Hi I have played the game quite a bit now and in recent times won 5 in a row. I really like the game! I am not an expert by any means but here is my own opinion to why scientists are superior vs all but a game where everyone else starts as scavanager since that forces the scientists to go for carbon and even then it is a tight race.
1. Scientists gain a 2 for 1 tile advantage claim by planting on top of a resource with a resource building of that resource type.2. Scientists save the cost of the other tile building - example the iron mine that is around 300 in money in early game.3. Scientist save the raw good costs of the industry output building. This even scales with both science output and adjacency bonus! Adding 2x production from adjacency and 1x from science upgrades is a 3x savings in raw goods outputted, like a steel mine doing 0,5x3=1,5 output but not having to use 3 iron (so a saving on average of 60 assuming 20 iron cost.)4. The other tile advantage mechanism in the game is 50% faster for scientist, the engineer upgrades. Thus they even snowball faster the tile advantage.5. They are more immune to sabotages due to half the sabotage time making stoping them snowballing harder. On top of that using the patents for reducing sabotages even more and even if you do not protect your off world shipment buildings they are still not sabotaged for long.
The penalty to playing scientists is you are perhaps sligthly more fuel dependant by spreading out resources and the time it takes for them to transport is initially long you start near the resource you want. The other penalty is that it is sometimes harder to get adjacency bonuses. But not really in most games. (I usually have adjacency bonus for all but maybe 1-4 tiles so I would estimate around 80% have it.)
Compare this with the others:Expansive, sure the reduced steel cost is nice and they can initally get to lvl 2 quickly and get a tile for free - but they will simply not keep up with scientists as 2,5 building they build on top of a resource recclaims the tile advantage of being 1 step ahead on the upgrade curve, and cost wise while having less initial cost every second the game ticks scientists save huge raw goods costs. Finally with a faster tech upgrade they easily surpass Expansive.
Scavanger - while having faster black market place access gives them speed in getting claims from black market quick - it does not allow a quick sabotage effectivly since scientists have half the sabotage time. The carbon cost is nice however for all buildings except the glass and electronic building they actually need 50% more carbon than the opposite steel would have been in cost. While the output of carbon gain reach 3x that of a single steel factory and normaly is 2x, - 3 steel factories adjacent are at same level as 3 seperated carbon factories. Also steel is much much more in high demand, so in most games if not huge steel surpluss, or if someone is doing pleasure dome strats (more power requirements and power require carbon) then carbon is low demand. It is only in the late game again carbon picks up demand again since glass require carbon to build and electronic require carbon to output goods.
Robotics : To me the weakest faction. Yes they use less food water and oxygen but at the start of the game this is very minor (0,2 food 0,1 water and 0,05 oxygen) vs 0,1 electronic. The power instead of fuel is quite nice and means robotic can spread out. The glassless upgrades are also nice as glass is expensive (around 2400 money in tier 2 to 3 upgrade) however as the game progresses the outpuit of electronic is quite costly (remember it chews up 0,25 aluminum, 0,5 carbon and 0,25 silicon for a mere 0,25 in electronic) and even with many bonuses this low level even at 4x each factory is doing 1 in output only for big costs as well. Electronic tends to spike when its needed for off world, pleasure dome and such stuff so the only thing I see robotics got going for it is the reduced fuel costs and since they already are pushing for power a pleasure dome strategy seems to fit them well (-1 power per pleasure dome and it starts with a base of +42 profit per tick that is actually really good in a cheap power game but each additonal pleasure power plant reduced the profit by 10 and ofcourse if you do the patent upgrade you can get very very profitable pleasure domes early.) So to me only if they do pleasure dome and power early and nobody else does it can robotics have a chance at all to snowball. They however do not have any tile advantages and no advantages in disrupting the opponent this is why I think they are currently the worst.
Now stuff I wish for in the game:Quick button to buy or sell shares from player 1 to 8 etc. (for example shift 1 or shift + alt 1 for player 1 or anything like this) Autobuy supply button red when if buying auto will cause a loss when compared with current sale price x output of the said product it is autosupply purchasing for. This will make the newbies not lose money on autosupplies.Additional mechanisms for end game than off world. I like the idea of a victory condition to gather huge amount of resources on mars. Build a super project that costs thousands of resources that causes some profits on pair with off world perhaps? The reason is if your scientist and doing off world and you get it up first your unstoppable. You can be sabotaged but not for long. if you got goon squads not for very long. Even scavanger does not stand up to this.Hotkey for sharing resource in team game maybe (Whatever resource your hovering mouse if you press the key it will share, if in the top left or if on an extractor or anywhere else you find the resource.)
