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.
When you raced against yourself in mario cart, you were racing in a controlled, replicatable, environment every time. The tracks were perfect test-tubes.
This game, by its very nature, cannot exist in a test tube. It's a competitive, organic, market.
If you were to play one game, and were then to play a second with the exact same conditions as the first, you would preform significantly better in said second game. You'd know the map. You'd presumably know precisely what your opponents would do (if they changed behaviour, the environment would no longer be perfectly replicatable and therefore skew the results).
that said, mario cart rules
e: one could conceivably use the AI to do a rough test of game balance, however. Run a few thousand four, five, six player games. Gather the results.
ee: Although, given the number of permutations of race-matchups, you probably would need a sample size in the magnitude of 10k or 100k. Anyone got some supercomputers lying around?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AZa9z2B4HfOsLfaRZ9GOX5jRKiM5dL5Bh2jnlmMFkK0/edit?usp=sharing
I'll just leave this steel spreadsheet here. I didn't include the shipping costs because I'm assuming adjacency for simplicity.
Change the power cost and iron cost and engineering bonus, and see the ridiculous savings that scientific has because of the iron costs. It becomes crazy with the engineering upgrades (which scientific excels at). You probably don't notice with others since engineering upgrades are neglected, likely because you can't support the iron production without researching upgrades for them too.
Every unit of steel that a non-scientific produces requires 2 iron. Ramping up steel production ramps up iron consumptions. Remember that its a feedback loop since consuming that much iron will drive the price up, unless you manage to find a way to produce that much iron to support the steel, then you'll have to buy iron, or have steel buildings idle. A single high iron is 2/sec base, so good luck getting to 10+ without serious investment into iron too. Scientific doesn't have that problem, so scale away!
Oops. I was wrong. Scientific is still strong though
When you raced against yourself in mario cart, you were racing in a controlled, replicatable, environment every time. The tracks were perfect test-tubes. This game, by its very nature, cannot exist in a test tube. It's a competitive, organic, market.If you were to play one game, and were then to play a second with the exact same conditions as the first, you would preform significantly better in said second game. You'd know the map. You'd presumably know precisely what your opponents would do (if they changed behaviour, the environment would no longer be perfectly replicatable and therefore skew the results). that said, mario cart rules e: one could conceivably use the AI to do a rough test of game balance, however. Run a few thousand four, five, six player games. Gather the results.ee: Although, given the number of permutations of race-matchups, you probably would need a sample size in the magnitude of 10k or 100k. Anyone got some supercomputers lying around?
The AI is not appropriate for testing this at all. They don't play the way the best players are playing. They have a solid straight forward build and scientific AI sometimes stagnates at level 1.
At the risk of feeding an argument but in the hopes of bringing it back to a balance discussion, until science researches teleportation their fuel costs are almost always going to be the highest and as a science player I almost never have my buildings adjacent to my base. Often I'll find myself needing to build fuel at teir 2 or 3 instead of glass, depending of course on what other are doing.
really where science snowballs is if they can get teleportation, slant mining and carbon scrubbing they don't even need higher engineering if they get those 3 techs, and honestly once they've bought those 3 techs they don't need chemicals unless the price is high enough to sell for a profit.
Which as was mentioned in another thread is a really strong reason that all three of those techs should cost energy to use, which would also solve the problem of energy being driven to $1 by the mid game.
And yes the science AI is really bad I often see them getting stalled at teir 1 or 2.
And I think that spread sheet is off, your steel production is double what it should be.
No. Every steel foundry requires 1 iron. Every unit of steel requires
2/(100% + x% + y%) iron
Where x is the adjacency bonus, y is the engineering bonus.
