overpowered races?

I agree that the races are a bit too unbalanced and that is what Spartan and I are trying to fix with our upcoming mod.

The mod is designed to look at all major and minor races, break them apart, and look at all of their default bonuses and penalties. We will re-balance the political parties and the races to make the game more fair so players will actually have to plan their strategy around their race and not view some races as "useless".

The minor races will have more "umph" so to say as well and will be a stronger foce to contend with once we are done.

Once the 1.3 update is out on Thursday, we will see if further changes need to be made and hopefully the mod will be released in about a week or two.

So just bear with it just a bit longer!

Oh, and it is the Yor, not the Korx, who get the Loyalty and Miniturization bonuses.

As far as I know, it's not a bug, just the implementation is a little weird. Based on when I've played around with race stats in the past, you lose those extra bonuses if:
a) you spend points on one of the categories where they have a free bonus (the old bonus will be replaced with the bonus you just spent the points on)
You spend more than the number of points that were originally spent on the race when you started changing it.

For example (and if I remember correctly), when you go to modify the terrans, you start having 3 points left over. If you clear those points now you have 10 and the terran built-in bonuses (diplomacy, etc). You lose the diplomancy bonus if you spend points on diplomancy. The original bonus will be replaced with whatever diplomacy bonus you just selected. You also lose the bonuses if you ever spend more than the 7 attribute points the terran race was originally using.

Also, any race led by Pierpoint is overpowerd.

For example (and if I remember correctly), when you go to modify the terrans, you start having 3 points left over. If you clear those points now you have 10 and the terran built-in bonuses (diplomacy, etc). You lose the diplomancy bonus if you spend points on diplomancy. The original bonus will be replaced with whatever diplomacy bonus you just selected. You also lose the bonuses if you ever spend more than the 7 attribute points the terran race was originally using.

What you're saying is correct however: two races that I really don't understand why anyone would play them except the challenge perhaps are the Iconians and the Arceans. These two when you reset them, have no racial bonuses except +7 logistics which a lot of other races have already. A few of the others are not much better off with getting some creativity and luck, both of which only are worth one point to get +25, but then other races like I was saying get over 4 points worth of racial bonuses and then you get to put 10 more points on top of them. The Yor's   +25 miniaturization bonus is pretty insane by itself, but then they also get logistics and 100 loyality.

Another thing I didn't factor in at all was techs. These imbalance it even more when you look at them. Again, the Yor get a lot of good techs as well, in fact, more than you can get if you try to do it with a custom race without spending more points than you have. The Iconians do get defense tech up to armor theory which is good, but they dont even get ion drive and a few turns of research imo doesnt make up for the complete lack of stats. the humans are just screwed in the tech department. the drath who already have better than average bonuses also get a really good tech start. Just some examples.

If the races are supposed to be imbalanced like this then that's fine with me, I was just wondering if that was the case, if something was going to be done about it, or if I just wasn't seeing it right. I just thought it's interesting to discuss because racial balance is such a big deal to people in most games. Given that this game is single player, I guess doesn't matter as much if it was intended to be that way.

Races are highly imbalanced, *supposedly* intentionally. I haven't seen any evidence that it's intentional, but that balancing it would be horribly easy (there's already an established point system) would lend some evidence to such an assertion.

For reference, here are the racial bonuses. I'm doing this from memory and I haven't played the game in a month, so apologies in advance if I'm wrong on a couple. I've left out Logistics on most of the races, since I've never seen any effect from the little variations between race (Yor are an exception, they can squeeze an extra Cargo per fleet). I've also sorted the list by descending order of power, as per personal opinion:

Drath:
+50 Defense
+25 Espionage
+25 Military Production
+25 Diplomacy

Yor: (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v351/DreadArchon/GC2_abs3.jpg">Link)
+100 Loyalty
+25 Miniaturization
+1 Logistics (relatively)

Custom:
+20 Loyalty
+25 Soldiering

Korx: (sorry, can't remember these very well, just what I thought of them)
+20 Economic
+something to trade, I think
+? ( I think they had something else...)

Torian: (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v351/DreadArchon/GC2_abs5.jpg">Link)
+25 Morale
+20 Courage
+10 Luck

Terran: (bleah, don't remember these well either!)
+25 Diplomacy
+something to trade, I think
+? (I think they have something else, too)

Drengin: (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v351/DreadArchon/GC2_abs6.jpg">Link)
+25 Morale

Thalan: (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v351/DreadArchon/GC2_abs2.jpg">Link)
+40 Loyalty
+10 Miniaturization

Altarian:
+25 (or 30? irrelevant, really) Luck
+25 (or 30, but again irrelevant) Creativity

Arcean: (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v351/DreadArchon/GC2_abs4.jpg">Link)
Nothing.

Iconian:
Nothing.

Yeah those Drath get a hell of a lot of bonus's.  

+25 Espionage

Actually they get 50+ to espionage.

I used to think that Drath and Yor were really overpowered... However morale is so key to the game I find the Torian and Drengin bonuses in this area to be adequate compensation.

I am a big fan of the day 1 minaturization that gives my colony ships an extra mv off the get go as I can cram in an extra engine. More than once it has made the difference in my colonized planet count. (Part of why Yor are so great)

Drath Yor Torian and Drengin also have pretty mediochre capital planets, which turns me off them. I like a big home planet like the thalans or iconians to toss up the manufacturing capitol, and build the wonders and trade-goods up once other planets can take over the solid work the big planet was doing originally.

