I normally play with one of the buildt in races, mainly because of this point problem. I still think that custom races could get at least 15-20 points, without it threatning the balance of the game. After all you can just add points to the buildt in races, but also when you play at the higher difficulity levels, they still get more anyways, so I think there is a rather large balance buffer. So more points for the custom people!

Which is possibly why GenPants made a "negative abilities" type of MOD back in July.

As i was trying to balance the custom races for X-Worlds, i really did puzzle myself into a whole logic fancy with tilting favorable assets towards a few key opponents. Fixing some of the most important (Eco/Res/SoP/MiP & InF, etc) was in fact what drove me outside the very scope of proper design.
Then, it struck me... did it really mattered that much when a simple 10% can be added or subtracted in any categories. During testing stages, it didn't feel some changes or tiny adjustments made a lot of difference - namely, how fast or slow any given races would get while, for example, colony-rushing.
Mainly, what this modding-process thought me is that balance has more to do with map conditions and where random elements occured. However, increasing the strengths (some) of what i choose to be "focused" races helped a little.

In my attempt(s), the weak and strong happened to be behaving in a somehow believable fashion... cuz, they had been given slight edges at boot-time.
But, generally speaking, the total points natural limit makes a whole bunch of sense since the cut has to be made somewhere. Sure, we'd sometimes wish for more leeway or even absolute control over these parameters and then some. In contrast, those super-human principles should completely wack-out the gameplay experience (which is not that bad afterall, fun enough).

Thus, X-Worlds races were devised with the above reasonings - and a few more tiny tricky elements thrown in for good measure. It's still GC2DA, ---but!

Btw, i have now taken the road to handicap starts; No bonus, No abilities, No Super, No party (neutrality is included in the new mod version 05-D)... nothing better to burn-TEST the whole package. I'd even -negative- myself (as custom) into more fun if i could.

- Zyxpsilon.

There's also the starting tech advantage. It's a big one too. Custom race doesn't get near as many as the other races. I don't really see why there's such a big handicap for custom race, or to look at it another way, why the normal races get such a big advantage.

Well, I find it interesting that the premade races start out with certain techs, but not the prerequisite tech (most obvious case is space militarization without galactic warfare, but there are others), whereas a custom race cannot do the same; if you want a tech, you have to have all of the prereq techs first.

Actually, most obvious case would be stellar cartography without xeno research.

While there are certainly some races that you can't do better with by making a custom, I've found that I can actually make more challenging opponents by making custom races, in some cases.

So I'm not sure which side of the fence I'd sit on.

love my custom races. There easier to play for me. Love the Isolationist. The pick is sorta worthless at the beginning of the game but latter on its a good Strategic defense. Usallaly put my bonuses in Production (both), Pop growth and 3 pts in PQ. Nothing makes me happier then running across a Plus 40 somthing worm bonus.

"um boss we got telepathic worms."

"what do they do"

"build tubes, eat and mate"

"I mean for us!"

"um nothing but the intergaltic treaty to save ths snail darters is still in effect."

Yeah yeah. if we get rid of them what happens to the evrioment."

"it gets 50% better for us."

and you want to keep the worms in place?

Oh yes boss it will make all the bunny huggers happy.

Glad we had this talk I am promoting you to head of Ice cap measurment. Its new but I want daily reports on how deep the Ice caps are.

To his assistant. Do you like worms son?

NO

good grind them up we need a better planet.

Duh

fuck that so fucking true damnit