For example, any race with three steel mills will produce at a rate of:
1 steel to 2/(1.00+1.00) = 1 iron
1 steel to
2/(1.00+1.00) = 1 iron
Well that we can agree ^^
Regarding the numbers in spreadsheet the major point is not if he got the numbers right as even adjusted the effect is clear. We got one faction with a one time bonus on settlement + minor long term bonuses and another with major long term bonuses. The game is limited in expansion and claims grow exponentially in costs so all other things the same the faction with the long term advantages wins at some point. Anyhow I really do not know what more to say at this point since I have shown in math scientist will be ahead and I think really all there is to do is wait as if we pick up this thread in 1 year we will all see that two things held true, Mario kart rules and scientists in the beta where too good. I know Soren from playtesting civ4 BTS so I know he understands balance, and at one point he will come to the same conclusion I am confident. I cant speak for him ofcourse but for me it seems it is only a matter of time. Scientists is that much better than the other factions once you understand to amplify the strengths of the faction. I know many loose the scientific tutorial (i did too first game) but after I understood scientist I have not lost a single game and i have played many custom games vs players who have played none stop since this early access started (sir rogers when do you sleep lol). Know that is not evidence per say but i know it is correct. Do the math as well and you come to the same conclusions. It was with math i formulated for myself how to be effective as scientists and it held true for me so far in the games I played.
What. The numbers in the spreadsheet were completely wrong. Using incorrect math in order to mathematically analyze something is wrong.
I created a new page with the corrected numbers and equations, by the way.
eatingburger you conveniently left out the part where I said because I did the numbers correct sigh. "as even adjusted the effect is clear" (I showed you both 2,5 and 3 steel output math and these are just two example of what happens in most games. As I have written previously the only time your at equal footing with scientists is if raw goods has crashed down in price.)
Where x is the adjacency bonus, y is the engineering bonus. For example, any race with three steel mills will produce at a rate of:
1 steel to2/(1.00+1.00) = 1 iron
Are you trying to say increased efficiencies don't increase the iron consumption? I can't check right now.
Yup he is correct increased effiency does not increase iron consumption. I checked it yesterday myself after posting my original thread and that is why you see my argument use the base of 3 iron with the adjacency bonus counted in.
Increased efficiency does not increase consumption as far as I can tell. It's what makes adjacency bonuses SO strong.
It's part of why I'm moving away from building one of almost anything, if the resource is expensive enough to be worth building then it's worth building 3 times With the exception of raw materials like iron, carbon or aluminum.
Oops. I screwed up my theory
Ignoring the math side of things, I would say scientists are quite strong, but they do have significant weaknesses as well which Im not sure Ive seen mentioned here.
Yes they save claims by building production on top of raw resources, but often those resoures will come back and cripple them. The best example of this is water, scientists often dont pick up any sources of this, and while usually cheap early game, its one of those resources that really starts creeping up towards the end of the game when people are at level 4/5, and Ive broken several scientists with Shortages of this resource. Also its difficult for them to pick up decent carbon for Electronics/Chemicals, as Carbon tends to be scarce on most maps, and is another resource that often creeps up to quite high prices later.
Its funny people's perception of this game as time progresses, for the first few days after release, everyone thought scientists were the weakest, and just about everybody went expansive haha.
I figured out early on that carbon water and fuel are the three weak points of science - water because you just don't have enough claims to build the darn pumps, fuel because unless you get teleportation almost all of your buildings are spread all around the map and carbon for exactly the reason you stated. It's why I almost always rush the carbon scrubbing tech. and I've begun prioritizing it as high as slant drilling and above teleportation.
Also because as science your more likely to be building more things that need more power it's very easy to be crippled by high power costs, it's one more reason that I really like the recommendation that those three techs (carbon scrubbing, slant drilling and teleportation) all have a power usage added to them. I think that change alone would help balance science.
I do adore the flavour that science synergises with teleportation.
Since you appriciate the finer arts in life (Mario kart) you must have some observational skills so I will continue the discussion a bit more. We define a typical scenario. Sadly this is a long text but if your interested it shows in math how scientists earns more and gets more output faster and has advantage in the trade screen by having no raw good pressure or cash pressure by having to buy raw goods. For the scenario we accept that no player is going to have the extra tile for settling last. Scenario 1 is 3 steel opening. With a 1 iron 2 glass 2nd expansion and for the claim we get an engineer if the game is still in balance. (We could provide more opening but let us just use this first to see if in this scenario who is ahead) For the variance variables for the purpose of the typical scenarioes we assign the typical values of 50 for steel 70 for glass 20 for iron and 25 for aluminium and 20 for silicon. Since in the 3 steel or 2 steel 1 iron we buy aluminum we assume it is at an average cost of 35 for 55 aluminium thus 1925 cost. For the glasteel factory we will stop the experiment once we have one glassteel factory thus we only need 40 steel. For tiles there are a total of 5 tiles, 1 aluminium and 4 iron. There is a silicon outside the HQ. There is one 3 square iron the rest are 1 square iron. The shape is such that both the robotic and scientists can settle on top of all iron if they wish while still having adjacency bonus for all steel factories.
