jpmeyer

Join Date 04/2006

Iconians in beta 4C

Settings: Large, abundant everything, slow, tough, 9 opponents (no Krynn, and no Thalans since they lose horribly in every game I’ve played so far), tech trading on. I took the economics and morale bonuses. I normally take Creativity to help during the crunch, but the Iconians only get 7 points. 7 felt awfully low since most races have 8-10 and the bonuses the Iconians have aren’t that great compared to some other races like the Krynn (espionage and morale AND diplomacy AND influence) or Torians (morale AND growth) that have similar bonuses. The super ability was fairly useful in that it allowed me to get an extra 5-6 planets during the colony rush phase.

Starting positions:

Yor: 11 o’clock
Altarians: 9 o’clock
Terrans: 8 o’clock
Iconians: 7 o’clock
Drengins: 5 o’clock
Korath: 4 o’ clock
Torians: 3 o’clock
Drath: 2 o’clock
Korx: center
Arceans: center

I built a Precursor Library and Archive on every planet. With the tech rate at slow (I normally play on normal) and no Creativity, my research was flying by discoveries every few turns. I never even bothered to research any other research buildings. I traded for Advanced Computer at some point, but never built the Technology Capital anywhere since I never needed it.

I built a second ship for finding anomalies (a survey module, an ion drive, maybe a sensor, and then a lot of life support). I did not have much of an economic crunch in the beginning, which I think is partially because of the second survey ship. For reference, I ran my production at 100% and my morale at 100% until my homeworld starting to grow to the point where I couldn’t maintain 100% morale, then jumped my tax rate up to around 59% to keep the deficits manageable while I grew out and looked for anomalies. My morale also stayed pretty high since I built a Dream Conclave on a blue drop on my homeworld, so my population grew fast enough to get out of the crunch fairly soon. Despite being "crippled", I didn’t have much of a problem with my economy in this game. My research was flying by just with the Precursor buildings, so I filled every blank tile on every world with the Iconian econ buildings at first, and then eventually with stock exchanges once I managed to get that tech.

One theme that I saw with the Iconians is that they are set up so that you don’t really need much research into infrastructure. Their starting buildings are quite good. The Precursor buildings gave all the research that I would ever need and the Dream Conclave was good enough for my morale. I was almost never able to run close to 100% (I am at 96% now, but that includes Harmony Crystals, Frictionless Clothing, and then stealing through spying/invasion a few techs that boost morale like Xeno Entertainment and Slaughteroriums), but 80% was enough to run a nice surplus.

Their starting factory is pretty weak, but the maintenance is cheap and with 3 on a planet, you produce most of those starting buildings pretty quickly. The OPP factory is very good, since it outproduces an Industrial Sector (16 production vs. 12) and only costs 690 BC to buy outright and their "power plant" beats the quantum power plant by almost twice as much. On planets with a production bonus tile, I’d build one of those immediately and have the planet built up and ready to produce ships very quickly. Their upgraded factories are pretty bad, since they cost more than the corresponding factories in the base tech tree.

On a planet with the bonus industry tile, one of those OPP factories, the initial colony, and the molecular fabricator will provide 72 production (16 for initial colony, 16+16 for the interstellar refinery, 24 for the molecular fabricator). To produce the same amount using manufacturing centers, you would need to take up 3 additional tiles (16+20+10+10+10+10) and cost you 30 BC (both sides build the initial colony, so I’m not counting that) compared to 18 BC for the Iconian setup. Industrial Sector would take 2 extra tiles (16+24+12+12+12) and cost 40 BC.

The economic buildings are not as crippled as they appear on paper. On a planet where you plan to build 3 economic buildings (for example, a lot of my shipbuilding planets), 3 stock exchanges would give +75% economics, while 1 Merchant Trade Center and 2 Merchant Emporiums would give +78% economics. Obviously, replacing those Merchant Emporiums with stock exchanges would be better, but using the unique techs, you are actually ahead here. Combined with those industrial techs, the Iconians are actually pretty good at making good use of marginal worlds.

The "nerfed" economy and weak factories were also less of an issue than they would appear because of the focus on building small ships. The extra +15 miniaturization and the 8 extra hit points from their organic plating made my small ships quite formidable when I was fighting the Drengins. My small ships would have 2/0/0 attack and 1/0/1 defense with 16 HP against their Super Dominator Corvettes. This let them survive wave after wave and gain tons of levels to the point where they were getting up to around level 20, at which point they had almost 50 HP each. I researched up to medium ships, but my small ones were always so strong that I rarely built medium ships and just stuck with small ships that I would upgrade after they gained levels.

