I'm hearing that Loyalty is worthless, as it's broken - confirm/deny?

For an idea at what I'm try to do, here's some basics.

First, and something I think that should've been in the game from Day 1, every ability has 'flawed' choices. Economics 'Corrupt' -1 Point -10% Economy. This will allow Custom Races a little more flexibility.

I'd like to bring points to be equal overall, not worth 'more' depending on the ability they're used in. Since I've no limit on options, every ability has some cheap 'starters' (Economics 1 = 1 point, 5% bonus), but they escalate exponentially.

I've neutered Economics quite a lot for starters. Reason being, TA / DA made the economy 'harder' for a reason, and between the cheap bonus and the Federalist / Universalist government (I think Universalist is among the top choices, mainly for Luck too), it was almost too easy to 'undo' a deliberate change to the game. If you'd like to undo the change, you sure can, but be prepared to pay a lot of points and to earn it, pay your way with ability penalties.

As such, I'd like to know what people's overall impression with the abilities are. What is too weak, what is too powerful, what is just ridiculous. Speed is difficult because it's such a profound advantage, but there's no way to lower it beyond just 1 pc/week minimum. Hopefully by the end of the night I'll have something interesting.

Now who would do a thing like that?    Of course I agree completely but besides that, you could use the built in points that arn't too useful to build a super race. What's wrong with that you ask? I mean thats the point of wanting to takle some point penalties. Well, built in races get more points total than custom races, presumably this was because the built in races did have some points spent where they weren't wanted (Yor 100 loyalty for example). So being able to take minuses in useless things to get more points to spend would mean the human player would actually have more total points than the AI or any custom race.

If you want flexibility just use custom races.

As for the actual thread question:  I think it depends on the difficulty level you play. I always max out economy, can't imagine not. I take the first level of research a bit of morale, luck and i think thats all these's room for. I don't take creativity because I don't know if it triggers in DA (what i play) like it does in TA now. For Gov't i take the technologists party. This way I'm maxed in economics and tech speed and i can keep up with the AI on maso and obscene games.

I always thought that the points for speed were too much. I need to have enough points to either max opiut economics or research.

If the bonus for PQ was better i would take that but its a lot of points for not much of a gain in PQ. NOw, I'm not sure if the percent bonus applies only to the initial PQ or the eventual (after terraforming) or how it works if you have an orbital terraformer (for late game comonization ofthe PQ1's) or when you invade. so maybe it could work better.

In my one game as a custom race i did take one point in weapons. Most choices just never get picked by me.

Well, it's in the early game that speed is noticed the most.  He who has the fastest ships most likely will net the most worlds in the colony rush (depending on ship output, I understand...).  After that and some time to research the various engines...the speed isn't as noticed anymore.  Perhaps the Arcean's tech tree would most benifit from the +speed ability since they mainly run off of passive bonuses.  In ZYW games +speed is king!!

Creativity and Luck both got big boosts in usefulness in the expansions (TA and DA, respectively), but the cost of them was not adjusted accordingly. Creativity is random in its usefulness, however. Some games it will save your butt or fling you way up the tech tree, other games, you might only get it to trigger when you have a few weeks left on a tech anyway. Luck, on the other hand, is a very, very dependable ability. Which is odd, given the way Luck works in any other game...

I've never noticed Loyalty or Courage making any difference at all, even for the Yor with their +100% Loyalty. And Epsionage, bleh. All it does is let you spend more money on Espionage. It doesn't have any (noticable, at least) effect on the cost of spies or the gathering of Intelligence. Sure makes the Iconians feel worthless, no?

The other Ability Bonuses are probably fine as they currently are, but I have to admit, I typically stick to spending my points in Economics and Morale with the left over points going to something that fits more with my game plan. I've never considered taking the Speed bonus, except with the few times I've played as the Arceans.

Drath tech tree get a creativity bonus at some point in the xeno ethics tree and if they are good aligned.(on the other hand, no point being evil with this drath tech tree since you get nothing for it in the tech tree lol)

So in fact 10% PQ is almost useless since only planets with initial PQ > 10 will benefit from it. On the other hand 20% PQ is quite nice for big maps

I didn't try out invasion yet, it's probably the same as colonization though I don't know if the initial PQ of planet was already modified by some terraform buildings what will happen...

I'm addicted to +30% Hit points and +30% defence. But thats because I use the Good alignment and focus on invunerable ships with solid defence values. Luck plays a big part as well.

I realise this may not be the way to min/max the game to its fullest extent but I'm more playing for fun. Theres nothing like seeing your little ship wipe out an entire enemy battle armarda. 100 hp medium hulls rock

Can only imagine how much better this would be if I could get around to ordering TA.

I didn't test that out yet and don't have much time for it but I'm not so sure about this

because recently I bought some planets from the comp and got my PQ bonus upon buying... (TA not beta2)

For the record, TA is the first version with working InterestRates, so anything's possible.

But I too suspect that the PQ bonus was not fixed for TA, either.

I should test it...be right back.

EDIT: Confirmed: Buying a planet off the AI or invading it DOES give you the PQ bonus in TA (latest beta, at least, and it's probable this is in 1.96 as well).  Note: This was tested without soil enhancement/etc, and the AI didn't have it yet, either.

Interesting...

Perhaps I should play more TA. Anyone check if the planet shrinks when it gets taken from you?