#1 3 steel mills.
Before expansion:
Robotic: Settles on top of all 4 iron for 160 iron. 3 steel mills are built for 3 steel output at a cost of 3 iron. 60 iron is lost to build the steel mills. Tick 1-33: Two options: Use the iron for production or sell it early. Selling 100 iron early would cause price pressure so assume an average of 10 so 1000 credit. Option 2 is to use the iron for free steel production for 33,33 ticks (100/3) this creates 100 steel after 33 ticks. From the start we have 25 steel and we need 80 for upgrade so anything after the first 55 gained can be sold for cash for aluminium. We buy the aluminium as soon as we can It would happen at game tick 5 (sold all our steel including storage for 25+5*3=40 * 50 = 2000 money) we buy 55 aluminum and have 80 in the bank now. We then save up for 80 steel or 27 more ticks. By tick 32 we are now ready to expand. We have 1 tick left of free iron from steel production. Expanded by tick 33.
Scientist: Settle on top of 1 iron and gets 20 iron free. Builds 3 steel mills. Have to pay for the 40 iron that they do not have thus 40*20=800 money spent on this. (Sold initial 25 steel for 1250 money leaving 450 money in the bank. We could have sold something else but let us just assume for simplicity we sold steel as) we then need to generate 1475 more money to buy 55 aluminium and we need to generate 80 steel on top of this. It takes 10 ticks to generate the money. ( (1475/50) / 3) and 27 ticks to generate the steel needed. At tick 37 we expand.
So far so good robotics in the lead.
1 st expanison:
Robotic:
It is tick 33 and we have 1 free iron left. We can claim 3 tiles. There are still 57 ticks left until black market opens for us. We thus try to expand so we need cash for this. Optimal now would be to get 1 iron as we fear the iron price will rise if we keep buying it from the market or that the scientific player is smart and drives up the price of iron and that is very bad news for us. We thus secure an optimal 3 globe iron for 2 iron output. We are in luck it is just 5 ticks worth of transport away from our colony and would only cost us a mere 1 fuel to transport per shipment! we need to buy 20 iron and pray it does not increase in price (it would in a real game something the scientist player would want and something the robotic player would hate) this would have costs us 20x20=400 money or 3 ticks. We sadly have no iron during this period and during construction of the mine) so for the next 20 ticks we have to pay for iron for steel production. By some miracal the iron price is not increasing still. Thus every tick instead of generating 150 we generate 90 (150-60) by tick 38 we have the iron mine. By tick 53 we will have it up and running. 20 iron takes 10 ticks so by tick 63 it will start to ship. By tick 68 it will arive. Thus we have 30 more ticks now of paying iron for our steel or 90 profits instead of 130. (still have to pay one iron as our mine is 2 not 3) We do not care abou eletronic as we want the price high and it only runs our debt not our cash. We want profits and thus we turn to glass. We do not need it ourself but others need it and we need cash. We thus save for 40 steel. We have to sell the first 10 steel to create cash since we are buying iron. (500 money for 60 cost per tick or 9 ticks) we create a total of 27 during the next 9 ticks and gain a total of 17. It is now tick 47. We sell another 10 steel for 9 more turns of free steel production after buying the iron we need. We gain another 17. (34 total) Its now tick 56. We play optimal and time for the shipment so we know we need only iron until tick 63 or 7 more ticks or 21 more iron for a cost of 420 or 3 more ticks. (or you could say you sold it already then gained it back the effect would be the same either way that you would end up with 34 steel left at tick 59) By tick 59 we are ready to generate again more per tick as we have paid every iron we need and iron is coming in waves we only need to get 1 iron since we get 2 per tick and need 3. We thus now for simplicty sake say we are generating a profit of 130 per tick. or only a loss of 20 per tick if we do not buy iron ourself. (we would have had to keep selling steel but let us just add or deduct to money for simplicity as the effect is the same. It shows how robotic is forced to sell at times while the scientific can choose when he sells steel for least pressure.) we need 6 more steel so we run 2 more ticks and are at -40 money. It is tick 61 and we got our first glass steel up starting to construct. (profit 130 + glassteel in future gaining us 35-20=15-5 (the oxoygen @ 20) added for a total of 140) Lets stop there and compare with scientific.
