Must everything be a paint by numbers with some of you? Or how about if I use crayons. Obviously there would be scanners, drones, starbases(remember those) or whatever the hell else would be necessary to scan all of that space as you pointed out. How the heck do the Klingons know if the Enterprise is breaching their borders in all of those movies? Or any other sci-fi for that matter? Wow. See spot. See spot run.

If you notice, learned how to pay attention and read more carefully, I wasnt talking about anything regarding "SENSORS", I was pointing out that just cuz you cross an IMAGINARY LINE created by the leaders of the other civilization your speed shouldnt SUDDENLY go more slowly, that makes no sense, AT ALL!  

There is a plan to build a fence along the entire US/Mexico border. It is being constructed to keep out aliens. Coincidence? I think not.

Uhmm, WHATT?????!!!    

On what thread are you looking??
Did you by chance post that crazy sentence on another thread and suddunly it appeared here by a bug or something??,
Or was that really refered to me??

Anyways, just to humor you      
Can you build a fence in space with a gate??
guess you could, but would that SERIOUSLY stop ships from braking it and going through???, I dont think so. And it would have to be a fence covering 360 degrees all around your empire, and thats not even counting your "NON-CORE WORLDS", they would also need another fence separately, and would take a LONG time and a LOT of resources away from building infatructure on planets, and especially and most importantly , SHIPS



Monc34

On the matter of crossing borders... I am reminded of the Rise of Nations series (I actually live kinda-sorta down the road from the guys who made that, and would love to work there), where, if you are within an opponent's territory, you suffer attrition.

Units and buildings that fall within or moves into another nation's boundaries suffer what is called attrition damage. This simulates the effects of the need to supply your troops when they are not in friendly territory since they can not "live off the land".

What is "attrition damage" and is there a way to reduce it when I attack or increase it on enemies units? Military units crossing into neutral or enemy territory gradually take damage as a kind of "penalty" for violating borders and abstraction of the difficulties encountered by invading armies throughout history. Also, buildings stranded in another non-allied nation's territory due to expanding/contracting borders are also subject to attrition. Nations with whom you are at peace send their troops into your territory at the cost of those troops suffering punishing "attrition damage" - this greatly reduces the viability of a surprise declaration of war strategy. Enemy troops - of the nations formally at war with you - suffer a lower level but sufficiently detering amount of attrition. The usual amount of damage is roughly 1 hitpoint per second. Attrition damage can be mitigated completely if you are in your territory naturally, but also if your units are within range of an accompanying supply wagon or truck. You can increase the damage your enemies suffer by increasing the "allegiance" line of research that can be accessed in towers. Building the Colosseum or Kremlin wonders also increases the attrition damage. On the other hand you can reduce the attrition damage you suffer by increasing the "forage" line of research at your granaries Building the Statue of Liberty wonder likewise reduces the attrition damage your units recieve while in enemy territory. In addition, the Russian's unique ability is that enemies suffer greater attrition within their territory while the Mongol's unique ability is that they suffer less attrition damage while in enemy territory.

... I'm not entirely sure how this could be adapted to what you are talking about, but I figured I'd throw it out there.

Paladin, although the idea of attrition is a good one, I am not sure if it could be feasibly adapted to the game in the way you have shown above.

Being that these Ships are so large, it seems to me that they would be completely self sufficient. Just my thoughts. I think the best idea I have heard in regards to slowing down ships in enemy territory has to be the check points idea. If you are on the up and up, you are slowed by the constant boarding and checks that you go through in order to traverse the region owned by another Civ. If you are not on the up and up, and are at war with the Civ, then you are spending valuable time avoiding tracking stations and check points throughout the owned region.

Greetings Everyone!

I have been playing GC2 for a week now and have a few observations regarding morale and economy. Since I started playing with the 1.31 patch, I can't comment on any nerfing that was done, but I can say that morale has been a key component of my victories. By building a couple morale buildings on each planet, or 4 in a system shared with enemies, I can convert a few planets the computer was able to colonize before me. This helps hold off the enemies which seem to be vastly superior in the early-mid game.
So without trying too hard, my influence soon becomes overpowering. Build and upgrade a few influence bases and neighbouring systems start converting to my just cause of galactic conquest at a rapid pace. At this point in the game, victory is nearly assured without building another ship.
I wonder what morale was like before it was "nerfed"?

Anyway, great game, I'm enjoying it hugely. Does anyone have any economy tips for the early game? Seems it gets bogged down after my initial colony rush and I fall way behind the computer.

By building a couple morale buildings on each planet, or 4 in a system shared with enemies, I can convert a few planets the computer was able to colonize before me.

Morale doesn't directly affect your influence. The indirect effect higher morale has is that your population can be larger which does increase influence. If your talking about the occasional low PQ value planet within your area of influence, these will usually flip with no help whatsoever. If you really want a building that increases influence you need an embassy or cultural center.

Does anyone have any economy tips for the early game? Seems it gets bogged down after my initial colony rush and I fall way behind the computer.

