7 Rebalanced Pandora-v1.6.1 Factions (help please)

[earlyraven]

Hey guys,

(file link also at the bottom)

7FactionsRebalancedByER-20150612.zip

(17.11 KiB) Downloaded 228 times

So, I was dissatisfied with the current faction balance so I decided to check if there were any mods out. I stumbled upon Unsub's mod (at viewtopic.php?f=279&t=48504&sid=3655296 ... f1#p456901), but failed to get it working and I noticed it was not updated for quite a while.

Anyways, I decided I'd make my own (using Unsub's as a guide), however I've encountered some difficulties:

Problem 1:
If I place the faction files in C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Proxy Studios\Pandora\Data\World\Factions
it only seems to half-work.... some things work (like production bonus, research bonus, pollution increase, etc)... but others do not (researched technologies, starting units, starting credits....for these it just seems to take whatever is in the game's install folder... D:\Program Files (x86)\Games\Pandora First Contact\Data\World\Factions)

So... basically, I need to copy the faction files to D:\Program Files (x86)\Games\Pandora First Contact\Data\World\Factions and over-write those for it to work properly. Any idea what, if anything I'm doing wrong?

Problem 2:
And, is there any way to have a specific faction's cities start with a certain building (ie. refining array)... or have their first city include said building but others not?

I'm aware of two possible methods (but I don't like them)... A. set building's production cost to 0...but this means everyone can build it free so I don't like it.... or B. give faction extra credits for the amount needed to rush the building...but I don't like it cause there's not way to guarantee the funds will be used for rushing it (by player and especially by AI).

Problem 3:
Got any better balance suggestions?

I found myself in this project because I would only ever choose the research faction cause it seems so OP.

Current factions as I have them:
Diplomatic:
Diplomatic: +25% standing in diplomatic negotiations
Subversive: +25% infiltration attack and defense power
Parasitic: profit 25% from all research and trading pacts on the planet
Orbital Eyes: -66% cost and upkeep for satellite uplinks
Starting Tech(s): Diplomacy (tier 1, subTeir 0)

Ecologic:
Ecologic: +1 minerals from forests and fungus
Frugal: +25% habitat
Sympathetic: -50% alien aggression
Peaceful: -15% power when attacking
Starting Tech(s): Population0 (tier 0, subTeir 1) and AlienAggression (tier 0, subTier 0)

Economic:
Economic: +25% credits from taxes
Bargainers: 25% better prices
Wealthy: +200 starting credits
Extravagant: -12.5% habitat
Starting Tech(s): Credits0 (tier 0, subTeir 2)

Fanatic:
Fanatic: -25% unit cost
Aggressive: +25% power when attacking
Zealous: +4 morale
Conservative: -20% research from scientists
Starting Tech(s): Morale0 (tier 0, subTeir 2)

Industrious:
Industrious: +40% production from workers
Fertile: +20% growth
Exploitive: free former
Reckless: +12.5%
Starting Tech(s): Minerals0 (tier 0, subTeir 0)

Militaristic
Militaristic: +25% power
Resilient: +100% healing rate
Well-trained: 3 free field training
High-paid: +25% unit upkeep
Starting Tech(s): Academy0 (tier 0, subTeir 0), Defense0 (tier 0, subTier 0), Promotion (tier 0, subtier 0)

Scientific
Scientific: +33% research from scientists
Resourceful: -33% refit costs
Free-spirited: -1 morale
Starting Tech(s): Research0 (tier 0, subTeir 1)

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help.

File attachment
For those who want to try it out, you can (after making a backup of your game's data folder) unzip the attached file to the game's install folder (in my case it's D:\Program Files (x86)\Games\Pandora First Contact)) and overwrite when prompted.

7FactionsRebalancedByER-20150612.zip

(17.11 KiB) Downloaded 228 times

[Xilmi]

First of all, I gotta say that I don't think the 7 default-factions are particularly imbalanced.
I've run a lot of tests with AI-only playing and those do not show too significant dominance or inferiority of certain factions.

You haven't found blackarchons faction-mod? Imho it is a very good example of how to do it.

I think your problem 1 comes from the circumstance that you did not create new factions but altered old ones. I'd suspect it loads the files from both places and this causes some confusions.

