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Sid Meier's Civilization V >  Workshop > Pluvia's Workshop > [BNW] Mass Effect Civilizations > Discussions
[BNW] Mass Effect Civilizations
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civ (Banned) 1 Aug, 2015 @ 8:35am
Tier list
Broken tier
Reapers - 2 humans one reaper one not reaper will always win, the only exception i can think of right now is if you start in atomic/information era
even then their gold income will likely overwhelm you.

God tier
Protheans - A very flexible civ that can win in any way immediate advantage over all opponents upon settling, better generals
temples that pay you, no mountain requirement for observatories.

Terminus - immediate advantage on settling which gives a strong early, strong gold income to support large armies and extra delegates easy diplomatic wins. pirates godlike against computer.

top tier (situationally god tier)
Rachni - If you manage to settle on desert floodplains with many hills and coastal start preferably with gold/silver they are then god tier but they tend to get pretty bad starts
in my experience, their uniques are also really good. Great domination civ.

Asari - If things go their way they are also god tier but they have no direct bonuses to production so there's never a guarantee of getting the wonders necessary for
tourism win and they aren't special in combat, the science on temples is ok.

Hanar - They have a slow early but again if they get the correct start river/coastal/mountain with sea luxuries they are god tier if not very average god of the sea
pantheon and production from exploration make their cities very strong midgame, their unique unit is unstoppable on the sea early embarkation is sometimes really
useful settling untouchable islands off the main continent makes them irremovable.

Batarian - Once you sort out your gold situation, you really feel that production buff the free workers are really good for sorting your cities out very quickly,
contesting wonders with them on the map is a bad idea and if they survive until midgame you really don't want to fight them very strong, their early is a bit weak.

Mid tier -
Drell - It's like the rachni but even more situational their harbour needs floodplains, oasis's are really rare and getting 4 fish on your starting city is also
very rare in the ideal circumstances they could be called godtier too but soo soo rare, they also lack the production bonuses the rachni get, the sniper you
will rarely see as other civs can overpower the drell long before that stage and the desert movespeed isn't as useful as the rachni ignore terrain bonus move
for move.

The rest - Strong if the opponent is a complete newb.
Geth - All their bonuses hit very late in the game, if you manage to connect 10 or so cities then you feel your ridiculous tech edge sure but connecting your
starting cities 3-4 you barely feel the impact at all as they are easy to kill this bonus doesn't even start until after you get settlers and roads connected
that's a good 70 or more turns at least.

Volus - They have a lot of money but their units get shredded like paper early barbs will give you huge problems early agressors will wipe you out.

Turians - Bonus unit experience is nice but no bonuses towards production and happiness on military buildings is alright but you still have to pay
maintenance costs for one happiness, lategame they are probably unstoppable, but getting there... A replacement police station? anyone actually buy them they are
very unlikely to have the tech lead.

Krogans - The science penalty cripples them so hard that their unique unit is obsolete before you build one the population bonus cripples their happiness, domination
victories are very difficult as money is quite harsh in bnw, getting the financial techs takes forever getting an army out early is painful. Books of shaman
useless getting the techs for strategic resources is going to take you 350 turns anyways.

Quarians - Their trait is useless, nobody will sign a research agreement besides smoking crack, computers comes so late it's negligible their uniques are all
in the last quarter of the tech tree and they will die before getting there.

Collectors - They have great bonuses to taking cities but no bonus to actually get the cities other civs do and can easily repel collector attacks their unique general
is ok.

Vorcha - Minus culture and science for healing units? in a game where removing units in one turn is key completely useless early barbs are no problem awesome,
good luck getting to research lab.

Humans - All their bonuses hit very late besides the land unit tax reduction which is still better lategame with huge armies, they aren't that powerful even lategame
compared to others.

Elcor - Early scouting crippled less ancient ruins, -10% happiness does not make up for it, they want to turtle and go for culture wins but get destroyed by most
other civs.

Cerberus - Sucks until rennaisance others do not.

Salarians - Their science from jungles could be good enough to move them up one but ultimately they suffer the same as the rest in this tier their earlies are weak.

Now if you start the game in the information era, or tailor the game to a specific civs needs the tiers could look different, but it's evident from some of the civs
getting bonuses from the outset that it wasn't designed this way. Thoughts?
< >
Showing 1-8 of 8 comments
Pluvia  [developer] 15 Aug, 2015 @ 10:47am 
This was very interesting to read, thank you for making this. Also sorry I never noticed it sooner, I don't get notifications about threads being created.

I don't have a tier list like that for the races, I hope to keep them close in power without any significant overpowered or underpowered cases.