MP stuff: I know this is coming but ranking is really important since some games now are very easy but vs players of same level the game is more balanced and you do not see power spike to 300 etc like you do in a game with new players.Stats: I like that you have staistics in this game. Would be cool if you can add weekly, monthly or yearly statistics as you can compare your progress over time.Cool MP stuff:Make world event on a server either a web based or program it on the hosting server (if you allow this in your budget for the game. I think this game is going to sell like hot cakes so it will be fine.) that pits the faction up against each other in a MP sort of campaign that is weekly monthly or yearly. For example you can fight economically over territories and every time a scavanger wins it wins for its faction. There could be scenarioes for the different maps just as in single player. This will create huge varity in MP and give a reasons for MP scenarioes, it will create a lot of fun and longitivity for MP as well since you will be fighting over territories and for glory. If you want to develop on this you can add clans and even inside a faction they can compete to be the best for the faction etc. Basically what works in single player for creating fun and longitivity would work just as well in MP.
Maybe stuff:- (Perhaps add a graph for how much there is of each supply when building a new one. I am back and forth on this as experts already look the map while playing to calculate roughly what is out there in output and supply already but perhaps for newbies it would be nice to see how much power is around and how much is used. Then again it is a skill in the game so perhaps not a good idea to make training wheels for this. (Maybe add it as a feature if they are playing on a low difficoulty.) - )
PS, Soren: I was eysteinthewise the dude that did a golden age all victory conditions same turn in civ4 ^^ Thanks for creating this amazing game and I am a big fan of your company and wish you guys all the best.
1. Scientists gain a 2 for 1 tile advantage claim by planting on top of a resource with a resource building of that resource type.
No they don't. A 3-cube raw resource produces 2 units/tick, thus feeding two industries. In that case scientists only 1.5:1. In the case that the raw resource is cheap on the market, scientists gain no advantage. Only in the case that a player builds a single, lone resource mine on a single cube resource do they 2:1.
2. Scientists save the cost of the other tile building - example the iron mine that is around 300 in money in early game.
On the other hand, a smartly placed Robotics can gain that 10 iron (and more) for free.
Problem with that logic is you are assuming a best case scenario for every single of your mines. You are not going to get this on average.Regarding cheap on the market lets take the base case of 20 cost of 1 iron for producing 0,5 steel. Let us say you optimized and put two steel next to each other for 0,75 steel each or 1,5 steel total for 2 iron. You are producing for a cost of 40 1,5 steel. To break even as a robotic you need 26,6 per steel. a sell price of around 53 gives you a 100% profit. A scientist doing the exact same first of all uses 2 tiles optimally. (And frankly since scientist can pick where he starts not having 2 iron near each other for steel factories early is a rare occurrence) and need 0 money to break even and at 53 has twice the profit of the robotic player and at less tiles.
2. A "smart" robotic faction user need to settle on top of his resource for the bonus effect to kick in and get it for "Free" in reality he is paying the fuel/power cost of now having to find a resource away from his base. While you can settle on top of aluminum (Recommended btw if your robotic) you cannot settle on top of steel. It is true however you could settle on top of iron and aluminum both if lucky and thus for the first turns not require any iron mine and being on an equal footing with the scientist. This however would not last long as the bonus is a one time effect while the 2 for one for the scientist last the whole game. In any case feel free to look at some win statistics and notice how much scientists have compared with the others.
Regarding cheap on the market lets take the base case of 20 cost of 1 iron for producing 0,5 steel. Let us say you optimized and put two steel next to each other for 0,75 steel each or 1,5 steel total for 2 iron. You are producing for a cost of 40 1,5 steel. To break even as a robotic you need 26,6 per steel. a sell price of around 53 gives you a 100% profit. A scientist doing the exact same first of all uses 2 tiles optimally. (And frankly since scientist can pick where he starts not having 2 iron near each other for steel factories early is a rare occurrence) and need 0 money to break even and at 53 has twice the profit of the robotic player and at less tiles.
