If you are changing the range of numbers radically, what do you intent to do about the sqrt() scaling on non-optimal defences? Effectively say non-optimals don't work at, even in the early game? I'd like to see some way to address this, as well.
Over several games, I've noticed a pattern that seems pretty detrimental to the AI's effectiveness. AI fleets that are engaged against another player who then surrenders seem to become 'leaderless'. That is, they don't respond to higher-level threats that are outside of their immediate area. In my current game at 'painful' difficulty, I am playing the Altarians in a 10-player, huge map game. Towards the end of the early game, my neighbours t
I'm seeing this effect as well. The different AIs all choose the same weapon. In my current game, we started with 9 opponents. I've seen ships from 7 of them, and they all chose beams. I've seen it a couple of times. It certainly makes MY choices easier... Edit: This was a no-tech trade game.
...which directly contradicts what Shrapnel posted on the forum, namely, that both attack and defense roll 0-max. Yeah, something doesn't add up. I have never seen a ship do zero damage to a target with zero defence. Maybe they should just post the relevant snippets of code. It's crazy that we still h
Saber Cherry, your model showed 2-2-2/0-0-0 beating 1-1-1/1-1-1? That would be somewhat surprising even if attack rolled 0-n. Keep in mind that the second type has at least 2 defence to every attack, and possibly 3 defence, depending on exactly how off-type defences are calculated.
So, any takers? How many people can reliably beat 'tough'?
In his recent journal entry, Brad presents a lot of interesting information about the AI, his approach and philosophy. Apparently, Stardock set a very ambitious target: that only 5% of players can reliably beat the 'intelligent', no-bonus AI. One of the reasons people like Galactic Civilizations II's AI is because it
Looking through the galactopedia, it looked like the higher levels of starbase assist technology offered stronger attack boosts, but not stronger defence boosts. Is this correct? Is it intentional?
Does anyone else do this ? IMO the AI should probably be following the same strategy when anomolies are set high. It probably should, but it's not a high-priority enhancement. In the meantime, just be aware that you are making the game easier than it otherwise would be by setting high anomalies. Whate
In those cases I think I might use defense on the small ships and pure offense on the large, so I'll see. It won't work. The enemy will simply target the large ships first in that scenario.
I've seen the 'mega fleet of sitting ducks' phenomenon a few times myself. I think the problem is that the AI doesn't appear to consider time as a factor in it's 'sneak attack' evaluation. It's a great strategy to send an unguarded transport to an undefended planet if it can get there in a single turn. It's more risky if it will take two turns to get there. If it takes 20 turns, forget it. Any intel you have on the target area is totally use
So in conclusion: Defence is far from useless. It can be more important than who attacks first! Thanks for doing the experiment, but I don't think your results can generalize. One problem is, that despite assurances that ships roll 0-to-rating for attack, a ship will never roll a zero
I don't think it has any effect. Playing games on Crippling I seem to get as many as normal.
In one of the games I played for beta, the Torians were expanding dramatically and got into a long war with the Drengin. The Drengin influence area on the map was fairly small, and the Torians had about a 70% stronger economy and a stronger military rating. During the course of the war, I heard many reports about Drengin planets defecting to the Torians. Bad news for the Drengin, right? Not really. The Drengin were continually pushing milita
Right now the ship designer doesn't have the concept of limiting the number of any particular components that you can have on a ship (other than through space limits). So, that would have to be added, or the first 'negative space' you could add would give you infinite space. I would like to see more range for building more elite ships that maybe don't make sense economically (ie, they will lose to an equal-cost fleet).
Considering that: 1) The scenarios where some defense is better than all offense are few, 2) Defense must be researched in addition to offense, and 3) If your enemy changes weapon paths, you're hosed, I think the game would benefit from some tweaking to how defense can be improved. I think you are rig
Actually as was posted elsewhere, this is unlikely given the relative values of logistics, though this could change with 1.1 and the new logistics values for big ships. Running the numbers, I think you are right. It SHOULD work out that way, but even 4 tiny ships can only really eat a huge at reasonab
The starship bonus is a bonus to weapon values for ships produced on that planet. It will take a long time for 3% bonus to be noticed, but a 30-70% starship bonus is very noticeable reasonably early-on.
The techs they were supposed to have were added to the game quite a while ago. So now they are actually useful. Pretty effective too. I had one large ship with the subspace rebounders laugh off a fleet of a dozen Drengin ships in my last game. Well, maybe not laugh off, but at least emerge victorious.
Iztok is correct. I love how people will confidently yell out their assumptions about what it does without ever actually checking.
I'm sure there must be a configuration where some defense gives a slight edge, but I haven't found it. Add in the fact that if you get attacked by the wrong kind of weapon you're screwed, I just don't see the use of defense. Well, you could try mixing up sizes a little. Defence is proportionately mor
Yeah, on the military resources I was thinking of the next map. I had forgotten all about this mission, but on 'tough' and the beta rules it was a whole different experience.
I just finished a game where my flagship came across a system with a 16, a 14, a 12 and a 10. Needless to say, I really wanted that system. Unfortunately, when my flagship spotted it, I also noticed the Korx flagship. I sent my flagship on a path to backtrack towards the Korx homeworld and encountered some of their colony ships on the way. I had my colony ships on the way, but the lead Korx ship was much closer and they had several more colony ships b
Hmm, I just gave this mission a shot with the difficulty set at tough and it was pretty nasty. The DLs didn't seem to be held back economically much at all, and they adapted just a little too quickly. My allies attacked them a little too soon with our beam weapons, and by the end of year one they were all using mass drivers and lvl 14+ shields. I think once that happens, you can pretty much say goodbye to taking them in the field. I think the 1.1beta changes make the DLs pretty nasty
Why would you build huge ships against the Dreadlords? It's a lot more effective with lots of small ships, since they tend to waste a lot of firepower in overkill. Research one weapons line, and try to snag the abundant military resources.