Scientific:Lets assume we are not smart and just by iron and compleatly screw the robotic player as that would be unfair to so decicivly crush our opponent already. (just buying around 100 iron would easily drive up the price of iron to 30-40 and cause the robotic player to loose money on his steel mills unless he went iron and even then unless he hard countered with 2 iron he would still loose 30-40 and if he hard counters you simply do not do it and cause the iron to go down in price instead since he is creating a surpluss) It is tick 37 and we can get 3 more claims. We need to get 40 steel. (We have 25 carbon in inventory so its free first glass factory) We now save for 40 steel. 40/3 = 14 ticks later we got the steel. Its is now tick 51 and we build the glassteel factory. We are generating 3 steel and as soon as the glassteel is done building in 20 ticks 0,5 glassteel per turn. Every 40 ticks we need to pay 1 fuel to ship 20 glass. We are generating a cashflow of 150 from the 3 steel and will be generating 180 soon from the glassteel added (it ads 35-5 from oxygen @ 20 cost).
By tick 51 scientific is already superior to robotic at tick 61. It also has one more free tile than the roboitc (2 free vs 1 for robotic) or 16,4% faster and snowballing since it is getting the glass faster. It has no expenses that requrie cash only debt expenses. (power and colony) It generates 150 per tick and has a new output ready while having set up the glass 10 ticks earlier than the robotic player. Robotic on the other hand needs more power (fuel for robotic for the mines) and also has less debt expense from colony. (albeith not helping in winning the game as debt at this point in the game is nothing.) while loosing -20 from iron every turn and gaining 150 from steel every turn for a theoretical 130 per turn or 13,33% less income per turn than the science guy. We can change the scenario and you can suggest other options for the robotic but do the math and you will see science will always run ahead. In a real life scenario most likly the steel would have dropped in price and the iron would have gained causing the scientific player to expand slightly slower but crippeling the robotic player as any increase in iron and loss of steel price would cripple his income far more than the science player. Example iron cost 25 (25% increase) and steel is 25% less price at 37,5 now the scientific earns 112,5 per tick vs 112,5- 25 =87 per tick or 22,7% less. It would have been crucial for both to switch over to another resource like glass to diversify and here also science has the advantage as it would get it much quicker out.
By expansion 1 scientific is running ahead in the lead. It will get out all its glass factories out faster and at no raw goods cost most likely and perhaps 1 raw goods if unlucky +0,75 oxygen. At the same time we know that the robotic does not need glass for its expansion but this is only a one off and at the same time the scientific will have gotten his factory up faster and producing more profit by every tick. Thus sciencie at this point is easily in the lead. (example if the glass costs 2800 money the gain of science is now 700+ 130 per turn or 16 more ticks to catch up the one off effect something easily done as it will take far more than 16 ticks to get up everything and expand.) Not to mention the fact the scientist can have 3 glass factories (just example anything would work) vs only 2 for the robotic who needs an iron mine as well.
We could ofcourse have built anything else at better profits but ofcourse the same fact would remain. Scentist would have gotten it sooner and with more profits.
Also at any point if power was big I as a science player would have build this instead of glass. If water was getting high (usually only by expansion 3-4 even if my opponents try on purpose to do this) I would ofcourse get a water and reap in the profit. Problem is I am already ahead. I hope this example shows some typical scenario where scientis easily is ahead and this will just compound and get bigger and bigger as the game ticks on.
In my mind if scientist is played perfectly the only chance they have to loose is if they are swarmed with black market stuff from many players or if the game scenario is one where there is huge negative pressure on raw goods thus negating the huge snowball effect of the free raw goods that amplifies as raw goods increase in cost. Making food or water (aka raw goods needed for scientists) go up is not a counter as scientist would also profit from high prices of these goods simply by making it himself and at this point in the game already is well ahead.
