Here's an even better disadvantage for super hive.

you can build factories in only one turn, but those factories only have x% (70% maybe?) of the output of a standard factory. Or maybe Super Hive cannot use power plants, something like that.

This gets me thinking a bit. It would be fairly easy to be able to let the user give their races disadvantages as well as advantages at the race creation stage. For example, imagine a race with a 80% penalty to reproduction, which IMHO should give some huge number of points to the player, like 30, but is super powerful in other aspects; kind of like the Dread Lords. Being able to give races disadvantages would allow users to create even more unique races than they can currently.

When you customize an opponent you can select "No Super abilities". That is cool, since otherwise the super abilities would get kind of tired, but the race should get something for not having any super abilities. For example, more Racial abilities over and above the standard 10.


Dano

I agree with Jeff Graw ... giving racial penalties as well as abilities would really help in making unique racial flavours.

I talk about this as well as other issues in my post:
https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=357&aid=136564#1058588


Dano

I'm doubtful the AI will ever be able to exploit some of these abilities correctly. Super Warrior?

For super Hive penalty you could allow a inflitrated agent in the planet a greater production penalty than usual to somewhat neutralize the super power

But would the other AI's be able exploit that?

I really like the idea of making the species design include disadvantages as options for getting a boost in other areas, like Jeff Graws Breed Slowly But Carry a Big Stick notion.

The general idea of doing something like lowering basic factory output for Super Hive or forbidding power plants sounds interesting, but I haven't managed to get to the power plant techs yet and I know the balancing is all at rough draft stage.

Might be that most of us have fairly different ideas for disadvantages by the time DA nears RTM.

I like a lot of these but they will obviously need value-balancing. The one I don't like is the super-spy one. Unlike all the others it actually removes a strategic option from the player, at least for that opponent. I think a good compromise value would be to make it so agents are less effective, cheaper to remove, have X% chance of being discovered each turn, etc... That way I can still spy on them, and hamper their production, but it makes it much more difficult, and still adds a strategic element to combating a player with this super-power, (i.e. it's going to cost a fortune to spy on them, so maybe you'd better come up with a plan

The spore ship for Super-Anihillator sounds really cool, but wouldn't it be better as an invasion tech that everyone could have? (a really, really expensive late-game tech, mind you) It just reminds me too much of the doomstar ships in the MoO series. Once you get death-ray plus doomstar you just had to build ONE ship and then go around committing genocide, blowing up planet after planet. It got boring, but eventually everyone did it because it was tedious doing the "clean-up" of invading every last world. GalCiv2 solved this with the intelligent surrendering of opponents, but I'd hate to see it backslide into a lazy genocide strategy.

Will super-dominator get a fleet of ships EVERY time they declare war? Will it just happen once? Will the ships automatically have my best tech? Can I declare war on every civ at once, get 10 fleets of ships, buy them all off for peace treaties and then keep the ships, rinse and repeat? This could work, it's just prone to exploits.

I think what a lot of people have said is correct, some superpowers might need drawbacks associated with them to balance with the others, but I don't think all of them will (diplomacy for example).

Yes Agreed. As stated in another post I think the spore ships are way too powerfull to have at the begining. They need to be researched, be able to be stolen, and have other races be given the time to counteract when they get them. or at least have a large force to hunt them down before they do too much damage.

Yes Agreed. As stated in another post I think the spore ships are way too powerfull to have at the begining. They need to be researched, be able to be stolen, and have other races be given the time to counteract when they get them. or at least have a large force to hunt them down before they do too much damage.

Don't agree here. They're essentially transports that always work. Nothing more or nothing less.

I agree with Draginol here. Most of the other Super Abilities are far more useful than the spore ships. The spore ships are more of a gimmick than anything else. Perhaps a (very slight) diplomatic disadvantage is in order though. I suspect that most leaders would be somewhat untrusting of a race with the natural ability to destroy planets

Some concerns with Super Abilities:

1. How the AI will handle these seems both difficult and time-consuming.

2. How can I easily tell what Super Ability my opponents have? That could make a big strategic decision on how I deal with them.