While I was able to gain space superiority over the Drengins easily, ground combat is a huge weakness for the Iconians. I had Planetary Bombardment, Space Marines, and Tir-Quan Training (and the invader bonus) for a total of +50 soldiering. The Drengins, meanwhile had about 100 soldiering (they had researched up to Ultimate Shock Troops). This made the invasion process incredibly slow-going, since I needed to send troops at about a 2:3 ratio in order to invade. My logistics was only 16 for a while, since a fleet of 5 small ships was strong enough to win battles, but I had to go up to 25 in order to get enough transports together to take large planets like their homeworld. Fortunately, their morale was awful so I could use information warfare to make the invasions more like 4000 to 5000 rather than 3000 to 6000. Once I managed to buy Tidal Disruption from someone (and eventually steal Planetary Defense and Advanced Planetary Defense in invasions), my advantage changed to about 80 to 110. Tidal Disruption is a huge tech for the Iconians since they use so many unique buildings that you’ll end up destroying just about every building but the starbase and recruiting center anyway when you invade. I haven’t been able to get anyone to sell me it, but Advanced Troop Mod would also help a ton here buy allowing you to stuff enough soldiers into each transport to give you a larger number of soldiers per point of logistics for each transport fleet. At this point though, it probably doesn’t matter since my logistics are something like 49 right now.

The other glaring weakness that I found was that their starbases suck. I ended up buying the factory techs from other races entirely to make my starbases non-useless. I think they only get up to +14 using the Iconian tech tree. Maybe they should get a module added to each of their industry techs? Their starbases would still be underpowered compared to the other races (they’d be say, +29), but not by so much.

Currently, I am trying to start the slow process of killing off the evil races so I can get a diplomatic victory. The Drengins are almost dead, then I’ll begin on the Korath and eventually the Yor.

Strengths: Good early techs, good synergy between techs
Weaknesses: Awful soldiering (not even advanced troop mod!), awful starbases, very weak racial abilities, low number of bonus race points

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Very nice summary. I haven't played with the Iconians yet.

In a moment of weakness I re-activated my Eve-online account. Except for the map editor I haven't used 4C yet...

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I should also note that I'm able to earn about 1500 BC per turn in my map, as opposed to how I'll make twice that with some races like Korx and Drath. I'm still usually able to buy what I need, though. Upgrading my ships often needs to be spread out over a lot of turns.

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I noted the the same thing with your overall experience. As power-level goes, they certainly don't seem to be on par with the Altarians, who I found to have he strongest set of abilities so far.

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I'd like to see their base factories get buffed. I almost never bother with the huge research costs of getting Industrial Replicators up to any tier, unless i have absolutely nothing else to research. A refinery and fabricator on a bonus tile are good enough for most of the game. At least give the tech the ability to add more starbase modules. Currently, i don't think they can even go beyond 2 without tech trading.

I also feel the super ability could get buffed a little as well. Being able to colonize a given extreme world 40% of the time is just too random. Sometimes i get lucky and find a couple, other times it doesn't come into play at all. Take into account the fact that the Yor and Korath have a colonization tech as well along with a much better ability and it isn't balanced imo. Give them another another extreme world tech off the bat and i'll be much better.

Honestly, i usually don't end up colonizing too many of these worlds anyway. The production loss is just too big and it takes them a while to build up. I already have economy troubles early game, (no eco/morale/pop bonuses) so i can't afford too many unproductive planets.

As far as research goes, they have the best two starting buildings and their research tree is standard, unlike their factory one. Two precursors on almost every planet and 100% research will almost always put me in negative eco so it is definitely their strong point, granted i take all tech bonuses. I'm also pretty impressed with their hp modules. In early wars, they will allow you to dominate enemy ships. Later in the game, they seem to eventually lose effectiveness to armor, but considering the difference in research costs, its worth it.

All in all, a decent race. A better soldering bonus so i don't have to bombard everything, better late game production and a better super ability would make them close to perfect imo.

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There's one major problem with the Iconians: They're nearly impossible to play with the "No Tech Trading" option. I like those unique tech trees very much, so I'm playing most of my games without tech trading. Most times it's big fun, but the Iconians are the single exception. I've learned to master all of the other races on painfull, but with those Iconians, I'll even loose on tough.

I'll explain why:

1. They can't change their political system to Interstellar Republic and all those following techs. That's especially illogical, because the Iconians are known fcr the closest thing to communism that the galaxy ever had. And they have to live under 'Imperial rule' for all of their existence ?

