balance the civs since there is no multi-player currently. But I can't understand why someone would actually *oppose* having a well-balanced roster of civs.

I dont think thats the case - people are neither missing the point or misunderstanding the situation. The Yor aren't ALL powerful. They are not so ungodly uber that they always win or a player using them will always win. So you can create a custom Yor that has their benefits and others.... this still doesnt guarantee you a win over playing any other race. I really dont get what the problem with all this is. If it is widely accepted that playing as the Yor gives you benefits on the metaverse, then people will just deem them cheesey wins and not worry about it. Or they will just play the Yor if they feel they are the most powerful..... It's not as if anyone is going to win or earn something from being first anyway.

As in ALL games I have ever played, people spot a feature they value highly, exploit it to its full then start complaining its overpowered. At the end of the day, one of the races has to be the best no matter how well you balance it.

Another poster was right.... if this is the way a future MP version will go with nerf threads.... it's a mark against MP for me.

The Yor aren't that powerful, I have noticed that you are more likely to be attacked, and seem to have a big disadvantage in Diplomacy compared to other races. Nothing is 'broken' !

I dont think thats the case - people are neither missing the point or misunderstanding the situation. The Yor aren't ALL powerful. They are not so ungodly uber that they always win or a player using them will always win. So you can create a custom Yor that has their benefits and others.... this still doesnt guarantee you a win over playing any other race. I really dont get what the problem with all this is. If it is widely accepted that playing as the Yor gives you benefits on the metaverse, then people will just deem them cheesey wins and not worry about it. Or they will just play the Yor if they feel they are the most powerful..... It's not as if anyone is going to win or earn something from being first anyway. As in ALL games I have ever played, people spot a feature they value highly, exploit it to its full then start complaining its overpowered. At the end of the day, one of the races has to be the best no matter how well you balance it. Another poster was right.... if this is the way a future MP version will go with nerf threads.... it's a mark against MP for me.

Again, all other things being equal, why would you not want a well-balanced roster of civs? It boggles my mind that some people seem to actually not want that.

And of course, yes, there are always various features or game concepts in a game that may be over-powered or ripe for exploitation. That is true. But that's not what this is about. This is about a civ that has apparently been given a large advantage over all other civs.

This game has a long lifespan ahead of it, with many patches/bonus packs/XPs. Obviously, one of the priorities of the developers will be to balance things that unbalanced. If this was something unintended, then Stardock will fix it. If there are "under the hood" disadvantages to the Yor, then I'm sure those will come out in time. So, whether some people want it or not, at some point, we are going to have a well-balanced game. I just hope threads like this may cause Stardock to address this issue.

They have "under-the-hood" modifiers to reduce their diplomatic sucess as far as I'm aware.

Quoted because some people didn't seem to get it the first time. This means that it's harder to get good relations with other races and they are more likely to declare war against you.

However it may be that they still are a little overpowered. But in that case I would say, increase the diplomatic penalty, don't remove that which makes them fun to play or fight against.

Again, all other things being equal, why would you not want a well-balanced roster of civs? It boggles my mind that some people seem to actually not want that.

But that's just it... I really don't see it as a gross imbalance.

It's hardly like selecting the Yor is clicking the I WIN button, is it?

A fractional, tiny imbalance yes.... but as I said, there is no way you can ever achieve perfect balance because you are comparing apples and oranges. There will always be traits or abilities that people gravitate towards depending on their play style - to those people, these traits are more powerful. What's balanced to one person is imbalanced to another and weak to a third. *shrugs*

To create perfect balance, all races would have to be exactly the same then people would complain about lack of flavour. If there were even mild differences, there would be a single trait that stood out and this would be called upon to be nerfed by those who deem these kind of things important.

WoW is the perfect example for this where the nerf bat made its rounds as people playing other classes bitched and whined about the next class. This went in full circles and slowly every class got their nerfs. Seems a pointless circle to me.