BUT I do have a list of changes coming out soon, which are currently:

---------------------------------------

Protheans: Beacon science decreased from 20% to 4%.

Krogan: Books of the Shaman science increased from +1 to +3. Krogan trait increased from +15% defenses to +15% attack and +30% defenses.

---------------------------------------

So like you I agree about the Protheans being consistently strong, which is why their Beacon is getting stripped in power quite significantly. It does cost two Iron, but it's still too "free" with the stats it gives. This will nerf it massively. There's other probable nerfs to the Prothean's too.

Again I agree the Krogan aren't powerful enough. They were horrendously overpowered on release and were nerfed multiple times because of that. But I may have hit them a tad too hard with the last nerf and now that all the races have been out for some time, it's clear they're weaker. The Krogan are supposed to have a great, game changing early game by being a massive threat to whoever they spawn beside, but then a terrible mid game and incredibly powerful late game. Currently though they don't really have much of a big impact early as they're supposed to, and their mid game is too weak to protect themselves at all. Increasing the Shaman science will help a bit but will generally do very little, which is fine, it's the increases to their trait that should help them. Basically it will make them a threat early, like they're supposed to be, and will somewhat help them out mid. It won't make them impossible to kill mid-game, but should make it so they're at least slightly challenging to take down rather than a piece of cake. Late game they will still be a powerhouse, but letting the Krogan get to the late game should at least call for a combined effort to take them down, I mean it takes them forever to reach there in the first place.

The rest of your tier list is interesting. You talk about some races being "situationally god tier" for example, such as the Rachni. But to get to that stage you say they need desert floodplains with many hills on the coast with gold/silver too. That's an extremely rare and incredibly good start, and I disagree that something can be god tier if it needs everything to go perfectly for it to reach that stage. God tier if incredibly lucky and everything goes perfectly, if not then just average? That's fine I say.

Some of your other analysis is quite different from what I've experienced. The Elcor, Cerberus and Salarians for example all tend to be quite powerful in my games. Not brokenly so, but I have played one or two games where Cerberus managed to make themselves the world superpower with ease. The Elcor tend to not make any enemies and can have amazing culture and gold because of it, and the Salarians tend to stay quite high on the technology race. You also say the Salarian's have a weak early, but with +1 science from unimproved jungle tiles they have one of the strongest starts in the game.

Saying this you did highlight some edge cases, the Terminus for example, and I'm creating a balance change thread that will go into more detail on the patch I'm going to put out. This was a really interesting read, thanks for making this, and I'd be interested to hear other people's tier lists.
#1
civ (Banned) 18 Aug, 2015 @ 3:35am 
Just something to note i didn't play against the ai i played quite a few games against myself i think this is a better measure of balance. Cerberus is a standard civ with no bonuses until renaissance against say the rachni that start with ridiculous production bonuses if they spawn in the desert they would get crushed against equally knowledgeable opponents. In my opinion that's what a tier list should encompass ability >against humans< .

If you ask me the beacon isn't the problem far from it, they start off immediately getting more policies than everyone else it's their early game that's really strong, a strong early usually means a strong late, i don't see how the krogans have "an extremely strong lategame" after their science is crippled the whole game.

Rather than getting out the nerf bat why not just buff the rest of the races.

Simple tweaks like give tali zora a flat 5 science bonus from the beginning, give the drell one extra food on desert tiles, you could remove the culture and science bonus nerfs to the vorcha cause they end up worse than a generic civ. The geth give them a weak science bonus upon settling cities and then double it when connected etc.

I will say that i might be wrong about the volus however they can win diplomatically really easily unless hard focused, on an islands map they basically have a free win.

The collectors really need a buff of some sort that will help them actually take cities like all units get bonuses against cities or take half damage from cities something like that because if the collectors are against the protheans or terminus they can't take cities they have less production and money which is what makes them weak.



#2
Pluvia  [developer] 18 Aug, 2015 @ 9:54am 
I'm not sure what you mean by you played quite a few games "against yourself", but anyway these mods can't be played against other humans so the balance is for the AI. When it comes to each of these being played by humans I've had people tell me they've won as every single civilisation, I've even seen someone beat the Reapers and every other one as just the Alliance, who score quite low on your tier list for example.

Anyway there have been a few nerfs and buffs that I'm just about to put out, mainly targetting the Protheans and Krogan, but the vast majority aren't getting touched. Also the Krogan have a really strong late because once they get the Public School in the Industrial Era their science spirals out of control, along with their free combat bonuses on almost all of their units.