2. They economy buildings are far worse than the traditional Stock Market route. Ok, they've got a 'one per planet' 50% building, but that's it. 3 Stock Markets are better than their one 50% building + 2 of their normal eco buildings. And you'll generally have 3 or more Stock Markets on every planet, at least that's what I have in my games.

3. Their moral building costs 5bc per turn. You need to build this to keep your folks happy, but it will ruin you over time.

You won't have many of these problems in a tech trading game, because you can trade foreign moral builing, foreign eco buildings, and a foreign political systems. But if they're on their own , they're really too hard to play.

My solution: Give them those political techs ! Call them "Star UdSSR" or whatever, but they'll seriously need that boost.

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Yeah, i definitely do have to agree that games get much harder without tech trading. I'm sure its the same for all races but especially the Iconians.

The Iconians, i guess from a design standpoint, were supposed to have cheap, easily researched and powerful buildings early on but without the ability to develop them any furthur. Although it makes sense since they inherited precursor tech, it doesn't seem to work as well from a gameplay standpoint.

Yes, their buildings are definitely some of the best that can be researched or built right off the bat. But the simple fact of the matter is they don't have the economy to sustain those buildings at all. Good production and research are useless without the money to use it with. When things get to mid-late game, those early advantages are lost when other races catch up and even surpass whatever the Iconians can build. Also, don't let their good buildings fool you too much. They almost completely lack the production/research/economy/morale bonuses in their tech tree. A 78% economy on 3 tiles may be better then 60% economy with stock markets, but your forgetting the 15% free bonus that comes with the research and applies on every single world they own, without them having to spend a cent building up the infrastructure.

Like Mera mentioned, they completely lose the government tree. I guess because they are communist by default?

Regardless, thats a really big hit right there for both money and diplomacy. I don't mind too much as it makes them more unique but give them some other bonus % techs to compensate for it.

They also have particularly bad economy problems early on. You can survive the inital crunch by rushing Xeno Ethics, population growth and the economy tree but its completely forced. From my experience you have no choice in the matter, its do or die. You don't have any other options available to you and the same inital year plays out exactly the same way.

As for soldiering, invading planets will destroy almost everything on one. Sometimes, the only thing i end up with is a Starport and maybe if i'm lucky, a Recruiting Center. On the flipside, getting invaded yourself is truly painful. You might have to do a bombardment or gas, decreasing PQ, but even if you do get it back in the same shape, all your buildings will be destroyed. The Trade Center, Emporiums, Archive, Library, everything gets destroyed. I rarely find the time to spare resources into social during war and even in peace, i'll still take months to rebuild that planet.

I dunno, maybe its just me but i find their late game tech tree lacking as well. The money, production trees are almost done immediately with no real furthur development. Your also stuck with the same farm and morale buildings forever. The only real unique section they have is the organic line. But that is also done quickly and is only really useful early game in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, their hp modules and regeneration are really powerful. But they are still very expensive to field on ships and they get outclassed later in the game. Armor simply becomes a ton more useful for various reasons. I'd like to see more unique, powerful late game techs and modules for them.

Their racial abilities also suck big time. The espionage bonus seems to be completely out of the blue, its not bad, just random in my opinion. Most races also get an equivalent of 20+ racial points but the Iconians only get about 13. Just compare them to the Krynn or Korath and its not even funny. And i feel this isn't something that is made up for in their tech tree either.

Also, please rebalance their super ability. In fact, i think super abilities should be rebalanced in general. Some have just huge potential while others are mediocre at best, Iconians included. Like i said before, its just too random. Without a slider to control % of extreme worlds for habitable planets, its a crapshoot. You might get lucky or not, but either way, you can't plan for it in advance and building that planet up takes ages. There isn't any skill involved in the ability.

Anyway, that was my huge rant about Iconians. Honestly though, the race is decent enough as is. The biggest thing i'd like to see changed for them is just more powerful, unique techs to plug up their flaws late game. They take huge hits in their economy which doesn't make their early advantages really shine and mid-game, all their unique techs are over and done with. Their power never really gets a chance to go through in any phase and i feel that needs to be fixed.

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econundrum1

Join Date 04/2007

+36

I can’t help but agree the Iconians have massive economic problems; partly because of high building maintenance, partly because they lack advanced forms of government.

Although there tech tree is interesting, the Iconians are the weakest race in the game hands down because of this problem. I struggle so much more with them than any other race.

