Yes, I think the problem with making upgrades too cheap is basically avoiding manufacturing constraints. If they implemented a system along the lines of MoO2, where you had to remanufacture the ship to get the upgrade, that would be reasonable. The trouble with that is it would be a micromanagement nightmare.
Tiny ship (3x Phasor VII, 1x Graviton driver IV - fills the hull completely, no wasted space) HP 6 FP 18 Cost 218 Log 2 Huge ship (12x Phasor VII) HP 48 FP 60 Cost 760 Log 6 The problem with this example is the tiny ships are the perfect design for fi
All good suggestions, Brillig. Also, on the offensive, the AI should bring it's own constructors with the fleet, and in areas of heavy combat, drop its own military starbases near the front lines. That's just evil.
It's certainly worth commending that the AI plays the same game as the players. Even on the levels where it has significant bonuses, it's still playing by the same rules. To get back on my hobby horse, I really think simulation of fleet battles could help guide decision making. You could spend a lot of time trying to tweak some equations to describe the relative strengths of fleets, but simulating a few dozen engagements gives you the real e
The planet I took over from the Dark Yor seems fairly well put-together, even without any reconstruction. Actually, it's probably my best planet at the moment. You know, with all the comments about poor algorithms at higher difficulty levels, it might be worth checking that the AI difficulty selection didn't actually get messed up somewhere around release. Overall, I think there is a good chance we'll have a much more competitive
I think the point in splitting your attack against someone with reasonable defense is that unless they're using weapons o the type you have a defense against, your defense number gets the square root taken to apply towards defense. It may be prudent to *research* two weapon tech (In this case, it act
The game uses the MoO1 model where populations exterminate each other, so there is no 'reduce civilian casualties' option, or even rebellious enslaved races. Conquest *is* expensive. Another interesting factor is if you drain your planets dry taking over his, you not only take a big economic hit, you leave your own planets more open to invasion. For more punch per transport, try research the advanced troop module. That holds 1000
I'd like to start this thread to get examples of how the AI responds to your ship designs, and if you think it is making the right decisions. So I was playing a head-to-head game against the Drengin last night (crippling diff), and dragging out the war without capturing any of his planets, just to see how the AI would adapt to my ship designs. I had a large ship, stats were 9 beam and something like 5 armour, 2 point-defence. Thi
The game caps sensor range on ships to 15 parsecs.
At least in the game I played, I'm fairly certain I was only getting the starship bonus on attack, not defence. My race had a +30% defence bonus, and I had +55% starship bonus on the planet. If I designed a 12/4-4-0 ship, it would come out 18/5-5-0. If I was getting the starship bonus on defence, it would be 18/7-7-0.
So despite all the technological sophistication and sheer combat power of the German tanks, the Americans were able to win through strength in raw numbers. It's something you might want to consider. I think if they had swapped designs, the Allies would still have won handily. Let's not forget the huge
I think the starbases point is a good one. Smaller ships stand to gain more in proportion. I don't see the point about cost, though. Small ships are surprisingly expensive for their utility. A fully-outfitted small is going to cost about half as much as a huge, and I don't think two small ships are the equal of a huge in most situations. It's not hard to build a huge in 2 or 3 turns on a world that's geared for it. Though it is true that sm
I think I agree. Most of the time, small ships aren't worth it compared to large. Unless you are going up against an opponent with huge offence and no defence (e.g. Dreadlords), you seem to get a lot more bang for your buck out of large ships.
From when I had a planet like that, it looks like a bonus to attack. E.g. a ship with 10 attack will have 14 attack if produced on that planet.
Ah, +military production doesn't work the way I thought it did. So where I said it was equivalent to a discout on ship cost, that was appears to be incorrect.
That's very interesting. I had seen that the bonus from research was 'free' and assumed the bonus from military was as well. That does reduce the attractiveness of military quite a bit.
I was talking about the global spending slider. I usually turn that to 100% right away and never turn it down. Anyway, the traders come after the colonization is done. The start on a larger map for me looks something like: Turn 1, buy a factory, set 100% spend, 100% social, queue another factory Turn 2, finish buying second factory (reduced price), queue another - repeat until you have 5 (only have to buy the fi
Exzachly, good work! I noticed in the campaign scenarios they placed extra ships. Are you planning to include something like that eventually? Also, do you know if it's possible to include non-core ships in the scenario? Can you edit starting techs? Is it possible to pre-place structures on planets? (From what I saw poking around, it looked like no...)
I doubt the population thing is the critical factor, as I'm winning well enough on Painful and haven't had the problems you describe. This is probably a silly question, but are you running at 100% spending? I suspect half the people who are havig trouble never move that slider. As long as you are getting your share of planets and doing trading, your opening is probably good enough for Challenging. Lately I've been going 100% social to start,
If you haven't done any analysis on it, I wouldn't be so quick to drop the size inflation. The thing to keep in mind here is that a 20 attack is a lot better than two attacks of 10 each. Same goes for defences: they have non-linear returns. From what I've seen, larger ships tend to pack more 'oomph' per logistic point. Consider that two small craft have the same logistic cost as a huge ship. The two small ships together have 52 sp
Hi Entropy Avatar, I would think that multiple types of attack are also useful when your unsure exactly what types of defence your going to come up against. It may be that your at war with 2 or more civs using different defence types. Ideally though your right, it would be better to have ships with weapon types of the same kind a
how do you know that, how can you be absolutely sure? i still believe that it is the way i wrote, because in my way the 4-2-2 VS 4-2-2 is the same damage like 4-2-2 VS 4-0-0 in your way Well, as I said, there is some uncertainty. I think what do described is very different from what the manual says
Speed = Very important. They allow more overall attacks in the strategic mode. Maybe you could crank up the willingness to place engines a bit more? It takes a LOOONG time before I see any AI fleets with speed above 3. Mostly they are at 2... (yes, this is >= Intelligent)
"Their "Battle of the Gods" mode Dreadnought ship is like 175 lasers/200 shields. NOT a fleet, a single ship. When I try to customize something equal to that I'm limited to 160 pts. for the hull. 375>160, game over." The Darth might also have acquired a military resource in that game. That makes a very big difference. Another possibility is they got a planet with a starship bonus.
Gameplay-wise, defensive fortifications on a planet reduce the gameplay dynamics, not increase them. The reason is that if they're effective (i.e., they will defend the planet against a meaningful fleet), there's little reason to not build them. You slap one down and forget about it. Very little strategic thought it required. If they're not effective, all they'r
