A few comments about the Romulan
 

First all God Emperor, I want to say that I really liked your work with the Romulan and the Klingon. Both are great races and usually, are fighting the first places in my test games.

I have tested mostly the Romulan, and I believe that you could improve some things, for games with full tech from the start.

1) The small attack ships are useless in games with full tech from the start. A frigate without Combat Sensors and without ECM, can do anything fighting against other ships.

2) The large attack ships (Dreadnought), only have 2 Wave-Motion Gun III, but too many shields and too many Point Defense Cannons.

3)A similar problem with the Weapon Platforms: a lot of shields and PDC, but only one Wave-Motion Gun III.

Usually the Romulan in games with full tech, can create really large fleets, but the problem (in my view), is that their ships have not enough fire power.

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

I have seen no Romulan ship equipped with self destruct devices. This makes them very vulnerable, because they are easy to enter.

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

Master Belisarius,
I am unsure of what you mean by full tech from the start. What techs does this include?
I appreciate your comments and have been working to up the offensive power of Romulan and Klingon ships by cutting back on Shields primarily. I may have to create a large class ship to get the equip out right though.

PsychoTechFreak,
Thanks for your observation, I have never really been sure whether inclusion of self destruct devices is a good tactic - do they only detonate if a ship is captured, or if it is boarded? Look forward to your advice.

Regards,
GE

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

Self-destruct only kicks in if you lose in a boarding party battle.

And, if you have a SDD, i think the AI will not attempt to board a ship.

Against wily humans, the SDD may be used to trade a Boarding frigate for the enemy dreadnaught's destruction http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

Thanks for that.
Will update my ship designs....

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

Full tech from start includes all technology. I was building Battle Cruisers during my initial turns while the Romulan was sending frigates against me.

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"Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Self-destruct only kicks in if you lose in a boarding party battle.

[/b]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

???

I have never lost any boarding party battles, even with the lowest level boarding party. But every time when I have forgotten to observe the enemy ship for SDD then both ships exploded, so I think SDD always kicks in if you board another ship.

The difficulty with SDD is this: I shoot a ship down until the SDD is destroyed randomly, then I do boarding. Oftentimes the important devices are destroyed after that, so you can't analyze anything new.

SJ, I see the human strategy problem with the Dreadnought against frigate destruction, but it's better to die than to get captured in this case. Also I think especially the bigger AI ships should be better prepared against boarding: More phased shields (I can bring them down easily with shield depleters, everyone of my battle ships is equipped with one large scale shield depleter and ONE boarding party, which is enough to capture almost every ship in one or two turns!), and security troops...

BTW, what about security parties (I don't know the right name for the boarding defense), I have never seen that on AI ships, maybe because of the research area which might be excluded due to boarding difficulties for the AI ?



[This message has been edited by PsychoTechFreak (edited 28 May 2001).]

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

The AI can use security stations, but most don't because the ability isn't included as one for their ship designs. It's easy enough to fix if you want to though. It's probably not included because the AI hasn't quite gotten the hang of boarding enemy ships so the tonnage used on a security station is wasted unless they run into a human fleet.

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

dominion,
Sounds like you were using the "basic_KlingRom" mod which incorporates small and large attack and defence ships (this was done to ensure that early on the races used missile weapons only).
Unfortunately the AI builds a lot of the small ships early on for some reason with this setup (which doesnt manifest itself so much in a standard/basic game).
If you use the Romulan_DesignCreation file from my "KlingRom" mod though (which only has one type of attack and defence ship) they will build whatever the largest ship is that is available to them.

General;
I'm not sure that its possible to design a decent AI ship to counter many of the tricks mentioned in this thread - putting lots of shields or security stations sucks up space that could be used for weapons (see Master Belisarius's early comment on firepower).
At the end of the day, I think we all have to restrain ourselves a little in using some of the tricks available.....


[This message has been edited by God Emperor (edited 28 May 2001).]

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

Hi God Emperor.
I can say it in a different way: games where you don't need to research! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif When you have available all the tech from the start.

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by God Emperor:
... putting lots of shields or security stations sucks up space that could be used for weapons (see Master Belisarius's early comment on firepower)...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, but all the firepower is useless, if the ship does not get the chance to fire: optimal boarding strategy (human): waiting one field beyond weapon range+movement points and maybe one shot from the shield depleters, next turn brings the boarding ship next to the defender, eventually the next shield depleter brings down the rest of the shield and the ship is mine before it could discharge its guns.

