I wasn't really looking to ignite a holy war. I was just saying "+25 miniturization" is a very powerful ability.

I agree that it doesn't matter if the races are perfectly balanced or not, because it's only a single player game.

And yes, creating a 5 speed colony ship with the starting techs is very powerful. The advantage becomes even bigger after you research some engine techs.

The point is "+25 miniaturization" doesn't just give you 25% more speed, it's more like 50-75% because you still have to fit a colony module on the ship.

The Yor AI isn't overpowered (in fact, I don't think the Yor AI is particularly good, compared to others).

Hi all,

I personally don't feel the Yor are overpowered, in fact I destroy them time and again.

If you really want an easy win go with the Arceans, conversly if you want a challenge have them as an opponent.

Ok, there are two issues going on here, and the most important ones are getting drowned out by the lesser ones.

First is the "Yor are more powerful than others" issue. I don't really think this is deniable. You can debate the degree to which the Yor's advantage is curtailed by the fact that everyone seems to want to kill them for no apparent reason.

The Yor AI may not actually bother much with yoking their advantage. That's StarDock's fault, but it's no argument to say that the imbalance shouldn't be corrected.

In any case, the other, more important, issue is that you can't create a race equivalent to the Yor. You can't change a race's logistics or miniturization bonuses. I'm not terribly interested in the particular imbalance with the Yor because I don't find it to be too big of an imbalance. However, the fact that I can't redesign the Yor I find to be just silly. Why are we not allowed to change all the racial factors when designing our own race?

If you REALLY have to have your custom race have the abilities of the Yor, just edit the XML race file. Sure it's a bit of a pain, but if the thought of one particular ability not being available to you is driving you to the point of murdering babies, go for it. It takes all of 2 mintues in notepad.

As for them being inherently overpowered, no I don't think it's the "clearly they are" issue you're saying it is. I've NEVER had a single game where the Yor have made it to the final two. That "everyone wanting to tattack them for no reason" thing, isn't no reason at all - that's the effect of their inbuilt anti-diplomacy kicking in to counter their other advantages. Having all the subtle communication skills of an especially large sledgehammer means they're gonna piss people off early and often.

Also that general tech lead evaporates and even reverses late-game when everyone else is sharing techs, making alliances, and trading, leaving them pretty isolated and vulnerable.

While I don't doubt that your games are seeing powerful Yor armies conquering here there and everywhere, the fact that I and others are seeing them muddle around while the likes of the Arceans and Torians take centre stage suggests that they are not the uber-race your personal games might suggest, but rather more likely they just do well in the way you direct the galaxy.

The Yor AI may not actually bother much with yoking their advantage. That's StarDock's fault, but it's no argument to say that the imbalance shouldn't be corrected.

In your opinion, and it's fine to have a personal opinion. Not everyone agrees.

Successful strategy games often have factions with vastly different abilities. Take Rome:Total War, for example. In the last expansion pack, the two Holy Roman Empire factions can build epic stone walls, and they also get access to artillery weapons. The various Barbarian factions don't get any of that. On the other hand, the Barbarian factions can "horde" and gain vast armies when they're thrown out of their last town, which the more civilized factions can't do. Barbarians also get cool horse archer units that other factions don't get. And yet the game still works, and it's still fun to play. The different abilities are well-balanced over the course of a typical campaign.

Do you think RTW would be a better game, if the Romans could "horde" and the Barbarians got to build epic stone walls and use artillery?

Different factions with different abilities make the game more interesting to play. If anything, I'd prefer seeing even more difference between the aliens in GalCiv2. Aside from the starting bonuses, the game is pretty homogenous once you get into the tech tree, weapons, defenses, etc.

Ok, there are two issues going on here, and the most important ones are getting drowned out by the lesser ones.

Nice attitude!! Those who disagree are lesser are they?

Just because the majority of people posting on this thread feel that the Yor are just fine as they are doesnt make it a lesser opinion than yours.

Yor are not overpowered.

If you exploit the ability screen.... wow, they become more powerful relatively. That's your issue.

I want a poll up here because from what I can tell, most people are happy with them as they are. Even our "lesser" opinions must count for at least half of one of your "greater" opinions..... and there's more than double the number of people saying that they're fine as they are.

In any case, the other, more important, issue is that you can't create a race equivalent to the Yor. You can't change a race's logistics or miniturization bonuses. I'm not terribly interested in the particular imbalance with the Yor because I don't find it to be too big of an imbalance. However, the fact that I can't redesign the Yor I find to be just silly. Why are we not allowed to change all the racial factors when designing our own race?

Erm.... that's what the other side is arguing. You CAN create a custom race with all the Yor's inherent abilities. You just customise the Yor, change the picture, change the name, change the ship style and they keep their inherent logistics and miniaturisation bonus. That's the crux of the argument from the side that wants to balance the Yor!

I can see this argument spiraling into eternity.

The actual final point of the matter is: 1 side says it's not balanced and everything should be balanced. The other side says its not balanced but everything shouldn't be balanced.