Hmmm I actually read that and while I sort of agree with you that is SOOO much theory crafting that I think you'd have to play it out in game and you're leaving out so many variables (which is why this level of theory crafting is impossible and would have to be played in game) you're ignoring:
fuel costs for science - more often than not im settled on aluminum and the iron is far enough away I'm paying to ship the steel.
if other players drive down the cost of steel (which I've had happen several times) a 2 or 3 steel start can be crippling if you can't sell that steel for a profit and iver several people have the same opening strat I've had steel driven sub 10 before tier 3 a couple of times
the value/profit from the extra tile(s) for expansive and the discounted cost to upgrade, most expansive players upgrade as soon as they drop so they are starting with a huge number of tiles more than you out the gate and often they can hit upgrade 3 at about the time science can hit upgrade 2, yes they have to mine the iron and build the steel mill which is the whole point of this argument but thats still spare tiles that can be generating money elsewhere
the value of not having to pay life support for robots
the vulnerability of science to pirates - an early game pirate on your 2 or three steel (if its not adjacent which being science it's likely not) can cripple you far harder than it would for other races
etc. - there are so many moving parts here and you're zeroed in on one aspect of game play. Now I don't disagree with you that science has a really strong perk in how their mines work, and my first few games I really thought that they where under powered and I have completely changed my mind on that. But I don't think that there is that strong of a case for them being as over powered as you think they are.
I'm glad we both agree that robotic and science are balanced in the idealized opening movies.
I also agree that in a 1v1 scenario, science would likely have an upper hand - one primary advantage of robotic is that they don't require life support, which is only really beneficial if there are many other players slurping up those sweet, sweet green orbs.
I also agree that science is generally stronger than robotic early-midgame (the level 2 mark) (depending on the map).
I do not agree that science is stronger overall than robotic, however, as the the weaknesses of science start to show in the midgame/lategame. Difficulty diversifying - many of their claims are locked up on distant resource-tiles, making re-tooling expensive and slow. Power-hunger (unlike scavenger or expansive, science often doesn't have claims to spare for power). Susceptibility to claim-sabotage (I enjoy claiming the corner of delta-resources that science players plan to exploit, especially if I can grab one of their opening irons from under them). Susceptible to glass shortages (market sabotage), and glass production sabotage.
I think people get very heated up about this arguing about the wrong thing.I have said before that scientists are probably the strongest, but this is ALWAYS situational. Every faction has their advantage and disadvantage.The BIGGEST advantage that makes scientists better than all the other factions is the blackmarket 50% damage reduction, hands down. No economical bonuses taken into account, that's what sets them apart, because blackmarket actions do get expensive and although scavengers can use them more often, not having to pay more than twice as much outweighs that by a lot. If you are in the defensive of course, assuming you want to win, you have to be leading - people will gank up on you.Now that being said - Scientists are the most efficient faction, IF there are a number of good resources bunched up, if there are just a few high yield tiles spread across the map, collecting and producing at the HQ will be more efficient, because single tile factories suck.
I don't have much experience with robotics and expansive, expansive can be cheap and fast, so can robotics. Robotics have the added advantage that once food/oxygen prices start skyrocketing they are not as affected, but if the prices are skyrocketing, chances are someone is making a killing selling them and you're screwed anyway.
Scavengers are probably the 'lean and mean' faction, it is extremely easy to expand with them and to expand fast, due to them relying on two T1 resources and not a T1 and a T2 (Steel). This means on a good delta, it's extremely fast for them to upgrade, because they dont neeed to spend 1HQ upgrade to get steel, they can spend that on glass instead.Sure robotics dont need glass, I'll have to play some robotics to compare so I can't comment on that at this point in time, problem being you'll want to focus your attention to microprrocessors too soon due to your dependence, when you should be focussing it on fuel/food, so you might miss out on the market race there. I would see that as the primary biggest disadvantage. Again would need playtesting to confirm.But again, nothing beats the -50% from scientists. Having that double protection on mutiny is golden.
----
Edit: One thing that people tend to forget, that it is MUCH harder to find a "perfect" science spot. Deltas are not the norm, and you want an iron delta right next to your start, which is what those robotics are hunting for to plant themselves on.