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If you want to win with the iconians, your best friend will be the +100% repair ability obtained by some tech. Except for huge ships they will be repaired in one or two turns even in open space. Try to keep your ships alive and you will be able to replace your "losses" faster than the enemy and even end up with a lot of extra hp.

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There's one major problem with the Iconians: They're nearly impossible to play with the "No Tech Trading" option.

I disagree. And the same can be said of the Thalans. I actually think, on balance, the Thalans (no basic production buildings of either kind, no farms ever, only start out able to build embassies) "need" tech trading more than any other race. In any case, if the difficulty is low enough, you can win with any race without tech trading (I can win with all TA races on Maso... its just obscene and suicidal where things start to fall apart).

3. Their moral building costs 5bc per turn. You need to build this to keep your folks happy, but it will ruin you over time.

IME the upkeep has the opposite effect. It will ruin you right away, but over time doesn't matter so much because as the game progresses you make more and more money. I guess it depends what tax rate you run at (I prefer 69%-79%) and the size of your populations. It also depends on if you want to build ANY morale buildings anyway because...

because they lack advanced forms of government.

And this is almost an advantage in disguise really. This means you never need to worry about voting, and really, after the first few turns where you are trying to build populations you never need an approval above 40% all game. You can keep the tax sliders much higher in an empire. Imperial forms of government have their charms...

The Iconians, i guess from a design standpoint, were supposed to have cheap, easily researched and powerful buildings early on but without the ability to develop them any furthur. Although it makes sense since they inherited precursor tech, it doesn't seem to work as well from a gameplay standpoint.

Depends on your playstyle. Iconians are blitz masters now. Able to get out of the gate fast. They have no need to spend time on infrastructure techs or diplomacy techs, and their economy tech line can be finished fast. So what to do with all of that research? The only thing left to focus on is combat techs...

Good production and research are useless without the money to use it with. When things get to mid-late game, those early advantages are lost when other races catch up and even surpass whatever the Iconians can build.

But if you can strike early there is no need to worry about what other races could do if you gave them time. Strike early, and strike hard. If you do this you get more planets which gets you more people which gets you the money to run all of that production which lets you hit more planets... etc. etc.

As for soldiering, invading planets will destroy almost everything on one.

This, and the above mentioned lack of good soldiering tech is IMO their biggest problem. The good news is with all that invading you have a chance of picking up invading tech yourself.

Their racial abilities also suck big time. The espionage bonus seems to be completely out of the blue, its not bad, just random in my opinion.

I disagree a little here. Espionage is the worst ability in the game because it is a penalty. You get no bonus from the espionage ability, you are just forced to spend more money without control over it (I like to micro manage). When money, at least in theory, is a problem anyway.... well having an ability that COSTS you money is the worst thing possible.

The super ability is one of the weakest ones because it is so random, and I rarely build colonizers even on very large maps. Its about building transports.

The new Iconians are growing on me because I love to blitz, and the Iconians seem to be shaping up to be blitz masters. In fact, given their tech tree its their only real strategy. The new tech trees do a great job of giving each race one or two really good, unique ways to attack the galaxy. Looking for an early game colony rush on an all industry strategy? Look no further than the Drengin that can produce loads of industry easily. Looking for that quick technology win? Altarians. Are you more comfortable with rock-hard planets and high defense? Arceans it is! Etc.

Iconians have nothing to research but military and economy techs right from the get go. The only real question with them is do you research planetary invasion first and then do the econ line, or the econ line and then planetary invasion. From there, go for some military/hull techs and try and knock everyone out before they've gotten out of the gate. With nothing really good anywhere else in the tree, that sort of play style is kind of forced on you.

The soldiering bonuses are the only detriment to playing that way, but early on populations are small, and eventually you will probably pick up a few soldiering techs while invading. That is just the optimal play style of the new Iconians. They have to be an aggressive dominating (good) empire from day one. If you don't prefer to play that kind of game, there are a dozen other races with their own playstyles.

Just my take after a half-dozen games.
~ Wyndstar

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Given that they are supposed to be communist, it makes sense to never have star republic dem, and Fed.. as that is rather a contrary view of gov.

BUT it would be nice to be able to research socialism or the great commune or something of that nature that gives major economic and production bonuses similar to what the "representative forms of gov give.

just a thought

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If I were to make stats for such skills...

perhaps make it so each person of population creates some additional level of research/production/$$ per thing researched... but make it have some major detriments as well... like upkeep increases or worlds being more likely to revolt if moral decreases.

Communist countries historically have more problems keeping their people happy and working than non-communist countries.

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