Some of the things that have to be taken into consideration for balance, which you mainly haven't in your analysis, is what section of the game the races should be powerful in, how closely it relates to the lore of that race, and how well it is a showing the design of that race. For example, the Protheans are designed to support a large empire. Assuming you keep on making their empire larger they should be quite strong. Now a large empire will happen more in the later game, so I have adjusted them to weaken their early game. They'll still be strong the more they grow, and they even have a trait that helps them fight any larger civ that will try to take them out, so this early game nerf doesn't change what they're supposed to be, a civ that's good with large empires, it'll just delay it as the Protheans have a ton of "free" stats anyway.

Like a lot of other civs, Cerberus aren't meant to have an early game. They get more powerful mid which extends somewhat into the late, and I can't pretend that having 3 fully ranked spies as soon as spies appear is weak. Their trait is powerful and flexible, and their uniques are strong. They deliberately don't excel outside of espionage though, given how powerful espionage is. They can control city states, keep up with technologies, or have diplomatic power with their spies for example.

The Rachni have a powerful early game, that's what they're designed to have as it matches their lore, and they're designed to "survive". But once warfare turns to guns the Rachni pretty much don't have a trait. +1 food and production on desert and snow tiles is alright, but that only affects cities on those tiles. It also pales in comparison to most of the other races, especially the ones with strong mid and late games who will be getting more powerful around that era. Their uniques are mid-game and help them survive but they're not that powerful and are only defensive. Powerful early game sure, that's deliberate, but they fall off pretty hard compared to others when they reach mid.

The Quarians don't need any early game buffs as that goes completely against their design, which is a late game powerhouse, and doesn't relate to their lore in any way as the Quarians were never shown as being more intelligent than any of the other races. It would also make them broken as they'd be one of the most powerful early and late.

The Drell having +3 food from desert tiles would make them crazily overpowered, they could just build the Petra or something and waltz over everyone else. Their balance took a long time to get right.

The Vorcha are getting their science and culture weaknesses scaled back a bit, but it's not getting removed as that doesn't represent the Vorcha who are basically vermin, and would just make them incredibly powerful as they'd have constantly healing units with no negatives whatsoever.

The Geth only get smarter when they're connected, that's their entire lore, and that translates into balance for them as it gives other races a way to beat the Geth if they break that connection in some way. Having the Geth just have a flat science boost for free, that can't be curbed by their opponents in any way, would just make them overpowered.

The Collectors already have the Processing Vats which grant more exp and therefore more powerful units quite early into the game. They're also theoretically the most powerful civilisation thanks to the nutso bonuses they get from capturing cities, and they even have the Captain which helps them fight wars by weakening other troops and they have the Cruiser late game which is designed to help take cities. They don't need any free stats such as a flat bonus against cities when their civilisation gets such powerful bonuses for taking cities anyway. Instead you're supposed to take advantage of their already powerful strengths to help them take the cities.

So yeah it was interesting to hear your input, there's just a lot more into consideration when it comes to balance.
#3
C.C. is quarantined 25 Aug, 2015 @ 5:30am 
----LONG POST WARNING---- almost 4000 words
No TL;DR, it should be organized enough to find specifics.

Preamble:
You have both made valid points in the preceding discussion, however, more perspective is always better, so here is mine. The write-up and analysis has taken hours in the double-digits, so I hope it will receive due consideration.

Firstly, I will be ranking the civilizations in accordance with the guidelines established in FilthyRobot's tier list. The ranking will be based on experience from around 8 games on Immortal/Deity difficulty on a Pangea mapscript (NQmap v7.1, strategic balance incl. coal/aluminium) on quick/standard gamepace.

Secondly, I will provide analysis to justify my rankings, as seen from a player perspective. Anecdotal evidence from my own games may be included here. NOTE: Where civilizations have hidden modifiers (ex: Reaper gold/science), these are obviously not taken into account unless I have played that civilization.

Thirdly, I will propose balance changes to some of the civilizations, taking into account Mass Effect lore to the best of my ability. Ideally, every civilization should have an ideal shot at victory while retaining a unique flavour. I do not take into account cheesing/exploiting the AI's stupidity.


