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[scrdest]

As Mr. Strange posted, I don't find the expansion races canon, as they seem less thematically fitting.

I don't think that word means what you think it does.

I don't consider them. Meaning that they are subjectively not canon and objectively not headcanon.

[Culise]

Eh, most factions can use mindworms if they want to. Especially University as it is fairly tempting to go Green with them for a while at least. (So they can kill stray mindworms.) Spartans and Peacekeepers too, sometimes. I don't see that Deirdre is particularly unique there. She's just better at it.

As for expansion factions, as far as I recall Mr. Yo Ho Ho Svensgaard's only crime is being cheap, and the Cybernetics and Data Angels don't seem like too bad sorts except their bases probably smell like 100% dorm rooms.

Svensgaard is intentionally playing up the role of an archetypal pirate/Viking who raids other people's territory for resources, declares dominion over the seas because they're "his," and leaves room back home for anarchy and chaos that as a practical result ends in "rule of the strong"; the Cybernetic Consciousness may or may not be a rogue software algorithm that bodyjacked Aki Luttingen, and by extension anyone else who connects into the Consciousness; and the Data Angels are basically an anarchic society of hackers, which means that how good they are depends entirely on the colour of their hat (white or black, that is).  The only good faction is the secret one.

[Imperial Guardsman]

Aki willingly combined herself with multiple illegal AI and systems. Everyone joined of their own free will.

[Werdna]

... the resulting improvement in solar generation at higher elevations kind of makes sense (although I'm not really sure whether you actually get more sunlight 3km up compared to sea level).

You know how the deeper you go into water, the colder and darker it gets?  The more water that light has to move through, the more the light is scattered.  Same thing happens with gasses, its just less pronounced.  The higher your elevation, the closer you are to the atmosphere surface.  The light goes through less gas and you get more direct light to harvest.

On top of that, solar energy is rarely coming at you directly, head on - it's usually cutting through the atmosphere at an angle, so that can add a lot more gas that the light has to pass through and lose energy to before it hits a panel.  Unlike the ocean, the atmosphere gets thinner and thinner as you go up.  So if you are up high, even if the light is coming at you at an angle through miles of extra atmosphere, it's at least cutting through thinner layers of gas than it would if you were at the surface.

[aristabulus]

(werds...  ha!)

Yay, science!!!

-----

As for the general topic of CBE, I'm hoping that this is more than Civ5:Sci-Fi Edition, like the screenshots suggest.  It will be difficult to tell until it ships; Civ5's interface is clean and functional, and I'm fond of hexes...  but the UI != the game.

On the topic of 1UPT (from page 1)...  In principle, I understand why it's used as a mechanic.  Grinding through Stacks of Doom(tm) wasn't any fun in Civ4.  In practical terms, I think it would work better if the maps had more hexes overall, and movement was scaled to match.  City cores would take up more than one hex, and actually capturing a city would be a little more involved than it is currently.  My ideas for that don't really work with the level of abstraction at which Civ games tend to stay, though; I'm wishing for something more like a zoomed in Panzer General or analogue.

[jhxmt]

This thread made me reinstall SMAC.  Just started up a new game as the Hive, who I've never played as before, even in all my years of owning the game.

For the greater good.

[loose nut]

Morgan is pretty chill most of the time, but he slips into Bad Stuff later on. But his colonies are pretty much free to do whatever, as long as they pay up and produce, and if he can buy you out cheaper than it would be to beat you up, he'll gladly avoid warfare. Mixed bag.

Though that really depends on your interpretation of how much Morgan expects you to "pay up and produce"; I imagine it's quite a lot and gets to be more every year. Being a Morganite is at least as stressful as being a Spartan to my mind (though I suppose University is nearly as competitive on its own axis).

[scrdest]

Morgan is pretty chill most of the time, but he slips into Bad Stuff later on. But his colonies are pretty much free to do whatever, as long as they pay up and produce, and if he can buy you out cheaper than it would be to beat you up, he'll gladly avoid warfare. Mixed bag.

Though that really depends on your interpretation of how much Morgan expects you to "pay up and produce"; I imagine it's quite a lot and gets to be more every year. Being a Morganite is at least as stressful as being a Spartan to my mind (though I suppose University is nearly as competitive on its own axis).

Morganites are said to have expensive tastes, so the QoL can't be that bad on average, otherwise you'd have a rebellion. Plus, it doesn't get more every year - as you can tell from your funds not increasing unless you expand

Morgan is also somewhat idealistic, in his own way.

[Culise]

Morgan is pretty chill most of the time, but he slips into Bad Stuff later on. But his colonies are pretty much free to do whatever, as long as they pay up and produce, and if he can buy you out cheaper than it would be to beat you up, he'll gladly avoid warfare. Mixed bag.

Though that really depends on your interpretation of how much Morgan expects you to "pay up and produce"; I imagine it's quite a lot and gets to be more every year. Being a Morganite is at least as stressful as being a Spartan to my mind (though I suppose University is nearly as competitive on its own axis).

Actually, I'd actually imagine it to be pretty small, relatively speaking; he's pretty obsessed with the free market, after all, and nothing says "market distortion" to the free-market visionary like taxation and regulation.  Rather, it'd end up as a dog-eat-dog world of corporate warfare where everyone has to make it, at least ostensibly, on their own merits, and heaven help them if circumstance or bad luck ever conspires against them to push them down to where they can't recover.  Individually, Morganites have to worry about "keeping up with the Joneses."  University citizens (Universitians?  Universites?  Students?) have to worry about "publish or perish."  Spartans get to worry about "life [being] nasty, brutish, and short."  I wonder if there are any other pithy quotes that can be misappropriated for the other factions? 

[scrdest]

Hive's life is probably 'Work or die'

First two words are unnecessary.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Hive is interesting because they aren't actually your typical dictatorship. Yang does seem to honestly believe that the hierarchical, purpose-driven existence where the individual's only real choice is how they think about what happens to them is the best way to live. It's an irony that both he and Domail qualify for practicing what they preach despite how bitterly opposed the two of them are. And, of course, a large number of Yang's quotes carry a strange similarity to the descriptions of transcendence.

[puke]

And, of course, a large number of Yang's quotes carry a strange similarity to the descriptions of transcendence.

A large number of Yang's quotes are paraphrased directly from the source material:  Hellstrom's Hive.

[Mephansteras]

Oh, cool! Hopefully this goes as well as the X-Com reboot did.

[loose nut]

Actually, I'd actually imagine it to be pretty small, relatively speaking; he's pretty obsessed with the free market, after all, and nothing says "market distortion" to the free-market visionary like taxation and regulation.  Rather, it'd end up as a dog-eat-dog world of corporate warfare where everyone has to make it, at least ostensibly, on their own merits, and heaven help them if circumstance or bad luck ever conspires against them to push them down to where they can't recover.  Individually, Morganites have to worry about "keeping up with the Joneses."

Yes, of course, that would be the mechanism for it – Morgan would not be sticking his hand personally into every pie, but fail to achieve the expected return on investment and your department gets cut and there you are, wandering and homeless on the Pholus Ridge, waiting for a locust swarm to show up on the horizon...

[Descan]

My main issue with this is the continuation of the clusterfuck that is one-unit-per-hex. That fucked over the balancing of Civ5 and made it un-fun, and I don't want this ruined in the same way. :c