[quote who="AzuranPrime" reply="1161" id="3518979"] Thanks, I am using the latest executable. I have questions. 1. Entertainment buildings/planetary improvements say they increase happiness, but shouldn't they say instead that they increase Approval? 2.As a new player, I am confused of the difference between happiness and Approval, are they the same thing? 3. If Approval and happiness are the same thing, perhaps the word "happiness" should be changed
Holy carpal tunnel, batman! Fixing scenarios is going to drive me to drink! .. er.. ok.. drink more. [e digicons]:beer:[/e] I had no idea the scenario editor was so crude. And all I'm trying to do is rectify the disappearance of Kanvium and Droid Sentries, and the introduction of Adaptive Chaff. Basically trying to ensure that any civ that started out with T4 defenses still has full T4 defenses, and likewise for T3. And I&
[quote who="AzuranPrime" reply="1158" id="3518958"] I just bought Galactic Civilizations II: Ultimate because of the Community Update [e digicons]:D[/e] [/quote] Welcome to the community, Azuran! The Community Update is in great shape right now, I'd recommend the latest version (5.7.2) without hesitation. There is also a weapons tweak under development but it is still experimental. You can find it in the file archive as "Weapon_C
[quote who="MabusAltarn" reply="1156" id="3518821"] I've added the Weapon Cycle to the File archive. I'll sync it with 5.7.2. [/quote] Thanks Mabus!! Much appreciated. I've taken my FTP server down for now and will probably set up dropbox in the near future, unless the first cut of the weapon cycle is perfect and we don't need to fix/tweak anything (ha!). Will start running some test games to see how things feel.
[quote who="MabusAltarn" reply="1152" id="3518550"] Quoting SilasOfBorg, reply 1150 ftp://guest:[email protected]:6666 I'm afraid the link doesn't work. Please send me your dropbox name and I'll share the file archive folder. Let's keep our files in one place.<
Weapon Cycling v1.0 Alpha is complete. Get it here: ftp://guest:[email protected]:6666 Mabus, I apologize in advance for using 5.7.1 as a base. Hopefully it won't be very difficult to re-merge the changes from 5.7.2 if weapon cycling turns out to be more interesting and less unbalanced (fingers crossed!) Overview of changes: * Drivers are most cost efficient in T1 and T4.&n
[quote who="Maiden666" reply="1147" id="3518298"] Quoting SilasOfBorg, reply 1145 Yep. A complete implementation of double-cyclic weapons dominance does indeed reach into many areas, some of which I'm not quite sure how to approach yet, and the testing... eep! I'
[quote who="MabusAltarn" reply="1144" id="3518239"] If I may offer a suggestion. Perhaps it is best to fix what is broken and sticking within the current methodology of the weapon/defense system. Devising a new system takes time. Implementing it takes time. Testing it takes even more time. I've seen multiple posts saying that beams are a problem. Perhaps it's wise to focus on that. Fix them up a bit and score, say, a 70% improvement over the current situation, release
[quote who="Maiden666" reply="1141" id="3518147"] With AIP10 & AIP11 it is very complicated. They show erratic patterns and act, in a way, "reflected" to what's going on on the map. [/quote] Ok. I think maybe it is best to give AI a small hint, even if AIP10 and AIP11 do branch out, perhaps they'll grab a good tier over a middling one. Using my above example, if they do grab T0 Driver and T0 Beam, hopefully the "hint" of
[quote who="Maiden666" reply="1139" id="3518076"] Silas, it might be a good idea to let the cyclical strength of your system reflect into AI values as well. [/quote] Sounds like that might be a good idea -- and I'll happily take suggestions. Perhaps small values (6?) for tiers that aren't much of an improvement, and larger values (12?) for the first weapon of a strong tier? But then, given that Mass Drivers are strong at T1, if
Weapon tech descriptions have been given a once-over so that big advances are outlined clearly. Evil weapons have been given some reasonable values. I leave it up to Maiden / OShee / testing to see if the AI makes good use of them. Still todo: * tech costs * defenses * testing!! You can get the current deltas from CU v5.7.1 here: *** Very experimental *** <a href="ftp://guest:guest@lipfo
Well.. double-cycle is done. It goes a bit above the CU 5.7.1 max weapon cost, but has the same floor, and has reasonably close power/size ratios. I was struck by a devilish idea while putting together the tiers and decided to make lasers start small and grow larger over time, culminating with the massive Doom Ray. They have moderate power/size ratios. I like to imagine this: <img src="http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/318/2
