When you put it like that, maybe something like Gathering Steam would be a better fit? Would fit the Believers, too, in that sense.
I'm not sure there's much difference between the two tropes in this game. Tech does feel more like leveling up, but that's my perspective.
The Believers are powerful in a rush strategy and not so good late-game, so I wouldn't use either trope for them - Domai really isn't a very good rusher, by contrast, but has a strong late game.
Domai also has a powerful early game, since he can churm up units by a dozen, without any repercussions. Sure, they are crap due to lagging early tech, BUT they are also 20% cheaper right off the bat. This means you can have far more units than your enemies even with baseline tech. And faster, since you can build them easier. So when you lack technology, you can still Zerg Rush people. When you gain technology, you can STILL Zerg Rush people - with much stronger units. Domai isn't a Magikarp Power, he simply has a broken bonus that makes him all-powerful from the start.
And as for lagging technology: Domai is two technologies short from stomping everyone else on the Planet: Information Networks (which gives him Network Nodes) and Planetary Networks (which gives him Planned, for another 20% of Industry bonus, totalling at 40%). If you know how to adjust the research goals, at the very worst RNG that means 4 technologies (since Biogenetics and Polymorphic Software can be triggered instead by going for "pure" Discovery techs) to finally get the right combo. If you luck-out, that's the very two techs you need.
And once Domai gets Planned up and running, it's game over for everyone else. Network Node is the best example of this. Normally that's 80 minerals. It's 64 for Domai just from his bonus. And with Planned, it's 48 minerals. NOBODY can get it this low, this fast, instead struggling with setting up their Nodes. And in early game you are starved for mineral production, so that bonus is just impossible to compete with.
You know what else Planetary Networks unlock? Probe teams. Oh my, just check all those juicy technologies you can snatch from others while being able to afford probe teams from the moment they are unlocked!
For comparison, let's take a look at his penalty. He can't do any research for first 10 turns (but you can earn credits during that time, boosting your construction later) and then you have techs 20% more expensive than everyone else. Ok, so for the opening for the two techs you need, that's 10 turns with no research and being "behind" by about 3/4 of a third tech everyone else will be (potentially) researching. After you gain that tech, you get Network Nodes, so you aren't lagging behind anymore and potentially even become top researcher for the duration of other factions building their early Nodes. Short from Consciousness, there is nobody else in the game that can compete with you in tech research at this point, because you will get more bases faster, with more infrastructure in them sooner.
And let's not forget he can get 1 drone less (so bases can grow taller without repercussions, gaining additional production without expenses on maintenance) and the chance to simply take over any base with riots in it.
You are prevented from running Green, which is a bummer, but not a deal-breaker. You can run Free Market, you can run Democracy, you can run Planned, you can run Knowledge (nullifying your penalty, while providing juicy Efficiency) and you can run Wealth. In short, you can make your production bonus even stronger, while also making a pretty penny on the side and ignoring your research penalty entirely.
Domai is NOT Magikarp Power. He's just broken.
Edited by Dratewka
There's no rushing with scout rovers, and any halfway competent player will have the bones of a defense set up by the time Domai gets Nonlinear Mathematics. And if Domai is charging full steam for Nonlinear Mathematics from the start, he's playing at a major energy (and thus research) disadvantage. It can work if you catch someone completely by surprise, but not otherwise.
Say you're Domai and I'm Morgan. You've beelined impact rovers and now I see them on the edge of my territory. I'm going to flash some cash (I'm Morgan, so I've got cash to flash) to convert my formers to their armored variant and station them in the forest (and if I have any forewarning, they'll be building sensors), while building some probes to steal a couple rovers and, if I've got Applied Physics, laser garrisons for counterpunching damaged rovers (otherwise I'll just CP with stolen rovers). I can match you in a war of attrition and even build crawlers in the rear of my empire once Industrial Automation drops (it will drop, even in mid-war), and suddenly your industrial advantage is gone. My plans have been disrupted; yours have completely failed and need to be redone from scratch.
And Morgan is hardly the big dog combat-wise. Now try rushing Santiago; even with her industrial disadvantage, it's just not going to happen.
Now, what about the non-military rush you've suggested? Well, first off, let's get the details straight: Planned is +1 Industry, not +2, so a Network Node is actually 56. Second, obviously Zakharov still has the edge on Network Nodes, Morgan can trim turns with a rush build and will be charging towards Planetary Networks as much as Domai is, and everyone wants Information Networks as soon as they can get it, precisely because of the Network Node advantage. And while Domai does lay down that infrastructure faster than anyone else, factions like Zak, Morgan and Aki-Zeta 5 have Network Nodes up by the time Domai starts building them and are using them to work towards Industrial Automation and Centauri Ecology. So, said factions start forming and crawling earlier, and this translates to a huge turn advantage on Domai. He's a stronger early builder than Miriam, sure - so is everyone else.
So, due to the massive power of early turn advantage, I think it's fair to say that Domai has a weakness in the very early game that he needs to aggressively compensate for before his broken power can come into play.
So if player is incompetent, Domai gets demoted to being incompetent? I'm not sure that's how Magikarp Power works. Which is the original reason why it was cut.
Seriously, there is Cursed with Awesome, Difficult, but Awesome, Necessary Drawback, Quantity vs. Quality and dozen other tropes that fit Domai better. Why insisting on something that's simply not the case? Magikarp flat-out demands from him to suck early on. He doesn't. He has a powerful boon that's great from the very first turn and is "balanced" by insignificant "drawback" that can be neutered with the use of said bonus. If you, as a player, can't utilise said bonus, it doesn't make it any less powerful. It just pushes it further into Difficult, but Awesome.
Magikarp is a no-go and no amount of arguing is going to change that. It simply doesn't fit requirements of the trope.
Shall we take it to Ask The Tropers? We're clearly in disagreement and you have no intention of debating.
Edited by Ramidel
They are probably going to tell you the same thing I already did - there are better and more fitting tropes to use when describing Domai's strengths and weaknesses. So do as you please, as long as it doesn't involve shoehorning tropes.
And one more important note, since I've dug through discussions involving you, strategy games and gameplay mechanics: you routinely keep insisting in those on something that isn't there in gameplay itself, but is definitely present in your playstyle. Your playstyle =/= gameplay mechanics. Thus bringing the whole thing into YMMV territory.
it's a living
Would it be okay to move the quotes back to where they were? They're throwing off the caption width on the images. If we wanted to have additional quotes under the portraits, I'm sure there are shorter ones that would work. No lack of great quotes in this game.
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Just do it, because in current form the Character page looks hideous. No clue why someone changed it into current form
Okay, went ahead and did it. Added some shorter quotes for the captions and fixed the formatting by limiting it to the size of the images — if we can find any larger images, we can bump it back up. Santiago's and Aki's are still a bit long, and might still be worth looking at the alternatives.
I don't really think bigger ones even exist, due to the game being 20 years old and nobody ever tried to re-scale it for bigger resolutions.
Sure, it's not pressing, but it could be done if anyone wanted. Not a big deal either way.
Okay, let's talk about Magikarp Power and Domai, as my entry was disputed.
Domai nearly always opens at the bottom of the faction power scale. This is because, early on, there's a paucity of resources and, more importantly, a paucity of tech, which provides the facilities and units Domai can construct - his +20% industry simply can't be effectively leveraged at first in comparison to other faction powers. To play him effectively, you need to work around his weakness and develop his technology, which he's not good at doing, at which point his advantages can come into play and his disadvantages are compensated for.
I think this counts as a Magikarp. What about the rest of us?
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