I don't use security stations as well, the boarding party is enough to defend against eventual boarding attacks with the possibility to board another ship. But I see, the AI needs much to learn... (But I think it just can be improved if we don't ignore the human strategies to help the AI, better would it be if the AI could be tweaked to counter these strategies... In another thread someone has suggested an open source AI, oh that would be the nicest present from MM since SEIV has been released !)

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

PsychTechFreak,
What do you see as the best defence then that us modders could design into AI ships - boarding parties? Must admit, I'm not entorely sure what approach to take....
Regards,
GE

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

In my view, to use boarding parties, Alliegace Converters, Mines, Stellar Manipulations and Plagues, are only a way to to have an easy game against the AI.
This is not a cheat, but not fair with the AI. Why? Because the AI is in a great disadvantage using these techs.

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

Master Belisarius I humbly disagree. Even if the AI does not use them as efficiently as an experienced human player, I think the performance with mines, allegiance subverter is quite good at least with some modified races.
If you let the AI research medicine and include a medical bay in the population transport ship design, he will cure plagues quite well.
Boarding parties IMO are not very interesting even for human players. They can be rendered ineffective be the self destructing device and even if successful you usually board a severely damaged ship!
Steller manipulation especially warp point manipulation I agree with you. But even there I saw sometimes the AI use star destruction and planet creation in a reasonable way.


[This message has been edited by Q (edited 29 May 2001).]

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by God Emperor:
PsychTechFreak,
What do you see as the best defence then that us modders could design into AI ships - boarding parties? Must admit, I'm not entorely sure what approach to take....
Regards,
GE<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sorry, most of my comment was generally about the AI. I think if you could add SDDs (which is just 10k), I would be glad for now.

Q has made the point about this:

"They [boarding parties] can be rendered ineffective be the self destructing device and even if successful you usually board a severely damaged ship!"

And I wish to say: Thank you very much for your efforts in modding, sire.



[This message has been edited by PsychoTechFreak (edited 29 May 2001).]

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

SDD's it is then!
Thanks for all of your comments.....

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

A few handy hints for defending against boarding parties:

Instead of security stations, fit an extra crew quarters component. It provides some defence against boarding, takes up less space (I think) and has the added advantage of backing up your primary crew quarters, which costs you movmnt points if destroyed.

Shield regenerators mak it harder for your opponent's boarding ship to catch you with zero shield points.

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Q:
Even if the AI does not use them as efficiently as an experienced human player, I think the performance with mines
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

- About the mines, please note that to include minesweepers into your attack ships (like your AI moded races and the Rage, for example), it makes the ship more weak.
Also, in the early game, the minesweepers in attack ships are not very effective: for example, the Phong attack ships were unable to remove the Pyrochette minefields.
The REAL problem is that the AI doesn't include the minesweepers ships into their fleets, and send those ships unprotected to remove the mines.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Q:

allegiance subverter is quite good at least with some modified races.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

- Yes, the AI use the Allegiance Subverter very well. But if an human player found an AI with this device... the next turn will start to research computers to build ships with Master Computers.
But, I'm saying that Allegiance Subverters used by human players against the AI, are like a cheat, because the AI NEVER use Master Computers.

If an human player found other player that use boarding parties, surely he'll start to include Self destruct devices into their ships. But what happen with the AI? The AI doesn't know if their enemy is using boarding parties or not... then, the AI maker will be forced to spend some important space of their ships with useless Self-Destruct Devices (useless if the other empire is not using Boarding Parties).
I think that here, should exist an automated event, that should be triggered when the AI knows some enemy designes with Boarding Parties (the Self-Destruct Devices only should be included into the AI designes, if the AI knows that his enemy is using Boarding Parties) .

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Q:

If you let the AI research medicine and include a medical bay in the population transport ship design, he will cure plagues quite well.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

- What happen when an human player got a plague into of one of their colonies? He will try to research the Medicine devices to cure the plague.
But the AI... the AI only will follow what did their creator.
It mean that if he have included the research to cure the plagues in the early game, probably the AI will lose a lot of valuable resources, researching an useless tech. But if the human player research the plagues in the early game, but the AI maker put this tech later into the AI tech tree, then, well... the AI will die.
Like the Self destruct and Master Computers, the research for cures to plagues, should be an automatic event, triggered after the AI knows that one of their planets have a plague.

Finally, about the stellar manipulations, yes, the AI use it, but in an erratic way. (The AI can send a sun-destroyer to kill a system with only one little planet of their enemy, instead to kill other enemy's system with 10 starting planets!).
Also, what about the old human tactic: to open a warp point, send a fleet into the enemy territory and close the warp point? The AI is unable to do it.
It mean that the AI have a great disadvantage, using Stellar Manipulations.

