Are custom races inferior to the pre-made ones?

Well, you're right. The custom races are given less abilities. This because pre-made races have 10 "free" ability points plus other points that are already given by default, while custom races have only the free ability points. You can give more ability points at custom races by modyfing the "RaceConfig" document in DA/Data/English. Just change the "15" in

Not necessarily...but usually.

The one great advantage that a custom race has is that its bonuses (AND starting techs) can be precisely tailored to the player's intended style of play, with no "wasted" abilities. Example: Yor have 100% loyalty bonus "for free", but in most games it is overkill for any real flip-threat to a Yor player.

On the other hand, sometimes you can tailor an existing race to be EXTREMELY suited to what you intend to do by "stacking" additional bonuses on their existing strengths. Example: you can give the Altarians +60% econ and +45% research (+60% with the Technologist Party), which makes them the race of choice for an "all research" strategy. You can't reach those high numbers tailoring a custom race because of the upper limits of assigned vs inherent abilities.

In my opinion, allowing the custom race about 17 ability points (vs the 15 now available), AND allowing them to "double select" (i.e. toggle on 2 selection boxes) in any ability category, would make them fully competitive with any of the preset races.

drrider

Not sure if you realize, but 17 points and allowing a player to double select a skill would make them able to have +4 speed bonus or +40% planet quality. I know you said it's your opinion, but just mentioning that incase you missed.

Your point? If a player wants to push that much into one or two points categories, let them.

I was just commenting off the cuff. I didn't work out a detailed and balanced proposal. Maybe the right mix is to leave points at 15 - OK - whatever the playtesting shows.

Besides, I did think that doubling selections would be too much, so my suggestion was to allow the custom player to toggle 2 boxes. Under those limitations, the max speed bonus for would be +3 and the max for PQ would be +30%.

drrider

Or let them only have the top two of any field. Maybe restrict some like speed so you can only get one of them. You would end up using a lot of points without getting an obscene amount compared to the stock races.

Or charge an extra point or 2 for the second selection.

drrider

Oh, ok. Didn't realize you meant that. My mistake.


And my point is +4 speed or a +40% planet quality are pretty powerful traits.

they are almost always weaker. I use a 20 point selection and a slightly increased options table

I think the two box selection is a great idea! You are after all still paying for the trait. I find my custom races to be crippled compared to some of the bonuses of the pre-mades.

With a few notable exceptions there is nothing you can select that another race doesn't already have as a bonus. Even without the extra points it would be nice to level things off a bit!

It is funny how crap the pre made ships are, when the pre made races are unbeatable.

I wonder could they make some pre made ships with capabilities that you cannot best in your own designs?

Thanks for the replies everybody.

I see, I love the game but I must admit I think it is a very strange decision to make it this way. Oh well, I guess sticking with the original races is the way to go.

W00t? Mod?

Generally speaking, yes.

A number, but not all, of the "canned" races are superior to a custom race, even taking into account the value of the ability to assign "exactly" the stats you want to a custom race, which is significant. But then a number of canned races are clearly inferior to some other canned races, and you'd be far better playign a custom race.


The probelm is, this part of the game was never really "balanced"...SD was happy just to let races "be what they are" for backstory reasons, I guess, even though it seems intuitive that they should have all been created from the same set of rules from a gameplay perspective.


I recommend playing with a custom race anyways..it makes the game more personal, and the races that *are* superior to a custom race are unbalanced anyways.

If you want to make a powerful custom race, you could just do it manually in mygames/darkavatar. That's what I always do.....

My own experience has been that I can get more out of a custom race within the 15 point limit than even a tweaked version of the canned races. That's because I have come to understand my own play style, and can make use of exactly what I would like to use out of the ability points that I spend. None of the canned races have quite the right mix for my style of play, so I'm always catching up in one way or the other.

