Ya I have to agree with Shadow here, the race is quite complex and even now after having read it about 4 times I'm still confused as to how exactly it works and what potential issues might creep up.

I like the idea of using red border systems as part of a gimick for a race, thats unique. Perhaps just finding a way to simplify that concept.

I agree as well that you should be weary of branching out too much into the starting techs. There are of course exceptions like the Muatt, but this is kind of trimmed by their racial starting conditions and racial disadvantage in their regard. Its in particular dangerous to have a "fast moving" race at the start of the game as this creates an element of uncertainty in particular for races like the Sardek N'orr with weak starting conditions. Its why as far as the Muatt goes they slowed the war suns, as this, not their strength is the issue of balance when it comes to that tech.

At the start of the game everyone needs room and time to grow.

The key for alot of races is to make the first 2 turns count as well as possible.

Having a race threaten your homeworld and your best double system can be crippling for turn 2.

You cannot move your fleet to take new planets because of the threat, so you are permanently behind, 2 turns in the game.

Once, Yssaril moved his entire starting fleet out on turn 1 and threatened my homeworld and best double planet, Yssaril had the Production card.

He promised not to attack but then also said that he had no choice to take my homeworld or best double planet if I left it empty, it would be silly not to take it.

So he stalled and stalled and my fleet was trapped from not being able to move and finally, he went to Mecatol Rex for turn 2.

A homebrew Muaat type race that had Warsuns that moved 2, did the same thing.

This is how a race can be broken. Being able to threaten to take systems away from you so early in the game is.... devastating.

This is why military races are SLOW, so this does not happen until turn 3 or 4 and by that time, if you play a non military race, you have time to prepare a counter strategy.

So you have to design your homebrew race so it is Balanced and Playable, but also so it does not N erf other races on the board .

This is very hard because many homebrew races are designed to be..... too good!

Apparently you guys aren't noticing my decision to replace light/wave with antimass....but anyways

Shadow, I still disagree with your whole transfer action thing. I have no idea how that could be over powered. A race gaining 1 TG per transfer...okay, but then what? You can't gain VPs with transfer actions. And moreover, your idea doesn't give them any real advantage over building 2 spacedocks in a double system and using sarween to get free stuff. And activating red tile systems...I've seen maps where the only red tiles were asteroids, novas, a gravity well, a blank nebula, and an ion storm. Half of them can't even be activated, and the others just aren't worth the trouble to exchange one command counter for a TG.

As I said before, I DON'T want them to be able to accumulate trade goods with the core ability. I think I may have an idea to show just what my original intention was.

New racial (replace long jumbled one)

After successful invasion of a planet adjacent or in a red system, place an "exhausted" refinery card in the red system. This refinery refreshes during the refresh planets step of the status phase, and may be exhausted as a planet would to provide one resource. The refinery is unusable if an enemy fleet occupies the red system, and is destroyed if no friendly noctus planets are adjacent to the red system. A red system may only ever have one refinery.

Replace racial tech 1 with:

Noctus red system refineries grant 2 resources instead of 1

Flagship

Replace 2nd half of ability with: Gains one additional shot per red system refinery owned by the noctus

I'll rewrite the whole thing once I have an idea of how that works, but do you sort of see what I'm going for here?

The transfer action thing was a way to force small fleets to surround your space docks. You implied that was very important for anyone that played your race.

Your new concept is equal to having a private trade station in a red tile system that no one can use but you.

If your neighbor wants to prevent you from getting these resources, he must sacrifice a precious counter and destroyer to keep your refinery out of the red system. It return he gains Nothing but probably provokes a war with you.

I see a problem with this idea.....

I don't see the problem. If you take away the systems next to a red system, it goes away, and it's not at all like a trade station, as you can't "refresh" to gain trade goods that can be stored. The initial idea was not to have small fleets all over the place, it was intended to give them a way of gaining resources from mormally useless space.

What I'm curious is why you want people to be able to "take away" this ability with any kind of ease? Without this one, all they can do is ignore movement penalties in blank/red systems, and easier retreats if they happen to be lucky enough to fight next to one, and how often do you see retreats anyways? Moreover, why should it be easy for someone to disrupt, most racials are either undisruptable, hard to disrupt, or are of a nature that no one really wants to go to the effort of doing it.

