So Kwok, when 1.12?

I'm aiming for the weekend.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

What cool stuff will you be adding?

It's primarily a diplomacy update - I've added most of the support in for alliance politics, with the exception of the AI proposing their own alliances. I've a lot of time adding in a priority scheme for player relations and tried to fix up most of the political options that weren't quite working properly, such as gifts or some of the demand requests. I've also been working

On the bug fixing side, there's a couple of data file fixes and a fix for wonky player ministers. I've also tied in seeker weapon armor/evasion into armor or defense system technologies.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

hhmm and how u going on your nova mod? any aproximate dates for a release yet?

Will we ever get A.I alliances?

Sure, we'll see AI initiated alliances. It's just going to talk a couple of weeks to come up with the mechanics for it.

v1.12 is almost done. Just a few loose ends to tie up.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

I enjoy your mod overall but I find dealing with the AI players impossible. They are ultra bi-polar. They'll be friendly for turn after turn for a long time, enjoying treaties with me then suddenly every single one of them will break their treaties with me on the same turn. Eventually they get aggressive and many will declare war. While even more will actively attack my planets (with fleets) without declaring war. Even after I've destroyed hundreds of their ships, still no war and they have better relations towards me than the other guys who actually declared war yet neither of us are attacking the other. Eventually since my score is more than double the number 2 guy they'll turn "terrified" and such and accept a non aggression pact but several turns later they will go back to "murderous" and cancel treaties again. I've had minor races with 1 system declare war on me for nothing, when their entire fleet has no chance against just one of my ships. I've dusted his whole fleet and captured his homeworld, leaving only 2 or 3 other defenseless planets of his own. Despite my massively superior fleet, no surrender. :/

I find it impossible to form any relations once the game gets going. All the while I've stayed out of their space, and stayed to myself and didn't bother anyone. I've done nothing other than having a higher score.

The AI acting mentally unstable is my only real issue with the mod, but personally I'd like to see ship tonnage increased a little (maybe up to rank 8-10 in tech) and Shields capped at 25ish. Armor seems to scale better than shields. Also even when I've had 4x-12x the intelligence production than my target, even after 30ish turns I'd only seen maybe 2 or 3 events which were minor information reports.

Just my input.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

Interesting, I was assuming if it was something to do with the size/score of my empire.

Kinda sucks though, that seems kinda inevitable for most games.. I guess the fact I never attacked anyone and had good relations with everyone for years counts for nothing. I even sent them resources from time to time to be nice

Thanks, I'll try that now. It's a shame to lose this game. It was my largest empire yet and it was kidna fun fighting off the hoards.. But being forever stuck to everyone hating me kinda means the game can only play out one way.

I am having lots of the same issues and I set false to MegaEmpire.

Did you edit the settings.txt in the Balance Mod's Data folder and not the stock games data folder? Do them both, I guess.

Of course.

There are problems with diplomacy that were discussed in another topic,like A.I empires breaking treaties at any request by another empire,and non treatied empires are seen as enemies by the A.I,this causes all sorts of problems with relations.

I think it's lame that if you don't have a treaty with an AI, they'll thoughtlessly murder hundreds of millions on a planet just because they can. Even if you have good relations otherwise.

Oh yeah, that is a point. Being on good relations on everyone means you're not paying attention to their affairs - they see you being allied with themselves and their enemies, they're going to have doubts.

Incidentally, Mega Evil Empire IS triggered by size/score.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

Diplomacy = zzz

Ai on team..and pew pew thats the business..
Anyway I like your mega evil empire thingie though...it adds spice.

However is there any news from Malfador on any further updates, and wether he can reduce turn time?
A real game killer that one..

Janster

Uh what bug is a game killer presently?

Javaslinger

That the turn times can be long.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

It has not been since the very earliest versions of this game that I thought the turn times were excessive. Even then it was supremely playable.

Now, with the most recent patches, turn times are no issue at all.

And with a good rig (I play on a older laptop and a smokin desktop) they very reasonable.

What sort of rigs are people playing on that are still complaining of turn times?

Javaslinger

Going back to the Mega Evil Empire thing, if alliances are being worked on in the Balance Mod, it would be nice if an alliance was used to create the anti-MEE alliance. It would be clear to the player that they had banded together to check your over-expansion, and if the threat of the MEE was defeated they could disband the alliance and allow the game to continue.

As it stands the Mega Evil game mechanic feels a little artificial and once that threshold is reached, diplomacy no longer occurs for that game.

Mmm, yes that would be a nice option. Then again, I play "Team Mode" only at present (all AIs gang up on me unconditionally) ^^;;

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

If you disable the anti evil empire thing mid game, will it eventually be forgotten and diplomacy begin working again?

