Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity/Diplomacy v1.3 Journal - Part 3

Yarlen

Join Date 01/2005

+366

Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity/Diplomacy v1.3 Journal - Part 3

Advanced Diplomacy

In the final article of our Trinity/Diplomacy v1.3 journal, we're going to take a look at the updated Envoy cruisers and Pact system.

Envoys

Envoy cruisers in Trinity are largely a “fire-and-forget” affair that provide needed relations boosts over time, along with some beneficial abilities. We intentionally designed Envoys to not require much player management, since Sins isn’t about micro-ing every little detail. However, quite a few of the Envoy abilities were either of limited use or overpowered. With the version 1.3 update, we’ve completely rebalanced the Envoy abilities, replaced some and moved others. Generally speaking, it is now easier to research Envoy abilities and they’ve been made more useful to their local gravity well. We’ve also lowered the fleet supply cost of the cruiser to make them less costly to deploy, faster to build, and more capable of helping players generate positive relations. For anyone who wishes to form Pacts with another player, using Envoys is a must.

Pacts

The last major change with this update is the Pact system. As with Envoy abilities, every Pact has been rebalanced, moved or replaced entirely to be more useful during gameplay. In general, Pacts are best used between two different races and are “global” changes for the parties involved (i.e., they affect stats for the entire race, not just a single gravity well).

We’ve also scaled the Pacts to be easier to form at the lower end of the tech tree, while increasing difficulty leads to much more powerful bonuses (which are now of benefit to all races - no more pacts that affect missile weapons only). The AI will also now look at the Pacts each player has with one another and attitudes will change accordingly based on if a player is being too friendly with a foe or vice versa.

I’ve tried to go over just the biggest changes briefly in this journal for Sins of a Solar Empire fans. We hope everyone enjoys this major update to Trinity/Diplomacy and we hope to see you all for Rebellion!

Locked Post +2 Karma

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

KING-B
flannicus90

Quoting Greg30007,

reply 75

There are some maps that have 3 bases on the same star. There are plenty of multi-star that have 1 per star.

But these are all out of the way and easy to go around. I've only ever seen pirate bases used as roadblocks on custom player maps.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Why would you want to use pirate base as a roadblock?

Only reason I could think off would be to gimp AI to give you time to build up. SB are for that if you need time. Most of human opponents are smart enough to know how to bypass fortifications (=planet) and build up on other side.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Greg30007,

reply 77

Why would you want to use pirate base as a roadblock?

Only reason I could think off would be to gimp AI to give you time to build up. SB are for that if you need time. Most of human opponents are smart enough to know how to bypass fortifications (=planet) and build up on other side.

Sometimes you want to gimp the human players as well, or make it so that some routes of the map are more risky than others. On this map for example you have two choices, take the long, resource rich long way around the edge of the map, or try to cut through the pirate base to rush another player.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Love this new patch,

However...

The last four games I have played against normal TEC AI, have all ended with my planets being continuously bombarded by their Super Weapon spam, and consequently, result in me loosing those planets, and then game.

It would be nice to either be able to a) turn off at the setup screen, the ability to build super weapons should we wish or b ) code in some kind of ethical (we won’t shoot you if you don’t shoot us - MAD) AI behaviour, as for now, all my games are turning into "The first to get the crazy giant space gun is winrar".

Also on a related note, anyone else finding the Advent Super Weapon kinda... well, lacking...

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting GoaFan77,

reply 78

Quoting Greg30007, reply 77Why would you want to use pirate base as a roadblock?

Only reason I could think off would be to gimp AI to give you time to build up. SB are for that if you need time. Most of human opponents are smart enough to know how to bypass fortifications (=planet) and build up on other side.

Sometimes you want to gimp the human players as well, or make it so that some routes of the map are more risky than others. On this map for example you have two choices, take the long, resource rich long way around the edge of the map, or try to cut through the pirate base to rush another player.

Reduced 83%Original 564 x 526

On map like that If you play against human any rush trough pirate bases becomes unsuccessful. You loose to many ships if you want to rush or they loose too much HP. Against ai depends on the level it will still work if you bring sb with you.....

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Pickles_Olivine,

reply 79

Love this new patch,

However...

The last four games I have played against normal TEC AI, have all ended with my planets being continuously bombarded by their Super Weapon spam, and consequently, result in me loosing those planets, and then game.

It would be nice to either be able to a) turn off at the setup screen, the ability to build super weapons should we wish or b ) code in some kind of ethical (we won’t shoot you if you don’t shoot us - MAD) AI behaviour, as for now, all my games are turning into "The first to get the crazy giant space gun is winrar".

Also on a related note, anyone else finding the Advent Super Weapon kinda... well, lacking...

If you aren't playing against Cruel or Vicious you should easily have the spare funds to defend against the Novalith. Build a starbase at your important worlds and upgrade them with Auxiliary Government or your race's equivalent. This is easily done by the time the AI has enough funds to research and build the Novalith.

Or, if you see the warning that a superweapon is being built, just send your fleet there and destroy it. Especially if you're just playing on Normal, you shouldn't take that many casualties.

If you're TEC you could just send like 7 scouts with Timed Explosives to completely destroy the Novalith.

If you're still having a problem with superweapons, remember that each one costs as much as a moderate fleet: if your enemy invests in superweapons and doesn't have a massive income advantage (Cruel or Vicious), you should be able to build a fleet of your own and steamroll your enemy's fleet, get to the superweapon, and destroy it.

But you're right that the Advent superweapon really needs some love.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Greg30007,

reply 80

No way. To get through the pirate base, all you need is to send in a single scout and order it to circle the gravity well: if you're careful you shouldn't have any problem keeping it alive. Once the pirates are all focused on chasing the scout, send in your main fleet a few seconds later. They'll be able to cross the gravity well and form up to jump to your enemy's HW at their leisure. You won't lose any ships, and the only ship which might take significant damage would be the initial scout.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Wrath89,

reply 82

No way. To get through the pirate base, all you need is to send in a single scout and order it to circle the gravity well: if you're careful you shouldn't have any problem keeping it alive. Once the pirates are all focused on chasing the scout, send in your main fleet a few seconds later. They'll be able to cross the gravity well and form up to jump to your enemy's HW at their leisure. You won't lose any ships, and the only ship which might take significant damage would be the initial scout.

SHhhhhh...trade secret. Stop telling AI exploits. Before long I won't be able to colonize two bar terrans and deserts with just a scout, some more scouts (to chase siege frigs), and a colonizer. Or about when you can SB the pirate base with how you mentioned. Before long, they'll fix the AI and then I'll just be a mediocre player again.

Successfully updated karma reason!