Simultaneous Games
 

They suck. and the AI does cheat.

I am playing a SP Simu game to check out it;s nuances before getting involved in PBW. Two things I have come across and am only on turn 13.

1> All ships do not move at the same time. I had a single ship in one sector, and a fleet in another. Both were given orders to goto a third sector that contained enemy ships. The enemy ships did not move, probably because of the damage they took the previous round from the Sat battle. If all ships moved at the same time, as stated, I would have had my single ship and my fllet enter combat together. they did not. My single ship did the whole banana. now, I still won the battle, but this is not true simu turns. And battles seem to be ship specific instead of sector specific, which is why it didn't work.

2> it blatently cheated. I had a single ship given orders to attack a colony ship. there is no routing line with attack orders and it show on the ships menu "seek out and attack xx". The colony ship moved 8 spaces and colonized a planet and my ship moved to the location where the colony ship was on that previous turn. Two things wrong here. One, my ship should not have gone where it did, and two, there if no fragging way a colony ship on the 13th turn of a game can move 8 sectors, and colonize a planet (9 movement).

3> The following turn where my fleet was between an enemy ship and a warp point, but yet the enemy ship walked past my fleet, and now mine is in a chase situation. that might be explainable in turn based, but not whe all shipos are suppose to move at the same time. the fleet should have intercepted the enemy ship.

Now, I will gladly ponder any explainations from the community. but right this second I am quite pissed off at the game. And I have serious doubts of ever playing PBW. IP turn based MP maybe. slimeytananus games, doubtfull. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

"1> All ships do not move at the same time. I had a single ship in one sector, and a fleet in another. Both were given orders to goto a third sector that contained enemy ships. The enemy ships did not move, probably because of the damage they took the previous round from the Sat battle. If all ships moved at the same time, as stated, I would have had my single ship and my fllet enter combat together. they did not. My single ship did the whole banana. now, I still won the battle, but this is not true simu turns. And battles seem to be ship specific instead of sector specific, which is why it didn't work."

This is also pretty much true for turn-based. Combat is sector based, but your ships arrived at different times.

"2> it blatently cheated. I had a single ship given orders to attack a colony ship. there is no routing line with attack orders and it show on the ships menu "seek out and attack xx". The colony ship moved 8 spaces and colonized a planet and my ship moved to the location where the colony ship was on that previous turn. Two things wrong here. One, my ship should not have gone where it did, and two, there if no fragging way a colony ship on the 13th turn of a game can move 8 sectors, and colonize a planet (9 movement)."

If the 8th sector was on to the planet, that sounds about right. What happens when can get a bit screwy. Your ship got confused, probably, when the colony ship disappeared. Never been in this situation myself.

3"> The following turn where my fleet was between an enemy ship and a warp point, but yet the enemy ship walked past my fleet, and now mine is in a chase situation. that might be explainable in turn based, but not whe all shipos are suppose to move at the same time. the fleet should have intercepted the enemy ship. "

They moved past each other. Combat can't occur between sectors, and if they pass each other between sectors this happens.

Phoenix-D

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

If you want the ships to move together, either fleet them, or shift-click them to give them a combined order.

The shift-click-order method makes a virtual fleet out of any number of ships and/or fleets, and they will move together.

Not sure about the colony ship... did you watch the replay, or just see a colony ship at point A on turn N, and a new colony at point B on turn N+1?
It could be two different colony ships you're seeing.
In order to move 9mp in the unmodded game, you'd need engine up grades or solar sails, and propulsion experts could help.
Modded, anything goes.

If both of your fleets were moving towards each other, and had the same speed, they could have each moved on the same day, swapping places. You'd then be behind them.
Its best to force the enemy to come to you if possible.

If you were cloaked, your ships may have chased them, but not attacked, staying hidden instead. Stealth armor maybe?

