The new racial techs

By Forgottenlore, in Twilight Imperium

OK, maybe I'm just not remembering the old racial techs well enough but looking through these cards some of them seem insanely powerful.

naalu can get an advanced fighter that hits on a 7, has independent move of 2 and only counts as 1/2 ship vs fleet supply. All for 2 prerequisites.

The saar can upgrade their floating factories to have a move of 2 and production 7. Keep in mind, I think they can still produce with docks that have moved now.

A xxcha tech allows them to spend a strategy counter to end a players turn when they attack him, once a round.

Hacan tech allows them to trade strategy cards with another player for a strategy counter and three trade goods

Mental can double the value of their trade goods when spent as resources or influence

for two green prerequisites the arborec can improve their ground forces to combat seven and production 2 and give them a 50-50 chance of respawning in their home system when they die.

Is it just me or are those just crazy good?

Edited by Forgottenlore

The more oomph they give the abilities the more likely the imbalance. I can't wait to get my hands on this game!

Mentak had that same racial tech in 3e. Presumably they decided they wanted all the faction-specific stuff to have an impact, so they tried to bring it all up to that level.

48 minutes ago, Brianish said:

Mentak had that same racial tech in 3e. Presumably they decided they wanted all the faction-specific stuff to have an impact, so they tried to bring it all up to that level.

But ending a player's entire turn if they attack you? You can ONLY be attacked if multiple players decide to gang up on you?

tech overall seems to be rather more powerful too. With the new way prerequisites work, you can get to the really powerful ones much more quickly.

40 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

But ending a player's entire turn if they attack you? You can ONLY be attacked if multiple players decide to gang up on you?

tech overall seems to be rather more powerful too. With the new way prerequisites work, you can get to the really powerful ones much more quickly.

Are we sure that's correct? That could result in an SC being untapped at the end of the action phase.

5 minutes ago, Network57 said:

Are we sure that's correct? That could result in an SC being untapped at the end of the action phase.

If it is anything like to old tech, it finishes that players current action. It does not force them to pass.

In the old rules it was only so so, as it returned the counter to their reinforcements. This meant that you could respond, but if you were unable to do so (no forces in the area or had already passed), there was nothing stopping them paying another CC to repeat the action, and the tech could only be used once a round.

That's right. It ends the turn, but they still get to go when initiative comes around to them again. Ok, not as severe as I first though. Does not seem to give them back their counter anymore though.

Ok, I feel better now.

Everybody could get advanced fighters in 3E, Naalu were simply more likely to go that route because they started with a fighter combat bonus.

51 minutes ago, Braneric said:

Everybody could get advanced fighters in 3E, Naalu were simply more likely to go that route because they started with a fighter combat bonus.

But advanced fighters were pretty deep down the tech tree. Now, it can be the 3rd tech they get. Plus the move of 2. They are practically cruisers that only cost 1/2 a resource.

I dont understand why people complain about mysterious "imbalance"

Can you understand that 17 races can not be the same? One of race has one powerful tech other races has others. Like in life..people can't be the same. some birth smart some idiot, one woman is beautiful other woman is ugly..

ITS NORMAL

6 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

OK, maybe I'm just not remembering the old racial techs well enough but looking through these cards some of them seem insanely powerful.

naalu can get an advanced fighter that hits on a 7, has independent move of 2 and only counts as 1/2 ship vs fleet supply. All for 2 prerequisites.

The saar can upgrade their floating factories to have a move of 2 and production 7. Keep in mind, I think they can still produce with docks that have moved now.

A xxcha tech allows them to spend a strategy counter to end a players turn when they attack him, once a round.

Hacan tech allows them to trade strategy cards with another player for a strategy counter and three trade goods

Mental can double the value of their trade goods when spent as resources or influence

for two green prerequisites the arborec can improve their ground forces to combat seven and production 2 and give them a 50-50 chance of respawning in their home system when they die.

Is it just me or are those just crazy good?

Meh.

Fully teched-out Naalu fighters did all those things and hit on 6+

The Saar are now a bit better, increasing there production from 5 to 7 and letting them build after moving. More importantly, what fighter-capacity do they have now?

Unless the tocken you used to activate the Xxcha's system remains in play it is identical to there old tech. It doesn't prevent attacks, it only stalls them for one turn. If it remains, it is better, but you can still attack them in another system.

Hacan had a similar tech before, and it was awful. It required you to have a tread-agreement with the guy, so as soon as you researched it, no one was willing to trade with you. The new one is better, but it still discourages other players to trade with you.

The Mentak's one is identical to before.

For the Arborec they just rolled together the two technologies: Gen Systhisis and Spore Acceleration. One you would always get anyway and the other was essential to make them playable.