3. Many of these just seem like bigger multipliers. Some are unique, but it seems like just giving more Ability points would accomplish the same thing.

Some other examples of ways things could be special that might not cause such a strain on the AI:

1. Have special buildings only that race could build.
2. Super cheap buildings. IE Iconian research labs are cheaper for them, whereas Drengin could build cheap Starbases
3. Have special types of ships/troops/spies that are better than the average

This again seems like a feature like EG- good intention, but perhaps a bear to deal with the AI...

Yes you are right Draginol! But they are slightly more than transport ships that always work. Fist off you only need 1 and you could conquer the galaxcy. I've played x5 games with them now and if you beef up your research to 100% get a spore ship (or two) out quickly, you can wipe the floor, because the other races arn't even building defenders. It can give you a great start even if the other races do catch on to whats happening, and they do. They usually all declare war on me!

Not trying to be confrontational here. It's just what I have experienced.   

Hey Draginol, what about some 'extra' super abilities that we can assign to custom races?

For example, one could be Super Starbases. Starbases would have %50 greater output, but each upgrade would cost 250bc above and beyond the what they normally would - even for evil races.

Extra abilities would be pretty easy to slap in (easy enough that you could put in one or two extra with each patch) and would add so much to replayability.

Some comments:

Super Isolationist: Balance-wise, I'm not sure if it's necessary, but it seems
natural for me that a Super Isolationist race should get a influence penalty.

Super Spy: Is it possible to gather any intelligence at all (ie: techs, ships, etc) on the Super Spy race? If not, sounds a bit overpowered. Perhaps this ability should give a diplomacy penalty since the race becomes known for its sneakiness.

Super Dominator: This might be overpowered or weak, depending on how it works: Does having a big fleet mean the race gets more ships or less ships? Do they get the ships every time they go to war, for each race they are at war with? Can they make peace and then declare war again next turn and get another set of ships?

Super Manipulator: Seems a bit weak. Wouldn't the Super Diplomat also have some extra ability along these lines?

Super Annihilator: Seems overpowered to me. They are more than just "transports that always work": 1) The 20 bil population enemy homeworld? No prob - there's no risk of losing billions and billions of your population, compared for ground invasion. 2) further, you can wipe out worlds as fast as you can build the ships without the economic costs of losing all that population or the logistics effort of shuttling populations around to get invasion forces from populous worlds. 3) The targetted world potentially becomes useless to the victimized race unless they have the proper colonization tech, so "scorched earth" tactics become feasible. 4) Can you get to spore ships without researching the invasion tech tree? If so, that's a huge savings in research you can postpone. Using this ability should have immense diplomatic consequences.

Overall, I dislike this idea due to the exploitation factor. This will be the first thing banned should the future expansion have MP as well (not that it should be a consideration for this, but still). There's just too much potential to make the game easy with this- I'd suggest at least make super abilities toggle default to OFF.

1. How the AI will handle these seems both difficult and time-consuming.

For me, the only point of the game is AI. That's why I write these games. I need features like super abilities to motivate me to write the AI.

It also gives the game the opportunity to stand out because most hard core strategy gamers already know that things like this are so exploitable that the typical AI would just be crushed. Therefore, if I can write AI that really uses this stuff, people will be able to see the value of good AI and how much of a difference in making a game fun it can be.

Lord Reliant:

I like what you are saying there.

For instance, Super Spy might get a building that nobody else has that lets them keep spies off a given planet. And the building could double as something that improves morale so that it's not a wasted tile.

Immediate changes id make...

Super Isolationist: Increase min movement to 6 spaces.

Super Hive: Factorys are 25% cheap than normal instead of 1 turn production.

Then do lots more testing. The super abilities will never all be equal but the innate abilities and starting planet sizes can be used to balance races for metaverse purposes so everyone doesn't just pick the same race.

Super Doninator for the Drengin sounds rather boring for me. The Drengin are the iconic race of Gal Civ and deserve a more exciting super ability imo.


Lenius.