Early game has never been about profit/tile - its been about how quickly you can upgrade. Three-square resources are not that rare - most of my openings have incorporated them.
Let us compare four players opening:
#1: ROBOTIC: Squats immediately on four iron (+160 iron). Buys out aluminum while it's cheap with the 2k, and drops three steel, producing 3/sec.
*TOTAL: 3xSteel (3/tick).
#2: SCIENTIFIC: Drops by a delta-3 iron, with a juicy aluminum nearby. Drops two steel, one aluminum mine (alumnium's pricey!).
*TOTAL: 2xSteel (1.5/tick), 1xAluminum (2/tick) mine.
#3: EXPANSIVE: Drops by a 3-cube iron. Drops two steel, one mine, one alumnium.
*Total: 2xSteel (1.5/tick), 1xAlumnium (2/tick) mine.
#4: SCAVENGER: Drops by a 3-cube carbon and an aluminum patch.
*Total: 1xCarbon (2/tick), whoops scavenger just bought the 1.5k plot and is powering away with a double-free-plot lead and no reliance on steel. someone should probably underground nuke their 3-cube carbon
Scientific has a high win rate because:
*They are the most straightforward.
*No one knows what they're doing.
*They are the most picked
Alright well I was one of the whiners that claimed science was under powered and I'm here to say I was wrong. I won't go so far as to say they are over powered but they are MUCH better than I thought they where. Once I finally learned some open starts and figured them out I think their pretty in line, has anyone tried dropping on a ton of aluminum and then building 3 steel mills out the gate? I havent but I'm tempted to.
If you're the first to drop, you can just buy the aluminum you'll need straight from the market. 3-steel first-drop seems like a pretty strong opener, regardless of race.
Let us compare four players opening:#1: ROBOTIC: Squats immediately on four iron (+160 iron). Buys out aluminum while it's cheap with the 2k, and drops three steel, producing 3/sec. *TOTAL: 3xSteel (3/tick).#2: SCIENTIFIC: Drops by a delta-3 iron, with a juicy aluminum nearby. Drops two steel, one aluminum mine (alumnium's pricey!).*TOTAL: 2xSteel (1.5/tick), 1xAluminum (2/tick) mine.#3: EXPANSIVE: Drops by a 3-cube iron. Drops two steel, one mine, one alumnium. *Total: 2xSteel (1.5/tick), 1xAlumnium (2/tick) mine.#4: SCAVENGER: Drops by a 3-cube carbon and an aluminum patch.*Total: 1xCarbon (2/tick), whoops scavenger just bought the 1.5k plot and is powering away with a double-free-plot lead and no reliance on steel. someone should probably underground nuke their 3-cube carbon
#1 Your assuming your going to make a 4 iron square near your base that is rarer than say a 2x iron start and most likely you will end up with either not adjacency bonus or having to use fuel and ship it from afar. Heck let us just for fun sake assume this happens every game - Your 3 steel plants is costing you 60 (assuming iron is at 20) per tick for a profit of assuming an average price of 50 early game steel (so 75) for a whooping profit of 15 money per tick after deducting raw goods costs. Since you are not producing iron your also creating a pressure on iron to go up making it ever worse for you and better for the scientific player. You might protest and say but I have 80 free iron - ok well great that just bought you 80 seconds one time advantage vs scientist who then gets teh advantage and snowballs.
# 2 Why would not scientific buy the aluminium as well? Funny you expect this from robotic but not from scientific. If i do not see a 1,5 or 2 mine for aluminium I usually buy aluminum and get a claim when black market opens then delay expansion slightly. (worth it for the first claim at 2000) anyhow lets assume the player plays as you suggest (not the brightest scientist but anyhow just to prove the point let us assume he does) he sells 1,5 steel for 75 per tick and is also getting aluminum for free upgrades - in 1 minute the scentists have earned 4500 money on his iron while the robotic player has earned 900. Dont tell me that has no affect on the early game - and less pressure on aluminium in the world economy so he can keep upgrading strong. He is also independant of iron pressure and would actually love for iron prices to go up since he is not affected by this raw goods cost. Heck as mart scientists MAKES the raw goods go up and screws up his opponents so they start loosing money on selling steel and soon he is the only one doing steel.
