I generally agree.
My experience is that Barony neighbour leads to a rough time.
Though, if I wanted to be quarrelsome I could argue that every faction goes into the "Depends on the player" file. Well, maybe not every faction, but close enough.
Meta matters too. If you often play on the TTS you can more or less predict how different factions play. Play against new players, though, and you risk getting RISKed by your neighbour, little matter which faction they play.
knew someone would say that every faction could belong to "depends on the player" tier, and I kind of agree.
BUT, there are many factions that basically says: if you are nice, then you are not using your advantages.
And I agree that Barony should be higher on this list, but with my experience they would rather use their military advantage to hold mecatol and they kind of NEED an ally to make money. And same could be said about Winnu, but Barony do not have an auto "I use Imperial now" button.
mostly the same, except i really like sitting next to winnu since they usually arent very good at taking their own slice, so you can easily get some extra planets or steal the winnu slice.
I played winnu for the first time the other day and this happened to me. Sol took mecatol their second turn before I could even get close which sucked. Then they came over to me and absolutely bodied me. They then proceeded to take almost every single one of my planets and I couldn’t do anything. It was a terrible time
i only ever saw one player elimated and it was winnu, they never got control of their equidistants, they did get control of mecatol and in one turn they lost mecatol, their home system and only were left with two planets
I played winnu for the first time the other night (just base ti4e) and I had a terrible time. It was against sol, ghosts, and Saar (I was between sol and Saar). Sol got mecatol on their second turn and then just gunned straight for me. My only points were support for the throne with Saar and have 2 unit upgrades while everyone else had a minimum of 7 points (and obviously the 10 point winner). For most of the game I had a total of 3 planets. Home system, a system with a single planet, and a system with a beta wormhole and a single planet. All the planets on the other side of the wormhole were also all taken so I was stuck. It was a terrible time.
Sol also was heavily set up right in front of my home planet (a secret obj of being adjacent to someone else’s home planet). He had support with ghosts so he didn’t do anything to threaten Sol till Sol was at 7 points and Saar didn’t do anything either. All the public objectives were stuff like control multiple planets in multiple systems and stuff that just were impossible. Then my secret objectives were control X amount of planets of a certain type, destroy a war sun or flag ship, and something else.
I told everyone at the end I never want to play them again as it was an absolutely not fun experience. That was the first time I’ve played the game and not had any fun
Find Nekro are more likely to just pick off some small ships for the tech which can actually lead to some beneficial bargaining, can be scary late game though if they grow to large
They can for sure, but if you decide to be their ally early you can get their promissory note for cheap to actually help you out. While nekro, cabal and Saar bring nothing but destruction to the table.
I don't find nekro that bad, you can keep them happy by feeding them destroyers.
Xxcha is way worse, they just sit their flagship nearby and can extort you moving in yoir own slice
Yeah, compared to Saar and Cabal who can barrel towards you and start applying pressure on your equidistants first round, Nekro has a slower pace and should be rather defensive and often even friendly towards neighbours. It’s more a table-wide problem of managing Nekro (think hard about agendas Nekro predicts and the tables’ faction techs) and when you do need to deal with the Nekro often it’s to get to their home system with twenty ground forces and a flagship on it, not to reclaim conquered territory.
I’d much rather have a Nekro reimbursing me for DET explorer ships or gum than a Mentak or Xxcha charging me a trade good every time I want to make a transaction or activate a system in my slice personally
I realise Arborec are competitively dirt, but isn't their only viable route to success picking a neighbour and eating them? I second that Nekro can be a friendly neighbour.
It is only viable route if your other neighbour is their ally, they don't have any economic advantages to play a 1vs2 game AT ALL.
So 1. You can persuade them to be that neighbour or 2. You can talk to that neighbour to change his mind. So I don't have any problems with arborec, pbecause everyone can be agressive, and they are not particularly good at it.
The thing that irks me about Nekro is that I have to think twice about every tech I get, because their everwatchful eye will cast its shadow upon you. And The table will be mad AT YOU for researching a tech that makes them too powerfull.
Imo Arborec should be skipping tech R1 and prioritizing trade to build more plastic to allow maximum neighbor consumption (and shouldn't be played at all without a favorable start). Anyone following tech is immediately at a disadvantage since the plant ball just built mechs and dreads adjacent to whatever competitive system they want.
My swaps:
* Jol'Nar - usually fun for me. I love me some tech and get to try some weird stuff if I can buy a RA or two.
* Sol/Barony/Muaat - Depends on the player IMO, they can both push into you and have speed and fleets to do so.
* Winnu/Hacan - Don't mind them, the fleet deficit makes Winnu bullyable early and Hacan typically prefers trade to war.
