What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/cheats?
 

I just started playing SEIV again after buying it, quickly trying it out and shelving it a few years ago. This game is very big and can get somewhat overwhelming for a newcomer. Anyways, I've read some of the newbie FAQ and just finished getting owned by the AI. I'm thinking of making a new empire and I would like to get some perspective on some traits / tactics that I've read that seem a little cheap. I'm thinking of someday doing multiplayer and I don't want to pickup any bad habits. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Min-Maxing:
Is this allowed in multiplayer games and how is it considered gamely? I personally don't see anything wrong with it because your handicapping some aspects of the game while boosting others.

Ancient Race:
This reminds of some very popular cheat codes with starcraft http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif, Seeing the entire map gives a huge bonus early on by colonizing the best planets, knowing where all the ruins are and guessing where enemy home worlds are. I personally don't like this because tends to spoil the game somewhat, but I'm keeping my options open.

Deeply Religious:
I heard that this trait is actually not allowed in some games because of the talisman, is this true? The idea of 100% chance to hit seems a pretty cheesy to me but I really like a few of the facilities. Besides the idea of a Heavy Mount + Organic Weapon (enveloping acid) + talisman seems very enticing. Being able to do 300 damage every 2 turns at a range of 8 for only 80kt space (next lowest is 120kt I think) and chance to hit of 100% ... its getting hard to say no. =)

Also are there any tactics / traits I should avoid?

Thanks in advance.
Xorkh

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

In no particular order, these are most of the tactics that some might consider gamey or cheap:

http://www.spaceempires.net/home/content-36.html

And some min-maxing info:

http://www.spaceempires.net/home/content-1.html

Note that some people consider lowering happiness down to 80 or 50 for some more points, but I do not personally care for that...

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/cheats?
 

Min-Maxing is ubiquitous in competitive games on PBW. A few games use a balance mod, I think it's PVK's, that changes the limits and costs so there aren't any no-brainers any more.

Opinion is divided on whether Ancient Race is actually worth the cost. Very few games have any special rulings concerning it.

Deeply Religious is quite frequently banned because of the Talisman. I would consider paying 1500 points in some games for Nature Shrines alone. Add the Talisman, and the balanced cost of the trait shoots up to 4000 or 5000 imo.

Intelligence is sometimes banned because it's usually just a waste of effort, and when it is effective it's usually just another advantage for the guy that's already winning.

Technology trading is sometimes banned because it unbalances the game, especially with trading colonization techs.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

The most natorious are mining your allies homeworld and warp points then declaring war on them.

But here are a few suggestions.

E.R.A.S.E/
Empire Is Going To War
Addicted To SEIV
Red NeckEmperor
SEIV Bumper Stickers
You Might Be an Idiot Emperor

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

Thanks for the help guys.

I've decided to stay away from the religious trait altogether, it seems absurdly overpowered especially if the resource % bonus from the shrines stacks with the central and system resource computers. Add in a mid game 100% chance to hit component (as well as other shrines) and you got yourself a iddqd doom cheat (imo).

So far, I'm leaning towards a min-maxed race with a merchants culture, standard build except with 115% maintenance instead of 110% and organic technology. In the first game I played, maintenance costs pretty much crippled me. Only other option would be berserker culture, 110 main, and organic + ancient race, with other stats min-maxed accordingly.

Also I'm not sure what how the aggressive/defensive characteristics work, do they add to defense / chance to hit, or actual damage done / taken? And is the 10% extra bonus for a total of 130% really worth it?

Thanks,
Xorkh

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

The shrines' bonus does not stack with the system robotoid factories, but it does with the planetary ones, since the shrines uses the same ability as the system robotoid factories.

High maintenance reduction can be an exploit as well; I guess I'm surprised it's not on that list as combined with crystalline it can lead to practically maintenance free ships...

The aggressiveness and defensiveness affect your chance to hit and be hit, and they are quite powerful traits. Consider a race with 130% defensiveness going up against a race with 100% defensiveness. At range 1 there is a 90% chance to hit (100% base to-hit minus 10% for the distance). However, the race with 130% defensiveness will only get hit 60% of the time, or 2/3 as often, as the race with 100% defensiveness! The discrepancy gets worse as you go out to farther ranges, say range 7, where the to-hit chance is 30%; then the 130% defensiveness race would never get hit at all were it not for the game's 1% minimum to-hit chance. That's a 30 to 1 ratio of hit chances! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

Talismans = everybody picking on you just to make sure you can't use it anymore. (That is, I would imagine this would/could happen.) In stock it is waaaay underpriced.

I personally consider taking organic and crystalline (in stock) to be a bad thing - except when fighting only AIs of course http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Organic Armors can repair the Crystalline Armors as well, and since the Crystallines generate shields with each non-armor-skipping hit, well..... Also, using the specialized weapons from each type (especially Shard Cannon and Crystalline Torpedo (in the early game)) while protecting your ships with this deadly mix of armors makes for the fact that your ships fight like they're a few hundred kT larger.

Side note: When facing an opponent which uses the aforementioned "dirty" tactic, simply make the Null-Space Cannon your primary weapon and place a lot of shields and no armor on your ships, and watch his ships die like flies.....