#3 The expansive however is ok early game but suffers from black market weakness that scientist does not have so can be taken out this way if in front of scientist early game. Since scientsits techs faster he will soon outproduce simply by using 20 chemical for any bonus of 25% then 50% etc. Snowballing past the expansionist player. The expansionist player also pays more since he uses more tiles for the same output. Early game mines are cheap, but if iron aluminum etc goes up in price? again scientists advantage.#4 Scavanger requires 50% more carbon that steel players require steel so his 2 tick plot is really only netting him a 50% advantage not a 100% advantage. And yes scavanger is 2nd best faction in the game due to black market strongness and strong early game. But still. Let us follow this trough - the scavanger then goes on to upgrade..what is he going to sell on the world market? Carbon? Who wants carbon early game unless they are going for fast glass or lots of power? Nobody. Carbon can run off in some games but most games it does not. But let us assume just again for the experiment that yes carbon is doing great it is currently at 50 giving a nice 50 per tick profit (mines are great when prices are up btw since they are a cheap mans scientist building giving free income ticks without raw good costs.) at this point he has 2 per tick or 100$ profit and 2 other tiles. Let us say he used one for aluminum since he needs thats. He is however starting to slow down his expansion speed since he has 50% more carbon costs and instead of selling to market it is going to his own expansion of building and expansion. TWith 100 carbon to expand and build that is alone 5000 lost in ticks. Scientists however with steel only looses half (assuming steel at 50) thus loosing 2500 on upgrades. (Just an example the numbers are not perfectly accurate but the point stands.) At this point the scientists has already out his first engineer and is getting the bonus for his free raw goods industry 50% faster than any scavange player. The scavange player plays smart and dynamites the engineer but ofcourse this is only a temproraty slowdown and he lost money doing this. In the end scientits gets the scienice lead and outproduce. Also since the scavanger now needs to turn to OTHER industries than his carbon he no longer is toe to toe with scientists since he needs to produce something else than a mine produced item, thus he starts to loose ground to the scientist who can get almost all industries using no raw goods. By expansion nr 3 scientists is clearly in the lead.
Yes. That's what I do. Found on alum. Buy glass. Make as many steel as practical and then upgrade and worry about power and fuel. At this point decide which way to go to win.
I am going to hypothesize that Scientific is great because of multiplicative scaling. No other colony type can scale their conversion buildings up without also increasing the input. 3xsteel gets 100% bonus. Now add the engineering bay upgrades, which happen to be faster than any other colony. Now add on that scientific is the safest from sabotage. Still only requires a triangle of iron.
Repeat this for any high priced resource and you can have huge production quickly. Try this with any other colony type and you have to figure out how to supply the input resources.
I'm fairly certain that the total production cost is a fair bit lower (inputs + power + fuel) for scientific as well because of the scaling, power consumption doesnt go up, inputs dont go up, fuel for shipping does (but not for the inputs!), but someone else can figure that out if they want.
I think the higher fuel use might be wrong as well too, since shipments are a higher tier, and buildings should be arranged accordingly. Resources shouldnt be getting shipped all over the map because scientific only cares about the placement of resources, rather than the quantity per tile. Its much easy to find clusters of low resources than the rare high.
SO I just played a multiplayer and tried a 3 steel first drop. I was playing agasint an expancive he dropped immediatly upgraded to level 2 and built 3 steel as well, (and the iron to feed it of course) in very short order iron and steel where worth <5 and all of the life support where worth over $150 it was a long slug fest I was able to get fuel and glass before him but he got energy WAY before me (which i feel lost me the game) there was only one hydrothermal and he claimed it and sat on it empty until he could build it. Anyways we where probably both in 80k of debt or more by the time he got off world and rolled me from there.
So... a 3 steel start works IF no one else does it and drive the price into the ground on ya.
3 steel is viable unless opponent goes scavanger. You just need to upgrade fast. I prefer 2 steel myself and 1 alu. I know alu is going to be in demand early as everyone require it to expand. ofcourse 1 min into the game you diversify into other stuff. (Power, carbon, glass or chemicals are good often, or food etc in a tigt debt game since you would care more the debt early from no food oxygen etc.
as long as its a offworld trading race scavenger is much better than scientist, assuming there is a carbon triangle(1+pip) or 2 adjacent with 2-3pips somewhere, which isnt always the case
scientist only shine with large low pip patches and have some significant problems vs pirates and black market stuff
I think the sabotage resistance does need to be tweaked for scientific. With it I just feel they're too strong, and I'm saying that as someone who mains them. Even if you were to get rid of it completely, the research speed alone, combined with their unique production, makes them very viable in my opinion.