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Allow me to clarify a couple of things. this game was a low tech start. So there are no solar sails, no emergeny movement components, no cloaking, none of that stuff.

the enemy is using ion 1 engines, according to the design window (they have concentrated on APB to L3 and ship coinstruction to L3). however I don't have thier colony ship listed.

reply1> But, this is not turn based. if it was turn based, I would have joined the two prior to entering battle. But you can't do that in simu games, nor can you give multiple orders to do that. IE move to sector 8,7/join fleet with the fleet making a stop at that sector to wait for the other one before proceeding to 9,8 (move to 8/7/wait/move to 9,8).

reply2> Yes, the 8th sector was over the planet, I said that. But a colony ship using ion engines can only move 5, not 8, and certainly not have an extra one to colonize with. Even with propulsion expert, it only can go 6. I do have the game on hard AI, but that should not affect ship movement. (their advanced trait is "lucky". Well, I guess fuggin so!)

reply3> that would indicate that interception would occur if the two ships were even-numbered apart, and would fail if odd-numbered apart. Some how I doubt that. besides, given the large tile grid the game uses, I don't have that much a problem with each ship moving in turn, but, since it is "suppose" to resemble simu movement, then it should: move one,nextship/move one,next ship/ect.. until ALL ships in the game (race having no bearing) have exausted all routed movement points. so when the AI moved one and ended next to mine, I would get one move and battle would occur. Therefore, it is not Simu movement. It is not set-up correctly.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I know about shift click and shift-a(all). the fleet was in one sector, the single ship was in another. You can not shift click ships in different sectors. Read my post, I stated that.

No, I didn't think about watching the replay, I never used that in TB, and this is my first ST game. I thought about, but that thought came the following turn. too little, too late.

Swap places? When they have orders to attack? Which in ST game would be an intercept order when an enemy ship is selected as the target.

I can't look back for a bunch of details. I have the game set to save every 5. it pissed me off so much, I reloaded the autosave. if the AI is gonna cheat like that, so will I. this does two things. First, it relieved a lot of stress. Second, i am sure the same situation will come up again, as that being only the 13th turn, i really don't have many ship movement option. Second, it will allow me to check for things mentioned in reply to my topic post.

I am still irritated. But understand the frustration is from not understanding the game mechanics. As i have said before, it is what it is, and not what I think it should be. This is an excellent example of why I wanted to get familar with ST games before entering the PBW arena.

Thanks for replies so far. kkep them comming, I am still not convinced on the AI cheating.

And if someone says putting the AI on hard is cheating, I am gonna ZOO. that is not cheating, that is a difficulty setting. So just don't even go there.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

weeellll that was weird. I did do the reload, but it still have the movement log for the turn in question.

There was a second colony ship that came in through a worm hole at the top of the screen. So that one is answered, the colony ship I tried to attack, ducked out the worm hole at the bottom, with my "sharp stick" in hot persuit.

Now, I am gonna have to watch it a coule of times to get a better understanding of the other issues. I noticed my ships firing at the enemy ships, but not in the combat window. I and using DUC, and they seem to have the same range as when in the combat screen. will have to look at it again. I will edit into this post, what I can figure out. but wanted to let ya know about the other part. Why would the ships fire weapons on the system screen. kinda goofy if you ask me, since it has a combat mode.

edit in
no, it doing weird things. also got an access violation. so I will have to wait and see when I get 3 turns done.

(and for those that might wonder, I don't cheat persay after reloads, I try an make the same movements, and the odd colony ship will still get it's planet. I just want to understand the mechanics).

[ January 30, 2003, 06:25: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

I've never noticed the AI cheating on speed. Are you sure there weren't two colony ships? Did you watch the movement replay?

It has been my experience that as long as my ships have the same speed and move the same number of sectors to a target, they will both enter the same combat. Are you sure the distance travelled was the same for both, and that both had the same speed?

As for interception, it can sometimes be annoying, but after you see how it works, it is more or less consistent and has a logic to it, that at least to me makes more sense that turn-based, in most cases. I think it's not perfect but I think it's ok, and I very much prefer it to turn-based, especially since it lets you play with X players without multiplying the time to complete a turn by X PBEM exchanges.

PvK

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Ah, ok, two ships.

As for combat on the system map, I think you're misunderstanding what you're seeing, but I can't guess what it would be. I have never seen any combat showed on the system map.

PvK

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

yea, the replay log in TB is kinda useless and redundant. It is very handy in ST to get some kind of understanding.

lol@the cross post

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Yeah, I think you'll like it better after you get used to it and figure out the quirks.

That was funny - we had simultaneous Posts while discussing simultaneous movement.

PvK

Edit: Turn-based might be better for forum conversations... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ January 30, 2003, 06:32: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

I have never notice the AI cheating on speed either. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Two areas where it does cheat though are:
1) Knows what you have researched.
2) Knows how many ships, planets, researched projects etc that you have in order to determine if you are a MEE (mega-evil empire).