I think if there is this much controversy over which civ is top (I love the Thalan's, and yes I get a kick out of sending them to invade mars where the little green men feel at home prior to invading earth) then Stardock is doing a pretty good job keeping things interesting.

Also bear in mind I don't use defense, or espionage as the AI has become fairly predictable, and who wants to fill up their hulls with expensive shields and spend rp somewhere they don't have to when you could be improving your ability to make things explode more cheaply.

I did not realize that some civs got bigger homeworlds, that adds something. Guess I need to change up my playing style and actually try all the races before I judge them lol. In terms of defense, it's expensive but it can be worth it when you create a fleet that becomes virtually invinceable due to leveling I mean defense on small ships or even mediums isn't really worth it imo, but large and huge definitely can make use out of it. I have not tried making ships that have little hp with lots of defense though, not sure if this has value or not.

You know what's strange, although the Drath get incredible bonus's they always seem to go down very quick in my games.  

Yea, same here. Drath never do much, but they're a good one to play because of all the free bonuses. Homeworld size is an important factor too.

Just got my metaverse 'Racial Victory' medal... I played a metaverse game with each type of race.

Yeah, the Drath get amazingly good racial bonuses, but I agree with Azrune that as an opponent, they go down quick.

There are probably a lot of AI reasons why they play badly, but the one I notice is that they pay WAY too much for tech trades. I love those guys... I can suck all their cash into my bank account with just a few cruddy sensor techs.

Having played all the races (once...) I'll probably not play a race beginning with 'A' again.

Maybe it was just the games I played, but the way their bonuses determined the 'flow' of the game didn't match my playstyle in a fun way.

Check out the Wiki link on races, it gives a good description of each race's bonus and tech choices are:


https://www.galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Race

BTW, here are the home planets for the races;

Thalan, Thala: PQ 15
Iconian, New Iconia: PQ 14
Altarian, Altaria: PQ 12
Terran, Earth: PQ 10
Drengi, Drengi: PQ 10
Arcean, Arcea: PQ 10
Yor, Iconia: PQ 10
Drath, Dratha: PQ 10
Custom, Custom: PQ 10
Torian, Torus: PQ 9

One thing worth mentioning is about that is some races, although they do get bigger home planets, sacrifice the second smaller one that the other races get and for some games that can make it actually worse, like if there isn't a lot of habitable planets around. If there were and they were close to your starting point, I would definitely take the bigger planet but in the long run, sometimes having the medium and small is better just because after terraforming or ethics (for neutrals) that class 4 can become a class 6-9 easy, and you can actually use it for something, especially if it has manu / research tiles. Just some food for thought.

The high PQ bonus for the Thalan homeworld is, IMO, to balance for the fact that they don't have a secondary habitable planet.

only problem is that the secondary habitable planet is a class 3 or 4, or 5 most of the time, class 3s and 4s generally don't have improveable tiles, sometimes a class 4 or 5 might, and there is a chance you can get a good PQ boosting random event. But if the secondary planet is a class 3 or 4, I usually skip colonizing it because at that early stage of the game, low quality planets like that pull the approval down pretty hard and usually make the citizen opinion box in the details screen show someone basically saying 'this planet sucks!'. If its a class 5, I try to leave it for a little later (or flip the planet if someone else gets to it) because class 5s just about always have improvable tiles.

A few races get slightly higher secondary planet classes, the Drengin have a secondary class 7 (I think) planet, someone has a class 8, at least one or two might have a class 6 secondary planet. However since the secondary habitable planet in thier system is usually not worth much (unless it is boosted by a random event or a PQ boost colonization event), they probably don't affect race balance much.

And Legwarmer does have a point, and I generally colonize all class 5 and above planets that I can get to because of the PQ boost from the terraforming techs.

In almost all of my games, Yor usually wins the game or is my most powerful opponent. I too noticed that Drath doesn't do very well in general.

the races are balanced, just in different ways, like the korx for example, get a PQ 10 and a PQ 8 planet, and fair bonuses, whereas say the iconians, get a PQ14 planet, lots of techs, but no bonuses, see what i mean?

The Arcean on paper sucks.

Same home planet size as Drath.

They Only have a special of logistics 7% bonus, which Drath has as well on top of a shitload of other extra abilities.

Drath has Ion drives + Xeno Industry theory

vs

Arcean Hyperdrives + xeno communication +xeno economy.


Drath have a slight/big edge in tech due to ion drives. Xeno comm is fairly insiginificant, for xeno industry vs xeno economy, I prefer xeno industry at the start because money isn't a big issue at first.

Alignwise, Drath start Good, which is "good" because you can do more evil actions and still select netural (arguably the best alignment).From the AI point of view, it's a defect of course because they will stay with their starting alignments and Good is the weakest.

the races are balanced, just in different ways, like the korx for example, get a PQ 10 and a PQ 8 planet, and fair bonuses, whereas say the iconians, get a PQ14 planet, lots of techs, but no bonuses, see what i mean?

I think the only thing I can justify as balanced about the races is the homeworld planet. Some races have bigger homeplanets, but no secondary, and some have smaller ones with a secondary. I'm not even sure if these are all balanced but they seem to be in my opinion. As for techs and bonuses, just read this whole thread or mess around with it when setting up a game: it's pretty imbalanced. Not a bad thing as this is a single player game as said before.