As I said this weekend I played a game with Mrrshans, I won easly. Then decided to get a win with bulrathi, I played 5 games with different strategies, lost them all 5, horrible.
Thinking that my first Mrrshan win was just luck, I played them again, I won again. Not as easy, but quite comfortable.
Now this can be low sample variance. But I have reasons to believe that Bulrathi are worse Race than Mrrshans. Here are my reasons
1. Racial bonus
While the Bulrathi racial bonus is better in terms of effect, is harder to get it into effect.
Start of the game:
Mrrshans LR lasers can gain cheaper, more time on the outer borders. Which generally mean at least one extra planet and some more significant delay to aI. This rarely hurt relationships.
On the other hand using Bulrathi early game bonus means getting into a fast rush in a cheap colony, even if you manage that, it means triggering an early war, and you will lose the planet. And in the meatime you spent a lot of pop. You lost the game.
Early game:
What good is Bulrathi bonus if you can´t destroy the bases and ships? The point is you cant invade a good planet (with lost of industries) if you don´t have the space superiority. And vs Mid game AI, its close to impossible. You can just invade their new planets,but you get no techs for that, lose a lot of pop in the process and you will probably just lose them back to the Ai armies. And you can´t touch the better planets because missile defenses. If you lose the air space in a planet, the fact that you can hold off more time is worthless, your planet is gone, sooner or later.
On the other hand, Mrsshans bonus is beneficial to the bases, you need less bases to be safe, which is a relevant.
But even then Mrsshans are better than bulrathi at the early war, you can use their advantage to do a lot of damage with missile boats.
Mid game:
This is the only part where I feel bulrathi does somewhat better. Even if you are outmatched in tech, if you construct a good bomber, you can clean up bases and take over with bulrathi and get more tech. Something very hard to do normally.
Lategame:
At this point combat bonus are of little relevance, and most games are already decided by this point, I rarely lost a game in the lategame. I guess bulrathi may be faster to win since you can gain full planets easier and quickly grow the pop needed to win. With mrrshans i generally go to the Bomber strategy and cleanup the map of life, but that can take more time.
In terms of speed, I guess the bulrathi can quickly close the game
Overall, As we all know the early parts of the game are way more important than the later parts, and i feel in that area, the Mrrshan bonus outshine bulrathi.
Technology:
Computer to me is very important, because a very important way to gain tech is by espionage, so really having poor computers its a problem, i end mostly stealing computers in bulrathi, so i can keep ....stealing computers.
Mrrshans Excellent weapon research, makes it easier to have one kind of tech on a high tier. Which I find a key strategy to get more tech by trading with other races. you can give a lot of those weapons that are not scary to give, but you can get very good tech.
you can´t do something as well with bulrathi construction as the bonus isnt as strong. Also good missiles are more important to good bases than construction, which other than reduction wastes, doesn´t have any technology that I feel its really important.
Diplomacy:
I know people like to bring the bad diplomacy of mrrshans, but really I feel in impossible when the ai wants to attack because it wants more planets, it doesnt care if you are a cat or a bear, it will attack. i don´t really fell the ai is any more compasionate towards whem when Im a big bear.
Conclusion:
I feel while both races are clearly the 2 weakest races in the game, i feel mrrshans in general have an easier game. To be honest I played the cats like 3 times more than the bears, because i always wanted to be able to win with the worse race, getting tired of it decided to move to the bears, and im surprised how often im getting crushed.
And Now i realize, that i don´t remember in a long time winning a single game with bulrathi in impossible. Maybe I´m doing something specially wrong with the bears, or maybe the cats are just superior.
Thinking that my first Mrrshan win was just luck, I played them again, I won again. Not as easy, but quite comfortable.
Now this can be low sample variance. But I have reasons to believe that Bulrathi are worse Race than Mrrshans. Here are my reasons
1. Racial bonus
While the Bulrathi racial bonus is better in terms of effect, is harder to get it into effect.
Start of the game:
Mrrshans LR lasers can gain cheaper, more time on the outer borders. Which generally mean at least one extra planet and some more significant delay to aI. This rarely hurt relationships.
On the other hand using Bulrathi early game bonus means getting into a fast rush in a cheap colony, even if you manage that, it means triggering an early war, and you will lose the planet. And in the meatime you spent a lot of pop. You lost the game.
Early game:
What good is Bulrathi bonus if you can´t destroy the bases and ships? The point is you cant invade a good planet (with lost of industries) if you don´t have the space superiority. And vs Mid game AI, its close to impossible. You can just invade their new planets,but you get no techs for that, lose a lot of pop in the process and you will probably just lose them back to the Ai armies. And you can´t touch the better planets because missile defenses. If you lose the air space in a planet, the fact that you can hold off more time is worthless, your planet is gone, sooner or later.
On the other hand, Mrsshans bonus is beneficial to the bases, you need less bases to be safe, which is a relevant.
But even then Mrsshans are better than bulrathi at the early war, you can use their advantage to do a lot of damage with missile boats.
Mid game:
This is the only part where I feel bulrathi does somewhat better. Even if you are outmatched in tech, if you construct a good bomber, you can clean up bases and take over with bulrathi and get more tech. Something very hard to do normally.
Lategame:
At this point combat bonus are of little relevance, and most games are already decided by this point, I rarely lost a game in the lategame. I guess bulrathi may be faster to win since you can gain full planets easier and quickly grow the pop needed to win. With mrrshans i generally go to the Bomber strategy and cleanup the map of life, but that can take more time.
In terms of speed, I guess the bulrathi can quickly close the game
Overall, As we all know the early parts of the game are way more important than the later parts, and i feel in that area, the Mrrshan bonus outshine bulrathi.
Technology:
Computer to me is very important, because a very important way to gain tech is by espionage, so really having poor computers its a problem, i end mostly stealing computers in bulrathi, so i can keep ....stealing computers.
Mrrshans Excellent weapon research, makes it easier to have one kind of tech on a high tier. Which I find a key strategy to get more tech by trading with other races. you can give a lot of those weapons that are not scary to give, but you can get very good tech.
you can´t do something as well with bulrathi construction as the bonus isnt as strong. Also good missiles are more important to good bases than construction, which other than reduction wastes, doesn´t have any technology that I feel its really important.
Diplomacy:
I know people like to bring the bad diplomacy of mrrshans, but really I feel in impossible when the ai wants to attack because it wants more planets, it doesnt care if you are a cat or a bear, it will attack. i don´t really fell the ai is any more compasionate towards whem when Im a big bear.
Conclusion:
I feel while both races are clearly the 2 weakest races in the game, i feel mrrshans in general have an easier game. To be honest I played the cats like 3 times more than the bears, because i always wanted to be able to win with the worse race, getting tired of it decided to move to the bears, and im surprised how often im getting crushed.
And Now i realize, that i don´t remember in a long time winning a single game with bulrathi in impossible. Maybe I´m doing something specially wrong with the bears, or maybe the cats are just superior.
