by hudcrab
This was my first thought, but I fear that increasing the number of cruisers would be too much of an advantage. Furthermore, I am all for doing more to make building the cube a more stark and necessary decision at some point- in my experience people who start with cruisers or invest in cruisers early are reluctant to make the jump to dreads. By giving the Borg a powerful but limited little ship design (Borg sphere) and a hulking, expensive but high-potential cube, you split military development into two distinct stages. A militarily capable early game with spheres, perhaps enough to assimilate an ambassador and a little materials boost. To make the most of your opponent's upgrade techs, you'll want to invest in the Cube because the Sphere only has 3 slots.My current thinking is make the sphere cost 4 mats and starting config is ion cannon, nuclear source, nuclear drive, blank slot, with 1 init, 1 hull an +1 comp. You can have 2 turn 2 and with an upgrade they're pretty solid, but later in the game they'll have lower initiative than most interceptors and the 1+ comps won't mean the world. This is important because it means using the exact same configuration as an opponent (whose tech you're using) still gives your foe an initiative advantage interceptor vs interceptor. And the borg's are dearer. You can't build cruisers, but once you invest in dreads they have the potential to be fearsome.