Seriously, look at a typical map, the preset maps for example. There are 6 red systems (7 if you include noctus homeworld), which means at most, a noctus player would have 7 refineries at their disposal. That does sound like a lot, but remember, they have to hold a system adjacent to each one to get them. That means that they are either

a. Spread extremely thin, and an easy target after parking a colony in someone elses front yard. It might not be worth 1 CC to move a destroyer to disrupt a refinery, but isn't it worth it to "sacrifice a precious counter" to move in a carrier and take over the planet, blowing up the refinery and gaining a planet or two at the same time?

b. They have so many planets that they've kind of already won, and that many resources aren't going to make much of a difference.

Perhaps I would rethink the tech that would boost the production of each refinery to 2, as that might get out of hand, but is 2-3 extra resources per turn (NOT TG) really so much of a problem?

Shadow said:

I don't.

If his "refinery in a red system" is really that big a deal for you, then provoking him to war is probably something that you SHOULD do. Your primary interest is depriving him of resources he could otherwise use, so the fact that you will likely come to blows is only natural. If it's not important enough to go to war over, then just let him have it. No problem detected.

There are many ways to play Twilight Imperium, and war IS one of them. It's not something that necessarily needs to happen, but if your opponent has an advantage you absolutely can't stand him having, war is definitely a fair solution.

Thank you steve. Any chance I could get your opinion on some of the ideas?

I would like to say, that this is a first draft, and most likely requires heavy editing, however with any given advice, bare in mind the purpose of the race, to control, manipulate, and force the political cards in their favor, combined with their trade contracts to keep their enemies off their backs. it's most likely unbalanced, but i would like advice how to amend that while keeping their main theme

The Free peoples Of Regul

in the time of the Lazax empire, there were a people known as the Ragul. Native to the planets Reg and Rul.The Regul Were either slaves or third class citizens in the Lazax empire. They were often kept as personal slaves, and several were even allowed during council sessionos. Regardless of their common foul-odor and slug-like appereance, they continued to be present at the galactic assembly, although none was allowed to speak. It was rumoured that these slaves held greater influence over their masters decisions than it appeared, specially since those who had a Ragul Slave present rose high in influence and power more often than not. During the siege of Mecatol Rex by the Sol Fleet, The Lazax abondened the Ragul Home-system, which resulted in the Ragul Scattering across the galaxy, even where they were not wanted. Their skills for trade were immence, and some deemed them useful especially places the Hacan boycotted, however on most planets, they recieved nothing but quiet contempt. During the final days of the Sol Siege, a Ragul Slave, named Ratas Dil went up to the podium of the galactic council, and gave a speech, the words spoken were later deemed holy by the Ragul, and the words were never again heard outside the Ragul. After the speech, before the guards could react they were assaulted by every Ragul in the chamber, about three dozen. Most of the senetors and guardsman were dead in a matter of moments. this shocked the Lazax greatly for the Ragul, in general had been a most submissive and obedient of races outside of the Winnu. Ratas and the remainder of the freed slaves managed to capture a Lazax vessel, and flew off the planet. Before the Sol fleet was in weapons reach Ratas sent a message to them, inclusing an image of the council chamber recordings, although the lazax vessel was borded and taken by the sol, the Ragul were allowed to go back to their home-system. When Ratas reached his home-planet of Rul he had ammased a large cult of Regul Followers, which he sent out to unite the Regul, a year later the Ragul were a power in their own right, and were granted a seat at the galactic council. However their power was never truly noticed during the dawn of the twilight wars....

trade contracts 3/2

Home System Reg 3/0 Rul 0/5

starting techs

Enviro Compensators

Micro Technology

Stasis Capsules

starting forces

1 carrier

2 fighters

2 cruisers

4 ground forces

Racial Techs

Synaptic wave generetors-(3)-unexhausted planets may still use their influence for voting

Synaptic Disintergration Cannons(5)-any unmodified combat roll of ten or higher will ignore sustain damage,in addition add a unit of the same type to the system except if the destroyed unit is a flagship, in which case add a dreadnought to the system

Racial Abilities

you do not need to pay a command counter for using the secondary of the assembly/political strategy card, in addition to the normal effects, draw a political card

when resolving the primary of the political/assembly strategy card, and you play out a political card, there is no vote, you choose the outcome and representetives are not played

when you use a refresh ability, the planet is immediatly untapped

you may as an action, once per game round pay an amount of trade goods to see an opponents hand of action cards, the price is a trade good for every two action cards.