I'm glad we both agree that robotic and science are balanced in the idealized opening movies. I also agree that in a 1v1 scenario, science would likely have an upper hand - one primary advantage of robotic is that they don't require life support, which is only really beneficial if there are many other players slurping up those sweet, sweet green orbs. I also agree that science is generally stronger than robotic early-midgame (the level 2 mark) (depending on the map). I do not agree that science is stronger overall than robotic, however, as the the weaknesses of science start to show in the midgame/lategame. Difficulty diversifying - many of their claims are locked up on distant resource-tiles, making re-tooling expensive and slow. Power-hunger (unlike scavenger or expansive, science often doesn't have claims to spare for power). Susceptibility to claim-sabotage (I enjoy claiming the corner of delta-resources that science players plan to exploit, especially if I can grab one of their opening irons from under them). Susceptible to glass shortages (market sabotage), and glass production sabotage.
I give you that they are more vulnerable to underground sabotages and have increased fuel cost on average (transportation) but this is easily countered by patent speed and science speed on top of the compounding earnings bonus compared with the other factions. Example it does not matter all raw goods are at 1 cost expansion 5 if scientist gained a 30-300% lead during expansion 2-4. I have never had problem with power as scienctist, i usually earn big on it or go for pleasure domes if power is cheap. Then again i often pick + 1 power upgrade from my technology center. I usually have 8-10 upgrades once my games is done. I tend to earn 200-400k on my regular trades and 0-100k on power and 300-1+ million on off world (all previous patch stats) I always buyout anyone close to me in money or having off world after me, i always goon my own off worlds. I mostly get patents and the sabotage one for added protection. I always get engineer as soon as possible and upgrade many times during game. I almost never have problems finding 3x spaces near each other with resource. Deltas are more rare however I agree. When I end most games i tend to have earnead around 1 million or more while the next player has earned around 300-400k. I think the stats are public so it should be possible to see these stats of my recent games. Ofcourse now with off world 25% less my 1+ million will become 1/4 less. Granted these games where vs noobs. If I play vs some good like sir rogers I have to focus and estimate i am only 10-20% ahead as I tend to buyout him a few min before he buys me out in most games and if I do a mistake he will take me out. but from a logical perspective it is quite easy to see that they are the best faction. They got the best ability most affecting the economy. The reduced black market huge on reducing negative effect. The raw goods huge on saving tile claim and costs and increasing profit. The faster patents and science pretty strong in snowballing your income compared with opponent. In sum that is enough to be better than the others in mathematics. Now I dont deny in some special cases they will not win (zero raw good clusters and games where raw goods go down to 1-10 cost quickly and games where you do not follow the map and see what is produced too much and mess up thus playing not perfect) or if you do not play perfect. but if both players play perfect in most games sci would win by the power of these advantages.
Anyhow by all means feel free to play the game more. In none ranked games as it is now currently it does not matter much at all so it is no big deal. However i am pretty sure at some point the game will balance the factions and either make the other stronger or scientist weaker. I have been so far in every game I have made such strong calls previously. And I have worked as a play tester for many of the highest claimed titles and been a world champion in one of these titles. You can find me in the credit of both endless legend and civ 4 among other places. Time will tell if I am correct. I have offered some pretty explanatory reasons to why scientific has an edge so the information is there to see. I would imagine once ranked starts and if factions remain unchanged if scientist lump up all the top spots then the change will come. So lets just see how it plays out.
Hadn't considered that. I would agree that the 50% reduc is pretty darn strong. Most of the games I've played haven't used black market enough to notice the effects, but I can see that being kinda broken.
The black-market trait is a potential big deal is more correct to say since it depends on the opponent. And you definitively need to use black market eating burger. If I am not doing black market the moment it is up i am not playing right. Either you time it for a claim tile or to cripple or gain from it. i cant count the games I have stolen cheaply the highest paying resource for 100+ seconds netting me huge income. Typically in a 3 windmill strat in a high cost power game (typical if someone is running a pleasure dome strategy) stealing a geothermal is pretty sweet (400 money per tick at 200 cost power and at 400 cost to your opponent per tick is insane.) But i have had some wonderfull carbon steals in the few game carbon goes bonkers in the market. So yes denying this 50% more to your opponent and 50% faster 50% more (patent) is indeed very powerfull if your opponent is trying to do this on you to gain an advantage.
Ah yes, I do use the black market frequently in games.
I meant more that the market, as a whole, is used extremely infrequently by the players I have played against. As a collective. The underuse of the black market is for a different thread, however.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