That's an antithetical opinion and there's little chance of finding a resolution.

But are the Yor overpowered (to go back to the inital post) No they aren't, otherwise the Yor would always win and all metaverse players would be playing the Yor.

All I have to say is... sooo what? it's not like you have to play against another human player who's abusing all the Yor's uberness. Yes, it's not balanced... it's never balanced when you have 10 races who are different. Hell, anything more than 3 mirror images and you'll have some people complaining (This is probably why multi-player was cut out, balancing is a pain). It's a single player game, learn to love it, embrace the fact that you can own being the Yor, or embrace the challenge that they bring to your game, and slaughter them first. If all else fail, the game is modable, it takes you 4 second to make that 25 mininurization and 100 loyalty turn into a puff of smoke. Or... just don't play with/against them, you CAN choose the players before hand, you know?. Frankly, I'm more concerned with the fact that you can start with a planet with a precursor manufacturing center. I mean, 8 factories in one block? Now THAT is unbalanced.

If you aren't used to playing an RTS (such as any Sid Meier or Brian Reynolds game) GalCiv has a heck of a learning curve, and GC II adds to it in spades (also clubs, diamonds, and Microsoft Hearts). As opposed to military victories, there are *other* ways to win. (I just *won* my first game, playing as the Yor, but did it with *culture* (butter) not via conquest (bullets).) The Yor are not typical culture vultures, but I didn't exactly follow a *typical* beat-em-into-submission strategy. Instead, I shifted from an Empire to a democracy at the first opportunity, and shifted my stance from *evil* (the default) to *good* (again, at the first opportunity). Diplomatically, I went with a Teddy Roosevelt stance (I'll trade with you and won't attack you UNLESS you attack me; if you do attack me, I'll pound you into the sand). This strategy let me get more planets two ways: by colonization, and by revolt (colonies willingly joining the Yor). I actually gained twice as many planets by revolt than by conquest (as I stated, not exactly typical Yor). My biggest quibble in the endgame wasn't other civs, but the blasted PIRATES! The pirates got access to dreadnoughts WELL before I did; worse, they had both better armor and better logistics. Better pirate ships plus better pirate weapons plus better pirate logistics meant I got my tail kicked by the pirates on a regular basis (I won exactly ZERO battles against the pirates; but then it's kinda hard when the pirate fleet is FAR larger than the largest fleet you can build).

While it would be nice to be able to win by simply beating the other civs into submission, sometimes it isn't possible (even when playing as the Yor).

I think this is just a case of different player attitudes. I *like* the fact that different races have different 'personalities', that a late-game Torian empire is much easier to handle than a late-game Yor or Arcean empire. It would mean nothing to bemoan a loss to 'those damn Drengin' if all the races were essentially the same.

Then again, many players are obsessed with 'fairness', so they refuse to play maps that put them in a difficult position. It's just different perspectives.

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.

Looking at the top 6 characters in the Metaverse right now, and 4 out of 6 play the Yor.

wow, so many ppl miss the point completely, like over 66% of the replies against balancing yor are from ppl saying "dont whine about loosing to yor", "fairness is only neccessary when theres mp involved", "if you think yor are too good and want an easy fight, then dont choose them as an enemy"

the point is that most players who to do well on the metaverse are choosing yor, it doesnt take rocket science to figure that out and that theres a reason they take yor and yes it does disupt the only mp aspect of this game.

it is funny how 2-3 posters in this thread stated that if the yor were that good a majority of top players would choose them and then they state that a majority arent yor, next time they should at least check the metaverse before getting to biased assumptions to support thier point.

Actually I'd say the Metaverse is more than likely correlation rather than causation.

The point that most people who think the Yor are overpowered are missing is that YOR HAVE A HIDDEN DIPLOMATIC DISADVANTAGE!

That's the balancing factor, right there. Now, we may disagree on whether it's enough, but it's there.

Unless they took it out, in which case I'll agree, Yor are overpowered.

i used to think Yor are overpowered....


Statistically they are too, and as for diplomacym they are NOT weak in diplomacy...

however they do have 1 weakness, the base alinement i was into the evil, which means you get ganged up on ealy game, and the uber stats and tech you start with, well you NEED them

they dont have diplomacy disadvantage, they have base evil alinement, which means lot of races dont get along with them, if you manage to get them to neutral, they is no further issue with them

Thus far, I've used the Yor once, and got steamrolled by the Terrans.

It seems like military power and techs in this game often ends up secondary to economy, diplomacy, and research. I've been using the Iconian Refuge in my games, and so far my income has almost always exceeded my production capacities. And the enhanced techs I get from my research allow me to stomp any attackers.

they dont have diplomacy disadvantage, they have base evil alinement, which means lot of races dont get along with them, if you manage to get them to neutral, they is no further issue with them

It's HIDDEN. You don't see it. It's just there. Unless you've actually looked through the game files to verify it's not there. It's in one of the design journals that the developers showed us a couple months ago.