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Well couslee dispelled the cheat-on-speed idea.

Why would you say it cheats to know what you've researched?

MEE doesn't take all that into account - it only uses the total score, which may be based on those things, but it has such an invalid formula that I don't think it could be considered cheating.

PvK

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Ok, basicly, it looks like the Ai was able to out run my fleet due to it not moving like it should have, it just sat for two days before begining persuit. Why it did that, I don't know I am sure I will get a better replay when I get back to that turn.

The fleet (two ships) what looked like the fleet firing on the AI ship, was actually teensy tiny itty bitty wittle.... ships. the fleet does not move in unison, it moves one ship at a time, one tile at a time. Which in my topic post, is how I said it should be.

The only question remaining, is how come the fleet just sat for a couple of days before moving. this appearance may be due to the reload.
I am getting a better understanding of the mechanics, thanks to all your help.

Edit in:
Oh, the AI does cheat, it has the all seeing A-eye, but it needs that for programming. I have seen the AI make a B-line from 3 systems away and head straight for the only unprotected planet in a fully colonized system, and it's not the closest one. but beyond that, it seems fair enough. The A-eye can't see planetary mines tho. lol FABOOM! which is also part of good programming. one of these days, someone will program a game with an AI search/explore ability but I have not seen it in any games yet. Fog of war is a human problem. That is what makes this so frustrating. you play and think "cool, an AI that don't cheat(not A-eye) and feel good about your purchase and are having fun, then you see something that really looks hokey.

[ January 30, 2003, 06:56: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">One of the threads discussed how the AI was able to adjust by reasearching and then modifying its ships to attack human empires without first observing the changes in the human ships first.

And yes, it is probably the total score. But that is still a cheat in games where we humans cannot see the others score.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">1. not sure about that. bet it was a good thread.
2. setting are NOT CHEATS you can make the "view all player scores" in the game set up.
some "harder" settings give the AI bounses.
some "harder" settings give the player handicaps.
Not selecting "view all players scores" is one of the second variety.

[ January 30, 2003, 07:03: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

There are 30 days a month. Ships move every X days, where X = 30 / movement rate. Watch the stepped movement log to see when all of those ships moved.

If you have formed a fleet, the ships in it move together, not separately. But, if you used shift to select a stack, they appear to move separately. Beware: the shift-selected ships only actually move together on the first turn of a movement order. After that, they move separately. That is why fleeting them is better: it removes some unnecessary micromanagement. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

About movement in ST.
Ships don't move one step, then next ship... until all movement points are used up.
They move on different days depending on their speed.
So a ship with speed 8 moves different days than a ship with speed 5.
Check the FAQ for more accurate info on this, with wich day the different ships move etc.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Can we stop using ST for simul move? ST means Star Trek. It is confusing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

I know it's a 30 day log.
At no point during this game have I used shift click to move any ships at all. they were in a fleet, and they moved one at a time, one right after the other. that is why it looked like it was firing on the enemy ship

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

well, that game is hosed. I have 4 AIs all pointing their ships at me, with me in a pocket and them having lt cruisers built and ready to go already, it's nothing more than a mop up.... for the AI. gonna start a new game, only this time the Ai can kiss my *** for a bouns. I am trying to learn the Simu mechanics. not how to deal with a bad start

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Ok... they do indeed appear to move separately. They just move too fast without the animations on, and I hardly ever watch the log. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif But, the fleet does move into the next sector at the same time in terms of game mechanics and timing.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">1. not sure about that. bet it was a good thread.
2. setting are NOT CHEATS you can make the "view all player scores" in the game set up.
some "harder" settings give the AI bounses.
some "harder" settings give the player handicaps.
Not selecting "view all players scores" is one of the second variety.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">1) I search the old threads on a regular basis. Must do 4 or 5 searches a day and read at the very least 100 old Posts, some going back as far as 2001 and earlier.

I came across this particular thread in one of my searches and think it was about a year old although it could be earlier by as much as a year or two. I can't remember as I do so many searches. It was not something I was looking for but found it interesting and didn't take any notes.

Anyways a bunch of "well known guys" were discussing it and had devised some tests which to their minds "proved" the AI cheated.