Played a bunch of 8 player games this morning and was able to do my patent build every single time, in which I rush a patent lab, grab slant drilling -> teleportation -> carbon scrubbing (ordered based on priority, sometimes switching teleportation and slant drilling if the map allows, and often grabbing nanotech eventually if it's still available). Picking up an early goon squad to cover the patent lab basically ensures you get at least the first two of these patents guaranteed (unless someone rushes the lab faster than you, which I haven't yet seen).
And I feel like once you enter midgame with those 3 patents, you become unstoppable. Regardless of having a whopping 50% sabotage resistance. You can completely ignore distances on the map, and hide stuff all over the place to hinder sabotage. Just to test this theory, in one game I had a completely greedy stack of electronics factories (6 of them total arranged in a line with 100-150% bonuses - was a game with a ton of robos) and they were left alone the whole game, while another game I built a bunch of chemical labs next to my HQ and, of course, they were EMP'd immediately and regularly. When people want to sabotage someone quickly, it seems they often just jump to the HQ and hit the juiciest target on the screen in order to be as quick as possible, and often don't expect the bulk of a player's industry to be on the other side of the map. A hidden benefit for teleportation. But I digress...
Part of the deal here is that these 3 patents are incredibly strong by themselves - in combination with each other they are very. very strong - and in combination with scientific, they are simply too strong.
Some patent suggestions, then:
Teleportation: This was suggested elsewhere, but make it use power based on the distance travelled. Could possbly make it cheaper as a trade off, but the attractiveness should be that it gets goods to you instantly and makes you completely immune to pirates - the fact it completely removes distance-based cost takes away an entire aspect of planning your claims and playing optimally.
Slant drilling: Increase the power consumption of buildings that are utilizing slant drilling (the other option would be to lower their yield, but this wouldn't affect scientific at all so would be counterproductive).
Carbon scrubbing: Also increase the power consumption of buildings that are utilizing this patent.
Basically, increased power costs all round. This may also have the beneficial side-effect of making the cost of power a bit more interesting in the late-game, as other patents currently cause less demand for power over time, inevitably making the price bottom out at $1, whereas making these patents increase demand would help to balance that.
3 steel @ 100% bonus:
.5 steel/iron (base) * (100% + 100%) = 1 steel/iron
1 steel @ $50 - 1 iron @ $20 = $30 "profit".
3 mills, so multiply that by three: $90 "profit"/tick.
Not that it matters. Earlygame steel is used to upgrade, not to sell. Furthermore, earlygame the robotic is not going to be buying the iron in my example, so its more like $150 """profit"""/tick for the first minute.
After early game openings, things get Really Complicated, but suffice to say, if we were to compare a level 3 expansive to a level 3 science, the scientific would need to make up a difference of 3 plots minimum. The spaces where the scientific could build to make up this difference is much more limited than expansive, meaning that smart plot claims by other players can severely limit a scientifics efficiency. also many, many, many other really complicated factors that I guess I'll try to write an extensive comparative guide over next weekend.
(example of a Complicated Factor: Scientifics rely on resource clumps of three in Delta (triangle) formations. If the resources are instead in a line, efficiency is greatly compromised)
3 steel does not get 100% bonus. 1 steel gets 100% bonus and the 2 others get 50% bonus in ideal placement (triangle). I also tought it would give 100 to each but I tried it in game and it seemed to only output 50% even if adjacent 2 to other steel in a triangle formation and only the last in the triangle seemed to output 100%. Thats 1 for 1 for one steel and 0,75 for 1 in the other cases for a total of 2,5 steel for 3 iron. (feel free to test in game and anyhow even if it was 3 steel it would still mean scientists earned more only slightly less more) @ iron 20 and steel 50 that gives you 2,5x50 - 3x 20 = 65 per tick. A scientist doing the exact same gets 2,5 iron for 0 cost or = 2,5*50 = 125 per tick or roughly 100% more. Again in most cases scients will run off it does not matter if you do ideal placement or not. If it was 3 steel then 150 for scientists and 90 for robotic after the initial iron is gone that robotic settled. (And btw if scientists settled an iron he could sell it so it is not really "free" iron no matter how you put it.)
they are on pair in profit for the first minute then scientists tapers off. (assuming you settled on iron as robotic.)
