The poor Cardassians issue the request to re-open the donation page...

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

poor_cardassians.png (28.06 KiB) Viewed 778 times

Dude, ECM T1, no minors, is really tough for them with difficulty level 4+.

[Flocke]

Looks to be canon. They never had any wealth, but are hard workers, mass producing ships.
In vanilla I mainly struggled with them, because with no money, in early T1 you hardly can ever member any minors.

Regarding the donation page, it would be better to separate any such donations from the website itself. Strictly seen, the website and forums are a valuable service, and as such any donated money (minus maintenance cost) is taxable income. Furthermore, it may violate the Star Trek fair use policy. Although ofc likely noone will ever care with the little attention we have.
https://money.stackexchange.com/a/12248
https://www.thebalancemoney.com/do-you- ... be-taxable

But if instead there was a topic asking to donate some money for your own personal pleasure of life, or you hinted on some external personal funding campaign, I believe it would not struggle at this.

All such donation services btw take a fee of about 3% + $0.50, or at least 2.9% + $0.30. Bad for little amounts like $10.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

Looks to be canon. They never had any wealth, but are hard workers, mass producing ships.
In vanilla I mainly struggled with them, because with no money, in early T1 you hardly can ever member any minors.

On low tech, even their main industry is a disaster. Plus they first need to build about 17 inefficient food units and suffer from an extra colonization delay of four turns for terraforming the own home system.

Later on, bad research, no global morale bonus and the too expensive Reeducation-Center and Obsidian Order, don't help either.

But on the positive side, 'Rebalancing the AI Income Cheat' helps the Cardassian and Klingon AI alot in ECM. Even on T1 they sometimes take down the Ferengi. This is virtually not possible in vanilla, where even a T4 Ferengi AI can kill a T5 Cardassian AI.

[justanick]

Plus they first need to build about 17 inefficient food units and suffer from an extra colonization delay of four turns for terraforming the own home system.

Sure, but they already start with 12 food units, so that is only 5 more compared to 2 more in addition to the starting 10 ones in case of the federation.

The additional terraforming allows population to grow to 400 which is more than any major home system. This results in more money from trade routes and also a slightly higher change in minor regard per turn in case of said trade routes.

On low tech, even their main industry is a disaster.

That seems a bit harsh. Their output is second best, at level 1 10% more than the federation at same investment.

Say after upgrading to level 2 both Sol and Cardassia ought to have 5 manned research buildings and 4 manned intelligence buildings. For shipyard and dilitium 55 energy are needed which requires one manned energy building in case of the federation and 2 for cardassia. Cardassia needs 14 level 2 food units, the federation needs 10. This leaves Sol 13 manned industry units with output 15 each. For Cardassia it is 15 manned industry units with output 16 each.

So prior to modifiers it is 240 industry vs. 195. That is a 23% advantage. This does not seem like a disaster to me. At least not on the side of Cardassia. Poor but productive fits.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

allows population to grow to 400 which is more than any major home system. This results in more money from trade routes

I think the bad global credit modifier, trade threshold and later on missing extra booster like trade centres, more than compensates for that.
Leave alone the deviations of the starting credits.

after upgrading to level 2 (...) So prior to modifiers it is 240 industry vs. 195. That is a 23% advantage. This does not seem like a disaster to me.

You also need to compare the needed time (turns) to get there vs the other empires (includes credits, income, build costs and research).
In a low tech game, same as multiplayer, it's all about time (development of home system, colonies [pop for fleet support] and the fleet).

[justanick]

I think the bad global credit modifier, trade threshold and later on missing extra booster like trade centres, more than compensates for that.

Sure, but compared to the other 2 majors without trade centers(available at level 3) the difference is small. And while the global credit modifier is lower for Cardassia the fleet support per pop is higher. On balance this is not necessarily against Cardassias favour.

You also need to compare the needed time (turns) to get there vs the other empires (includes credits, income, build costs and research).
In a low tech game, same as multiplayer, it's all about time (development of home system, colonies [pop for fleet support] and the fleet).

Sure, but even at tech level 1 it is similar. Upgrading to level 2 frees up 3 food units for the cardassians and 2 food units and 1 energy unit for the federation. So at tech level 1 it is similar. With the target of level 2 in mind it could also be 13 vs. 15 industry units.

So it is 165 vs. 130 industry or +27%. The initial build up slows the cardassians down, no question there. Maybe that is a disaster.

Whether the cardassians can later make good on the time lost will vary. There would seems to be time windows that favour Cardassia. Their destroyer 1 has 71% more firepower than the destroyer 1 of the federation while also being cheaper to build.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

compared to the other 2 majors without trade centers (...) while the global credit modifier is lower for Cardassia the fleet support per pop is higher.

Klingon fleet support (even credits) is better, but their colony ships and structures are awful expensive for low tech buildup...

The initial build up slows the cardassians down, no question there. Maybe that is a disaster.

That's the point, effectively it's next to impossible to compete with the wealthier empires' colony and fleet buildup (in numbers).
And credits/income is always an advantage over industry (without ship scrapping exploit), in particular in low tech games.
Try T1,large map, no minor races, Ferengi vs Cardassians...

There would seems to be time windows that favour Cardassia. Their destroyer 1 has 71% more firepower than the destroyer 1 of the federation while also being cheaper to build.

Yes, the first decent armed Federation ship is the upgrade of the Galaxy Command Cruiser (tech 6).
The Federation might manage to upgrade the destroyers first (tech 4).
But T1 low tech, with small map or in in close proximity, the Cardassian Hull/Ram advantage matters even more than the firepower.