Tier list:

(note: order within a tier is semi-random)

God Tier: Bonuses are consistent and game changingly strong.
Reaper Armada, Prothean Empire

Strong: Bonuses are consistent and strong or situational and game changingly strong.
Asari Republics, Collector Swarm, Rachni Hive, Geth Consensus, Batarian Hegemony, Terminus Systems

Decent: Bonuses are consistent and mediocre or situational and strong.
Hanar Illuminated Primacy, Drell Compact, Salarian Union, Cerberus

Weak: Bonuses are consistent but weak or situational and mediocre.
Systems Alliance, Vol Protectorate, Turian Hierarchy

Awful: Bonuses are consistently inconsequential or situational and weak.
Quarian Migrant Fleet

Joke: Bonuses are detrimental to the civilization.
Elcor Courts of Dekuuna

Unranked: Vorcha Pack, Krogan Clans <<< too unique to judge without proper testing

Analysis:


Reaper Armada [MEGAGOD TIER+++] Bonuses are consistent and game changingly strong
God mode, enough said. I will rather focus on what can be done to make them interesting to play; atm. they are a free win, no matter if all the AI are on team.

Prothean Empire [GOD TIER] Bonuses are consistent and game changingly strong
  • You gain +2 hammers and culture immediately upon founding a city. This means your city has 50% more production and 200% more culture than a generic capital. Faster policies, earlier scouts/shrines/workers/settlers etc. snowball you hard from turn 0.

  • I am unsure how the -2% unhappiness works, but I assume it is global per city captured. This is fine.

  • The +10% combat strength will rarely be of use as their main unique ability is a per-city bonus gearing them towards wide play.

  • Beacons are quite strong, however, observatories are stronger on a mountain-heavy map.
    +2 gold from temples, synergises well with wide play as Liberty usually suffers from gold.

  • Avatars are great offensively, allowing you to move 1-2 tiles into enemy territory and plant a citadel on the same turn.

Asari Republics [STRONG] Bonuses are consistent and strong
  • +2 culture per culture building, including monuments. This ability allows rapid acquisicion of early policies, making the Asari a versatile and adaptible civ. Alternative openers like Honour or Piety benefit greatly from this, while standard Liberty or Tradition are simply stronger and faster. Great design.

  • +2 science from temples is decent. Fits the lore well.

  • The commando leaves me with mixed feelings. In and of itself it is a great unit, however its place in the tech tree sometimes renders it obsolete before it has an impact. Around the time you unlock Radar is also around the time you start bulbing Great Scientists towards Satellites and XCOM tech. In my Asari game, commandoes were relevant for a whole 5 turns.

Collector Swarm [STRONG] Bonuses are situational and game changingly strong
  • +3/3/2% science/gold/production globally make the Collectors a snowball of death if they can get going. The measly -1% culture reduction does not deter their hunger for world conquest.

  • To aid them, they have perhaps the best GG replacement in the game, the Collector Captain. If I read the promotions right, it is +30% combat strength to allies and -15% to enemies. This is HUGE, with all your units being 30%-52% stronger than the enemy equivalent, depending on if they have a general (yes, terrain etc. changes this, as bonuses are additive, but the difference is significant).

  • The processing wats are basically a Brandenburg Gate for every city, meaning you will be producing triple-promoted units everywhere. The engineer slot and added gold and science don't hurt either.

Rachni Hive [STRONG+] Bonuses are situational and game changingly strong AND consistent and strong
  • +1 production and food from snow/desert. The +1 production applies to flood plains, meaning a desert start will yield you boatloads of 2/1 tiles, which is incredible. This is like a petra, already a top-tier wonder, only better, and in every city, from turn 0. I cannot even describe how strong this is. Actually; I went 8 city tradition in my Rachni game, and still had my National College up on turn 107 standard speed.

  • Brood Warrior - artillery replacement with no setup time and normal vision. Coupled with the Rachni terrain penalty ignore, this is hands down the (comparatively) strongest unit in the entire game. Unless you are Shoshone or Russia on a flatlands map with a million horses, this is the end for you.

  • Breeding facility - factory with +4 food , -4 production, +1 maintenance and additional city defence. Worse than the factory it replaces, but it's not like the Rachni are lacking in production. Never built it, as brood warriors made more sense.

Geth Consensus [STRONG] Bonuses are consistent and strong
  • +3% global net science per city connected to the capital. The only science civ which explicitly encourages wide play, which is interesting. As always, direct science bonuses are very strong and key to every victory condition.
  • Quantum Processor - Research Lab which also gives +3 happiness, which synergises well with a Liberty playstyle. 2 aluminium is a huge investment, however.
  • Geth Prime - A Modern Armor with the GG promotion. With all your aluminium already being dedicated to Quantum Processors, Stealth Bombers, Hydro Plants and SS parts, this unit is simply not worth making. Even with spare aluminium, its impact is negligible.

Batarian Hegemony [STRONG+] Bonuses are consistent and strong
  • +10% production and -15% gold. Production is king, and Bataria has it. As long as you're not losing science to a gold deficit, Bataria will become a king on the playing field.