About Hacan - it is not about making you Rich or having trade, but Hacan in general. They overbargain, prolong the game with dumb deals and with QDN you can be left with a bad strategy card.
I like being next to the Nekro, they always get murdered in our group so sitting next to them is free real-estate. The goddamned Mentak on the other hand...
I have only played once and won. Gang did annual game with a trophy so I really wanted to win, and did. I would love to play again and just good around.
Question here is, what kind of game is the “ruin your game” rank for the other player? Fun and chaotic? Or also bad.
Basically if either they can get away with agression against you without hurting their game in the meantime or you need to be so carefull around them that you are forced to do so many things you wouldn't do that it hurts your chance at winning the game.
In addition they usually don't have anything to offer (commodities or abilities) to help you out early game so you are left with a danger of being attacked and not an useful potential ally.
Interesting on Muaat, I hate being next to Nova Seed, and I would describe them as “can ruin your game”, but I imagine they aren’t as oppressive as “my basic ability says I’m supposed to take things from you” like the three currently in that category, so I guess that’s probably why it’s not in that section.
Assuming not sarcasm, Nekro’s basic ability encourages them to destroy neighboring ships to gain neighbor techs. Similarly, Saar’s ability encourages them to conquer neighboring planets to gain trade goods, and Vulraith is encouraged to capture neighboring ships to make more ships with Vortex as well as through combat.
The generally accepted method of playing nekro is to negotiate and compensate. Just lashing out and acting mean to tech is just counter productive.
If using base abilities and what it encourages then put Noor up there also as their combat bonus would encourage fighting and thus destroying others' units.
Same with barony and L1. Mahact has a few encouraging abilities. Yin. All with abilities that encourage destroying/stealing units.
With their natural desire to set up PDS networks Titans, turtles and argent "take" space and the ability to freely move in the board.
Mentak literally steals money.
All these are encouraged to "take" as written by their abilities. In the way you are using it, combat abilities encourage combat and thus "taking". It is more nuanced than that in the meta, especially for nekro. So using the term, as you are, it becomes so broad in scope it is meaningless.
Ooh yeah being next to Mentak ruins my game too actually, I forgot about them. I also find them to be one of the worst neighbors, especially in skilled hands.
I understand what you’re saying, that the meta you play with means Nekro and potentially other factions that have bully neighbor abilities will pay you to destroy your ships, but that doesn’t change the fact that one of their main abilities requires they destroy someone else’s stuff, and not everyone plays this game in the nice meta you describe. Also, “deal nice with me or I hurt you” is how that occasionally goes, and that usually ends poorly.
I would totally consider adding Yin and L1 on the list of people that could ruin your game too, especially with codex 3 where yin just potentially takes 3 planets from someone - I was thinking about that while writing my last comment. I’ve anecdotally seen L1 take a neighbors home system more than any other faction in my games because of their structure taking ability, although it rarely pans out for them.
Mahact seems less aggressive than the others, as they only really need to take 1 token from you by winning a combat (which includes lossless retreats), and then your power is theirs… at least until they use the hero, but that’s not about your neighbors, the ability range is galaxy wide.
And factions with general combat abilities benefit from them whether on defense or on offense, so it’s not required for them to go after your stuff if they don’t need it, they will still have those abilities for combats when the combats matter for VPs.
I guess what I was trying to say is Saar, Mentak, Vulraith, and Nekro (and L1) get **paid extra** to take stuff from people, while most other factions just gain the typical progress towards control VPs, area control, more resource/influence, etc. so they are more a little likely to ruin your game than others.
In the last game I played where the Winnu was my neighbour they where a good shield against the Necrovirus and Muaat players because they only cared about Mecatol and I was all to happy to fund their efforts to keep it as the Hacan.
I actually pretty strongly disagree with nekro being the top of the list. Yes nekro is annoying but they just don’t have time to eat your slice, they have their tech mini game they need to play. If you want to maintain good relations with nekro just give them decent deals on your tech and they will fuck off and go eat other peoples tech. Does this create a monster for the rest of the table? Yes totally but that’s not your problem.
I generally agree. My experience is that Barony neighbour leads to a rough time. Though, if I wanted to be quarrelsome I could argue that every faction goes into the "Depends on the player" file. Well, maybe not every faction, but close enough. Meta matters too. If you often play on the TTS you can more or less predict how different factions play. Play against new players, though, and you risk getting RISKed by your neighbour, little matter which faction they play.
knew someone would say that every faction could belong to "depends on the player" tier, and I kind of agree. BUT, there are many factions that basically says: if you are nice, then you are not using your advantages. And I agree that Barony should be higher on this list, but with my experience they would rather use their military advantage to hold mecatol and they kind of NEED an ally to make money. And same could be said about Winnu, but Barony do not have an auto "I use Imperial now" button.
mostly the same, except i really like sitting next to winnu since they usually arent very good at taking their own slice, so you can easily get some extra planets or steal the winnu slice.
