What Super Ability do you use?

I have never heard anything recommending super spy, so I haven't tried it. Like a lot of Meta players my three favs are Diplo, Hive and Breeder.

The Diplo provides numerous advantages throughout the game with your negotiations and just gets more powerful with Tech trading on.

I like Hive(in DA) for getting my initial colony rush in gear in a hurry. Just make sure you find a way to pay for all that early production

Breeder is great for when I like to rush hard and getting the new colonies profitable quickly is one of the keys to a steady long colony rush on bigger maps.

I play with other at time, but those are used most.

I only use, as DA has said Diplo, Hive and Breeder. Though if it is a ZYW i will use....ermmm, well the Korath SA, the one with spore...i cant think of its name right now, but i dont think that is what your looking for anyway.

The pros and cons though with 2 of the 3 mentioned above, is that hive and breeder and this all depends on game style and what vistory your going for, but hive and breeder are pretty much usless after the first 2 years of the game. Once you are set up and you planets are built up they are little use. Diplo, though not as powerful as the other two has more longevity to it but still becomes redundant towrd the end of the game.

That being said, they are still the best way to get ahead in the game, with any other SA you would still be a mile behind where you would end up using one of the three reccomended.

(damn no spell check anymore....  )

Super_Adapter; if only just to grab off many (if not most or even, all) extreme planets straight out of rushing AIs. It simply makes sense to have higher potential for development than letting any others enjoy *it* when gameplay resources begins to matter - full_scale wars included.

Otherwise, absolutely none whatsoever... for the challenging situations enforced by being somehow 'handicapped' from the start. 

I think the Yor's Super Isolationist is one of the most powerful and gets even batter later in the game. Having all enemy ships limited to only 3 spaces per turn helps your planets remain safe. Add military star bases with the 2 minus speed modules and your enemies have a max speed of 1.   <<<  ONE (when their turn begins in your territory)

The ability to colonizs barren worlds is a little bonus, it has the potential to give you addition colonies before the AI's get them. AT least its one less tech to get.

I live hive as well, i found that it worked well for me all game long.  Diplo is good too since it helps keep me out of wars a bit longer.  I stink at keeping 100% approval so i stay away from Super Breeder.

Super spy and super annilalator are useless.

Super Organizer works well if you have enough other races with the same alignment as you, an you are prone to having war declared on you.

Super trader is ok only in that you get the techs right away, trade never plays enough of a role anyway.

Super Adapter can be good in that you can get a hold of more planets during the colony rush. Late game it does you no good; well except that you'll have more planets in the late game. The trouble is, that it will be some time before you can get the other tech to get full social and military production on those worlds. It depends on the map you get i guess.

Super Manipulator, is also pretty useless. Basicaly it just save you a few bucks whne getting otrhers to declare war. Hmmm, I don't know if the ability allows ytou to get them to delcare war when they normally wouldn't. (Like sometimes when another's race name doesn't ebven appear n the list for the AI to attack). ANyone know?

Not really sure about the Korath Super Ability.

Super Warrior can be good if you know how to take advantage of it. You do all the attacking and you really won't need any defences for you ships. You can have the ole' cargo hull with massive weapons and win battles.

Just for a review and to make it easier for folks to see what we're talking about, here are the super abilities, quoting Brad with my edits in parentheses...

I'm a relative newcomer to the Super Ability crowd.  I've used Super Annihilator for Zero Year Win (ZYW) games and Super Breeder to boost my population and economy quickly on normal games. I'll likely try more as time goes by.

The Terrans also get an influence bonus which can be powerful (and annoying).  (partly comes from their special building)

Spore ships are very powerful, you just need to transport population to the planet (which is alot of micromanagement).

Thalan's super hive is great, but they are very hard to invade with.  (Soldier bonuses are limited)

The Drengin ability can be useful early - logistics is helpful, as well as military resources.  (which are always helpful)

The Torian super breeder helps alot early.  The 100 percent 4x growth is on a per world basis - really helps new colonies.

Blame not the ability, but the race's tech tree.  A custom race with Super Hive wouldn't have this issue if they used another's tech tree.  Sort of how you can make a custom race to almost completely emulate the Arceans...but not have the -1 speed penalty.

@Motti:  Its too bad that Hive and Super Spy don't actually work like Brad stated there; Unlimited Range would relaly make a difference (there IS a bonus, its about 10% extra range) and Spy Invulnerability (Loup would LOVE this I'm sure, spies really COULD be offensive, since you wouldn't need to worry about others stacking them on you)

Or needing to place CECs down.  It would mesh well then for the Korath tech tree since they actually lack the CEC...fill in the one gap that was harsh there when the AI learned how to use it's spies.

I often use the CEC as my morale building on all planets, so defense spies aren't too much of an issue.

ya gotta love the Krynn really.  Best race to use, and IMO, the hardest race to compete against when they are on your bad side.

Oh and to answer the original question: generally, Super Breeder; though I'm currently using Super Warrior for my custom race.  To me, the only stipulation with Super Warrior is that you give yourself the Luck and Courage abilities

What does Courage do?

And on topic, I have to agree with everyone else:  Super Diplomat, Super Hive and Super Breeder are the best, unless you're going for ZYW, then Super Annihilator.  I personally do like Super Warrior, and if you're more concerned with winning the game than getting the highest possible score, I think it can be comparably effective to the others.  For MV purposes however, it falls short. 

Super Diplomacy, but only because it's tied to the Terran Alliance and I have been playing them pretty much all the time since TA was released.  Sometimes it does feel a bit too super, especially if your Civ has a lot of income to fund buyouts.

Super warrior gets pretty strong in the endgame, if you base your game around it, even at pretty high difficulty levels. (I play at obscene at the moment). By getting fast enough ships (like with the Arcean tech tree, and add speed bonuses as racial bonuses), you can make sure that you are the attacker. If you can keep your attack strength high enough, you can wipe the entire enemy fleet without taking damage. With the +2 speed racial bonus, you also gain a significant benefit to expansion, since it lets you build colonizers and constructors from small or tiny hulls, without engines. This sort of makes up for not having super breeder.