  • Slaves - completely, truly, free workers. No production cost, no upkeep. Will howevere never be able to 1-turn things on quick due to the -15% improvement speed penalty. Build two of them immediately, and enjoy early improvements and no delay on scouts due to production overflow. This unit is almost enough to make them God Tier by itself, due to the way it can snowball your cities early.

  • Batarian State Arms - factory replacement with an additional +10% production, but -15% gold and also -3 unhappiness. Well balanced (but considerably stronger for the AI than the player).

Terminus Systems [STRONG] Bonuses are consistent and strong
  • +2 production and +4 gold upon founding your capital is an immediate and useful bonus, securing a strong early game nearly independent of start location. Early production is covered under Protheans, while the gold allows you to purchase good tiles to work.

  • +1 delegates from city state allies is useful wheter you are going for a diplomatic victory or not: I assume this bonus kicks in immediately when the World Congress is founded, which means you control it from the get-go.

  • +6<< +3>> gold from trade routes means the AI is more likely to establish early trade routes with you, giving an early science boost. Also useful for late-game when you switch from internal trade routes to external ones.

  • Pirate - 10 str weaker Infantry replacement with +50% city attack and gold generation, may enter rival territory. A worse unit than the one it replaces. You should not be slamming your precious blocker units into the AI carpet of doom. Situationally useful to meet city states behind enemy borders, or to block their strategic resources/archeology sites.
    Mining Facility - armory replacement with no upkeep and +gold/production to gems, silver, gold, uranium, eezo. A good building, though researching Steel slows down your tech path unless at war.

Hanar Illuminated Primacy [DECENT] Bonuses are situational and strong
  • Immediate embarkation is situationally useful for city placement. +1 faith from shrines/temples gives you a fair shot at religion on any start. Double sea lux/oil is also situationally OK.

  • Voyage of Light - Frigate Replacement with +1 move, +2 sight, movement after attacks and faith on kill. The Frigate is already a key naval unit for a long period of the game, and this is simply so much better; probably better than English SoTL. It is more expensive, however, which is a fair countermeasure.

  • Trade Port - Harbour replacement with even more range, gold and production from sea resources, naval unit production and an additonal trade route. A very strong unique building, but again situational as it depends on coast and sea resources for its full potential.

Drell Compact [DECENT] Bonuses are situational and strong
  • +1 food on desert tiles (not floodplains), +2 gold/culture on oasises. If you spawn in the desert, you may have an amazing early game. Useless if there is no desert.

  • Sea Temple - Harbour replacement with +2 faith, +1 floodplains production, +1 upkeep and a trade route. A very strong building if you happen to be desert coastal, but good in any case.

  • Assassin - Incredibly powerful and expensive ranged Rifleman replacement that never obsoletes; may be faith purchased. Basically allows you to kill a unit every turn. Excels at city protection, but is a little vulnerable on the offence. If you're a gambler, you will enjoy the risk/reward it offers.

Salarian Union [DECENT]: Bonuses are consistent and mediocre or situational and strong
  • +25% Great Scientist generation, is always useful. +1 science from unimproved jungle tiles is situationally useful either very early, when you can work 2 food/1 science, or after you have built science labs, but before you have trading posts up. Still, science bonuses are always good.

  • +1 spy is also strong, as you may both steal techs and defend, or flip 2 city states etc.

  • STG - 20 str weaker bazooka replacement with a ranged defence penalty to boot. In it's current state, I would never build this unit. It is only useful for picking off isolated enemies that cannot retaliate, but even then other units are better.

  • +1 happiness for universities is always useful. +2 science from uranium is inconsequential.

  • Molecular Science - hydro plant replacement which converts 2 aluminium to 1 uranium and gives 10% science. I do not know if it retains the +1 hammer on river tiles of the hydro plant. If not, then this building is likely detrimental to the civilization. You always get nukes though.

Cerberus [DECENT] Bonuses are consistent and mediocre
  • +2 spies is +2 city state allies, or whatever you want to do with them. Further enchanced by instant maximum rank.

  • Atlas - Modern Armor replacement with really good defenses. I haven't used it, but it looks like a great blocker unit, if you can find the aluminium to build them. The air drop is also really good to deploy them where they are needed.

  • Cerberus Operative - 5 str stronger, slightly more expensive Marine with 5 movement, the ability to enter rival territory and solo attack bonuses. I would rather build something else, but I suppose they are useful for pillaging tiles behind enemy lines. I also suppose, if you really want to slam melee into melee, the solo bonus + flanking bonus gives them impressive attack strength.