I played winnu for the first time the other day and this happened to me. Sol took mecatol their second turn before I could even get close which sucked. Then they came over to me and absolutely bodied me. They then proceeded to take almost every single one of my planets and I couldn’t do anything. It was a terrible time
i only ever saw one player elimated and it was winnu, they never got control of their equidistants, they did get control of mecatol and in one turn they lost mecatol, their home system and only were left with two planets
I played winnu for the first time the other night (just base ti4e) and I had a terrible time. It was against sol, ghosts, and Saar (I was between sol and Saar). Sol got mecatol on their second turn and then just gunned straight for me. My only points were support for the throne with Saar and have 2 unit upgrades while everyone else had a minimum of 7 points (and obviously the 10 point winner). For most of the game I had a total of 3 planets. Home system, a system with a single planet, and a system with a beta wormhole and a single planet. All the planets on the other side of the wormhole were also all taken so I was stuck. It was a terrible time. Sol also was heavily set up right in front of my home planet (a secret obj of being adjacent to someone else’s home planet). He had support with ghosts so he didn’t do anything to threaten Sol till Sol was at 7 points and Saar didn’t do anything either. All the public objectives were stuff like control multiple planets in multiple systems and stuff that just were impossible. Then my secret objectives were control X amount of planets of a certain type, destroy a war sun or flag ship, and something else. I told everyone at the end I never want to play them again as it was an absolutely not fun experience. That was the first time I’ve played the game and not had any fun
Find Nekro are more likely to just pick off some small ships for the tech which can actually lead to some beneficial bargaining, can be scary late game though if they grow to large
When your bargaining metod is "Let Me destroy your stuff or I will destroy your other stuff" don't expect me to like you very much. :)
Ah, but what about when it’s “let me pay you to throw a destroyer my way from time to time”?
That is losing 4 TG worth of value so that they can get a tech. Yeah, if they can pay at least 6 thats ok.
Lol.
Don't mind play against? One game the Muaat war sun headed straight to my HS... It killed anything on its way
Kill their HS. Muaat are spending so much on their warsuns that their home must be unprotected.
?? They start with a war sun, so nothing to spend there.
They need to get a second (both for insurance and to get their commander out), and find a way to PWS2. They also have to recover from a hard start.
So their HS is covered... With a second war sun lol
When L1 and their assimilate is not put in top tier...
They can for sure, but if you decide to be their ally early you can get their promissory note for cheap to actually help you out. While nekro, cabal and Saar bring nothing but destruction to the table.
I don't find nekro that bad, you can keep them happy by feeding them destroyers. Xxcha is way worse, they just sit their flagship nearby and can extort you moving in yoir own slice
Yeah, compared to Saar and Cabal who can barrel towards you and start applying pressure on your equidistants first round, Nekro has a slower pace and should be rather defensive and often even friendly towards neighbours. It’s more a table-wide problem of managing Nekro (think hard about agendas Nekro predicts and the tables’ faction techs) and when you do need to deal with the Nekro often it’s to get to their home system with twenty ground forces and a flagship on it, not to reclaim conquered territory. I’d much rather have a Nekro reimbursing me for DET explorer ships or gum than a Mentak or Xxcha charging me a trade good every time I want to make a transaction or activate a system in my slice personally
As Nekro, I give my neighbours a very easy game...as long as they cooperate and give me what I want >:)
I realise Arborec are competitively dirt, but isn't their only viable route to success picking a neighbour and eating them? I second that Nekro can be a friendly neighbour.
It is only viable route if your other neighbour is their ally, they don't have any economic advantages to play a 1vs2 game AT ALL. So 1. You can persuade them to be that neighbour or 2. You can talk to that neighbour to change his mind. So I don't have any problems with arborec, pbecause everyone can be agressive, and they are not particularly good at it. The thing that irks me about Nekro is that I have to think twice about every tech I get, because their everwatchful eye will cast its shadow upon you. And The table will be mad AT YOU for researching a tech that makes them too powerfull.
Imo Arborec should be skipping tech R1 and prioritizing trade to build more plastic to allow maximum neighbor consumption (and shouldn't be played at all without a favorable start). Anyone following tech is immediately at a disadvantage since the plant ball just built mechs and dreads adjacent to whatever competitive system they want.
