The Yor are BROKEN

Actually the Arceans have the all powerful first strike ability, and nothing can stand against that!

You're not the first to notice.



They can get up to 125% economics with the right techs, and forms of government. Don't get me started on morale and research for them.



Are you forgeting super abilities? The first strike ability prevents enemy ships from firing back if you destroy them in the first round of ship combat. Thats nothing to laugh at. Few things can effectively counter that. The super manipulator ability can make your enemies waste resources beating each other to bits, while you work your way ahead.

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I'm breaking off the next part. Its a little big. It'll be in next post.

The next part.
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Some people say that the the custom races are the strongest. You can't get a maxed out PQ bonus with a speed bonus with the normal races, or vice versa. That and some other powerful possible combinations are only possible with the custom races.

What you need to do is find your race a niche that isn't being being covered by the other races. Lets try to make one right now.

Many people complain that military starbases are useless, but I think they're wrong, so lets show them how scary they can be. First, to build military starbases, we need to be able to quickly build constructors to build them, and we need the money to do so.
-Economics +30% (4 points)
-Military production +50% (4 points)

It cost money to pay for starbase modules... unless you are evil, so make your custom race evil.
-Alignment: Evil

To gain bigger benefits from your starbases, you want a bonus to weapons, and a luck bonus to increase your minimum damage you deal. As such, you need to select the universalists party for their luck bonus.
-Luck +50% (1 point)
-Weapons +20% (2 points)
-Party: Universalists

Now, to get all those useful modules, you need to research them. A +20% research would be quite useful for that.
-Research +20% (4 points)

Now for a super ability. Out of all the super abilities available, only 2 appear to be ideal: the "super isolationists", and the "super warrior". The super isolations will slow down all ships that are within your area of influnce to at most 3 parsecs per turn, but the down side is, you might want to build your military starbases outside of your territory to aid you in your invasions. The super warrior would do nicely. Any enemy ships you manage to destroy in the first turn will not be able to shot back, and you already have considerable fire power with the weapons and luck bonuses.
-Super ability: super warrior

Now what to call them? I know, since there are many fans of the Snathi, but what to call them so they have a different name than the minor race version? Nutty Snathi, Berzerk Snathi, Crazy Snathi? (the name should be something Squirrely !?! the Squirrely Snathi!).
-Name: "the Squirrely Snathi!"

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Sorry about the long post. So, what do you guys think? Too squirrely for you?

'Broken' is a strong word.

I think it is better to test how the races fare with respect to each other and a human player. That is the test of balanced game play.

What is good is that the developers are always tweaking the races and gameplay so that there will be some sort of balance. That said, perfect balance would be perfectly boring, which is why I like Super Abilities.

Hydro

I'm more puzzled by the lack of balance between the stock races, say, the Drengin vs the Korath. Korath have clearly superior base stats, the same 10 pts to spend and a much more potent super ability. Their advantages run precisely in the direction the Drengin want to go as well (mil prod, weapons, easy planet conquest), so it's not even a question of being "different"... they're simply better.

Was someone asleep at the wheel, or was balance simply not a consideration in this case?

Why does everyone harp about the Yor? I mean they're okay, but they're nothing against the Krynn or the Thalians.

Anyway, I agree that the races arn't balanced very well, and I also agree that custom races, with some exceptions, can't keep up.

I am all for solving the balance problems with the various stock races.

However, I am not a fan of buffing custom races. One of the most interesting things about Galciv2 is how the different races have obvious playstyles, and how the player tends to get attached to or form grudges with certain races. 4x games based off the use of custom races really lack in that aspect. Custom races just feel soulless compared to the stock races of Galciv2.

Well on DA, I noticed that the Krynn are way overpowered, and the Altarians have been nerfed big time.

And then you get the Iconians who just get shafted.

Yea, your right. The Iconians have never done ANYTHING major in ANY game ive played, except get killed, and beg for help.

Yeah, the poor Iconians are usually taken out quickly, that’s why I often avoid putting them in the game. Otherwise it is better to increase manually their performance (DA) and thereafter the game takes immediately a different aspect.

Guys, one thing is certain: the more difficult level you play the more performance bonuses races will have. In other words the AI is “cheating” by granting 150 and 200% economics performance and so on. This game has a great AI but human intelligence still rocks (despite machines like “deep blue” which turn into unbeatable monsters in chess games….).

The Yor hmmmm. I respect these guys cause they handle quick and I always fear the Dregins, that’s why it’s better to concentrate on them from the beginning.
The Arceans become very tough in the middle of the game (because of their strong moral and economics I guess).
The Altarian are fast in research and colonization, nice opponents too. The Kryn… man I better stop otherwise I tell my boss I’am sick and go home playin’..  