I love the flavour of the Yor and I hope the opposite of what you said.... that in fact Stardock will stand against these endless cries for minute changes just to please the vocal minorities and concentrate on developing the core components of the game, adding content and developing the uniqueness of the experience.

I didnt read the whole thread, it's jsut too much. But this is for OP. So Yor have a 5 speed colony ship? AHAHAHAHA So I can make regular 4 speed and use +2 racial ability, so that's 6 speed... OMG it must be overpowered!

Spearthrower said it correctly.

It will never be perfectly balance no matter what you do. You can nerf the race, then another race will seem to powerful and this goes on until all race are nerfed which means you are back to where you are.

Ther are not so overpowered that they need 'fixing'. To be honest, at the moment, the bugs in the game should take pirority over new features and balancing.

But that's just it... I really don't see it as a gross imbalance. It's hardly like selecting the Yor is clicking the I WIN button, is it? A fractional, tiny imbalance yes.... but as I said, there is no way you can ever achieve perfect balance because you are comparing apples and oranges. There will always be traits or abilities that people gravitate towards depending on their play style - to those people, these traits are more powerful. What's balanced to one person is imbalanced to another and weak to a third. *shrugs* To create perfect balance, all races would have to be exactly the same then people would complain about lack of flavour. If there were even mild differences, there would be a single trait that stood out and this would be called upon to be nerfed by those who deem these kind of things important. WoW is the perfect example for this where the nerf bat made its rounds as people playing other classes bitched and whined about the next class. This went in full circles and slowly every class got their nerfs. Seems a pointless circle to me. I love the flavour of the Yor and I hope the opposite of what you said.... that in fact Stardock will stand against these endless cries for minute changes just to please the vocal minorities and concentrate on developing the core components of the game, adding content and developing the uniqueness of the experience

But this again misses the point. It's true of course that the majority of players will always find some civs/characters/factions stronger than others in any game. But this isn't a matter of player opinion as you suggested. This is a case of the Yor simply having larger bonuses numerically than any other civ. It isn't a matter of subjectivity, but raw numbers. Check some of the posts above for the exact details.

I have heard a lot of cries about "nerf bats" and such things, but I have yet to hear a compelling case for why we should not have a well-balanced game, which is what the majority of players want.

This is a case of the Yor simply having larger bonuses numerically than any other civ. It isn't a matter of subjectivity, but raw numbers. Check some of the posts above for the exact details. I have heard a lot of cries about "nerf bats" and such things, but I have yet to hear a compelling case for why we should not have a well-balanced game, which is what the majority of players want.

Hello Majority Of Players.... I'm glad you have been reading this... funny that you all didnt respond en masse to this!! Surely you mean you and a couple of other people while the majority of players are either a) Disagreeing with you or Playing the game and not in the slightest concerned about the Yor's minor advantage (except if they are being liquified by them and spread on toast.... and even then only momentarily!!

Ok, cynicism off! What you are missing Mr Spider is that the game is in fact perfectly adequately balanced in this area and it is you that has failed to prove otherwise. Showing us that the Yor have a numerical advantage in abilities does not equate to them having a quality advantage in abilities. Miniaturisation is indeed a nice bonus.... the best bonus? No. Take the Thalans for example, they have miniaturisation, logistics and population growth bonuses... OMG! They must also be nerf....... erm.... balanced for the good of the greater game!!!! Seriously, it's such a minor thing and just adds to the flavour of the game. I want my evil robotic alien species to have some technological advantages (i.e the Borg) otherwise they are just another picture on the screen.

I'm really not sure what balancing an MMO where you actually compete with other players has anything to do with a single player only game. Personally, I would prefer for the races to be unique and more well balanced. If only to reduce my temptation to play as the clearly overpowered race.

Come on Mr. Thrower, miniturization/logistics are the ONLY advantages that a civ inherently has! The other stuff like pop growth is just dependent on how many points you want to put into it. You can't change what bonus your civ has for those two areas! That's what I have been getting at, there are only there areas that can differentiate the civs ability-wise (miniturization, logistics, starting techs), and the Yor has the best/highest of all three!