I should add that I've stayed within the 15 point limit so far: not because I think modding is wrong, but because I've had no reason to. Right now I'm winning consistently on "tough". If I have consistent trouble when I move up a notch in difficulty, maybe I'll rethink that.

Just my two cents,

A---

I think custom races are handicapped compared to the canned races owing to the larger number of points assigned to abilities. I recently played a game with my custom race against all customs on crippling. For quite a while, the MINOR races were the top civilizations in the game. Something just isn't right when the Jessuins are the No. 1 most powerful civ. That this situation could arise outside of some sort of mega event is crazy. By midgame, I was the only player who's economy was not in the toilet. The AI can't seem to make the custom races thrive even if you create a custom with abilities similar to the AI type you assign to it. I love the idea of making custom races. It could really spice things up. But as it stands, they aren't competitive outside of player control.

It seems that it's only when the AI gets a-hold of my custom civs is when they start winning, e.g. on normal my custom race the Thorians were whupping even the Yor!

Its a mistake to assume that the minor races are inherently incapable. If you look at their stats in the data files, some of the minor races are quite good. The Jessuins and, especially, the Akillians are among those. BUT...minor races inherently cannot colonize (its for gameplay reasons, but rationalize that it is just part of their alien psvchology). Because of that, they fairly quickly fall behind in research, and in defensive ship production. Also, their limited population limits their ability to expand by invasion. Let one of the minor races get that special event that allows their spies to steal the entire tech knowledge base of a leading race fairly well into the game and they can become quite formidable.

Recently I finished a game in which for the last third of the game the Akillians were clearly the 2nd leading race (partly because I was helping them behind the scenes).

I didn't want to waste time being at war with the ramaining major race, the Drath. But the Drath had foolishly declared war on the single-system Akillians. The Akillians had already earlier in the game stolen the Krynn tech base, before the Krynn had amalgamated with the Drath (under pressure from me in our long standing war), so the Akillians were no pushovers in any case. So I stayed friendly with the Drath, with occasional talks and minor purchases of influence points, while trading / giving a series of advanced techs to the Akillians, and, especially, fully loaded super-transports. Funny thing, if you give a minor race a big transport sitting within 2-3 squares of one of their enemy's planet right after their roving battleship has waxed the orbiting defenders for fun,...the minor will invade with it. By the end of the game, when I inticed the remaining Drath system to join me gratefully for a Diplo victory, the Akillians had about 9 planets! (It was an All Rare, Gigantic, Obscene configuration.)

drrider

The Torians are the only pre-built race than can be clearly bested by your own designed custom race in my opinion...That's what I used for my 900K game.

Hi,

I'm new to the GalCiv world, and I've only been playing a little while, but I'd like to throw my opinion in. From what I've read, and I like to read about the games I play, it seems that the custom races are inferior to the pre-made ones. That's technically speaking. I agree with Alex Scherr when he said custom races allow the player to tailor the race to the playing style. I have a style for playing strategy games - I like to build slowly, building my economy, holding enemies at bay, until my economy's ready to support my war machine. That style plays better with certain abilities and techs. Also, I like to make things my own. My own ship designs deserve their own civilization to go with it. And my family name deserves to conquer the galaxy (as is proper). So...The custom races may be inferior, but then again...I'm always hearing people post about how the AI isn't challenging enough, so I think inferiority might be a challenge for some people.

Another issue with the custom races:
Some abilities that the standard races have are not available to customs - notably, Miniaturization. This means you can get more variety by choosing a premade 'base' race to customize.

The AIs in DA get an added bonus that puts them numerically beyond what a custom race can have. However, this only comes into effect if you decide to beef up the AIs by giving them even more attributesin the EDIT section. If you leave them at their base, you can better them in almost every single category (ie. influence, mil/soc production, planet quality, weapons, hit points, econ, etc.). Personally, I prefer playing the cutom race just to focus my character.

Well, as you can see in my user name, I always use the custom race. I have usually found them superior. Exept in the case of the Yor.