I've not seen anyone else recommend this, so caveat emptor, but the first thing I build on a new colony is an economic building, either market or advanced market. Also, if I don't already start with it, I research Xeno Economics ASAP. It gives a 10% economic bonus as well as enables the advanced market center. I let the planet build the market followed by factory, etc. This accomplishes a couple of things. The market requires no support and increases the economy. The delay in building the factory allows the pop to grow somewhat before adding the factories maintenance to the initial colony 14 bc support burden. I used this in v1.2 to get a good jump on my economy. I think this is even more important in v1.31.

I just want to offer an amen to mumbles earlier game strategy comments. The suicidal AI is NOT being beaten on planet build or the economy, it's being outrun and outfought on the battlefield via superior tactics.

Moonclava,

I could honestly care less about the fluff, but sphere of influence are not meant to represent borders, but rather real on the ground (or space) cultural influence. Presumably then something is going on in space that is abstracted mechanically.

I think slowing ships down in other player's spheres of influence is the best nerf for the blitz. With the combat system change from 1.2, it doesn't really effect the A.I.'s strategy that much while making counter to the long range rush conceivable. It also adds an element of terrain that is currently missing in the game, emphasizing relative location between civilization and planets and giving more of a reason to emphasize influence.

Other mods suggested in this thread look much more difficult to execute and could be much more easily exploited. This includes the attrition idea above. I can already see players manipulating the target aquasition of A.I. ships to keep them within their sphere but away from their planets as long as possible.

I say put it in.

One big problem with slowing down in others influence area would be that the AI would be even more pathetic attacking you. (or other civs)

The problem that needs fixing is the AI doesn't build fast ships, and people do. Three solutions :
1) Program the AI to build fast ships.
2) Change engines somehow.
3) Change movement/attack rules somehow.

Adding other fixes will not work. The human will still dominate the slow AI ships.

I disagree.

The A.I will be even slower on the attack, but it will hurt the human player more than the a.i, because its the human players at high levels that rely on mobility the most.

And making the ai competitive requires more than programming it to build faster ships. The blitz works because human players are skillfull at dodging sensors and positioning their ships in such a way that in one turn they can take multiple planets. To allow the ai to do the same would require much more work than simply having it build a certain kind of ship.

Giving influence areas a slowing effect will not solve the ai tactics problem, but it will help by nullifying the human speed advantage within ai space. Of course, in human influece areas, it will be business as usual, perhaps even moreso. But under current conditions, the a.i is already dependent on raw numbers and technology advantages to win combats at high levels. This mod wouldn't change that, but will give the a.i. a defensive buffer to bring those advantages to bear and force players to actually engage ai ships (depending on how strong the slow effect is).

Its a simple rules change that will make things better than they are now.

I personally think the AI would be able to play much better if it just built faster ships. That's why I don't understand the resistance to fixing that in the AI. To me the AI is doing the hardest aspects of the game excellently.

I'm beginning to think it's because building faster ships would require the AI to use more and more CPU to decide where they would go with all those moves... (and rather than address that, they just avoid it)

It depends on how the slowing is done I guess. If my ship moves at 50, and the AI is still building them at 20 the "slowing" effect would have to be highly non-linear (and strong, something like -30) to get the desired effect.

That is a good idea, until the AI invades ME!
Remmember the AI ships are SLOW, as ppl have alrdy pointed out is the REAL cause of the problem, so if this rule does get implemented it would be a death sentence to the AI, everytime they invade me, theyll be SO slow, with 4 fleets I might kill 6or 7 fleets cuz of more mobility cuz I use 4-5 engines on each ship. Just fix the AI, I am NOT a programmer and have NO idea how difficult it might be, but it turns out that a LOT of features have been removed cuz the AI would not use it correctly, most of the MoO2 features not in these game is just cuz of the AI, at least make it use more engines on each ship, cant be as difficult as making the terror stars work, I think far from it.


Monc34

Actually, I don't think that getting AI and human ship speed more evenly matched is really going to change that much. I also don't think it matters if this accomplished by having a slowdown effect or by just having the AI build faster ships. In either method I think the net effect would be for the AI to set ship destinations exactly as being done currently, they'll just get there relatively sooner.

I've seen many instances where I've just conquered a planet and don't have a ship in orbit and I look around at nearby troop transports and they're on auto-pilot set for a destination I conquered 5 turns ago. Yes, speeding AI ships up will make that transport get there quicker but it won't cause the AI to re-evaluate the situation at that instant and change the transport destination to the newly conquered planet as a human would.

What everyone here is asking for is the ability for the AI to be able to wage a tactical war against a human. This would be true artificial intelligence. I'm a hardware engineer by education and trade, so this is not my field, but the last I heard (this information could be very dated), true artificial intelligence doesn't exist (has any program passed a Turing test yet?). What exists are really "expert systems". Expert systems function very well in a very constrained environment with a limited, though potentially complicated set of rules. Examples of expert systems are such things as master chess programs or 3D electromagnetic field solvers. I don't think it's realistically possible to implement this in a $40 game operating on a PC even if that PC has a dual core 3.5Ghz processor. If movement in the game were constrained to a network of stargates, for example, the AI would have a better chance, but that's a different game.