Come on Mr. Thrower, miniturization/logistics are the ONLY advantages that a civ inherently has! The other stuff like pop growth is just dependent on how many points you want to put into it. You can't change what bonus your civ has for those two areas!

No, you are indeed totally right there.

But you've got to admit I was right when I said:

I want my evil robotic alien species to have some technological advantages (i.e the Borg) otherwise they are just another picture on the screen.

Surely?

I want my evil robotic alien species to have some technological advantages (i.e the Borg) otherwise they are just another picture on the screen.

Perhaps this is the best case that can be made for over-powered Yor.

But you've got to admit I was right when I said:

If you want your evil robotic alien species to be more powerful, up the AI level for that race only, and allow the rest of us to play with a balanced game.

By the way, I didn't even realize the Yor started out with the most techs too until now. That's simply beyond belief! There HAS to be something that balances things out. I can't believe Stardock would commit such an egregious error in game balance.

Er... it's only a balance problem if you see it in-game, right? Is everyone here really getting steamrollered by Yor on every game? I don't see that happening in my games. The Yor are often one of the first to go down. As others mentioned, they can be strong if they make it to the late game... but by that time, I'm usually looking for someone strong as an opponent, if I've lasted that far myself.

This creates a situation where if you want to get the highest scores possible on the metaverse, there is no compelling reason not to play the Yor. And indeed, a majority of the players in the top ten play the Yor. Now, all other things being equal, isn't it better to have races that are balanced rather than not? While it's true that it may not be as critical to balance the civs since there is no multi-player currently. But I can't understand why someone would actually *oppose* having a well-balanced roster of civs.

Okay, that's a good point about the Metaverse, I guess. But speaking only for myself, I don't care about that kind of proxy competition with other players. I just want a fun single-player game, and I enjoy the way the alien races are at least somewhat differentiated. I like the way the miniaturization and other tech bonuses feeds into their backstory. I don't want bland, cookie-cutter races that are balanced to the point where they're interchangeable, and the only real difference is the portrait.

The real issue here is that there needs to be a better way to handle miniturization and logistics. The best solution to this would be to add them as abilities in the Abilities tab. For example, all races could start with 4-5 logistics, and pay extra points for more. Miniturization should be standardized at 0, with a point cost to acquire 10-20-30% or whatever.

Alternatively, as there are already quite a number of abilities and a very limited amount of points to spend, Stardock could simply implement a new category to spend points in where you determined Logistics, Miniturization, and perhaps "Diplomatic Slant" or something.

On a related topic, I would really, really like to see the option to start a game with a varying amount of points than 10, which applies to both you and your opponents. If you could set this to a random number between 5 and 20, that'd be really cool

I'm not screaming that this is a game breaking problem, because its quite easy to either play as the Yor, disable them, or simply live with it. On the other hand, it does seem a bit odd that they enjoy by far the best of the unchangeable options. You'd have think a more interesting balance would have been good there.

Okay, that's a good point about the Metaverse, I guess. But speaking only for myself, I don't care about that kind of proxy competition with other players. I just want a fun single-player game, and I enjoy the way the alien races are at least somewhat differentiated. I like the way the miniaturization and other tech bonuses feeds into their backstory. I don't want bland, cookie-cutter races that are balanced to the point where they're interchangeable, and the only real difference is the portrait.

I totally agree that I don't care about the proxy-competition either. I play solely for my own enjoyment. I guess my problem with the entire Yor issue is that right now the only distinction between the races (assuming you customize them), is their logistics/miniturization bonuses. I don't get steamrolled by the Yor even on the harder difficulties, (though this is partly because the AI really needs some help with learning to attack first and build ships that can actually move), but I would prefer that their only real racial distinction wasn't that they had better unchangeable bonuses than all the other races

Dang man, there's too much of an age variance here.  I don't have a clue what WolVenOne said.

The Yor = Ithkul in MOO3

They get diplomatic penalties that aren't shown.

