So, I got into this quite heavily and I've got some feedback.
First off, map settings:
Code:
Huge
Marathon
Raging Barbarians
No Tech Brokering
No Expansion or Fan Expansion Factions
Half of the victory conditions removed.
This is pretty much my classic SMAC setup when playing as the Gaians (Well, SMAC maps are larger, so I generally stick to normal sizes there), and while I know the more aggressive mindworms favor the Gaians, it feels as though things are completely broken in the mod.
So, the Gaians get a +1 Nutrient bonus for Xenofungus in both versions, but in SMAC this is damn near useless in the early game and only gradually ramps up to being powerful at the very end of the tech tree once you've unlocked the other Xenofungus resource bonuses due to the fact that Xenofungus overrides all innate tile production. But in CoC, not only does Xenofungus retain the resources production from the tile underneath, but you also benefit from the +2 resources from the Energy/Mineral/Nutrient Bonuses. On top of *that*, you can outright build Field Labs on top of strategic resources without removing the Xenofungus. My capitol had two tiles producing four food right out of the gate (Nutrient Bonus and Monolith; both in Xenofungus) and the running average for every other tile worked was also around two food. I had serious health issues in the early game so my capitol's size was limited a bit initially, but once I unlocked the various health boosting strategic resources and expanded aggressively (More on that later), it's been in a constant population boom: 17 people and I've still got a surplus of +7 with one pop working as a specialist.
What's more, however, is that I seem to be the only faction capable of fighting the natives. Lal got knocked out very quickly; I'm hestiant to say that it was in the first dozen or so turns, but it sure felt that way. Miriam lost her capitol in the early/mid game transition. And everyone else save for Santiago is stuck on three or four bases...While I'm now sitting on twenty and with plans for five more. But even in Santiago's case, she might have seven bases but one of them is a five pop base that still hasn't expanded its boarders. Earlier in the game colony count was a bit closer to parity, but the combination of my absurd Planet Attitude (+8 early on; now +9) that gave me +24% vs native life and the innate double movement Gaian units get in Xenofungus meant that no one could compete with my rate of expansion.
Back in the early/mid game transition (I had just produced a couple Isle of the Deeps; a tech I got by blowing a Transcend immediately after researching the prior tech), I saw University sending a massive fleet of Gun Boats my direction. We had open boarders at the time, but I thought for sure he was heading over to backstab me. Turns out that the other factions simply need more than a dozen ships in a fleet in order to stand a chance against native life, especially the Fungal Towers. I, however, only needed to produce a couple Isle of the Deeps, use their starting experience to give them the Empath Song ability (+25% vs native life, 100% chance to capture native life when they're defeated), and in conjunction with my absurd Planet Attitude I was on my way to having a fleet of 61 Isles that cost no upkeep once I got the technique down. At the very least, Empath Song shouldn't have a 100% chance to capture native life.
Which brings me to my second major balance gripe: Unity Pods are incredibly broken when it comes to providing technologies. As it stands, they will provide you with a full free tech...despite the fact that the cheapest tech I can research costs a bit over 11k tech points. This is an issue that's come up largely because of the map size (More pods) and aggressive native life (AI has difficulty getting them), but it's definitely something that needs to be addressed. My suggestion would be to scale their bonus based on the tech's tier, and to apply the bonus to the tech you're currently researching instead of a random tech. For the bonus, I'd suggest something like 50% T1, 33% T2, 25% T3, etc., with a minimum bonus of 10%. Of course, these bonuses would need to scale based on the speed of the game as well (10% is nothing on Quick), but they'd make a good starting point for Marathon. It's a dramatic nerf for sure, but it's absurdly broken at the moment and it's still significantly more useful than a Unity Foil in the middle of half a dozen Isles. Hilariously, the bonus credits I get as a result of Hypnotic Trance are what's keeping my economy afloat. Despite currently hemorrhaging 106 credits each turn and 50+ for most of the game, I'm still sitting on a stockpile of 10k+. Some of that came from selling tech, but I'm sure I'd still have a modest stockpile without that trading.
tldr: Gaians OP, Empath Song OP, Tech from Unity Pods OP.
Other thoughts:
Monoliths are buggy when it comes to native lifeforms as they give Morale 1 instead of Lifecycle 1.
Centauri Preserve wonder feels pretty useless right now. Sure, it gives an immediate +1 Planet Attitude, but it does nothing to actually keep it up. But maybe that's just because the jump from 8 to 9 PA feels less meaningful than the jump from -0.4 to 0.6 PA.
The University being able to avoid the No Tech Brokering setting seems really gamey. It's useless when the setting isn't used, and is horribly OP if used when the player is playing as University.
Other factions often seem really underpowered. Lal is the big one here.
Genejack Factories feel a bit overpowered. The +2 production bonus for Technicians means that they're producing as much as tiles with average productivity ("Productivity" being a combination of food and minerals) and makes them one of the best choices for your free specialists. Or, god forbid, you happen to play on settings like mine and get 7+ Technicians in a single city as a result of Supply Trawlers.
There needs to be more information available on the new victory conditions introduced. I'm reluctant to pick up my original game again due to not understanding the new victory conditions.
The AI needs to be flagged to defend Material Supplies it sends back to its towns. Despite my aggressive exploration, the only one I was able to grab was stolen from Hive's doorstep. Not sure if this is really possible, but it's worth looking into. This might've been some fluke, however.
Ridges seem a bit useless for Hybrid based economies. Your only non-PV hurting option is Windmills and Solar Collectors. Best idea I've come up with is to focus on putting potential Mines and Farms on ridges in order to maximize the amount of low lying terrain you have available for Xenofungus or Hybrid Forests. With weaker conditions, you're better off not even improving the ridge tile and just making the pop a specialist.
The -2 PV for Edens seems to be a bit excessive. Either scale the -PV growth back (0.5 -> 0.75...->1.25) or drop the initial -PV down to 0 (0 -> 0.5...->1.5). As it stands Edens have a -PV that's equivalent to a god damn *borehole*. Hell, combining the two might be best (0.25 -> 0.5...->1.0).
On a similar note, bump the -PV up for Mines (0.75 would likely be ideal, but 1.0 might also work depending on how Farms get balanced) and boreholes (Between 2.5 and 3.0).
Not sure how I feel about food being used for the production of Formers and native units.
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Pretty sure that about covers things. It might seem like I'm overly critical of the mod, but I've been enjoying the hell out of it this past weekend.