Flagship:The will of Ratas-cost-13

5x8 sustain damage

capacity-4

move-2

in a battle including this flagship, you may negate the effects of one technology card of your opponent for the rest of the battle.

at the start of any round of combat, you may pay 3 trade goods:all of your ships recieve+1 on combat rolls for the combat round, the rolls of these modifiers count as the original roll.

Representetive

Ratas Dil XXII-councilor +3 - this councilor is immune to the effects of all spies and action cards, when this representetive is targeted by a spy, the spy's owner must pay you two trade goods or abstain from voting

Ratas Dil XXIII-+5 when this representetive is killed by an enemy spy, there is no vote, you decide the outcome, if you do not like the result of a vote, you may kill this counciler to discard the political card without it's effect resolving

Trygonian Septimer-spy +4-target a representetive, that representive must abstain from voting

This race is really unbalanced. But I will give some suggestions as to why and how you could fix it.

First, lets start with the assumption a homebrew race should not be more powerful then the original 14 races. Anything more then that would be too much. It will be incrediably hard to balance the race if it is too powerful.

trade contracts 3/1 or possibly 2/1 typical of a non military race, lower contract if can expand fast. Winnu or Yssaril

Home System 2/3 Rul 1/2 or 1/1 hard to refresh homeworld to large resources. XXcha or Yssaril

starting techs Your starting techs are too good.

Enviro Compensators, Stasis Capsules or Antimass deflectors and Micro tech. Winnu or a wimpy tech and a deeper tech.

starting forces:

1 carrier, 2 fighters. 1 cruiser. 4 ground forces typical of Hacan and Micro tech starting tech

3 ground forces, 1 carrier, 1 cruiser, 2 fighters, 1PDS, 1 space dock Winnu and Stasis capsule starting tech.

Choose between slow and more trade goods or faster expansion with crusiers.

Racial Techs

Synaptic wave generetors-(6) - Before a vote, choose 1 planet. That planet's votes will not be counted.

Synaptic Disintergration Cannons(6)- Choose one of your ships before a combat roll, if that ship roll a 1, it is destroyed. If it hits, it inflicts 1 extra hit.

(This will make even one of your isolated ships more dangerous then usual, but at a cost.)

Racial Abilities

you do not need to pay a command counter for using the secondary of the assembly/political strategy card.

Whenever you draw a political card, you draw two political cards and discard one.

when resolving the primary of the political/assembly strategy card, if you hold the Speaker token, you gain 3 votes.

You may as an action, once per game round, refresh 1 of your planets whose influence is greater then its resources.

(As action ability is extremely powerful, you need to eliminate another ability to compensate)

You have tried to copy nearly all the great abilities of all the races in the game.

Do not make a homebrew race better then the strongest races.

Hacan, Yssaril, Winnu(original) gets tossed in alot of games because of what expert players can do with them.

Try to see what races are similiar to the one you want to make and tweak your race from there.

You will save alot of time in your design work.

In the old forum from 3 years ago, all the hardcore players picked through all the races to see why the designer did what he did and how it was balanced.

Homeworlds, as an action abilities, starting fleets, starting techs and even leaders.

Unfortunately most of those conclusions disappeared with the old forum. Hours of debates was lost.

It is very hard to make a balanced homebrew race if you do not follow those conclusions.

The more powerful a player insists on a homebrew race should be, the bigger the negative that race must have.

Example:

Winnu gets always gets the 4 votes from the homeworld

XXcha gets to cancel a proposed agenda.

The penalty the races get is:

1. Both races are slow expansion

2. Homeworld canot be refreshed for Winnu 3/4 and refreshing XXcha's 2/3 homeworld is not worth it.

The homebrew races that has been purposed to Dominate Politics are much more powerful then the XXcha and Winnu advantages in politics.