I hate the Terrans and Altarians. They always give me crappy trade deals.

Folks, I am brand new here, so I will apologize for my ignorance, but if the Yor were over powered wouldn't they be the number 1 played race in the metaverse among the top "ranked" players? Because they don't seem to be.

In my opinion the ONLY starting techs that matter are the engine boosting techs for that early mad rush. ALL the other ones are just flavor (arguably even the stellar cartography). This being said, the fact that the Yor have the most starting techs is moot. The argument that they have "the most tech points to spend" does not really matter since, most of the techs you start with you can trade for 50c from minor races 20 turns into the game. The only two abilities they get in their roster that actually ammount to any advantage early game is the improved engines (i believe they stop at ion drive)

Top 10 Metaverse players play the Yor because right now you get the most points for a conquest victory on Gigantic, and as a militant race Yor are good for that.

ShockmeSane: If what you are proposing is taking out ALL the abilities and replacing them with the 3 (logistics, minituarization, and diplomacy) I am very opposed to that. Not all of us play the same style. In particular: I never choose logistics and minituarization. I like abilities like luck, economics, and speed.

--edit: I think I misread your post shock, sorry

Cool... in reading this WHOLE thread, I've come to two conclusions:

1. Now that I know all this, I'm playing my next game as the Yor! Woo hoo!

2. If the main reason that Stardock should downgrade the Yor's starting abilities is to make it "more fair" for Metaverse stats... who honestly cares? Sure the Metaverse is a cool aspect of the game, but what do you get, other than "bragging rights" when you're in the Top 10 there? Pretty much just an inflated ego (which is well-deserved, because you're obviously damn good at this game), and maybe an "At a boy" from other players.

Leave the Yor alone and adjust the other more important stuff. My 2 cents, anyway...

Dang man, there's too much of an age variance here. I don't have a clue what WolVenOne said.

I'm with ya, dennisb55... Last time I checked, "Nerf" referred to the cushy football you could throw all the way down the street as a kid, and always with a perfect spiral (not to mention pelt your little sister in the back with it and say, "What are you crying about?! It's a Nerf!"). Anyway, in this case I figure just substitute each reference of "Nerf" with "Axe". That worked for me!

Yes YOR it is, actualyl I will take a clsoer look at all the races :/ I have jsut been using the custom button.

If all the races were to be perfectly balanced there would be no use for multiple races. Just take 1 set of stats and give them to all the races.

That's balance, everybody's equal.

That is not, however, what I want out of this game. I want each race to have specific strenghts and weaknesses so that I can learn to play different style of game depending on my opponent. Learn to adapt to your enemy and there will be no need to nerf any race at all (they are all fine by me).

And if you can't adapt then you need to stop playing strategy games altogether. The whole point of these games is to STRATEGIZE. Figure out how an ennemy's strenght can be used against him. Or at least to learn to exploit his weaknesses.

For those unwilling to stop playing strategy games but who still don't understand the concepts of strategy I recommend Sun Tzu's Art of War. It's certainly a classic and the lessons learned in that book have helped me with games since CIV2. Another good read would be Machiavelli's The prince, not as informative on a military level, certainly brilliant when it comes to politics.

It's amazing really. I've never seen ther Yor as being overpower at all. Much the opposite, they're normally one of the first 2 or 3 to be wiped off the map. Maybe it's because I take diplomatic control of most of my games and they fail miserably at that? Probably. As has been said about, different player styles make the game go down different paths, and that affects how things turn out, what other races thrive or fail is a result of how you influce the game yourself.

Personally my biggest enemies normally turn out to be the Arceans, but since nobody else is reporting that, it's got to bea result of my general style of play. As is said above, it's a choice between carbon copy races or different ones that are pretty much balanced. No matter how good that balance, putting a human player in there with their own style of play affects that balance.

It would be interesting to be able to run AI-only games and see how things work out without us awkward people mucking around in our own odd ways, see if there is any significant inherent bias one way or another. Personally I doubt it.