Best Abilities

To this and your other 'best' posts there is no true answer. Things are fairly balanced so that each should have it's place.

That is riciculous, of course there is a best, there is always a best! Given a certain type of starting condition, where everyone is making optimal decisions, someone must come out on top based on attributes. Then you just have to look at which starting positions come up the most often and which strategies are the most effective. In addition, the abilities are not close to being balanced, some are better to buy with points, some are better to get through political affiliation. Some scale up with effect, some scale down.

For example, it costs 4 points to get +20% research, 1 to get +1 sensors, and 3 to get +20% economics. On the other hand, you get +20% research and +1 sensors through the Technologist political party and +20% through the Federalist party. Which means you can get +20% economics, +20% research and +1 sensors for either 3 points or 5 points based on how you go about doing it, making one way clearly better than the other.

As for scale, it costs 1 point to get +10% morale, but 3 points to get +20% morale. Or 1 point for the first +10%, 2 points for the second +10%. Economics is the opposite, it costs 2 points to get +10% and 4 points to get +30%. So, 2 points for the first +10%, and 2 points for the next +20%. So if you have to use ability points for morale, you're better off with as little as possible, but with economics, you're better off buying as much as possible.

So with all this, yes, there will be a best, or at least a best per play type. The race I submitted originally was what I felt was best for a generic economic/builder/research strategy.

Sure, theoretically. Is there a best strategy for chess? Probably, but the complexity of chess is something like 10^120. We aren't anywhere near finding the "best" for chess. Now take a game like GalCiv2, I have no idea how complex it is, but it is quite simply beyond the scope of the human brain to analyze it and find anything remotely like the "best".

[quote] That is riciculous, of course there is a best, there is always a best! [quote]

No, that's the ridiculous statement.

There are too many play styles and focuses. Best economy vs best military vs best influence vs best technology vs puppet master vs turtle will all have different combinations of "best" starting stats.

That variety is multiplied again by the technological variety introduced in TA. Maybe race

What I do: I favour the Arceans almost all the time (super-warrior is so powerful that only 1 or 2 of the others can come even close to challenging it). The thalans come a close second - the hive ability is nice in some situations.
After that, it depends on my tactic. Typically though with the Arceans I want +30 weapons, and luck, with my political party being universalits. This means my attack is at near-insane levels and I can wipe out entire fleets without taking a single shot.
If I'm going for a starbase+lots of mini-fighters strat, then I'll get +2 speed instead, since I can't afford engines on my fighters.
I usually take +10 morale if I can, but no more. If I'm going for economics I try to go for +30 or nothing.
Planet quality +10% is another one I like, since it gives me quite a bit of flexibility, and works out better than many other abilities in such situations (e.g. I can either have +1 tile which I can use for a stock market for +25% economics, or I can spend 3 points on economics +20% ability. To be fair since the economics +20% bonus applies to low PQ planets while the +10% doesn't it balances out, but the versatility offered by the PQ is better). I never bother with +20% PQ since it costs 8 points (+10% only costs 3). The same for +1 speed (either +2 or nothing).

Unless the "tech" or abilities you are getting are worthless, depending on the game you are playing.

For instance: Getting an extra +1 sensors, or spending points on sensors is (to me) utterly worthless on a tiny/small map, especially if anomolies are rare and stellar cartography SHOWS you where all the stars are located.

Also, in your "best race" I would think adding creativity is a waste of one point. With the exception of TA (which I think is simply not working correctly), creativity adds just a small percent to your overall research. I think you would be better off simply adding that extra point TO research, not creativity.

And sometimes you might want to stack bonuses. Just because you can get your economics cheaper from the Federalist Party, what if you want even more? Pick that political party AND spend your points on economy.

Super Hive, while powerful, and actually my personal favorite, isnt all that great if you want to focus on technology. Super Hive doesnt help much when building labs.

Aye, Super Hive's great part is getting up and rolling faster, but once those factories are built, you're just as good as another race. Yes you get there sooner and thus got a jump on your opponents.

The same could be said about Super Adapter getting TWO extreme world techs that'll save tons of time to research helping their colonization phase out tremendously. BLERG I can't believe I just defended the Super Adapter ability...

Creativity in TA I believe is working as they intend for TA. They want it to finish the current tech when it procs. Unfortunately I think they need to increase it's point's cost as 1 point makes it a staple for anyone to take. Up it to 3 points and then it can be weighed in.

Yes.

Not the OP's, though.

And before you throw a scenario at me, I'm not taking the time today to design the "best" race; I'm too busy having fun playing the game.



It does, to an extent. Your factories are up in far less time, and that gives you more industry quicker towards building your labs. Admittedly, this does nothing for your research capacity, but it helps you "max out" your research capacity sooner.

It could be argued that this doesn't really help because you'd need to do it for each planet, but a 144bc/96+30bc rush bought factory is cheap enough to buy on almost every planet, if not all of them, and that alone increases your industry by 37.5%, which will most definitely help you get labs up faster. If you find the AI is still outbuilding your labs, then maybe try two factories-depends on the amount of planets you have, the amount of labs you're building, etc, but still.

However, for TA, this is an entirely different subject; at least for the Thalans.

I like Creativity , sometimes it makes 25+ turns research just in one turn ...

And if you are playing with slow research or have such terribly funded labs that it takes 25 turns to research something, then it would be a good thing. Yet again, this shows that it is all situational, and there is no best. That one point for creativity could also make your warships 12.5% stronger if added in Luck. Or it could add THOUSANDS of BC per turn to your income depending on the number of planets you have if it was applied to morale or econ instead.

Of course, the original poster shot down his own argument as to what the absolute best starting abilities would be in the very next post that he made in reply #2.



Since the best can change due to the a "certain type of starting condition", it wouldn't always be the best would it? It is, in fact, situational.

As a sidenote, is it technically considered Irony if you are arguing about the best abilities to make the ultimate race, but one of them is Luck? For some reason I find that humorous.

~snorts~

One of these days I have to learn to fill out my posts with explanations instead of a 2-sentence answer which covers the answer. The other posters have done a great job in filling in those details though.