Steel mill #1 has two steel mills adjacent (#2, #3). 2x50% = 100%
Steel mill #2 has two steel mills adjacent (#1, #3), 2x50% = 100%
Steel mill #3 has two steel mills adjacent (#1, #2), 2x50% = 100%
Start a game. Build a steel delta. You'll get +3 steel. Each steel gets +100%.
I played a couple of games where I started 2 steel 1 aluminum and rushed the exact same 3 techs you do and yes that is a very strong game for science. But... if everyone neglects lifesupport and energy at teir 1 building 1 steel 1 alum 1 solar and then buying the first new plot and placing a second steel can be stronger. It seems that there is a bit of a paper rock scissors in the early start and going after the most expencive resources is emportant even in the first few seconds of the game. The 1 solar start is a gamble.
1. no one else does it - you come out WAY ahead
2. one other person does it depending on how high the price gets you two end up in the lead or dead last
3. everyone does it then its meaningless move and since you "wasted" a plot the expansive players get an advantage
Steel mill #1 has two steel mills adjacent (#2, #3). 2x50% = 100%Steel mill #2 has two steel mills adjacent (#1, #3), 2x50% = 100%Steel mill #3 has two steel mills adjacent (#1, #2), 2x50% = 100%Start a game. Build a steel delta. You'll get +3 steel. Each steel gets +100%.
yes but 1 steel mill = .5
2 mills = .75 x 2 = 1.5
3 mills = 1 x 3 = 3
So it's not just that the new mill gets a bonus it that it also gives a bonus to the resources you've already spent. The more games I play the more I'm almost never building a singleton building at all (except for that first alum)
Yep, the only worthwhile singletons appear to be:
*3-cube mines (did someone say "underground nuke" (caveat: I have never actually used underground nukes so far))
*Geothermal
I did a triangle yesterday just to test for this discussion and i clicked on the factories and hoovered them and it said 50% bonus - perhaps this was bug with the interface and it did give 100% in reality. I agree with you however it should be 100% as all are adjacent to 2. That is why the triangle shape is superior to everything else and why this is what I always aim for. But in any case as I noted it does not refute or change my argument on the scientists running ahead - it just slightly changes the output as I noted in the previous post as well. now it is 90 tick vs 150 tick still a massive 66% better output - and do you think you will always have triangles? (Granted this is true for scientists as well even more so since they need to be on top of resources for optimal result.) In any case I dare you to really try to play robotic to your uttermost best vs scientists best. My experience so far is I win every single time with scientists hands down. If the logic was that they are most straight forward expansive should win all the time since they are definitively straight forward (get free claim get half steel.) so I believe you have refuted very little of what I have discussed here and statistics shows scientists are winning at statistically significant rates more than all the other factions combined. (And thats for all players.) That tells me from data there is a problem, and the core reasons I have posted here I see no evidence you have refuted. You use a one time bonus of robotic as a defence vs the full game bonus of scientists. That is not a good solution. I am pretty confident that anyone understanding the basic in a 1v1 match will be ahead by expansion 3 if they are scientists vs a robotic player due to the mechanichs as I have described above.
With proper planning, every faction should strive for delta-formations, yes. Even if it means disconnecting from hq. It's so efficient. As I said previously, however, scientists cannot be guaranteed delta-formations of raw resources. A major disadvantage.
An extra claim means an extra decision to make. Decisions are complicated. Having fewer claims and giant "PLACE STEEL MILL HERE" marker-cubes is simpler.
The statistics don't tell us anything, other than:
*Expansive and scientific are by far the most picked
*Scientific often beats expansive
I would postulate that this is not because scentific is overpowered, but rather because new players are more likely to pick expansive. Expansive is the first of the four options, and is the first tutorial you get. Once a player becomes slightly more experienced, they discover that Scientific is significantly more straightforward, and transition to that.
