Aliance encouraging mod
 

Has anyone made a mod that encourages alliances and makes it nearly imposible to win if you don't? Maybe by reducing production and reserch to a very low level and increasing the amount recieved by trade to a very high percent?

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

If you have an alliance, it is already quite powerful.

You should realize that no mod can make it "impossible to win" without an alliance.
You can always take on somebody your own size, or smaller.

Even in stock, though, alliances are significantly stronger than the sum of their parts.


Perhaps you mean a mod which makes it easier for allied players to attack and defend together?

Carrier Battles mod has relatively slow damage in combat, which means that as long as both players' forces are in the sector at the same time, they should fight very effectively together.

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

Thanks I'll try that one out. I was thinking more along the line of having 90% or so of your resources from trade. That way If you didn't ally with anyone you would stand very little chance against anyone who did have one or more alliances. Also if you were only allied with one other empire, and they cut ties with you it could wreak havoc on your ability to even maintain your fleet. I have no idea how this would turn out but I might give it as try and see what happens.

I should note however that I have no experience against other people, and an aliance with the AI is usually only good to keep them from attacking your colony ships while you colonize their systems at the begining of the game. This might change that, though I don't know how the AI will do with this. They seem to always make treaties with each other though.

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

That would require a 900% maximum trade level, and would take 900 turns of solid alliance to achieve.

It would be quite possible for two players who ally right from the start to specialize...
One player could colonize everything and have a race with massive resource, research and SY bonuses, while the other takes massive combat and maintenance bonuses.

Player 2 would no economy except the trade profits, but be incredibly deadly in combat by using player 1's ships.
Player 1 would have a powerful economy, protected by player 2's combat skills.

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I suppose you could also make a mod where critical technologies are restricted by racial tech.
Each race would only be able to choose one, and would have to trade with the others to get their basics.

EG: Resource extraction facilities, ship construction, and research/intel.
Race A would trade resources to Race B for ships.
Race B would trade ships to race A so they could build and maintain a fleet.
Both would trade with race C for research and intel points.

In that way, each race would be nearly helpless on its own, and having those "alliances" set up would be 90% of your strength.

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

Thanks those are some great ideas for what I was thinking about. I looked last night at the settings file and saw that I couldn't change the per turn increase for trade like I wanted to. Seems its hard coded at 1%. Just means I'll try a different way of doing it. I could even separate the 3 resources so you could, for example, trade minerals that you are good at mining for organics that you can't grow much of.

The only downside I can think of is having to constantly ask for or send things to other empires.

Thanks again for the kickstart, I have a few ideas now.

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

In SJ's Carrier Battles Mod, there are cheap intel projects which at least take care of the sending aspect of such trade...

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

I think that would allow you to steal from your enemies and not just you allies though. Still it would make those intel projects useful. I'm thinking more along the lines of larger storage capacity so you could go for 20 or so turns without running out.

Or fill a planet with mineral miner, if it’s your races specialty, and trade it foe a planet full of organics farms, for example.

Thanks for the intel idea though, I forget about that part of the game too often.

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

The intel projects he is referring to actually SEND resources to the race you are targetting with the project.

However, it sends all three resources in equal amounts, so it wouldn't apply here unless you go with a production/construction split instead of a minerals/organics/rads split.

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

Oh OK, I never tried to do that, didn't know you could. I'll have to try a few things out this weekend and see how they work. I might go the Production/construction split to keep it from getting to cumbersome.

Thanks again. hopefully I can try some of this out this weekend.

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

After looking at the files some more I was able to get it to work like my original idea. I changed the Political savvy in the settings to 500-1000, so 1% per turn trade increase is actualy 5%. turned up the max to 100%, tweeked the AI some to make them keep aliances easier. works pretty good but still needs a bit more touching up.

I only had time this weekend to run about 50 turns with the 20 stock races(player controled with complete AI on so I could monitor it). The AI has a "first 50 turns" modifier so I want to test it farther. They are making more treaties but they don't seem to get angry with allies ever.

If anyone is interested let me know and I will try to attach them later this week so you can try it. Just keep in mind it isn't done yet.

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

Ah!

A most excellent idea. Did you set that in the characteristics, or the cultures?

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

I did it in the characteristics, it would have been easier to do in the cultures, I suppose, but I didn't think about it. besides this way you can still use a culure of choice. Though now I wonder if I could have made a racial trait. Oh well it's already done. only thing is everyone has "god-like" political savvy so you can't see who actualy has a boost.

Has anyone actualy figured out what each and every line in all the AI files does? Some are a bit confusing as to their effect. Has anyone made a list? The ones I am trying to figure out right now are in the "settings" and "general" files.
Specificaly if IIRC:
"planets to consider for anger" enemy and allied
My best guess is either some of your colonies make them angry, or they attack some of you colonies when they get angry.
actualy thats the only one I can think of off the top of my head. I'll look tonight, if anyone thinks they might be able to help me figue out more let me know and I'll ask about the others tommorrow.

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

Basically, they'll get mad if they see colonies of that type (in their claimed systems only, I think)

The Eee don't get mad over allies colonizing "thier" space, which makes them one of the friendly races... AIs claim the systems all around their colonies, so border edges tend to cause friction.

Re: Aliance encouraging mod
 

OK, so I have that set to low now I guess. I wanted them to get less angry over allies and more angry over enemies. To get them to break treaties from time to time, I'm trying to make them angry if you ask them to do things too often, or refuse their proposals.

Do you know of any way to get the AI to initiate trades with other races, aside from just the treaty stuff?