For the most part, they just mad it easier to get the good stuff.

Edited by Duskwalker
4 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

But ending a player's entire turn if they attack you? You can ONLY be attacked if multiple players decide to gang up on you?

They still kept the "turn" term (without reference post). They should have changed each instance of "turn" to "action" and it would be much clearer.

49 minutes ago, Fjuri said:

They still kept the "turn" term (without reference post). They should have changed each instance of "turn" to "action" and it would be much clearer.

I assume it is turn, so you can't bypass it with something like Fleet Logistics.

Edited by Duskwalker

Could someone please just post pictures all the juicy racial details to BGG? I'm dying here.

4 hours ago, zedzik88 said:

I dont understand why people complain about mysterious "imbalance"

Can you understand that 17 races can not be the same? One of race has one powerful tech other races has others. Like in life..people can't be the same. some birth smart some idiot, one woman is beautiful other woman is ugly..

ITS NORMAL

Yes, the different factions have different abilities that make them strong. That doesn't necessarily mean that there will be imbalance. I'm just saying that it is harder in a game to balance the play with such varying abilities. By making those abilities more powerful, maintaining a balance becomes more difficult. The imbalance would cause certain factions to not be played because they 'suck' as their ability isn't as effective as other's. Some factions will be fought over to be played because their ability almost guarantees a win every time.

I'm this situation balance comes if the 'op' faction became much less effective against certain other factions because their abilities basically counter the 'op' faction's ability. But those factions also had factions that could counter them that the 'op' faction could counter. That may be the case here, but again they may simply be different for the sake of being different.

3 hours ago, Fjuri said:

They still kept the "turn" term (without reference post). They should have changed each instance of "turn" to "action" and it would be much clearer.

Players get multiple "turns" each "Round," one "turn" for each time their initiative order comes up until they pass. The racial ability doesn't force them to pass, it just immediately ends their turn and play proceeds to the next initiative number that hasn't passed. I don't think it needs any clarification.

These are either identical to TI3 racial tech, or where not, it seems like they just upgraded crappy TI3 racial tech to make it finally useful -- so I'm on board!

Really, the big question is how these compare to other, non-racial tech. If the "normal" techs are an order of magnitude weaker, then yeah, that's a problem. But if what we're seeing is about the same -- or, since these are racial techs, a little bit better -- than other techs with similar prereqs, there's no real issue.

What really threw me wasn't so much the effects, but the effects combined with how easy they are to get. Yeah, the naalu just co,bones their old tech with advanced fighters and cybernetics, but advanced fighters was 7 spaces deep on the tech tree so you didn't get to it until very late in the game (and I don't remember if cybernetics was part of that chain or an addition). Now, the naalu could conceivably upgrade their fighters this way at the start of the second round.

I don't necessarily think the change is bad (now that I got the xxcha one right), but that seems like it is seriously upping the tech game.

3 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

What really threw me wasn't so much the effects, but the effects combined with how easy they are to get. Yeah, the naalu just co,bones their old tech with advanced fighters and cybernetics, but advanced fighters was 7 spaces deep on the tech tree so you didn't get to it until very late in the game (and I don't remember if cybernetics was part of that chain or an addition). Now, the naalu could conceivably upgrade their fighters this way at the start of the second round.

I don't necessarily think the change is bad (now that I got the xxcha one right), but that seems like it is seriously upping the tech game.

It really is just advanced fighters and there race tech, without cybernetics. Advanced fighters was so powerful because you could stack it on cybernetic, bringing you to a 7+ combat roll (6+ for Naalu). Now Naalu fighters have the same combat value they would have on turn 2 of TI3, but without any increase in the late game.

Edited by Duskwalker
6 hours ago, Duskwalker said:

It really is just advanced fighters and there race tech, without cybernetics. Advanced fighters was so powerful because you could stack it on cybernetic, bringing you to a 7+ combat roll (6+ for Naalu). Now Naalu fighters have the same combat value they would have on turn 2 of TI3, but without any increase in the late game.

Hmm but Advanced Fighters necesary many techs and you can have this around 6-7 round

The Arborec , this race has fatest way to Advanced Fighters. Only 4 tech if i remember

And yes its good tech BUT..you can build Destryers with turrets and those fighters are decimated..

Automated Defense Turrets will chew up fighters regardless of how many techs you dumped into them.

Each Destroyer with ADT gets 3 shots at 6+ before the first round. They may have a resource cost as much as 2 fighters, but they are half the production cost. If you have a Yin Neighbor, or a Saardak Neighbor you are going to have a rough time if your strategy is a massive fighter screen, or some advanced fighters running surgical strikes.

The racial techs looks good. All the better if they rolled the dependent lnes together.