I am currently playing with MegaEvilEmpire turned off... and there isn't that much difference with the current diplomacy. Sure, all the AI didn't break their treaties with me on the same turn... but most have turned permanently murderous anyway, and the nicest ones still really don't go above indifferent.

Most of the treaties I have are blank... and all the quality treaties were either broken by the AI or downgraded to uselessness. I think the big difference was that, without MEE, the treaties allowed me just enough time to fully colonize all empty systems I could find without the AI co-colonizing them (the last empty planet in my claimed territory was taken by an AI the turn he broke our treaty and a few turns before I could colonize it).

They need to work on the AI quite a bit.. More than just their ability to manage their empires but in how they react. If no treaty exists it means "Kill everyone and everything at every chance, even billions of civilians on a planet because you can" They shouldn't ALWAYS initiate combat with you. Or attack colonies no where near their territory. And in reality, I think destroying a colony ship filled with millions of people should make you a pariah, just like using viral weapons. Should be a way to force unarmed vessles out of a system. For me it really reminds me how artificial they are.

They should add settings for the races that dictate their reactions such as...

Aggressiveness:
How likely they are to attack on sight, modified by if they are in their own territory, yours, or neutral space and the history (if any) between the two races..

Military Use:
How likely they are to "strike first". If they are more aggresive or defensively oriented, how willing they are to expand through force.

Ethical Views:
How they view viral weapons, breaking treaties, planet destroying, destroying colony ships, bombarding planets, destroying unarmed vessles etc.

Just a few ideas..

It doesn't necessarily mean "attack" on sight. Yes, the AI will track non-treaty objects in their sight range, but most AIs if they are on friendly/indifferent terms would make a treaty rather quickly and wouldn't likely be in a state to attack objects offensively.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

In my experience, the AI usually colonizes at a good pace.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

What about a morale penalty for spacing entire populations? As it stands, it's way too easy to do in order to avoid transportation logistics, and there are no repercussions. One would think that if the rest of the population got wind of multitudes of their race being unceremoniously ejected into space that it would affect the moral of the survivors, at least to some degree.

Instead some kind moral penalty for spacing, making population much more important (through pop. production&rate modifier) is imo easier way to go. If you know that this pop could save you 10 turns if it was on another planet, you have reason to transport them there instead of spacing.

And it gives reason to capture planet instead of glassing (even if its same colony type as yours and same breathers).

On colony rushing, I don't think the AI has any problem doing this quickly. In all my games they spread their colony ships around quickly and colonise all in sight in no time at all. Perhaps they could prioritise a distant, huge, breathable planet over something nearby... but overall I don't think there are significant issues there.

On the jettisoning population issue, its definitely not that logical to have no morale penalty. Since you receive back some organics in return, it appears you can kill the population and recycle the bodies into your organic hulls! From what I've seen, the mechanic is in place merely to make the AI competitive until a reliable population transport algorithm is used.

Once the AI can dedicate a sensible amount of ships to population transport and move people around to maximise population bonuses, I guess the scrapping of population could be turned off. And population modifiers could be more punishing at low levels to make population transport more significant to boosting your output. In the meantime, the simple "population scrap" method is just a simple method to bypass that hassle, and just requires a little suspension of disbelief. Like considering the "scrap population" order just a metaphor for granting the domed population their freedom and allowing them to leave the planet.

You can code planets planets to launch fighters and have them guard warp points.

-Unnamed

Unnamed Mod

Hmmmz, I wonder if you can make scrapping population cost resources....
That would reflect the cost of arranging 'transport offworld' which then meets with a convinient accident into the sun .>
Or some such thing.

Try setting the scrap values for population in Settings.txt to negative numbers, and see what happens. I know those values work as positives, because scrapping pop in my mod gives you organics. "It's made of people" has a whole new meaning to organic tech races...

"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod

Still waiting for upgrade to 1.12 so I can continue work on Longship Mod.
Currently the BM is the only one with AI that can use my engine modifications...
Unnamed has no time to donate to my project currently

So, yeah guys I'm still alive.

"Genius is Simplicity" chris connors
"To win without fighting is best" sun tsu
those who think they know everything are annoying to those of us who do

Been playing a 1.11 with AI set to hard and all i got to say, is I love the fact that the oppenents now actually use fighters with thier carriers. This has left me scrambling and pumping up my system defense to keep up with the AI. Truly a challenge that im thoroughly enjoying. I know PD ships and such are the best counter but im experimenting with other defense techniques.

Toxic:
Tactical or no tactical?
In no tactical something like PD ships with dont get hurt, retreat imediately, DON'T scatter strategy should do the trick. Attack with them enemy fleet away from your planet, fighters will scramble and get killed, rinse and repeat until fighters destroyed, then bring some shipkillers.