[quote who="Maiden666" reply="1129" id="3517798"] Quoting leiavoia, reply 1125 but what would happen if we simply doubled all of the stats? It will create some negative factors. I've written alot and detailed about this already so I shall be short this time: [/quote] Yea
[quote who="MarvinKosh" reply="1126" id="3517738"] I think you guys are complicating things way more than necessary. [/quote] Maybe. But I'm having fun doing it and learning a lot. Something.. well.. "interesting" might come out of it. Cost/power (ie cheapness) is THE overriding statistic if you're talking about large fleet engagements, assuming equal logistics (which is also quite important). After all OShee's lamentati
[quote who="leiavoia" reply="1123" id="3517667"] Lev's thoughts on "weapon eras": [/quote] Alright.. so I reconsidered my earlier "impossible". It's only "really hard". I can actually do 5 eras with meaningful, albeit wonky, progression throughout the tiers. You get two tiers of ho-hum improvement (but worthwhile nevertheless), then BAM -- the next tier races ahead of the other two weapon types. Call it a breakthr
Cyclical is impossible to do in a meaningful fashion without massively expanding the power/cost and power/size ranges we have right now. Which means rebalancing/scaling hull HP. Which might mean reworking repair... not sure I want to go there. Trust me, it was hard enough to get 6 weapon tiers done with similar power/cost and power/size ranges to what is in the "base" CU. But it is possible.. my initial results (not including T0 or racial we
[quote who="leiavoia" reply="1111" id="3517487"] 3) Give each weapon type it's own game-era in which it dominates. example: [/quote] I like this approach. What does everyone think about the following: Drivers: cheap research, but defense is also cheap and good. best early tiers but peters out Beams: moderate research, expensive to build, most difficult/expensive to defend against, best midgame Missile:&nbs
Tier by tier weapon comparison, using the values provided by Maiden's GC2Types.xml, using Mass Drivers as nominal cost/power and nominal power/size. Battles were simulated using $100k bc worth of ships in fleets, throwing fresh fleets against fresh fleets, then injured, until one side was dead. The simulation is run several times for each weapon combination, hull size, and tier. Note that I consider the simulation "close" if the winn
[quote who="Maiden666" reply="1106" id="3517332"] The difference in production is only -3 MP, but the upgrade costs of Harpoon1-->Harpoon2 = 324 bcs (!!!) [/quote] Yeah, that's ugly. There is a nice solution, which is making Harpoons cost 62 (all levels) and Photonics cost 60 (all levels). I'm not at all concerned about cost/power being "smooth" within a given weapons tier; its the tier-tier jumps that I look at. A
[quote who="Maiden666" reply="1104" id="3517312"] I've taken the liberty and integrated OShee's changes into GC2Types.xml: [/quote] Thanks Maiden! I'll plug those into my weapons spreadsheet (which calculates cost/power, power/size, and some other scores) and run some battle simulations. Should be interesting.
Late to the pre-release party, had a very busy week. Glad to see the mod and Frogboy's fixes are working nicely together! I'm all for locking down the CU -- it has to be done sometime and I think we're in a very good place to do it. OSHee, you are still mostly ignoring the fact that a very small advantage in power/size ratio can translate into a very large battlefield advantage. A ship with 11 attack vs a ship with 10 attack won'
[quote who="MabusAltarn" reply="1047" id="3516026"] Wrapping up... This will be the last week where I implement changes and suggestion. Sunday will be the last day of CU development. No product is flawless but the CU's been tested over and over and over again and again and again. If there's mistakes left they are bloody difficult to find. AI performance is good if not great. At crippling I have to pull out all the stops just to keep up. I shudder to think wh
[quote who="MabusAltarn" reply="1033" id="3515661"] It's imbalanced by design. [/quote] Excellent point, we're not trying to homogenize all the races and make sure everyone gets equal everything. --- Results from a 100 turn test game with 5.6.5. Large, Painful, Scattered, 10 civs, ~120 planets. Took a snapshot at 50 turns. Another game with the Drath, by turn 100 every civ was at war. Tor
Nice work on the AI values, Mabus -- seems you're becoming a bit of an expert on GC2 AI "thought processes". :) Liking the rest of the changes, and will hopefully have some time this week to give 5.6.5 a proper spin.
