Imperial Historian, on 04 January 2021 - 03:43 PM, said:
What do people make of the changes to the existing races - it seems like some of the weaker races have been boosted, winnu and sardakk both seem to have gained quite a lot in terms of extremely useful agents and commanders. Hopefully the resultant race mix will be slightly better.
Muaat are still awful though.
Arborec and Winnu can now expand to two systems in round 1, which should help their slow start immensely, albeit they have to use up their agent on it so it's still not quite as good as all the factions that start with 2 carriers and can use their agent for something else. I don't think that makes the Arborec amazing or anything, but it's definitely a big boost. That early expansion boost for Winnu plus their mechs and commander and hero sound like they're potentially crazy strong now, though perhaps difficult to play and maximize actually using all those things.
Muaat get to expand to 2 systems in round 1 from their agent now, too, and I think you're wrong about them still being awful. That commander (+1 TG every time you do a secondary) is ridiculously good. Unlocking it will be hard, yeah, but they should be going for a 2nd war sun anyway, plus the new red techs help them research war sun II sooner.
Sardakk new abilities are weird, but I like the idea. The +1 to all units thing was cool, but it didn't give them much of an identity. Now they're the +1 to all combats AND can invade adjacent planets without ships faction, which is way more terrifying.
Hacan mech and commander seem really situational so not a lot of change to how they will play, I think, but holy crap that hero is ridiculous.
Jol-Nar changes are really small stuff, but I think that's good they felt very strong already.
Saar felt really strong already, too, but they still got some big new abilities. Worried they might be overpowered.
L1Z1X commander (ignore planetary shield) is a big deal for them, as it means all their other special abilities can't be easily countered by a PDS now. I think that means they'll be a really aggressive offensive faction now.
Mentak, Nekro and Naalu seem like a weird grab-bag of miscellaneous new abilities, dunno if they'll be strong changes or not.
Sol, Letnev, Creuss, Yin and Yssaril seem like they're just even better at what they already did.
Xxcha too are sort of better at what they already did, or maybe more like better at what they were *supposed* to already do. The Xxcha abilities to manipulate agenda voting always seemed kinda weak. Their new stuff really makes them sound a lot better at being a politics-themed faction (and EVEN MORE PDS). I'm excited to try them out.
Help
Also a bit tech specialty-heavy since there's a lot of new mechanics related to tech specialties we don't want to miss out on.