Doesn't help the Yor. i kill them pretty early in the game.

The Korath were needed for the campaign (which is not really the best part of the game) and the expansion (it *had* to have new races). They're clearly superior to the Drengin, you don't have to know how to play the game to see that - now the question is how did the devs miss that. True they have crappier asteroids and no moon, but still.




Base them on some existing universe you like, or make up your own.

I don't think you can have perfect balance and I'm not sure you really need to. If you want more of a chalange play against the Korath instead of the Drengin.

If everythings else in the game remianed equal maybe it would make more of a differenece, but to me it depends so much on the other AI opponents and the layout of the map. Now with the changes to colonization, everyone has a shot. And those economic and research treaties can keep an agressor off your back; i'm theorizing that point, haven't palyed enough to see it though. QUESTION: does the AI know better than to declare war on you if they have a treaty with you?

I'm newer to DA but in the game I'm playing, the iconians have the biggest chunk of the galaxy and no one is picking on them. The Krynn decided to declare war on me early on they were #1 in almost everything, now they're #6 (out of 7) in military, economy, and a few others. They gave me 13 planets to have peace. So i didnt exactly see them as being overpowered. I've noticed the AI doesn't go for improving soldering too much.

As another question, using and exoisting race, can't you clear ALL the bonuses and pick your own. Thereby having a customized race but with all the points that a regular custom race wouldn't have?

In my other games on DL, the drengin alwqys declare war on me and meet the same fate. Yes im only playing on challenging but the point is, even with all those bonuses the game is still pretty even. A good player can beat any AI and a bad player can lose to any AI.

I feel only the iconians need a serious buff. right now they are just pathetic

In the game Alpha Centauri, the different faction abilities are compensated with dissadvantages to create a balance. That way you still get the interesting abilities but you have to pay for it.

Even so, for anyone who knows that game, the faction with the big economic ability is extremely pathetic (the Morganites). They get beaten every time, but only because the dissadvantages imposed on them for the economic bonus were too severe.

The moral is - few games ever get it right but DL was damb close, DA pretty much went south of the boarder on this issue.

The problem in the balancing of races is twofold:

1)The super abilities are not all balanced against each other. The Super Spy comes to mind.
2)Some sets of race abilities are far inferior to others. The iconians get basically nothing in abilities, and no bonus points to make up for it... and what little tech advantage they have is offset by the fact that they have no staying power.

These have to be treated seperately... since the custom AIs can have any of those super abilities, and those have to remain balanced against each other. This means that the races also need to be balanced with super abilities off... and that isn't happening. The iconians are the best example... they are such a horribly gimped race it isn't funny.

Summering the reactions of all of you, I learned that some say the Iconains are weak other say they are tough, idem with the Yors etc….Ok, it’s pretty sure nothing is predefined, every time you launch a new game everything turns out to be different, I like that. What I experienced is that races’ strength is also strongly influenced by the level you are playing. F.ex. on tough the Dregins are easier to be taken out than on painful, just in comparison of how every opponent is claiming his power in the game (independently of the game difficulty). I found that similar happens to other races….On further levels I don’t know ‘cause played only twice and got pretty struggled (once became event the 3rd left out of initially 5   , but was wiped out then quickly   ….). So, back one level to learn…

That's how it should have been done from the beginning. But this game is all about stacking bonuses; penalties are hardly part of it. Actually, penalties are *lack* of bonuses    Ok, not entirely, there are diplo penalties here and there, but they're not always significant.
One other problem is that abilities (there's a lot of them) aren't all equally useful. Some are there only to justify parts of the game. Economics is probably the most powerful ability in the game, since it is *always* useful, and relates to the "engine" of the game - your economy. Sure you can use a few others for some "role play" feel, but all in all they're not really balanced. And you just have to look at the screen where you choose abilities, and see that the points/bonus ratio is clearly not well allocated.

The loyalty bonus should be the Yor super ability, and their current isolationist super ability taken outside and shot.

Loyalty is almost useless unless you're facing some killer influence, which I've never seen the AIs effectively pull on me, so its hardly super ability material. Their speed limiter is fine as is.

Why? I haven't found the Yor to be so difficult. Right now I hate encountering the Korath, Krynn, Terrans or Altarians. The Yor and the least of my worries.

Yeah, the Yor loyalty bonus doesn't really make a practical difference almost ever. If anyone really thinks the Yor are almighty, I suggest you play a few games with them and submit them to the current tournament I'm running here. I'm guessing they won't even be in the top three.