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

I don't think it will ever be possible to get the AI to use all the available tech/weapon combos effectively. As you point out they are only as good as their creator made them. The AI, in its current state, can never learn. This is really what must be changed to make the AI much better. The game is so complex and there are so many variables that it is impossible to program the AI to take advantage of them all.
So far most of the good modded AI's have made compromises and are worthy opponents in the short term. The longer the game goes the easier they get to beat.
Some of the mods have added the minesweeper ability to an item that also has other uses, Dev mod gives this ability to PD cannons. This is a good compromise I think. While a human will always build dedicated minesweepers and include them in the fleet the AI just won't.
Plagues are another area the AI is weak in, if it's not in the program they will just die. The medical ability could be given to something the AI will definately produce.
The only problem with the compromise approach is it dilutes the thing that makes this game great, the variety. Maybe MM will take everything learned/suggested in this forum and use it in SE5 to make the game that this one could be. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this game. I just hope the next Version has a big improvement in the AI.

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

From all of the Star Trek TV series, years of Star Fleet Battles, and various Star Trek computer games, it seems as though there are three things that define the Romulans:
1. Cloaking Device
2. Plasma Torpedoes
3. Very extensive Intelligence force.

yet, the Romulan AI seems to research both Cloaking, and Intelligence fairly late, when they should be one of the first, and when they finally do research Intelligence, they don't seem to build very many Intelligence Facilities, putting them a noticable disadvantage when using Intelligence projects against them, when they should rival the Darloks.

While Plasma Torpedoes, a weapon used by them since thier very first apperance in the original series, are not even used.

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

Nitram Draw: don't be confused. Also, I still love the game.
I'm only saying that playing alone against the AI, I never use Mines, Alliegiance Subverters, Board Parties and Stellar Manipulations.
Also, I never take over AI planets and use AI population, to populate planets with a diferent atmosphere.

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

Yep, I restrict myself in a lot of way too, except against those devious humans that I play hotseat against. They are such sneaky buggers!

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

M. B. - I do not use the others, but mines are the bedrock of my planetary defense for the first 50-70 turns. After that it is WP with missiles, PD, and beams. Until the AI starts doing serious sweeping mines make more sense. Research for them is cheap, but a good WP is very expensive tech for an early game....

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

The romulans work well for me. Then again, I am not an AI kind of guy that spends hours tweaking it. I only work on the ship sets.

But let me tell you how my current game is progressing. Out of 8 players, only the Romulan, Ferengi, Dominion (me), and the Klingons are still active.

Ranking:
Dominion
Ferengi
Klingon
Romulan

The Romulans and the Klingons are the only races attaking me with intel. The Klingons have massed huge fleets and have glassed many of my worlds. The Romulans lay back, and do not attack. They have a huge fleet, but do not choose to use it.

I do not know if this is a trait or just the AI being dumb, but I fear that when I engage the Romulans, they will have a fleet twice the size of the Klingons, and equal to my own by that time. To date, every time I have engaged them, I have lost the combat.

Their intel attacks are devistating, and they have caused many of my worlds to switch sides.

The Ferengi are just as leathal, if not more so, but their time is quickly coming to an end.

God only knows how to create a dominate AI that can do all the things we want it too. But for now, we have you guys, and I sincerely hope that you all will continue to improve upon the AI's for ALL races.

That was my own worthless 2 cents.

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

To come back to the original topic posted by Master Belisarius: I too like the Klingons and Romulans very much, but I agree that the design of the attack and defense ships should be revised, at least the Version without modified components, that I have. It is not reasonable to have separate designs for very small and large ships. The AI will just stick to the small design in the later game.
Do you plan to post an update GodEmperor?

[This message has been edited by Q (edited 29 May 2001).]

Re: A few comments about the Romulan
 

Atrocities,
I appreciate your comments....

Q,
I have been working on an update but I'm not entirely sure how to deal with the small ship/large ship problem. In the standard/ basic game, the AI needs to build missile ships early on, but, once destroyers are achieved I prefer them to use DUC's. I'll have a rethink of this approach though and see what I can come up with...Perhaps I'll use a beam weapon other than the DUC (which means I can include it ahead of missiles in the Weapon priority in the DesignCreation file - I cant do that of course with DUC's because all players start off with level 1 at game start)...

In the destroyer/point defence Version though, I do not need the small ships as I equip them with DUC's at the start (apart from the Romulan Defence ships which I included just to make the Romulan ships a bit more variable)....