The negative that a homebrew race that would Dominate Politics would almost make the homebrew race...... unplayable.

to shadow

although i do agree that the race should be nerfed, your advice chose to replace the original concepts behind several of my ideas, rather than to modify them, the high trade contracts were intended, as the fluffkinda takes them as 2nd to the hacan in trading and helping in making it unique to the other races.

its ability to dominate the vote, is only when they activate the primary, and play a card from their hand. the original thought behind this was that their opponents would take the assembly more often than not, just to deny them the ability, which when you think about it is going to be most of the time. the race may stil require editing however here is the second draft

you didn't say anything about the reps and the flagship, i would be interested in your opinion of those

some modifications

trade contracts 3/2

Reg 2/2 Rul 1/4

Starting techs: Enviro Compensators, Micro Technology, Antimass Deflectors

Starting Forces: 2 Carriers, 2 fighters, 1 cruiser, 4 ground forces, space dock

Leaders:Diplomat, Agent, Admiral

Racial Techs

Synaptic Wave Generator(6)-during the voting step, you may choose to pay up to 6 recources to count an exhausted planet's influence for the vote for the price of two recources for each planet

Synaptic Disintegration Cannons-(7) when an unmodified combat roll of 10 is made by one of your units(except pds units), instead of inflicting a hit destroy a single unit in the combat, you may then add a unit of the same type by paying half it's recource count in influence, to the battle.

Racial Abilitys:

You so not pay strategy allocation for using the secondary of the Assembly/political Strategy card

when you are the primary activator of the assembly strategy card, you may give the speaker token to the player to the left and play out a political card from your hand. There is no vote, you decide the vote's outcome.(by forcing the speaker token left you effectively put yourself at the last of the strategy picks next round)

whenever the assembly card is activated you draw a political card, this is in addition to any other effect.

when you use a refresh ability, the planet is immediatly untapped.

During combat: your opponent may choose to re-roll any unmodified roll of 1

you may not activate a system controlled by a player whom you have a trade contract with.

The WIll Of Ratas cost:13

5x8, capacity:3, move:2 sustain damage, At the start of a battle including this ship choose one of your opponent's technology card and negate it.

you may pay 3 trade goods for you to recceive +1 on all of you're ships combat rolls, any roll of 9 is considered an unmodified roll of 10.

Representetives.

Ratas Dil XXXII-councilor +4

This councilor is immune to the effects of all spies, and action cards. When this representetive is targeted by a spy, the spy's owner must pay you two trade goods or kill his spy.

Trygonian Septimer-Spy+2. target a representetive, this representetive must abstain from voting.

Ragas, High priest of Dil+5- councilor- when this representetive is killed by an enemy spy, there is no vote, andyou decide the result of the political card. during the end of a vote, you may kill this spy to discard the political card without resolving it's effect

Actually your race is better then the Hacan's.

Microtech makes your trade agreements as good as Hacan.

Your race first tech pick will be Nano tech. Hacan has to do two techs to get this tech and by then it may not be worth it.

Your race will expand super fast with 2 cruisers with stasis capsules and Nanotech.

Then your race just owns Politcs.

Your 3/0 howeworld planet is ideal with a 2/1 planet for the ultimate refresh planets.

Not just a little tweaking is needed to balance this out.

Granted, this would not happen every game, but this would happen alot.

There is absolutely no downside to this race.

i decided to put my thoughts of The Noctus

Starting tech

Enviro Compensator
Stasis Capsules
Light/Wave Deflectors

(comment)

I think a race starting with Light/wave Deflectors is an awesome idea, but it should have an early on limit like the Muuat has on the warsun tech. My idea would be, until you have researched the prerequisites, when you go through an enemy fleet, you may not start a space battle, and you may only invade neutral planets. fitting with the fluff of the diplomatic vessel reaching Mecatol Rex.

(comment)

Starting Fleet

2 Carriers
2 Fighters
3 GF
1 PDS
1 Cruiser
1 Spacedock

(comment)

i think 1 carrier, two cruisers, two fighters, three ground force would fit both for the fluff and for added speed. getting at least two ground forces on with a move of two.

(comment)

Dark Matter Reactor: +3 resources

Noctus ships gain +1 on
combat rolls when fighting in a spacial anomaly,
and gain +1 to movement and combat rolls if they
begin their activation inside a spacial anomally.

(comment)

i like the the idea, however i'ts too cheap in my opinion, i would recommend increasing the cost to 5 or maybe 6 recources.

(comment)

Still working on ideas for the representatives. As I said, it hasn't been play tested so I have yet to see if any of the ideas are over/under powered. I'm open to suggestions

(comment)

i had ideas, just to throw them in there.

Bodyguard -+2when this representetive is targeted by a spy, you may force the spy to choose another target.

Councilor -Councilor+1- all bonus votes(including from this representetive) count negetive rather than positive.

(Kinda inspired by the fluff. The negetive votes represent the confusion this representetive causes.

Spy -+3 Assasinate a repressentitive, if the target is killed, you may place a darkmatter token on any red-bordered or empty system you control.

( Comment)

Shadow said:

i took off a cruiser and added a carrier, i changed the homeworld to 2/2 1/4.

the hacans racial stacks with micro, and they have sarween tools adding 1 to their constructions. and no -one may deny them the trade and no-one may brake it, making the hacan the superior traders although the gap might perhaps be greater

i replaced stasis capsules with antimass deflectors. requiring them to tech for either xrd transporters, or stasis capsules to expand quickly.

i added two abilitys that are downsides, they may perhaps be made more severe, but they are there

one allowing your opponent to re-roll any combat roll of 1. this may sound like little, but with the amount of combat rolls made against you during the average game there are going to be several of them, some might even come at critical moments.

the other forbidding you to activate systems controlled by a player you have a trade contract might hinder you from taking special objectives you're trading partners taking.

i changed their Political domination effect, when they are the primary activator of assembly, and if the player wants to choose the vote, the player on his left will have the speaker token, resulting in the Regul Player choosing the strategy card last during the next round

otherwise, a coilition of 2-3 players will most likely have equal or greater influence regardless of his abilitys to gain it

your points seem mostly spawned from the first draft. Did you read the second draft entirely, becase in your comment, you do not seem to. so read the second draft before you lay a comment suggesting me to change what already is diffrent

1.

+1 movement from your homeworld and Light wave deflectors, you are kidding...... right?

With Warfare II, your crusiers have movement 4 for turn 1.

That is broken.

For the first 2 turns, all races are just trying to claim the planets within 2 of their homeworld.

They do not need you sailing in poaching planets and blocking their ships movement.

In order to chase you out, they have to send 2 or 3 ground troops and 3 or 4 ships to ensure they kill your crusiers.

Anyone you mess with on turn 1 and 2 will be hurting long term in the game. That is not fair.

The only realistic way the other races can stop you from poaching planets is to build pds with Deep Space cannons.

You already know that alot of players absolutely detest players that build the "pds grid of death".

This would Require all players to build pds with Deep Space cannons.

2. Nebulas already give +1 for defense, your race would defend at +2 and not have the restriction of movement 1 out of red tile system.

That movement restriction is there for a reason.

Your ships would always fly into a red tile system to be safe and ambush any light fleet in range 2 of the red system.

3. Dark Matter Reactor: +3 resources Is this a racial tech,? This essentialy makes your homeworld better then L1Z1x or Barony!

If you do not believe your race isn't broken, play 4 or 5 games and see what the results are?

Make sure that someone else plays the race and you are the neighbor getting hit by them. You will see if the race is balanced or not.

I respond to 1 post at a time. Because you cannot delete posts in this forum, I re edit my message before posting and it may take an hour or two.

Most of my suggestions were to tone the race down so they could be used in normal game.

You may be better off timewise to just create several homebrew races and only play them against each other.

Most homebrew authors are very committed to the abilities that they give a race that they cannot balance the race enough to make them playable with the original races.

This happened alot on the old forum and only about 1/4 of the homebrew designers could get it right.

It is the main hazard of designing a race, going overboard.

My thoughts

I feel like they don't need antimass, with all the strength you've given them they dont' really need more than 2 techs

Among the advantages you've given them:

a combined total of 9 influence/resources. This is higher than any in the game currently, they certainly don't need such ridiculous influence if they have the ability to auto-determine political cards.

I do believe though you have the right idea with giving the speaker to the player to your immediate left, that may balance out the card a little. Drawing a political card every time assembly is played is not good, don't forget that they can be spent as trade goods as well.

Your weaknesses...the trade agreements one is good if you put the stipulation that your aggreements may only be broken via the abilities of the trade card, or via your opponents consent, as it would be too easy for you to just "Oh I break this trade agreement" and then attack. It would make the one preliminary ability "traitor" unbeatable for your race, thus borking you out of a secret objective.

Untapping "refresh" planets is ridiculous if you consider trade stations, those would be worth 4 of influence or resources every turn

Your "reroll 1's" weakness isn't nearly powerful enough to compensate the abilities you've given. My suggestion: Any rolls of 1 by any side in a space battle will hit the Regul fleet regardless of who rolled it.

As far as your reps go...

rep 1: +4 votes and the ability to kill other spies while being immune to everything? Pick one or the other

rep 2: This one I actually feel is balanced

rep 3: Reduce votes given and I think you'd be okay. He appears to be the "last ditch this must pass" kind of rep for that crucial vote. I will say he could be very dangerous with things such as "public execution", being able to insta-screw one person at the board.

The flagship is ridiculous, I'm sorry, but 8 shots that land on a 5 and movement 2? That's like having 8 dreadnoughts in the system. Did you mean 8x5? Still this is a little much on top of the bonuses you've given, the high alert token would make it better than just about any other flagship out there. As far as your bonuses, nix the 2nd one, I like the idea of the first one.

Your first racial tech is good, your second is flat out unbalanced, insta-killing a war sun or dread and getting one for half price is just too much at once.

Honestly, my biggest suggestion: Make them strong in trade, or in politics, not both

As far as your suggestions for my race...

Check my latest changes, I'll put them all up at once if I can get a little more feedback. I do like your rep ideas, though the 3rd needs to be updated. As far as the racial tech you commented on, consider this, it's kind of like the warfare token in that you have to move to the system the previous round and that your opponent can likely see it coming.

The generalization about "most homebrew creators" is not true shadow. I usually try to make them balanced against other official races, when creating I take a look at what various races start with and attempt to put things at approximately the same level. Moreover I've proven that I'm willing to negotiate provided the person doing the critiquing isn't trying to make the homebrew race weaker than a regular race as it is.

All critiques are made to help.

Of course the critique may be totally wrong.

It is up to the person to decide if the critique has merit.

As far as the successful homebrew authors, even the most successful have only a 80% success record.

The main problem with the other 20% is the author was in too love with his design to alter it enough to make it playable.

That happpens... So you just play those 20% races in special games. Those games can be fun too.

To BroWoodstock

the flagship was intended to be 5 dyes that hit on 8s, not the otherway around, typo on my part. im still thinking about reducing it to 4 dyes.

i agree i shoiuld remove antimass deflectors

i agree the combined rec/inf value of 9 is a bit to much

although you may only break your agreement during the status phase, thus giving the opponent proper warning, but i still agree it should restrict the player to end his trade contracts

i agree the re-rolling ones isn't hindering enough, everyone receives +1 on combat rolls against them instead

the untapping the refresh ability is a bit too much i agree, im going to tone it down a bit.

i agree completely with your opinions of the representetives.

im gonna nerf the racials, they may need further editing even after the fact

To shadow and Browoodstock.

you may feel im changing things at too slow a speed, and you may be right. im doing this slowly as not to disrupt the theme of the race, and if i change everything in one fell swoop i fear i might do just that, and that's why there will probably be about 5 drafts in total before the race feels reasonable, i hope you keep the advice coming, it has been very helpful so far.

Third Draft.

Trade Contracts 3/2

Home Systems: Reg 2/2, Rul:0/4 only two recources, besides several races have the combined recourses of 8, so i deem this fine.

Starting Techs: Enviro Comppansators, Micro Technology

Starting Forces: 2 carriers, 1 cruiser, 2 fighters, 3 ground force

Racial Techs

Synaptic Wave Generators (6)-during any vote, You may count a single exhausted planet unexhausted for the purposes of voting only, you may then choose to count two more planets unexhausted for voting for the price of two recources each.

Synaptic Disintegration Cannons - (6) when Any unit except pds, rolls an unmodified combat roll of 10, the hit assigned by your opponent ignores the sustain damage, and/or the evasion special rules after wich you may pay half the unit's recource value in influence and add that unit to the combat, in the case of a mercenery or a flagship you may not add them to your side using this technology

Racial Abilitys.

you do not need to pay strategy allocation to execute the secondary of the assembly strategy card, when executing the secondary you may draw a political card, in addition to other effects.

when using a refresh abiity, gain 1 trade good, in addition to any other effect.

when you activate the primary effect of the assembly, you may play a political card from your hand and resolve it's effect without a vote, you choose the outcome, if you used this effect, the player to your left receives the speaker toxen.

you may never willingly brake a trade contract, you may not activate systems controlled by players whom you have a trade contract.

all enemies receive a +1 to all combat rolls when in combat against you. if you lose a space battle, the player who won it receives 1 trade good.

Flagship - The will of Ratas. cost:13

5x8(5dyes on 8s to clarify.)

capacity 3

move 2

at the start of a battle you may choose a single technology card your opponent has, it's effect is negated for the duration of the battle.

at the start of a combat round, you may pay three trade goods to receive a +1 on this ship's combat rolls, any 9 rolled by your ships during this combat round counts as an unmodified roll of 10.

Representetives

Ratas Dil XXXII+3- Councilor . This representetive is immune to the effects of all spies and action cards, in addition when this representetive is targeted by a spy, the spy's owner must pay you two trade goods or abstain from voting.

Trygonian Septimer+2- spy target a representetive, that representetive must abstain from voting.

Ragas, High priest of Dil+3-councilor. When this representetive is killed by an enemy spy, or an enemys action card there is no vote, and you decide it's outcome. after any vote you may kill this representetive to discard the political card without resolving it's effect.

Third draft complete, i look forword to your thoughts

The "may not willingly break a trade contract or activate a system of a player with whom you have a trade contract" is a wierd, but interresting touch.

Noctus V.2

Racials

Noctus suffer no movement penalties from red systems. Other effects are resolved normally, supernovae are

still impassable, and fleets may still not end movement in asteroid fields.

Noctus fleets may execute a strategic retreat without paying a strategy
counter if the destination system is empty or red bordered

After successful invasion of a planet adjacent or in a red system, place an "exhausted" refinery card in the red system. This refinery refreshes during the refresh planets step of the status phase, and may be exhausted as a planet would to provide one resource. The refinery immediately exhausts without benefit if an enemy fleet occupies the red system, and is destroyed if no friendly noctus planets are adjacent to or in the red system. A red system may only ever have one refinery.

Starting tech

Enviro Compensator
Stasis Capsules
Antimass Deflectors

Starting Fleet

2 Carriers
2 Fighters
3 GF
1 PDS
1 Cruiser
1 Spacedock

Homeworld

The Darkstar Fleet

3/3 Red border. System has no special rules other than as applies to the noctus racial, and during setup red border systems may still be played adjacent to the Darkstar fleet

Leaders: Diplomat, Scientist, Admiral

Trades: 2/2

Racial Technologies

Deep space supply lines

A noctus red system refinery adjacent to a system containing a friendly spacedock gives 2 resources instead of one, and increases the build capacity of adjacent space docks by 1 for each refinery

Dark Matter Reactor: +3 resources

Noctus ships gain +1 on
combat rolls when fighting in a red or empty system,
and gain +1 to movement and combat rolls if they
begin their activation inside a red or empty system. These effects are not cumulative

Flagship

Black Nova

Sustain Damage

Cost: 12
Move: 1
Combat: 6x1*
Carry: 4

The Black Nova gains 2 additional attacks
when fighting inside a spacial anomaly, and
gains one additional shot per red system refinery owned by the noctus

to me tis is really looking good, except i still think +3 recources are to cheap to get +1 move, and +1 on combat rolls when fighting in/from a red-bordered system, specially when considering the combination with warfare II, at least three movement and +2 on the combat rolls, your carriers become as good as cruisers...(without hylar V), i still recomend either increasing it's cost, or having it like this.

Dark matter Reactor+3

Any Noctus ships fighting in an empty, or red-bordered system receive +1 to all combat rolls.

when beginning their activation in an empty or red-bordered system they receive +1 movement and +1 to all combat rolls in the first round of combat.

these effects are not cumulative

having it only the first round of combat lessens its effectiveness without making it pointless. with +1 on all combat rolls during the entire battle would essentially tear through most other fleets. However with +1 on the first round makes it very powerful without going through the top.

the rest of the race looks well balanced and looks to be a fun race to play, with or against, tou just need to make representetives.

p.s you left out the cost for deep-space supply lines, my guess would be 3-4 though.

The Regul Fourth Draft.

Racial Abilitys

You do not need to pay strategy allocation for using the secondary of the assembly strategy card, and you may draw a political card when you exucete the secondary.

When Activeting The Primary of the Assembly Strategy Card, and you play out a political card, you may choose to resolve it without voting, and you choose it's outcome. If you use this affect the player to your immediete right receives the Speaker Token.

You may Never Willingly Brake one of your trade contracts(including trade secondary). You may not activate a system controled by a player whom you have a trade contract. If you receive the Traitor preliminary objective, draw another preliminary objective.

when you use a Refresh ability roll a dye, if the roll is 8 or higher receive two trade goods.

all players receive +1 to all combat rolls when fighting in a space battle against you, when you lose a space battle the victor receives one trade good.

Trade Contracts 3/2

Home System - Reg 2/2, Rul 0/4

Starting Techs : Enviro Compensators, Micro Technology.

Starting Forces :2 carriers, 1 cruiser, 2 fighters, 3 ground force.

Racial Techs

Synaptic Wave Generator(4) During voting you may count a single exhausted planet unexhausted for the purposes of voting only. In addition you may pay up to three trade goods, to get two votes for each.

Synaptic Disintegration Cannons(6) - when a player activates a system you control roll on this table. Opponent=player who activated controlled system.

1-5-Nothing Happens

6-Reduce your're opponents number of hits by one during the first round of combat.

7-8-Take one command counter from your opponent's command pool and add it to his reinforcements

8-9-take one command counter from your opponent's strategy allocation and add it to his reinforcements.

10-take one command counter from your opponent's fleet supply command pool, or strategy allocation and add it to his reinforcements, and add a command counter to your strategy allocation from your reinforcements.(if able)

this, i think catches the racial fluff better than the first racial tech idea, as this race would much rather fight a war of attricion wittling down their foes recources and communications(as represented by the lost command counters) than some lucky-shot guns that take over enemy ships

Representetives :

1.Ratas Dil XXXII- Councilor+3 :this representetive is immune to the effects of all spies, and all action cards. When this representetive is targeted by a spy, the spy's owner must either pay you two trade goods, or abstain from voting.

2.Trygonian Septimer- Spy+2 T arget a representetive, that represetetive must abstain from voting

3.Ragas, High priest of Dil-Councilor- +4 -when this representetive is killed(except by his own effect) there is no vote,and you choose the outcome of the political card, when a vote is done, you may kill this representetive to discard the political card without resolving it's effect.

Flagship-"The Will Of Ratas"-Cost 12

4x8

move :1

capacity :4

sustain damage.

All enemy ships in the same system as this ship receive a -2 to all combat rolls (essentially a -1 because everyone gets+1 against the regul.)

Fourth Draft Complete.

Better...I still think a few things need toning down.

Racials

Honestly, nix the refresh ability thing. There is no real reason I can see, thematic or otherwise why they should get 2 TG when using the refresh of hopes end to get shock troops. Refresh abilities are special enough without additional bonuses

For the assembly ability, did you mean player to your left? I thought the original concensus was that you should be last to pick the strategy card, not second.

Techs

Only reason I don't like the first one is that they gave the winnu that one already, just by buying a tech you steal their racial. Leave it at paying 2TG per to use up to 3 exhausted planets for votes and I think your good.

For the second...the idea I'm seeing you want is that on a roll of 10, you get to mess around with your opponents mind. It might be possible to balance that...but messing around with command counters is just too much. They are a core mechanic of a game, and a person should really only run out if they've screwed up. There are a few AC's that can do this, but they're extremely powerful, and the random nature of AC's means it's a rare occurence. Such a powerful ability should not be obtainable as an every round thing for a race. Yes, the tech is expensive, but giving a 40% chance on a 10 to completely ruin an opponents round is overpowered, I don't care if you're spending 6 extra resources on the tech. My suggestion, just make it a flat "For every 10 you roll, you may negate one regular hit your opponent scores on you". This gives the "war of attrition" style combat that will last longer than it should, and kinda represents your fleet messing around with the aim of the enemy.

Reps:

Again, with the first one, pick one ability or the other, he does not need 2 abilities. Moreover, that thing is more like a bodyguard. Being flat out immune to ANYTHING (even AC's) and not just being killed is extremely powerful, you don't need 2TG's and 3 votes on top of that. If you want to make him immune to being killed, fine, but not to any effect.

The flagship is balanced now I think...again, I think you meant 8x4, not 4x8.

Something to think about...I know you want a race that is very powerful in the political phase...but aside from the +1 that everyone gets to combat, and a measly 1 TG for victory, how really would you oppose this race? You've given them so many ways to guarantee the political phase goes their way and made it so painful to attack them (TG up the wazoo means lots and lots of ships), just how in the world is a player supposed to beat them?