These sound really cool. I do agree that some of them sound unbalanced (though I think playtesting is the only way to really find out).

Specifically, super breeders sound underpowered - 4x population growth is great, but maintaining 100 approval rating is pretty difficult early in the game (at least to a mediocre player like me) so this power will only kick in in the late game, when population growth is less important. Maybe stagger the bonus (i.e. 80% approval gets 2x growth, 90% gets 3x, 100% gets 4x)?

Also, since I'm suffering from freezing bugs I didn't get an opportunity to playtest much yet, and I haven't seen spore ships - are they available from turn 1? Having a transport that always works isn't unbalancing on its own. Being able to build a transport early in the game is - it'd be pretty easy to just capture 2/3 of your neighbors' home planets before they have a chance to build defenders. I'd say that either the spore ship should only be buildable once transports are, or they should cost so much you can't rush build them with the starting $5000 (if this is already the case, nevermind).

My comments/suggestions on the Super Abilities:

It is my current belief that Super Abilities *should* be super powerful. The trick is making sure each super ability is just as powerful, but in a different way.

Super Diplomat/Manipulator - These two are not only too similar, but they are very hard to quantify just how much benefit they give. The trading screen should clearly indicate when your trade is Green because of these abilities (Say... Having the AI screen say something to the effect of "Well.. I normally wouldn't do this..."). That will make it easier to see just how much benefit you are getting from them. As for ways to make them less similar... well... I don't have any at the moment.


Super Trader - This ability is mostly fine, but I don't think it really fits the Korx, given they are an evil race and they might get their only unique benefit nullified by a UP Issue.

Keep the Super Trader ability in the game (for the use of custom races/opponents), but make a new Super Ability for the Korx as detailed below:

SUPER SMUGGLER -
This race is adept at smuggling trade goods. They start out with the Trade Tech and their number of trade routes is never reduced. In addition, their Trade Routes are immune to attacks and are not disbanded during war (ie: although they can't establish new trade routes with races they are at war with, they get to keep the ones they currently have with that race).

And as a last note, the Super Trader ability should give a bonus to Diplomacy when making trades where one side of the deal is only money (and maybe Economic Treaties).


Super Breeder - The current bonus is fine but to make it better compare to the other abilities here have the planet they start with in the beginning of the game already have the max population supported by the Civilization Capital and half the morale penalties due to high populations on worlds they colonize (but not get through invasions or culture flipping). A race that breeds super fast probably should also be able to better deal with large numbers of themselves.


Super Adaptable - I suppose this can provide a strong bonus in a game with a lot of Special Worlds, but I propose this revision to it to bring it up to speed with the better Supers:

This race can colonize ANY world in the beginning of the game. However, these worlds only produce 25% as much production as normal and population growth on special worlds is hindered by its production value (thus, the super adaptable race on a planet they can colonize at 50% has its population growth at 50% slower on that world). The cost of research Xeno Biology and its later techs should also be reduced by some amount for the race.

With these changes, a Super Adaptable race would be to capture a lot of worlds if they wanted to, but it would be hard for them to build up these worlds at first and they also wouldn't be able to get the population base needed to be able to support these worlds without taking a huge hit to their economy.


Super Spy - Rather than making their worlds immune to spies and giving them a free agent at the start of the game, I would give them the ability to automatically nullify one random agent on one of their worlds at no cost and without the use of an agent at the END of each of their turns. Also, no race can get a higher than Low Espionage Level with them and the Super Spy race always has at least a Low Espionage level with every race they have had contact with.

In this way, you can still spy on a Super Spy, but it will be very costly to maintain (since you are might to have to place a new agent each turn). Not allowing any race to have a higher than Low Espionage level maintains the "Hey, I'm a MYSTERIOUS and SECRETIVE race! OoOoO!" feel of the Super Spy ability.


Super Isolationist This is a very good racial ability as is. The only thing I suggest is a diplomacy/influence/trade penalty, as others have stated above. Maybe also a Loyalty bonus, if the penalties are high enough.