I really don't quite understand this desire to fix every possible hole in AI performance, particularly when, if their medals are a true indication, most of the posters in this thread aren't playing at the suicidal level. I personally find myself very challenged to win at suicidal. I'm really not that anxious to make it even harder.

if their medals are a true indication, most of the posters in this thread aren't playing at the suicidal level.

It is an average of games posted on Metaverse. Also, doesn't count games one plays outside the Metaverse. So I would not think it was a true indication myself.

If my ship moves at 50, and the AI is still building them at 20 the "slowing" effect would have to be highly non-linear (and strong, something like -30) to get the desired effect.

As far as I know nonlinear systems are not equal to the sum of their parts, are often difficult or impossible to model and its behavior would be extremely difficult to predict. So why not just have a 30% reduction in overall speed within the enemies sphere of Influence? That would not seem that hard to code I wouldn't think.... although I am no programmer.... hehehe

Another idea may be to have a posted speed limit. Say, you can not go faster than X parsecs a week while in another Civs sphere of Influence.

gal,

I'm not 'resistant' to the ai building faster ships. But its not an either or proposition. And the problem is already less the ai's ability to launch a good offense (which from a technical point of view might be hopeless; and that is not 'avoiding' it as you negativly characterize it. its a techincal limitation), but its ability to counter a human offense. Forcing ships to slow within influence would make countering the blitz much easier as its more likely human ships will come into sensor range and the ai will have time to declare war and attack.

And i submit the a.i. making any progress in the attack has more to do with numbers than with speed.

So what u r saying is destroy the game for 90% of players and just cater for those elite 10%?

Very well put!  

Yep I see this with most game companys and it is worse with on line games. This game having the Metaverse makes it fall somewhere in the middle. The 'uber' players, the min/maxers will kill any AI period. They spend their lives beating the games in ways the Devs or the average player would not dream of doing. Then they get on the boards and brag about it, not knocking you guys if that is what floats your boat then more power to you

The 'uber' players start posting about how they do it and even average palyers start beating the game at higher levels. It is an endless cycle that the Devs can never seem to stay ahead of, and it is SO much eaiser to nerf game parts then make the AI smarter. The average player tends to lose playablity as the Devs try and keep ahead of the 'uber 'players and many of the fun parts of the game get nerfed.

This thread is a very good example. Look at what the Devs have done to try and slow down the uber players, they have nerfed morale buildings to the point of making them useless along with tile bonuses for them and farms. Now they post about how they did not know stock exchanges gave such good morale bonuses which means we might see a nerf to stock exchanges next. Where does it all end? With the heart of the game ripped out just to try and slow down the 'uber' players which is a losing cause to start with.

Theoretically, difficulty levels should take care of this…But this only works if the game is being made more difficult by making the AI more skilled (adjustable with difficulty level), rather than nerfing parts of the game (not so adjustable).

Where does it all end? With the heart of the game ripped out just to try and slow down the 'uber' players which is a losing cause to start with.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Put an option in to deactivate tech stealing and I think even *most* of the uber players will be struggling now.

I like the spirit of the 1.31 changes, and to be honest they suit me just fine (had worked my way up to beating suicidal...not any more) but they do seem a touch excessive. Customizable difficulty levels are the way to go.

Ideally I'd like the ability (should I so desire) to control exactly how much bonus *or* penalty both I and the AI get in every category. This wouldn't just allow *everybody* to find a challenging level, it would also allow people to manipulate the game balance toward whatever their favoured setup might be. Don't like the morale changes in 1.31? Hand out morale bonuses to everyone. Dislike the way defence becomes much less useful once weapons trees max out? Either put in penalties to weapons, bonuses to hitpoints, bonuses to defence or a combination of all 3. Etc, etc. Make these configurations exportable and people can easily share the fun combos they find. (Of course, you can change the game balance by modding the tech tree too, but that's a great deal more work!)

How this could be made to work with the metaverse I don't know. It probably couldn't, but then does the metaverse *really* work now?! Seems to me to be more about doing what scores the most points rather than what is most likely to win the game. That's part of the reason I don't bother with it.

Customizable difficulty is coming in Dark Avatar anyway isn't it? (Although probably not on that scale)

Ideally I'd like the ability (should I so desire) to control exactly how much bonus *or* penalty both I and the AI get in every category.

Customizable difficulty levels are the way to go

I agree, I've played Imperiallism II that has that to some extent and it worked for me. I was able to get settings that made a challenging and enjoyable game for me.

I also agree that it would be very problematic for Metaverse scoring. Maybe make it unavailable for Metaverse games.

I also agree that it would be very problematic for Metaverse scoring. Maybe make it unavailable for Metaverse games.

I guess that's easy for us to say.