Systems Alliance [WEAK] Bonuses are consistent but weak
  • +10% str for some units outside friendly territory and 25% decreased land unit maintenance. Useful, but will likely not have any major impact.

  • Planetary combat training - armory replacement with an additional 5 xp, +1 happiness and 5% rough terrain promotion. The happiness is good, but the other bonuses are inconsequential.

  • N7 - Expensive Marine replacement with a strong (70) ranged attack, 4 movement, no terrain penalties, may move after attacking and a city attack penalty. Probably the only thing good about the Alliance, but it is quite good. LIke Camel Archers of the future, but they are vulnerable to aircraft. I may be underestimating the power of this unit, as I have not actually played the Alliance yet. A human player would demolish them with bombers, but I am not sure about the AI.

Turian Hierarchy [WEAK] Bonuses are consistent but weak
  • +50% xp from combat, +3 happiness from military buildings. The xp is good, but they lack a unique unit to take advantage of it. If the happiness also applies to the walls-line, then they must be moved one tier up.

  • Armax Arsenal - forge which gives more production to land units, but no production towards other things. +1 iron. Mediocre if you're warring, detrimental if you aren't.

  • C-Sec - Police Station with +3 culture and +15% str for gun units in friendly lands. Decent for defending, but a militarily geared civ thrives on the offence. Rather weak.

Vol Protectorate [WEAK] Bonuses are consistent but weak
  • Double gold from all sources, 50% combat penalty. If following a purchasing strategy, the golds bonus will become very powerfull lategame. The catch is that you have to survive until then, which the 50% volus combat penalty will make exceedingly difficult. The good part about it is that it is not a combat strength penalty, so your military score does not suffer. This may discourage the AI from attacking you, because if they do it is gg. Likely the bonus will cancel out the increased upkeep of all the units you absolutely have to create in order to scare the AI from kicking your sorry Volus butt.

  • Credit bank - more gold than the market, both flat and %, +1 happiness. More trade route bonus. A great stand-alone building.

  • Heavy Bomber - Stealth Bomber replacement with 50% city attack bonus and no resource requirement, but ~3x the cost. Also does not suffer from the horrible combat penalty (I presume). If you still live come this tech, then purchase a bomber stack and war away.

Quarian Migrant Fleet [AWFUL] Bonuses are consistently inconsequential
  • +50% science from research agreements is nice, but it necessitates partners to do this with. Nets you less science than any ofthe other science-themed civs. +5 science upon researching computers is utterly inconsequential - you only have around 10-12 techs left at that point, and most likely the game is over before they are all researched.

  • Heavy Fleet - space ship submarine replacement, may move on all tiles and carry nukes, 120/100 str., costs 1 uranium. As cool as this unit is, you can get 3 stealth bombers for less hammers, and they will be more useful. This will probbaly be annihilated by enemy bombers. Unimpressive for a capital ship.

  • Special Projects - +33% attack and -25% defence for units in city. Basically gives you 33% stronger stealth bombers, which is nice, but makes everything more vulnerable. A Questionable trade-off.

Elcor Courts of Dekuuna [JOKE] Bonuses are detrimental to the civilization
  • -1 land unit movement, -10% unhappiness, double luxuries. You will not find ancient ruins. You will not be able to scout city locations, much less settle them in time. You will not meet all the city states. You can give up any succesful invasion before bombers and air drop units. The -10% unhappiness will probably not even make up for the luxuries you never acquired.

  • Heavy - more expensive, ranged cavalry replacement. Good for defence, and offence, but what will you capture the enemy city with now that your cavalry is the artillery?

  • Theater of the Elders - Amphitheater replacement with +1 upkeep, +2 culture and +2 gold to dyes/silk/gems/wine. Under standard conditions, you would rather work production than gold, so only the gems gain a truly useful benefit, but this is rather inconsequential.
Last edited by C.C. is quarantined; 25 Aug, 2015 @ 6:48am
#4
C.C. is quarantined 25 Aug, 2015 @ 5:36am 
Reached char. limit, continued:

Balance Proposals


Reaper Armada
  • Remove the ridiculous science and gold multipliers. Yes, lore-wise they have the most advanced technology, but it detracts the challenge and fun from playing them.
  • Make it so Harbinger cannot enter rival territory, even when at war, until you reach the Information Age. This will allow him to roam the map, create husks from barbarians, tribute city states etc. Harbinger works from the Shadows, until the time has come for the to Reapers reveal themselves.
  • Husks cannot be created, only indoctrinated from captured enemies. Right now a husk rush is virtually unstoppable and comes at no cost to the player. This also fits the lore better.
After these changes the Reapers would still be top tier, but they wouldn't win by default in any setup.