What blackarchon did was to simply give them a huge discount on production cost. How it is done can be seen at the Ambassadors. So you can't have a faction get a building for free but you can make them build it for a small fraction of the original price. This will also dramatically increase the AIs willningess to build it.

What makes you think the Research-Faction is OP? They have -2 morale from the get-go which makes it a bit tough early-on. Also in Pandora you often will have the "problem" that you cannot keep up producing everything you reasearch. So other factions don't lose that much comparatively. I really don't think they are OP.
Now Post-fix-pre-nerf-ambassadors were op. Other than that I really think it's balanced quite well. Not perfect but good enough that things like the starting-location matter much more.

[earlyraven]

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Maybe they're balanced maybe they're not. Anyway, those coming here are probably either dissatisfied with the current balancing (like I am), or seeking to help, or maybe just curious. See rant section below if interested in why I was dissatisfied with the default factions.

I did also come across blackarchon's mod, but I could not get it working (perhaps because it is not updated to work with Pandora v1.6.1). If I followed instructions and put it in the user's mod folder, then it would show me the various factions when starting a new game, but when I selected one and started the game, I would end up with a randomly chosen faction from the original factions.

Failing that, I decided to also try copying it to the game's folder (since that had helped my mod when techs weren't being given)... but this just causes Pandora to crash when executed.
This is the message it gives:

ifPutInGameFolder.png (36.91 KiB) Viewed 4282 times

I guess I'll have to settle for the faction-specific reduced price approach. Its not exactly what I wanted, but I guess it will be close enough if I can set it to -100% price. I wasn't sure if the AI would respond to that properly, as I'm not sure how the AI makes building decisions.

Now, for those interested in why I decided to make the mod... a rant on why I was dissatisfied with the default faction balancing:

Code: Select all

Perhaps its greatly influenced by my play-style...and preference for research-based factions in civ games....anyway, I found myself always choosing the research faction because it seemed like the strongest to me, and when I did force myself to play the other factions, I felt too crippled.

Let's go over the factions and my thoughts on them...

Divine Ascension (fanatics)
Cheaper units (-25% cost) and bonus power when attacking (+25%) seemed like really nice buffs.  The added 2 morale is just a small extra bonus.  However, they get hit with a -33% to research penalty.  So, although they seem like they would make a great faction to steamroll people with more, and superior units... it's hard to do so cause cause you gotta research them first... and it will take longer to research than any other faction, so you're basically stuck making inferior units that have a bonus when attacking which counter-act each other so you effectively have standard-powered units.  Maybe you could upgrade them later, but... that costs money and to get that you'd have to build up an economy...to get the needed buildings, you would need to research them...and... with reduced research this will take longer.  But wait, there's more.. you know that shiny 25% bonus to attack?  Well... it's not multiplicative.. it's additive... so if you already have other bonuses such as terrain bonus of +25% and adequate weapon for monster-type +25%-50% etc..... so adding 25% to a say 75% bonus means it just changes it to a 100% bonus (175% to 200% which is just a global increase of 14%).

In summary, though the unit boost seems nice, the reduced research makes it hard to make good use of this.
Personal rating: 5/10 (would be higher w/ research penalty reduced or removed).

Imperium (militaristic)
25% power boost seems nice, once again... this time when attacking or defending.  However it still suffers from the diminishing returns effect.  Resilient (+100% healing rate) seems like a nice bonus until you stop to think about it a bit.  First, you can only make use of this if the unit survives the fight.  And, if you survive the attack, you need to be able to survive any retaliatory attack, if your unit only gets slightly damaged, it may be fine to just sit and heal, but if over 50% hurt, it might be best to run just in case, however, when running you won't be getting healed (unless you use special device... but then you wouldn't be able to use other, more useful devices)  The 3 field trainings seem like a nice addition, but then there's the choice of how to use them?  A.  Use them immediately?  well.. that's highly inefficient to use them to just boost one unit and it would mean more wait time at the start as your unit heals up... or B. Quickly produce 1 or 2 more units and boost all?  well this would mean you'd need to keep units close (preferably near base) so you can group and buff them quickly... or C. wait till I have a decent stack then buff them (well by this point those 3 casting are basically just their production-cost equivalent) as by now you would easily be able to make more.  And, yet again, a counter-balance... increased upkeep.  So, although your units are stronger, they cost more to maintain, so you can't use as many. which brings the overall-unit power back down to normal.

