Synthetic races pretty bad now

from GalCiv3 Forums

It has been a long time since I tried playing as a synthetic based race, so I decided to take one for a test run again. And damn, they are pretty bad now. It takes 1 durantium and 1 promethium to make 0.5 population? While a city that provides non-synthetics with a MINIMUM of 3 population only costs like 4 promethium? Bleh. Also synthetics have always had pretty weak buildings that they could make, like no space elevator, no deep core mine, no space port, etc; but they made up for their crappy buildings with raw population numbers. But now their population is capped at whatever the planet class is? So now all other types of races can easily have more population on their planets than synthetics? Bleh. Then add in the insult that those really special precursor planets always have the -25% food production, -50% synthetic population cap. The -25% food has absolutely zero effect on non-synthetic races, since they can just grow food on other planets while stacking cities on good precursor planets. But the -50% synthetic population cap makes those precursor worlds almost garbage for the synthetic races, at least compared to how much better they are for non-synthetics.

I realize that synthetics were a bit over-powered way back in the day, which is why I quit playing as them and just used them as opponents. But damn you guys have totally gimped the hell out of them now. It is no wonder that the Yor and my own custom made synthetic races have been doing absolutely horrible and posing no real opposition in my recent games.

 

33,800 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

They were gimped worse early on with extremely high cost in population (10 durantium!) but have been brought down to better level. Haven't given them a spin yet since new changes myself but I am worried about the cap. As to how the AI plays them, that may just be an adjustment that needs to be made on that end.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Synth are actually better now that they are cheaper, at least for pop production. The pop cap limit based on planet class is still messed up though... Also I don't think precusor worlds have an affect on synth pop cap anymore. I think, I vaguely remember trying them out in a new game awhile ago but I have played so many new games trying out all kinds of changes I don't remember what race types I have been playing lately...

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

They do have the advantage of getting the "Mechanic" citizen option for +1 ship speed.  With a lot of pull back on other ways to get speed, 5 - 10 mechanic citizens in a synthetic empire and throw on a commander and suddenly my fleets are racing around at 33 speed versus 7 - 10 for AIs. 

 

That said, I am not sure that the Yor and other synthetic races use "Mechanic" citizens that often and I had to race to invasion and conquer some planets to keep from falling too far behind in production.  So not sure how effective the AI is with synthetic right now (heard other anecdotes of Yor not keeping up).

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

We rebalanced the synths with 2.8.  I would be curious to get your feedback on our changes and if they address your concerns.

You will need to start a new game to see the new balance changes.  

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Ok the only advantage the yor really had was production. It is snail slow starting, but you could end up with more population. Now you cant. With small population caps with lots of population going on ships vs. Everyone else getting free population everytime they build a colony ship you garantee they cant build as big as an empire. They can only be played tall. Before you could up production, now you cant. They are now garanteed to be slower growing. Now they need to add buildings to make things fairer. This really cant be fairer tequiring you to build population. At least give them double class for population max to compensate for slow growth. With small population max as is everyone, but synthetics will max out their planets quicker. Or yah you will at least have to give them decent manufacturing buildings like everyone else, or all you are doing. Or this will garantee that they wont build population, or have as much manufacturing as everyone else on a small empire. This kind of ruins the Yor.