If the AI doesn't research the cure at all it's a free win for the player. That's not "turning the galaxy on end" it's just a cheap win for no effort. I like the event, but the AI needs to react in the way a player would. While a player might have other immediate priorities, he would definitely attempt to deal with something that will inevitably destroy his civilization.

Good point. The thing is these mega events should be giving the player a kick in the head much more so than the AI's imo. The odd event should be helping to level the playing field rather than create a chasm which the plague currently does.

If the tech was really expensive (especially if the cost was scaled against the civ with the highest research capacity), then it would bring the diplomatic possibilities of the event into prominence. After all, the races with the lowest research abilities would HAVE to trade for it, or risk annihilation.

Yes, everyone knows mega events are MEGA bla bla. THATS NOT THE POINT! We are not idiots, we understand that mega events are "mega". Thats not a revelation.

The point is that, any reasonably intelligent player, researches it right away where as the AI does not!

So it doesnt "turn the galaxy on it's end" but it rather screws up the AI, which gives you as a player a free win. Which is what I suspect you want, to jack up your metaverse score.

So why doesn't it affect only the player? It's just a game, right? It doesn't have to be realistic, right? It's supposed to shake things up and keep the player on his toes, right? So why does it affect the AIs? If the whole point is just to have fun...

All i can say on this is that at present if i get the event i research the cure and then either gift the tech to the AI's or sell it to them if i am at war with them

I would prefer it if they actually researched it themselves but it isnt the end of the world if they dont. As a whole i am more than happy with the new release and look forward to the improvement of the minors.

The Galactic Core Forums - Home of the Metaverse Council

Obviously the intent of this event is that it has a period of effect before every race neutralises it so you don't really want all races to react equally.

Could the decision to research the cure be randomised so that there is a chance that each AI will drop everything to develop the cure as soon as it starts, a chance that they will begin researching once the current tech is completed and a growing chance that it will be researched next after each completed tech.

Say it increases by 25% each time, 25% chance of researching immediately, 50% chance after the current tech, 75% chance after a second tech and 100% certainty that it will be after the third project. Then there is a chance of them extincting themselves through stupidity/belief that god will save them as they didn't do it fast enough before their research capacity keeled over but equally a chance that they will go all out for it.

I wonder if the Tech trading had anythign to do with the widespread anhilalation of the races.

Also, to answer your questions about the priority of the Cure. There are 2 "Cures" in the tech tree for DA, "Plague Cure" and "Disease Cure" I havne't had the Mega event, so I am unsure as to which one will Cure the Plague, but looking at the entries, they both seem to be related to events in the game.

Anyway, The AI value for these is only 30. For anyone not familiar with GalCiv modding, the AI value essentially determines the tech's priority for the AI. Since this value will generally determine the order in which the AI will research available tech's, raising this value will force more AI's to research it ahead of other currently available techs.

By Contrast: Expert Logistics has a value of 32
Advanced Hulls has a Value of 35
Medium Shipbuilding has a value of 40
Large ships building has a value of 50
Technological victory has a value of 70
It's prereq's have value ranging from 30 to 50
Planetary defenses have a value of 38
Spore Weapons have a Value of 100!!!

Allmost all tech's values are below 20, with a large percentage below 15. 30 is pretty high. However, if the above techs are available, then the AI will research them first. The logistics techs are all around 30, and prolly are getting priority along with the Hull techs.

Personally, I want to play out a plague game by defualt before I start modding (maybe, lol), but It would seem to me that one could increase the AI value to 75 and get a favourable result. The entries for the Cures say the prereq is "ImpossibleTech" so I assume the tech is added into the tree via the event, and there are no prereq's (or that the prereg is added via the event also). If there are any prereq's, you'd have to up their AI values as well, so the AI will research the stuff up to the cure too. I know this won't work for metaverse, but as some ppl seemed to indicate, winning by current Cure implementation seems to be a little cheesy, lol.


Ps. 100 for Spore weapons.... wow... prolly cause its a Super race ability (and the race ought to use it!)or whatever, but still... wow

Denyasis: Actually IIRC XenoBiology is a prereq for plague cure, I'm not sure how disease cure works.

Hm that's interesting and might explain why the AI is incapable of researching the plague if these paremeters are fixed and cannot be changed during the game.