In summary, the power boost is nice, but increased maintenance means you can't take full advantage of this since you can support fewer units.
Personal rating: 7/10 (would be higher w/ upkeep cost reduced or removed...also would be nice if it had like a build in always heal device instead of the +100 heal rate)

Noxium Corporation (economic)
Better prices (25%) and higher taxes (25%) seem like nice buffs for when you get your population up. (around the mid and late game).  However, it's extravagant -25% habitat) makes growing difficult.  On top of that, to even make use of this factions bonus you'd likely want to run a decent tax rate, however this would mean further stunting your growth.  The starting bonus credits, while nice, can't really be used for much other than a cheap unit/building or a prolonged, initial no-tax session to help initial growth.

In summary, to make use of this factions bonus you'd have to be running taxes moderately high, but doing so would lower morale, and slow city growth.  Additionally, the habitat penalty means you have less time before you need to address the housing problem.
Personal rating: 7/10

Solar Dynasty (production)
+50% production is a really nice boost.  However, with no help to crystal generation it's impossible to make full use of this.  Additionally, the 50% pollution increase practically guarantees you will have negative morale until you build the appropriate pollution-reduction buildings.  The added +25% growth seems nice, but it also means that in addition to addressing pollution, you'd have to improving housing and food or suffer a hit to your growth.  Unfortunately, even if mostly assigned to research, the pollution penalty will still have a noticeable effect.  Free former is a nice bonus.. but this only helps with early game.

In summary, the production boost is great, but hard to make good use of because of the need for minerals.  Growth is good, but also means needing to quickly develop all aspects of city.
Personal rating: 5/10 (would be higher with pollution penalty reduced or removed)

Terra Salvum (ecologic)
+1 Mineral from forests is great for early game but only if mountains are not available.  +1 Minerals from fungi is an interesting boost, but the effect is only noticeable in mid-late game when you research the techs that improve fungai output.  And.. by then, you would likely have already developed all your tiles and would need to re-plant fungai to make use of this.  Also, fungi is annoying since you can't build roads on it... would be nice if they could.  Frugal +25% to habitat lets them grow larger cities before having to address housing, but housing limitation usually seems to only hamper the early game. -50% alien aggression means they can wait longer before needing to address aliens... but it will still need to be addressed, and the 25% penalty when atking means you can't begin addressing it from the start and leveling up units.  Also, it follows you all throughout the game, forcing you to either somehow obtain a tech advantage, or play passive and defend.

In summary, added versatility in how they can obtain minerals (and increase in mineral income late-game if using fungi), reduced alien aggro, but weak fighting power.
Personal rating 5/10

The Embassadors (diplomatic)
Well, I haven't formed a strong opinion on them yet.

Togra University (scientific)
+50% bonus to research... just seems too godly to pass up.... can fight with higher-tech units, able to unlock buildings  Starts with ATV for a quicker explore time.  -50% refit cost helps make the choice to refit units worthy of consideration instead of just outrageously priced.  The only penalty is -2 morale which is effectively nullified by setting taxes a bit lower, and by the time one gets to building the morale buildings, mostly unnoticeable.

In summary, high tech output, good starting unit, able to refit units cheaper, and only a slight penalty to morale
Personal rating 10/10

[unsubstantiation]

Interesting to see people still modding this game . I only worked on my mod for a short while because I never owned a copy of the game, and I quickly found that modable options were more limited than I would have liked, you can't change a lot of the core parts of the game, like the gui, starting worlds, the ai, the number of playing factions. A lot of simple details like race pictures were very hard to change as well. Then i saw the game wasn't as popular as would have expected, so I just decided to move onto unity, and try to make my own game, such slow work though, really requires a team. If you want feel free to use my mod files and update them to the current version of the game, it should not be hard, I think it would only take 1-2 hours, most of my mods were as straight forward as possible) good luck!

[Xilmi]

Where are your mod-files and what do they do?

[unsubstantiation]

here are my old mod files, they wont work if you just drop them in, the code needs to be adopted to the current version of the game, which should be pretty easy. I don't have the game so I can't do it.
Download link:
Download