I would give you a really good reply but stopped reading your post cos my eyes are bleeding due to lack of paragraphs.

Try posting it again with paragraphs please.

I concur with Mac, the Arceans are my favorite race and they are really struggling under Beta 4C.. They could hold their ground on small maps with rare everything, when you basically only get two worlds but once you get up to a size where you actually have a colony rush they're in trouble.

They don't need anything anywhere near as badly as the Thalans do (although the Thalans impromptu Embassy Warfare Tactic works well on small maps - by chance), but they definitely need something a little bit more competitive so when the AI is playing them they are actually effective, like their meant to be.

I semi-enjoy playing them as they are now, because they are incredibly hard to win with at the higher levels, but still just manageable if you are able to bide your time long enough. It's a real challenge though and you might win one in two or three times. It really depends on which way the early wars between the powerful civ's go at the moment.

Cant forget the fact that the Arceans have better worlds than everybody else. Weather centers combined with Neutral alignment = some pretty nice worlds which can then be piled with economic buildings. My first priority as the Arceans when i play them is get them a market building, and then those are my first priority when improving my new planets. True, i may have some economic troubles, but i do get out of the crash fairly well.

Although there was this one game where I tanked bad as the Arceans, but that was more because I was trying to keep morale at 100% and had the tax rate ridiculously low (my first time trying to raise the population like this and I am rather noobish) to the point where I was an economic goner whatever i did.

My experience has been that the "turtling" strategy on upper difficulty levels will end in defeat unless you have more than a handfull of planets, which you can rarely get with the Arceans and avoid a fatal economic crash. I've also often seen a series of surrenders by the AI that eventually results in a single or just a few "super empires" that will just declare war on you and overrun you through sheer weight of numbers and higher technology-power house researchers the ARceans are not. Moreover, I have also frequently seen coalitions form that result in a last stand against virtually every empire on the map. Now, that being said, you may get lucky once in awhile and have one of those surrenders go your way, but strategies typically are not built on luck.

As for the contention that the weather control zenith offsets their disadvantages, I respectfully disagree. For one thing, you have to make it to the Zenith without going into the economic death spiral, which I can usually do if I can get to Trade in time and have a good starting planet and maybe find a research bonus tile or two on an early planet. Again, that all depends on luck. The same thing goes for reaching the initial market buildings, which in my experience do not provide enough of a bonus to get one out of the red once there. In any event, I've found Trade a more effective way out of the debt spiral.

Further, the three squares the bonus provides only really help offset the Arcean's disadvantages; they don't provide a real advantage in and of themselves. That is, the weather control center provides three extra tiles. The Zenith itself takes one tile, the navigation center takes another and that leaves you with just one extra tile from the Zenith. One extra tile is unlikely to change the tide of the game when the AI (on upper difficulty levels) almost always has a tech lead over the Arceans, a larger military, and a far better economy.

The Arceans simply are not competitive in my opinion. Other races easily outproduce, out research and eventually just crush them. Their advantages are insufficient to stop that and their penalties just make that situation worse. I've seen it in every game I've played with them and I've seen nothing posted here that changes my mind about that. What I believe they need is just a slight tweak so they would be competitive and one or two of my suggestions above would provide that tweak. I'm trying a game right now with an enhanced stellar forge (modded in the tables) and it has really helped without unbalancing the game in favor of the player.

I would have to argue that what most gamers consider the 'Economic death spiral' is not actually death.

My strategy is very non-military. I played the Iconians recently. For 3 and a half years game time I was below -10,000 bc. And then, I won. I had grabbed lots of worlds and my economy tanked, but my population slowly grew, and then in a matter of a year I had gone from negative twenty-seven thousand billion credits... to over a hundred thousand billion credits.

Many of the races can really struggle early, especially when you have to worry about a colony rush. The Stellar Forge is priceless mid to late game because of its boost to ship stats. Are the Arceans really any worse off than say the Korx or Iconians or Thalans early game?

The Arceans are turtle masters with the "few but powerful" concept down to a tee.

If anything the problem is a lack of early game money - but if you want that changed it should be changed for everyone.

The problem with focusing just on the Arceans because "that is what this thread is about" is that several races suffer from the exact same problem. To "fix" just the Arceans still leaves a problem and inbalance for other races.

~ Wyndstar

If you are heavily relient on trade (and are not playing as the Korx), that may explain your problems. Trade takes a long time to break even, and the traders themselves are terribly fragile in wartime now that the galactic privateer appears to be gone (replaced with a Korx unique wonder). The Mind Control Center will dwarf trade as an economic solution worth researching towards. Additionally, I believe invading minor races imposes a rather large diplomatic penalty, which would explain why you are having everyone ally against you. I'm not sure that this is really means that the Arceans are underpowered. It may mean that your play-style is better suited to the Korx, who actually can (relatively) safely rely on trade (+3 trade routes, starts with master trade, +50 trade, and a unique tech that gives +20 trade and the new version of galactic privateer).

While I appreciate your efforts, you missed the whole point. The only reliable way for the Arceans to overcome the debt spiral (in my experience) at the beginning of the game is to get to the Trade tech. The reliance is by necessity not by strategic choice. Moreover, given the heightened maintenance costs and the Arceans lack of any native economic bonus (something not unique to them but I'm here to talk about them), trade can remain an important component of income well into mid game. In any event, I think the idea that trade takes a long time to break even is in fact an incorrect one. Trade is very profitable almost from the start.