Prothean Empire
  • The beacon is fine as it is, though if you want to weaken it slightly, I propose +3 +10% science, as a trade-off between tall and wide bonuses.
  • The real problem is the immediate production and culture. I propose +1 culture and +1 production per city per 2 Eras, so it will be +1/1 Ancient, +2/2 Medieval, +3/3 Industrial etc.This will nerf their godlike early game, but result in approximately the same power level lategame.

Collector Swarm
  • As the Collectors grew in power, their culture stagnated completely. I therefore propose to increase the penalty to -5% per captured city. Then you can no longer capture everything indiscriminately and still come out on top.

Asari Republics

Overall a great civ which is very enjoyable to play. A bit on the strong side, but I would rather have the others buffed to their standard than nerf the Asari. The commando however sits in an odd spot, never really getting to shine. For one of the premier fighters in the ME universe, this is dissatisfying. I will therefore just throw out some suggestions.
  1. Keep it as it is, but move it to an earlier tech in the tree, for example to Flight, Replaceable Parts or Plastics.
  2. Keep it at the current tech, but make it never obsolete and give it a promotion to fill a niche. Blitz so it may air drop and capture a city on the same turn, or a pre-combat biotic attack similiar to the Impi spear throw so you may drop them into an area and secure it quickly. Or give them some defensive promotion to simulate a biotic barrier, making them excellent at dropping in and securing strategic tiles.
  3. Make it a stronger XCOM, possibly with special promotions.

Rachni Hive
  • Make the +1 production not apply to flood plains, and it will be alright.
  • Brood Warrior rushes will still be nigh unstoppable, but this might be intentional? Judging by your earlier comment, though, I suppose it is intended as a defensive unit, so I suggest a promotion making them unable to leave friendly territory. The +200% city attack could then probably be swapped for higher ranged combat strength.

Geth Consensus
  • They're in a good spot, but I'd tweak the Prime to be more useful. Sadly I have no good ideas for it at the moment.
  • As a side-point, if you find the time for it, the independency of the Geth from organics may be enhanced for lore reasons. Their cities could be immune to spy tech steals, but they would not gain reduced tech cost for techs other civilizations have discovered.

Batarian Hegemony
  • Consider giving the Slaves a small production cost, like 25% of a regular worker. Free upkeep is already very strong, considering their gold penalties.

Terminus Systems
  • With their weaker stats, I do not see the Pirate having any useful impact during times of war. If the combat strength cannot be increased for lore reasons, I suggest giving them sick flanking bonuses, to actually make attacking with melee worthwhile.

Salarian Union
  • Allow the STG to move after attacking, and suddenly you have a highly tactical, useful unit, just as it should be.

Cerberus
  • Doesn't have much excitement going for them, as spying is one of the poorer mechanics in the game. The Atlas is basically going to sit fortified for the majority of its life, and the Operative will only play a minor tactical role.
  • With all the space ships already present, it would make sense to allow them to build one copy of the SR2 Normandy, which could be a fast, high ranged strength, low defense, stealth ship, able to carry nukes deep into enemy territory.

Quarian Migrant Fleet
  • They are supposed to spike in late-game science, but they do not. So let's try something crazy, and actually make them threatening if they survive through their sluggish earlygame. Double their science at Computers.
  • An additional component to their UA like +2/+2 science/production in city for every foreign trade route would help them out early. This symbolises the Pilgrimage.
  • The Heavy Fleet could make dire use of anti air promotion. How are planes going to destroy a Capital space ship anyway?

Elcor Courts of Dekuuna

The movement penalty gimps them so hard it's not even funny. The first 50 turns are spent grinding teeth while you lose every ruin and city spot. With that said, I think they may be buffed in other areas to compensate for this.
  • On their home world, the Elcor have twin capitals, so allow them to spawn with two settlers. This way at least one good city spot should be securable. I do not know if the game will allow two cities designated as capitals, but I doubt it should be too difficult to code so that the 2nd founded city gains a duplicate Palace and applicable bonuses from social policies (mainly Tradition and the Commerce opener).
  • The Elcor are deeply conservative, culturally tight-knit with policies and enjoy stable governments. This would be reflected well by making them immune to ideological pressure, and allow them to adapt optimally to whatever lands they managed to seize.
  • Lastly, I beg you to remove the movement penalty on Scouts, so masochism is not a requirement to be Elcor. The Heavy is relatively fast, so I do not see why a young, nimble scout should not be able to move fast too; it would work wonders for their gameplay.
Last edited by C.C. is quarantined; 25 Aug, 2015 @ 6:45am
#5
Pluvia  [developer] 26 Aug, 2015 @ 1:03pm 
Hey just to say I read your whole thing, but I don't have time to make an extended response today as I'm extremely busy at the moment. But it was an interesting and enjoyable read.