Super Hive This is also a very good racial ability as is. The Unlimited range is a nice ability, but it can hinder you as much as it helps (since by the time you might get a ship to the other side of the galaxy, you'll likely have much more advanced ships in your arsenal, so its only really good for non-military purposes. Its the build factories in one week that could be a problem. I might suggest taking on a Speed penalty to the ability to help balance it. Of course, maybe I've just been playing too much Sword of the Stars lately...

A second option would be to make literally only Factories (and Basic Factories) be built in a single week. The higher tech Factories would take the normal time. This is probably the better option.


Super Warrior Great ability as is. But can I make a suggestion and have it NOT apply to Cargo Hulls (or preferably any hull marked in the xml files with a special property)? If possible, I might also suggest they only get the first strike in combats they initiated.


Super Dominator I really hope you keep the ability for them to better be able to get bribes/extortions. If you do, I would definitely also suggest making sure it is clearly apparent when it is your ability and not normal circumstances that is letting you get the trade.

The gaining of ships when you go to war does need two tweaks:

1. They gain the bonus ships only once every year they declare war on a particular race or they should disappear when you are no longer at war with that race.
2. The maintenance cost of the ships should probably be reduced/eliminated so as to make sure it is not going to be a hindrance rather than a bonus (especially with the AI).

Super Organizer - Great, flavorful ability. Two suggestions, however:

1. Give them a diplomacy bonus when they are making trades in which one side of the deal is only Influence points, Treaties, or Alliances. Maybe lax the requirements for making Treaties/Alliances.
2. Make it completely clear when it is this ability that is having a particular race declare war (or when you are getting a trade as above) on your enemies (as with the other abilities that deal with the diplomacy engine).

Super Annihilator - Another great, flavorful ability. I agree that this ability isn't as powerful as it seems to be. I really don't have any other suggestions with it, though.


General Super Ability Issues:

1. Races that start out with bonus techs because of their Super Ability should be incredibly reluctant to trade them away, especially during the better part of the first decade of the game or so.
2. There should be an easy way to see what Super Ability a race has in game.
3. There should be a way to completely disable all Super Abilities.
4. Not having a super ability should give that race more ability points to spend, unless super abilities are disabled entirely.
5. I'd like to see more, unused Super Abilities be added that can be used with custom races/opponents.
6. Influence, Diplomacy, and Trade penalties that Super Abilities might get shouldn't apply when dealing with other races that have the same Super Ability.
7. Along with the recent change to make innate abilities stack with the Ability Point choices you make (which I really, really hope stays), the Super Abilities add the single largest layer of strategy/flavor out of any of the additions so far, imho.

Well... sorry for the long post, but I really hope that people read and comment on it. Good job so far with the super abilities!

One last thing:

I'd like to see better integration of Super Abilities with UP Issues and Mega Events.

For instance, during the plague the following might happen:

1. A Super Isolationist AI during the plague might never trade away the plague cure.

2. The Super Adapters could research the plague cure at reduced cost/time.

3. The Super Breeders might be able to weather the plague with their high population growth.

4. The Super Annihilators might gain a new, improved version of their Spore Ship to research when the plague event happens.

5. The Super Organizer would be more likely to be gifted the cure, or races might be all to willing to sign Research Treaties with them during this time.

6. A Super Trader/Smuggler AI would be all too willing to trade away the plague cure... for the right price.

I think you get the picture

Nice post!

I think you made Super Adaptable too weak though. What if Super Adaptable was also immune to spore ships? Could add an interesting dynamic.

Also, is there any plans to give races with no Super Abilities some extra points or something?

I think you made Super Adaptable too weak though.

Lol I think this could argubly be the strongest of super abilities. The colony phase is the most important phase of the game. With this abilty you could potentially hugely out colonise your opponents.


Lenius.

Right now it seems to depend upon what size of galaxy you play on. The smaller the galaxy the bigger advantage for Super Adaptable. But on larger galaxies there are a lot of planets to go around, so you can make do just colonizing habitable worlds until you do the research for hostile enviroments. At least, that seems to be my experience.