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

Um, I thought organic armors only regenerated other organic armors, since they're the only armor which has the regeneration ability...

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

So...How long till you charge up the hill? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

There are a few of those tactics I wouldn't call cheating. I mean what's wrong with emergency building. Also placing your ships over the enemy planet before attacking to avoid mines seems similar to Germanys placing a battlecruiser in Danzig harbour (supposedly on a good will visit)so as to bombard it's defenses.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

Back when that list was being formulated, it was sort of an "just say what you think is an exploit". It led to a lot of discussion back and forth, when all that was wanted was a simple list for poeple to pick and choose from when setting up a PBW game. The point is, that these are things that at least someone once thought was cheating.

I'm picturing a PBW game, where someone gains a slight advantage, and someone else demands to know how it happened, only to find out there was a tiny fundemental aspect of SE4 that they didn't know about. When they find out, instead of having an, "Oh, I see" moment, thay continue to biatch about it.

Those old threads are a good read.

[EDIT]
Here's where Fyron trys to just get a{list},
and here's discussion -- {talk}.
Here's one I tried to start to write an Encyclopedia Malfadorica article{Wiki}, and people said I was trolling. {the discussion}

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

Religious isn't quite the exploit you may think it is. Actually, against the AI it is unbalanced. But in multiplayer games, very often non-religious players will band against a religious player to wipe him out before he gets the Talisman. If he can survive long enough to get the Talisman, the fight is more even, but that doesn't happen very often at all in PBW games.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I've just started my second game (with DN4 mod). I ended up going with a berserker min-maxed race with ancient race & organic traits. I'd like to go with the crystal trait for the armor & maintenance facility but it doesn't really fit with my race concept. Also, I was wondering if its allowed to replace the race portraits on the shipsets? I'm using the SEV shipset and I'd like to replace the race portrait with the render from my sig ... is this allowed at least for personal use?

Hehe, Not anytime soon, still getting the hang of the game mechanics. But I keep you all posted about my future faliures. =)

Thanks,
Xorkh

Edited for typos.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

For personal use, yes. I have done such a thing myself once. Nothing wrong with it.

**********

Nope. Armor regen regenerates all armor on the ship. In Adamant, Organic races with Inherent Regeneration (or something) get an Auxiliary Control (IIRC) component with Armor Regeneration ability, but which does not have the Armor ability itself.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

The Crystalline Armour lacks any regeneration ability, so it won't get regenerated: you must have some sort of regeneration to benefit from the OA ability; whether a component is an armour or not is irrelevant here.

Devnull does have Biocrystal armour though, which acts as the CA, with built-in regeneration, but it's not exactly the same thing (and it is a mod, of course).

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

Newbie question, is armor really all that important in the game? From my understanding in most multiplayer games, people use heavy weapon mounts and 150kt of resistance doesn't sound like much. I would think that the space would be better used for extra shields.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

Armour is paramount: Stealth and Scattering Armour give you a huge bonus to defence, and those are definitively worth it.

Now as for Armour vs Shields... I'd rather not engage in that debate. Let's just say shields are more expensive, Shield Depleters do a lot of damage against them (and are otherwise worthless), but shields give more hitpoints per kt. There are other differences, but I would need to write a paper on the matter, so I won't do it right now.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

That is, until the shield skipping weapons come into play..... or when the enemy weapons get so heavy (*cough*massive-mount-WMG*cough*) that your shields are depleted in a few shots.....

On the whole, it's best to have a good mix of shields and armor, and perhaps some shield regenerators if you've got room. If you're playing stock, however, don't repeat do NOT use emissive armor, as it's useless against everything save for long-ranged shots and (small) fighter attacks.

Hey, I wrote this before Alneyan posted, and clicked "Continue", but apparently it didn't process. Weird. Oh well.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

Emissive armor is extremely useful in stock if you're relying primarily on armor for defense. Yes, only shots for damage less than the ability amount are completely negated, but shots for more than that also get reduced by the ability amount. If everyone's still using ships smaller than battleships, even against large mount PPB V's at point blank range, that's still about a 25% reduction in damage. In combination with crystalline armor on really big ships, emissive is critical to taking maximum advantage of the shields from damage ability.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

Emissive Armour has only one huge drawback in stock: it has only 50 hitpoints, which means it can be taken down rather easily, especially if using CA/OA. Still, it is worthwhile if you are using mundane armour, since a 20 or a 25% damage reduction is better than putting more armour on your ships.

Emissive Armour is also great against those players who like Lightning Rays and/or Destroyers (say, RexTorres): in this case, the Emissive Armour will absorb most of the damage, ruining the day for the other player.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

No offense, but I've never noticed this happening. Can anyone confirm this?

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

I answered to that a few posts ago, and can confirm it isn't the case in stock. Of course, a mod doing that can easily be created.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

It is wrong. The armor ability is 100% irrelevant for hit point regeneration. All components with the regeneration ability will be regenerated, but no component will ever be regenerated just because it has the armor ability.

Re: What Traits / Tactics are considered cheap/che
 

Alright! someone else discovering my mod. Feel free to let me know what you think of it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif