Super Abilities

Which one is best? What do they really do?

In the descriptions, they give a general feel for what the Super Abilities do, but no hard numbers.

For example, someone on here wrote that the 'Super Breeder' ability gives you +300% population growth when your approval rating is at 100%. In the description is just says that they breed faster.

So I was wondering, by the numbers, what do the other Super Abilities really do?

As a related question, which one is the best in practice? My guess would be either the Breeder, Hive, Warrior or Isolationist ones, depending on what they actually do.

5,661 views 6 replies
Reply #1 Top
Warrior is "eh..so - so". You get first strike (When attacking, not defending) menaing all your ships shoot first, then whatevfer is left alive, shoots back. Just on the first turn.

Hive = cheap factories. So they buy faster and build faster. Hard numbers I dont got, but they are cheap.

Breeder - I think its a 8x multiplier to population growth (per planet) when you are at 100% approval.

Isolationist - Enemy vessels move at max of3 spaces per turn regardless of speed when they are in your realm of influence. And you can colonize barren planets.

Diplomat - makes your trades better for basically everything. You get better deals on everything. There arent really any hard numbers, but tech trading is easier, selling or buying ships and planets from AI's is easier, and you can talk with the AI more frequently, I think every 4 turns or so, as opposed to 12 turns. Basically it makes you smart enough, good enough, and dawgonnit, people like you.

Manupulator - You can get AI's to attack each other more easily, not real numbers to give.

Super Spy - start with counter espionage and 1 spy. Is what it is.

Super Organizer - AI's with similar ethical alignments will sometimes come to your aid when you are attacked.

Super Annilator - Spore ships. They rock. You "spore" a world, it turns toxic and becomes yours...with small colonists already there and infrastructure intact.

Super Dominator - you get little ships when you declare war on people, more ships depending on current size of your military, but not really all that great.

Super Ghey Iconian Ability - colonize aquatic and some other hostile environment, maybe radioactive? I dont really care to look at it to remember.

Super Trader - start with all the trade techs ( trade, advanced trade, master trade ) and I think either a bonus to trade or extra trade routes, I don't remember

I would play them ALL, to see which is "best" for you. My guess would be you like Hive, Breeder, or Diplomat the best.

Reply #2 Top
Yeah, going into it I thought Hive or Breeder. Hive since I'm always building tons of factories early on, and Breeder because it makes it easier to colonize quickly without getting into a money crunch.

Well I figure whichever one you pick, you can always select abilities that give the other's strength, so you could buy extra social production with the breeder, or extra population growth for the Hive. This means that the Hive will probably turn out better, since they have decent ability bonuses, and with Breeder you would be better off just doing a custom race.
Reply #3 Top
Hive: Factories (buildings that give x industry, but not buildings that give x% industry) cost 25% of the "real"/base cost to build. This also applies to rush buying if you put them in the build queue first; per the rush buy formula of base cost^1.1 (and then truncated) * 6.

Breeder: 8x bonus to pop growth at 100%, as opposed to the normal 2x. A better way to think of it is just to factor a 4x into the complete formula-that's how I think of it, anyway.

Note on Diplomat: 4 turns versus 8 turns, IIRC, not 4 turns versus 12 turns (unless this has changed in TA, which I'm still a little rusty on, but I doubt).

Just some clarifications-Piznit got the vast majority of it correct.
Reply #4 Top
If you go with Hive, just make sure you have an economy that can support all the factories.

If you go with Breeder, i would concentrate points on morale instead of (or with if you want) population growth, since the super ability only works at 100% morale.

I though that super diplomat also gave you more diplomacy so tht other races liked you a bit longer.
Reply #5 Top
If anyone knows, I'd be interested to hear how much Super Manipulator saves on buying wars. It's a lot more useful in TA with the new Drath tech tree & war profit, but I've not been able to figure out how much value for money I get (it "feels" like it works, since everyone's too busy to attack me and I'm loaded...) Also, if anyone knows how the number of Super Dominator Corvettes per war is determined I'd be interested, I've played a couple of games where Drengin have started several wars in quick succession (or I bribed all the others into attacking them) and the numbers have been unending. It's not the best ability but it gives great "evil empire" feel to any race.

In DA, my favourites are Diplomat and Isolationist, I also like Warrior because I get more experienced ships due to their longer lifespan but can survive without it. Organizer's my least favourite because it's only helpful once you're attacked, but less reliable than Isolationist as a defensive ability.
Reply #6 Top
I want to change in game description for "standard abilities" and "super abilities" but I cannot find where these descriptions are.

Can help anyone?

Regards, And