Just to add though, you missed out EDI, who replaced the National Intelligence Agency when talking about Cerberus: "Grants an extra spy. Reduces spy stealing rate 15% and increases city defenses in all cities by 10%. Increases gold by +10% and science by 5% in all cities".

I also just wrote up a paragraph about how you might have an older version but it turns out.. you don't. I have a more updated version of the pack which, I assume due to moving computers and work and studying, I just completely and utterly forgot to upload after I made it. The version I'm using has these changes to the Quarians, Cerberus and the Batarians:

Quarians:

V.6 - Keelah Se'lai Research Agreement bonus increased from +50% to +60%. Glass Cannon promotion penalty decreased from -25% to -20%. Heavy Fleet combat increased from 100 to 120. Heavy Fleet movement increased from +2 to +3. Heavy Fleet ranged vision is now no longer reduced by terrain, it's a flat 2 range vision. Heavy Fleet cost increased from 1575 to 1875.

Special Projects now also grants +4 gold and +2 happiness.

Cerberus:

v.6 - EDI GlobalCityDefenseMod decreased from +25% to +10%

Batarians:

V.6 - Pillars of Strength Gold decreased from -15% to -20%. Batarian State Arms Production decreased from +25% to +20%.

So uh, sorry about that. I have no idea how I forgot to upload that one.

Also I really can't stay to reply today, I will go into much greater detail as soon as I can (hopefully tomorrow or Friday) but here's the changes I have currently for V.7 (or I guess V.6 for everyone else):

Prothean Artifact now requires 1 Iron
Prothean Beacon Science reduced to +4% from +20%

Turian C-Sec now faster to build

Krogan Books of the Shaman Science increased to +3 from +1
Krogan For Tuchanka now has a 15% attack bonus. Defensive bonus increased from +15% to +30%

Terminus Mining Facility now replaced the Castle rather than the Armory
Omega now has defensive bonuses equal to a Castle
Omega now has it's bonuses shown in the city screen for clarity

Vorcha Bloodlust Culture and Science penalty reduced from -25% to -20%

Quarian Heavy Fleet cost reduced from 1875 to 1075
Quarian Heavy Fleet now faster to build

Remember the Krogan trait will reduce that +3 science to +1, also there's some aesthetic changes to the Turians and Vorcha's civ colours to make them a bit better to look at but I removed that information because it's not about balance.

Finally, these aren't the final changes, just where everything is at currently. Chances are everything will be released like that or extremely close to that, but more changes might, and probably will, be included before I release the next update. I can't explain my reasoning behind these changes right now I don't have time but hopefully some should be clear.
#6
civ (Banned) 27 Aug, 2015 @ 6:05am 
I'm not sure what you mean by you played quite a few games "against yourself",

I mean i downloaded the mod "hotseat" which allows you to play mods against yourself, which is useful for balancing purposes.

@ gg is awesome, I like your idea about not allowing harbinger to enter enemy territories until information era, i disagree strongly about the collectors, the great general is alright but they also tend to start on tundra, they get worse starts than the rachni, play them a few times and you'll know what i mean always snow or tundra i guess to simulate their "out of the way" nature.

The problem with the collectors is that huge "if" if they take a city and start snowballing great, my argument is that other civs are better at fighting wars and defending their cities, the general is alright but it's not difficult to remove the general it doesn't make up for the batarians production bonuses, or the protheans immediate 4 culture 2 production, the only way to get an early general is to go to war, some civs with their extreme early game buffs make early war a bad thing for the collectors coupled with their poor starting bias. If they go down honour, to get the general they just gimp themselves with a weak policy choice.

I also agree with you when you speak of the asari and "buff the other civs" to their level rather than nerfing them but think you can extend that argument to the other races too, the mass effect races to me are far more unique than the original civs because they are broken in some regards, the protheans have a tonne of bonuses but no downsides which makes them better than any of the standard civ races, other civs have penalties like the vorcha get penalties that make them worse than original civs.

You see the difference there? protheans buffed in every way, the vorcha nerfed in 2 ways for one little bonus.

My point is all the races should be overpowered compared to the original civs rather than having these unnecessary compensations.
Last edited by civ; 27 Aug, 2015 @ 6:15am
#7
Pluvia  [developer] 8 Sep, 2015 @ 6:11am 
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/172933304/527274088407144078/
#8
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