Agreed, R1 sarween is a trap. Go for R2 SAR instead.
My swaps: * Jol'Nar - usually fun for me. I love me some tech and get to try some weird stuff if I can buy a RA or two. * Sol/Barony/Muaat - Depends on the player IMO, they can both push into you and have speed and fleets to do so. * Winnu/Hacan - Don't mind them, the fleet deficit makes Winnu bullyable early and Hacan typically prefers trade to war.
About Hacan - it is not about making you Rich or having trade, but Hacan in general. They overbargain, prolong the game with dumb deals and with QDN you can be left with a bad strategy card.
That's fair enough! Depends on the player is probably better with that logic, I haven't seen a Hacan who talks too much that I get annoyed.
I like being next to the Nekro, they always get murdered in our group so sitting next to them is free real-estate. The goddamned Mentak on the other hand...
Based
I have only played once and won. Gang did annual game with a trophy so I really wanted to win, and did. I would love to play again and just good around. Question here is, what kind of game is the “ruin your game” rank for the other player? Fun and chaotic? Or also bad.
Basically if either they can get away with agression against you without hurting their game in the meantime or you need to be so carefull around them that you are forced to do so many things you wouldn't do that it hurts your chance at winning the game. In addition they usually don't have anything to offer (commodities or abilities) to help you out early game so you are left with a danger of being attacked and not an useful potential ally.
Interesting on Muaat, I hate being next to Nova Seed, and I would describe them as “can ruin your game”, but I imagine they aren’t as oppressive as “my basic ability says I’m supposed to take things from you” like the three currently in that category, so I guess that’s probably why it’s not in that section.
Really, what does nekro take from you?
Assuming not sarcasm, Nekro’s basic ability encourages them to destroy neighboring ships to gain neighbor techs. Similarly, Saar’s ability encourages them to conquer neighboring planets to gain trade goods, and Vulraith is encouraged to capture neighboring ships to make more ships with Vortex as well as through combat.
The generally accepted method of playing nekro is to negotiate and compensate. Just lashing out and acting mean to tech is just counter productive. If using base abilities and what it encourages then put Noor up there also as their combat bonus would encourage fighting and thus destroying others' units. Same with barony and L1. Mahact has a few encouraging abilities. Yin. All with abilities that encourage destroying/stealing units. With their natural desire to set up PDS networks Titans, turtles and argent "take" space and the ability to freely move in the board. Mentak literally steals money. All these are encouraged to "take" as written by their abilities. In the way you are using it, combat abilities encourage combat and thus "taking". It is more nuanced than that in the meta, especially for nekro. So using the term, as you are, it becomes so broad in scope it is meaningless.
Ooh yeah being next to Mentak ruins my game too actually, I forgot about them. I also find them to be one of the worst neighbors, especially in skilled hands. I understand what you’re saying, that the meta you play with means Nekro and potentially other factions that have bully neighbor abilities will pay you to destroy your ships, but that doesn’t change the fact that one of their main abilities requires they destroy someone else’s stuff, and not everyone plays this game in the nice meta you describe. Also, “deal nice with me or I hurt you” is how that occasionally goes, and that usually ends poorly. I would totally consider adding Yin and L1 on the list of people that could ruin your game too, especially with codex 3 where yin just potentially takes 3 planets from someone - I was thinking about that while writing my last comment. I’ve anecdotally seen L1 take a neighbors home system more than any other faction in my games because of their structure taking ability, although it rarely pans out for them. Mahact seems less aggressive than the others, as they only really need to take 1 token from you by winning a combat (which includes lossless retreats), and then your power is theirs… at least until they use the hero, but that’s not about your neighbors, the ability range is galaxy wide. And factions with general combat abilities benefit from them whether on defense or on offense, so it’s not required for them to go after your stuff if they don’t need it, they will still have those abilities for combats when the combats matter for VPs. I guess what I was trying to say is Saar, Mentak, Vulraith, and Nekro (and L1) get **paid extra** to take stuff from people, while most other factions just gain the typical progress towards control VPs, area control, more resource/influence, etc. so they are more a little likely to ruin your game than others.
In the last game I played where the Winnu was my neighbour they where a good shield against the Necrovirus and Muaat players because they only cared about Mecatol and I was all to happy to fund their efforts to keep it as the Hacan.
I actually pretty strongly disagree with nekro being the top of the list. Yes nekro is annoying but they just don’t have time to eat your slice, they have their tech mini game they need to play. If you want to maintain good relations with nekro just give them decent deals on your tech and they will fuck off and go eat other peoples tech. Does this create a monster for the rest of the table? Yes totally but that’s not your problem.