I've noticed that some specialists aren't that effective, such as the Saboteur. When attacking a saboteur all one has to do is break their attack force in to multiple subs and launch them in as close a window as possible.

This is also true for the Sentry, where were I to send in 100 drillers I'd lose ~30 over 12 hours. If i change that to 20 subs with 5 drillers I'll lose only 6* over 12 hours.

*corrected some math

yup, there are workarounds in some cases, but they still give rise to interesting behavior. if you break up your attack into 20 driller subs, and i have a general, then you lose half your drillers in the attack. also, if you have a diplomat, you can deflect all of those subs with your saboteurs. you also can't make good use of your specialists when you divide up your attack force.

I like some of these, although on its own it doesn't feel like the Saboteur is actually very useful at all. It seems strategically valuable if you can stack it with some other specialist to make avoiding it less advantageous, but by itself it seems rather ineffective.

I wonder if making it a small radius effect would lead to it being utilized more like it seems it was designed to be.

I completely disagree that any of the specialists are not useful.

They all fit into a brilliantly constructed Rock Paper Scissors hierarchy.

None are so powerful that they can't be countered by another.

Each has utility at different points entirely dependent on the strategy you adopt at that moment in the game. I favor those with global abilities because they play into my general play style, but if I'm not dealt what I would otherwise choose, I have to adapt. If I cannot adapt, that isn't a failure of the games mechanics, it's a failure of my strategy.

If you don't get the "powerful" specialists you want, you may need to play more diplomatically, cutting deals, fly under the radar, appear to be more meek.

I love that this game doesn't boiled down to "tank rush" every time and that someone dealt "all the powerful" specialist can still be out maneuvered politically and come in last.

Achieving that balance is so delicate. I really applaud the skill at which the game has been balanced.

That's fine--and I, too, really like how specialists feel as a mechanic--but the specialist balance still needs some work. Some are significantly better than others in practical terms. (Which I think Ron mentioned they were working on in another thread about specialists.)

Either way, with regard to the Saboteur itself, it feels like the design of this is basically to delay incoming attackers--however, if it is really easy to circumvent, it doesn't really serve that role very well. It also doesn't require another specialist to counter in this case, which also breaks away from the RPS analogy.