Ff that's the case then the value for the cures should atleast be 60. And if it can be changed during the game then they should be bumped to 100 as soon as the event occurs.

I'm not accusing anyone of being idiots, I hope that I did not come off that way, and if I did then I apologize. I was only trying to illistrate the point that I was trying to make.

As for "jacking up my metaverse score", since I only post about 1 of every five or six games I play on the metaverse, I would have to disagree with your conclusion. Were the metaverse to be closed down permanently right now, I would still advocate leaving the event as it is (and wouldn't be terribly disapointed, I post on it becuase there is no reason not to, that's it). I really do feel that it is more fun the way it is. When I want a challenge then I crank up the AI and turn off Mega events, that way it is all about stratagy.

I'm sorry that you disagree, and I'm sorry that I said something that has gotten you so upset as to think I'm trying to belittle you, and that your best response would be personal accusations. I'm just trying to advocate what I hope to see in the game.

I think there's a gameplay journal around here somewhere where Frogboy plays against the Korath and is disappointed by how long it took them to research Spore ships...I guess this was how he fixed it

so it sounds like an easy fix for those of us who mod for more personalized gameplay will be to jack up the cost of the cure and remove its tech requirements (so the AIs aren't 'blinded' by it being behind another tech).

Vinraith:

Thanks for the info! I've never had the plague event, so all the info I have on it is from you guys and what I can scrounge up in the files. Xeno Biology has an AI value of 35 and considering that Xeno Biology is the first tech's available, it would stand to reason that it would be researched farily early in the game.

Plague Cure and Disease Cure have almost Identical entries in the Tech Tree.xml File. The only Difference is thier ID (offical name for the Game to recognize) and some of the text in thier descriptions (Different words, but same meaning - "We found a cure to end this disease/plague). Might have to look into the Mega events...

YAY!!
Out of Curiousity, I dived into teh mega events. There are Two "Plagues". There is a Plague and a Disease Event. Here's the Text from both of them:

[Plague] A terrible plague has swept across the galaxy affecting all civilizations. The population on planets has begun to decline rapidly. Only with a cure can each civilization save themselves. The cure is called 'plague cure' technology. We must research this technology before we are destroyed.

[Disease] A rare but virulent disease is sweeping across the galaxy. The disease leaves no visible mark on its victims, but it leaves them apathetic, greatly reducing their abilities. To cure it, we must research Xeno Medicine and then research a cure for the disease.

So it looks like Xeno Biology, Xeno Medicine and the Respective Cure's might be required to kill off the Plague or Disease:

Xeno Biology has an AI value of 35
Xeno Medicine only has a value of 15
Cure Plague/Disease both have a value of 30.
The Cure costs 2000, that's the same as researching Manufacturing Centers or Galactic Stock exchange, so its not super cheap, especially if the even happens in teh early game.

I'm willing to bet That the AI gets held up at the Xeno Medicine stage. Even though most techs have values under 20, The Asteroid mining, Hull, and Logistic technology groups have AI values consistantly around the 30's, So I could see the AI getting distracted by a group of Tech. Upping Xeno medicine to say 40 (so that its a priority, but doesn't totally unbalance the game since its a normal tech) and Upping the Cure to 75 ish, probably will do the trick. The AI races ought to research it, but it'll still have an effect while they are researching it (especially early game where 2000, is really expensive).

Thanks for the info on the Spores, LegacyCWAL. That value would definitely force the AI to research it as soon as its available.

Sounds like you've pretty well nailed down what's happening denyasis. Here's hoping someone from SD takes a look at this thread.

Np, Im sorry but I overreacted to your post because I had just got a reply, regarding similar issues about mega events, from a dev saying that mega events are supposed to be "mega".

Thanks Vinraith!

Like I mentioned earlier, it would be really easy to mod the Game yourself. But it would totally knock you out of the Metaverse.

I guess its one of those things each person is gonna have to decide to see if they want to do it. Alternatively, you can just activate/deactivate the mod when you are in the mood for an SP or a Metaverse game.

I want to play a few more DA games before I do it, just so I can watch the AI to make sure the changes don't mess with it in any unexpecte ways (though I highly doubt it)