Here is an absolutely terrible MSPaint graph I drew illustrating how I believe experience affects pick rate:
http://i.imgur.com/2Ff4KKt.png
Ah how about you just lower your standards to a correlation study instead of an experiment and see that playing 20 games as robotic and 20 as scientists will net you a much bigger win rate for scientists. (Even you who seem to have a strong preference for robotic.) Or lets do say 10 1v1 I will probably win 10 out of 10. Or put together players in groups of how many games played (I know its rough way to calculate but its what we got.) I was an a student in science for my first master degree and I call myself a scientists (I sell scientific research reports on the solar sector among other things.) and while I would love experiments it is sufficient and much more realistic here to just use correlations as 3rd variable problems are not that many.
*Scientific often beats expansiveI would postulate that this is not because scentific is overpowered, but rather because new players are more likely to pick expansive. Expansive is the first of the four options, and is the first tutorial you get. Once a player becomes slightly more experienced, they discover that Scientific is significantly more straightforward, and transition to that. Here is an absolutely terrible MSPaint graph I drew illustrating how I believe experience affects pick rate:http://i.imgur.com/2Ff4KKt.png
I would argue you that if we used number of games played as a factor then showed statistics in % terms scientists would come clearly ahead. Anyhow I have said my core mechanisms behind this and you seem not to believe it is correct but have given no good reasons to opposite it. For example saying that yes triangles are always going to happen does not refute that scientists is 66% ahead in the income assuming the base values. The more you dig into the mathematics I think you will see that in almost all scenarios scientists are going to get ahead. (Exception being when raw good prices crashes they will just be ahead on the 50% faster research and 50% reduced black market so in such a scenario others MIGHT have a chance. The other final exception is if the game has very few clusters of raw goods, rare to happen but it happens sometimes so sometimes the bonuses in gain are less. Even so they are still gains vs the others.)
Here's a question to science players , do you guys even build metal or elemental mines? Or for that matter water pumps? I don't other than one aluminum mine (and even that I'm debating against) often times I'll rush carbon scrubing and then go through a whole game with only steal fuel(& o2) and glass. And then depending on prices make a choice between food and energy or basically just play based on the market. But my point is with science the game can be won without any of the basic resources at all.
Well, sometimes I get water if prices are high. But that's a luxury. And yes it is very rare for me to need to build any raw goods. I do it if the raw good prices are high sometimes. (mostly not as it is in my interest to let the raw goods be high as it means the factory output of my opponents is terrible.) Ofcourse if farms are high for offworld I go farms. I think thats the most raw goods resource i get. Sometimes if water/oxygen/food all are high due to high colony growth and if i need to not be in debt I will get these as well but it is very seldom and by expansion 4 usually so I have plenty of claims by that time.
I could lose a thousand games to you, and it would say nothing to the balance of the game.
Your understanding of core game mechanics were literally, absolutely, undeniably, incorrect. The math was literally wrong. I'm glad you've gleaned a proper understanding of adjacency bonuses from this conversation, but it doesn't make your previous mathematical points any less objectively incorrect.
It depends on the map. Sometimes there's a 3-cube silicon that makes more sense to mine (1 quarry can feed a whopping 4 electronics factories). Sometimes the price of water has been bottomed out, and I don't even bother building on water tiles - I just buy from the market. There have been many situations where building directly on raw resources has not been the optimal choice in my scientific games.
1. It would prove that my ability as a player of scientific is better than your ability as a robotic player so would give some validity to my claims of understanding scientific vs your claims of understanding robotic. Combined with a correlation study of a population of robotic players vs scientific players we could get a correlation. We would then have to account for any 3rd variable problems (are they of equal skill? etc) but atleast it would give us an approximation. Btw it is totaly possible to play yourself (Mario kart has the function of ghost is one such example. Of course only none player interaction experiments could be possible as you could not interact with your past self.)
2. Wrong. I posted numbers BOTH for 2,5 steel and 3 steel and acknowledged that while it was what I saw that I found it weird as 3 steel adjacent in a triangle should give 100% but my interface showed a 50% bonus. I showed in both cases scientists came ahead. I see now that you are only interested in arguing and nothing at all about true good discussion so our discussion here is ended. I let the reader decide what they think of the scientific balance and also future patches to the game will show who of us was correct.
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