Yes. However, the point is that the Arceans, despite their "militaristic tag," are most often unable to maintain a protracted war from a technological and economic standpoint, especially when it is against the almost inevitable coalition. Their economy is weak, their tech prices higher than others, and the Stellar Forge, the Arcean's crowning achievment, is insufficient to offset their weaknesses to any degree. In short this aspect of the Arcean problem is really a symptom of their problems rather than a problem in and of itself. I suspect that tweaking as I suggested above would go a long way towards correcting it by equipping the Arceans with tools with which they could at least remain competitive when this situation arises, as it does almost every game.

Arceans are my favorite race, (with their 2 noodely appendages lol)
and I agree they have problems, but right now a lot of the races do.
I hope they can fix that early game economy slump every1 is talking about

JustInsane4,


It is not my intent to insult you, but I don't think you've read my previous posts very closely. If you had, I believe you would realize you are mistaken in several respects. The whole point of this thread is that I believe the Arceans need a minor tweak or two to make them competitive. I've not stated they are "terribly underpowered." I base this not only on my own experience with them but also on my observations of the AI's experience with them. I've yet to see them flourish in any game I've played and I've owned this game for more than a little while and played more than just a few games.

First, I have a good understanding of the new economic model and its heightened maintenance costs for ships and buildings. I also have a good understanding of various strategies to deal with that, including holding off on development of planets and avoidance of overbuilding of ships. Trust me when I say that I employ both with the Arceans.

The consistency among all of the strategies I have tried is to avoid overdeveloping planets-even the home planet-early in the game. In short, I'm already employing that strategy and have been for some time. I usually just build a factory or two and, if there's a research bonus tile I'll build a research building on that. Nothing else. Doing less than that is disastrous with the Arcean speed penalties-one will never build a colony ship in sufficient time to colonize much of anything. If that is counted as a plus for avoiding the early economic crash, i.e., over colonizing, it is ultimately fatal. As I've stated, the Arceans have slow research because of higher than normal research costs and tend to have coalitions form against them or simply have the rest of the galaxy declare war. Limiting oneself to a couple of planets (assuming there is more than two available), while helping with early economics, is disastrous once contact is made with other races . They are almost inevitably far more technologically advanced, with a superior economy and superior fleet and openly hostile. Those empires will easily crush the Arceans just as they do when it is an AI.

Just as one example, in one game I played in an immense galaxy and with similar conditions to those described, by the time I made contact with the Drath they were building five ship fleets of photonic torpedo equipped frigates while I was still building small mass driver equipped corvettes. Despite the Stellar Forge, my ships were swept aside with no problem-I don't think they even penetrated the Duranthium armor the Drath frigates were using. In any event, "over colonizing" has not been a problem with rare/rare settings for planets and inhabitable planets combined with the slow speed of the Arcean ships.

Second, the "reliance" on trade stems from the fact that it is an early tech that will consistently (in nearly every game I've employed it) get the Arceans out of the debt spiral. The early economic buildings simply will not do it, both because they do not provide a big enough bonus and because it takes time to build them during which the economy continues to crash. Trade ships on the other hand, are relatively quick to build and it only takes a few to bring the Arceans back into the black. Regardless of your beliefs, those rules are borne out by my experience actually playing the game. Wile it may take a few turns to recover the money spent building the freighters, the point is that they consistently stop the loss of money in the overall economic picture as soon as they start operating. Getting the debt spiral reversed is what is important early game.

As for the MCC, I just don't know where you're coming from. Have you actually played the Arceans? That tech is high on the tech tree for early game. I believe your estimates of the difference in time to research that tech versus trade are simply incorrect. It would not only take longer to get to those techs, but would likely cost money for the Arceans to actually choose evil in order to build the techs in the first place. Further, one still has to actually build the improvements once one reaches that point. By that time, the Arceans are broke and can't building anything-let aloen a galactic achievement and a trade good that usually take a long time to build. There is NO way the Arceans are ever going to reach that in time to avoid having their empire implode as I've already described (I'm playing on very slow research.) By the time I can research those techs, I don't need the economic bonus it would provide and would choose neutral alignment anyway. That's the whole point of why I go for trade, it is relatively early on the tech tree and provides the boost needed to get over the economic hump.

Third, my "playstyle" is varied according to the race I play. With Terrans, diplomacy is very successful. It doesn't work with the Arceans and I don't rely on it. In fact, every game with the Arceans turns into one long war because the rest of the races seem more than a bit hostile to them. Regardless, the Arceans need to have an economy to build that military in the first place. That requires a little trade because their internal economy is simply not going to do it unless one wants to be a sitting duck that is conquered by late early game. Their military bonuses, whether native or through available techs and projects, are insufficient to overcome that in time to prevent conquest. They have slow research, slower ships, and a weak economy. I could go on and on with this but it is obvious we are not seeing the same picture. I remain of the belief that a tweak or two is needed to make them competitive. In fact, I just finished a game where I gave them a tweak to the Stellar Forge and while it was a struggle, they did better.

Agreed. The Arceans need SOME engines, those navigation centers don't cut it.

Perhaps the speed penalty is left over from DA, when there was one ubiquitous tech tree for all the races. Now that each race has a custom tree, the Arceans don't need the speed penalty; the penalty is manifested by the lack of engines.