Leave them as it is, it would give you 'I LOVE BEING CHALLENGED' players something to do and let us crap players use them to win, its not like its a MP game. lol

If it was a MP game, then go ahead and balance, but its a SP game so leave it as it is.

Well, i tried the Yor with the default abilities, i have no idea where you got your 'overpowered' idea from, they are not over-powered at all.

Hell, i even cheated with the money and the AI still out-produced me.

within 2 months the AI beat me with a cultural victory.

they colonized a medium sized galaxy in 2 months. (they were Human)

Its a pity there is no strategy to this game, its just basicly, rush to the planets and pray you get to them first......if you don't game over....kinda stupid if you ask me.

But the Yor are NOT overpowered.

The AI must customize itself to challenge you, so the more you can produce, they produce faster, the more you can research, they research faster.

Lets just say, in 2 months, they had Trade, Advanced Trade, Planetary Invasion and Master Trade. (it would be impossible to do all these in 2 months.

How does the AI do it??

I would like to state that, for the record, if they are overpowered or not, any kind of unique ability any race has should be something that should be able to be re-created with the custom race editor. Why limit creativity after all?

I think they should have designed it that way, but the designers felt that if they gave the custom race the same options and points it would be unbalanced. They thought a customized race could be more specialized so that it would be superior to any of the predesigned races.

Why not have a race with inherent, unalterable penalties that make them suck compared to everyone else? Wouldn't that be just great? I bet that would be a popular feature.

If it were possible to recreate the Yor using the custom race option, there wouldn't be any problem. As it is, they're just a better template to start from than other races because of their inherent bonuses. If miniaturization and logistics were subject to customization like all the other traits are, that would go a long way towards evening things out a bit.

I'm surprised that there are people who confuse variety with imbalance. You can have races with wildly different traits and playstyles that are still balanced against each other. It becomes a problem when one race using one playstyle is more powerful than other races who are also playing to their strengths. Think Starcraft here; very different races with very different units and playstyles, but the game is balanced.

Perfect balance is probably impossible, but every step that can be taken towards that makes all races more competitive. Nerfing the most powerful race is a good move, as long as they don't get nerfed below the lowest race. Likewise buffing weak races is a good thing, because it reduces the spread between weak and powerful races. After you've done that, there will still be some relatively strong and some relatively weak races but the gap between them (in power, not in gameplay) is smaller. That is A Good Thing.

Whether the Yor are overpowered or not after the diplomacy penalty is figured in is debatable, but I'm amazed to see people who are presumably smart enough to use a keyboard actually arguing against a balanced game as a matter of principle. All of the straw man arguments about giving every race identical stats (as opposed to balanced but different stats) are a childish and stupid waste of time. Address the claims as they are made, don't put words into someone else's mouth and then attack that.

Whether the Yor are overpowered or not after the diplomacy penalty is figured in is debatable, but I'm amazed to see people who are presumably smart enough to use a keyboard actually arguing against a balanced game as a matter of principle. All of the straw man arguments about giving every race identical stats (as opposed to balanced but different stats) are a childish and stupid waste of time. Address the claims as they are made, don't put words into someone else's mouth and then attack that.

Well, just let me stupidly and childishly waste your time again.

Hold on, let me just see if I can work out how to use this keyboard first! *sighs*

You have said it yourself. Nerf the top, buff the bottom. Only, how does one judge what is more powerful and weaker. If I want to play a diplomacy game then naturally diplomacy is an integral skill. If I don't care and just want to conquer people, it is a totally pathetic skill. What one person values is not necessarily a good judgement on the actual quality of the skill.

Now, you had some good ideas. Yes to making miniaturisation and logistics customisable.... but I still think the Yor should have a higher bonus in this category than is possible for you to achieve with customising a race. It is something special and unique about them.... something that adds depth to their character and the relations between civs. Actually, I really think that the core races should be fixed and uncustomisable... that is, after all, why you have custom civs - to customise.

double post

What exactly is the point of being able to recreate the Yor as a custoim race? Why not just play as the Yor?!

I like how this arguement goes...

Side A: I think the Yor are overpowered! Minaturisation is powerful

Side B: I don't. Beides, they're very crippled diplomatically which makes up for it. In my experience they're no better or worse than anyone else.

Side A: WHY DO YOU LOVE MAKING THIS GAME UNBALANCED AND BROKEN??? OMG!!! STOP DELIBERATELY MAKNIG THE GAME UNBALANCED!

Side B: Errr.... ok.....


Seriously, have any of the "The Yor are god-like omg wow wtf" brigade actuially played full proper games against them? as them? You have to sink A LOT of money into diplomacy to even be on an even playing field with the other guys. Meanwhile the Terran player, with superior diplomacy, has got a good deal on miniurisation tech from someone else, the Altarian lpayer has researched it himself, and everyone else is sending warships straight at you after your disasterous attempt at diplomacy ended with you calling their mothers walruses.