About two months ago, I asserted the AI did not cheat. Nobody took me up on it. But then I started wondering how AI's could as a group suddenly declare war on me...some of which I had the most minimal of contact. We couldn't view each others scores and yet they knew somehow that my empire was the most strongest of all.

In 1981, I bought my first computer, an Apple II+. At that time, games were few and far between.

So, I thought I would program my own game for the time when a bunch of us guys got together on Saturday for beer and pretzels.

It was called "Prices" and could be said to be an earlier Version of "Capitalism".

Essentially, each player had a company which produced "widgets", with a current retail price of $10.00. Each turn, the CEO http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif had to decide on the price of his widget, research budget, production, the number of plants to build (if any) and a few other variables.

I didn't play as I knew the algorithym to success. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Essentially, the two most important factors were price and research. These had long term effects not immediately obvious.

The other factors also affected the profitability but generally only for that month. So overproducing meant higher inventory costs and a lower profit for the month. Underproducing meant lost sales, and a lower profit.

Price had a major impact on sales. What they didn't know was that a stable price was important to the consumers confidence in their product. So, changing the price up and down from month to month to get rid of excess inventory or to generate sales was not the means to success. IIRC a .1 % increase per month gave the best results. No increase or .2% would still give very good results. Reducing the price was not a good thing as its adverse effects would be felt over many turns.

Reseach had a major effect on sales as well, but its effects were not as obvious as a price change and were spread out over many periods. It also had a multiplier effect. Consistancy in research within a certain range from period to period also provided the best results.

Each month, my friends would be supplied with a monthly profit and loss statement, a monthly balance sheet and a 'decision sheet' on which they would have to submit their decisions for the next turn. They would have no access to their opponents P & L statement and Balance Sheet.

Each year end, they would be supplied with a government statement on such things as total sales, investment,etc in the economy.

It was a lot of fun. And the ones who felt they were losing would often "try" use their decisions to make the program give wierd results to the players. I had anticipated it, but even so the economy would sometimes show signs of a depression or inflation as a result of these particular decisions.

The important thing is that I had not programed an AI to play the game.

If I did, how would I have programed it? If I programed it to price its product with a 1% percent price increase each turn, is that not cheating?

And if it isn't, who would want to play against an opponent who consistently wins?

If I let it just flounder around, it would not be a very good opponent. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Or I could let it cheat and have it take a peak at it's opponents inputs or their profit and loss statements, massage the data and use it to affect the AI's input.

On a basic level, my feeling is the computer must "cheat" in some way because it is not able to learn from its mistakes and successes.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

"At no point during this game have I used shift click to move any ships at all. they were in a fleet, and they moved one at a time, one right after the other. that is why it looked like it was firing on the enemy ship"

That's a display problem. I've seen it before, but the fleet has always engaged at the same time..

phoenix-D

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

tbontob. I would not necessarily say your AI would be cheating, just very hard to beat. If the best you can hope for is a tie, IE you make exactly all the same decisions the AI does. I don't know that I would call that a cheat, but a balance issue. Of couse, you can program an AI to win all the time by following a specific "perfect strategy". However, If it were me, I would have considered programming the AI to make a few mistakes, tho not many. An "easy" game setting would have more AI price flucations add than on "hardest". hardest would still have some in there, so as to make the game a challange and not too unbalanced towards the AI. But enough that if the player didn't develope a steady price strategy, the AI would get a victory. That, also is not cheating imo. Reason being, is the AI is still playing the game within the game parameters. Having the AI peek at the player inventories would be a cheat.

Take SMAC for example, and a blantent cheat I caught it doing. In SMAC, if you switch production from one item to another, 50% of any minerals over 10 is lost. If you have accumulated more than the cost of the item you switched to, you only got the 10 carry over. You can still do the switch, but you pay the penalty. I had infiltrated this paticular faction, and saw it was close to completing a "wonder" it had a ton of minerals accumulated. I built a probe team, to attack the construction of the base, and destroy the production. the AI switched to a probe team for defence (probe vs probe=combat). probe teams are cheap. any minerals over the production cost are not carried over, with the exception of the first ten minerals. The AI built the probe team, and had a full carry over of the excess, so the "wonder" production was only delayed one turn and it didn't lose anything. what I called a cheat on that, was not that it could see my hidden probe team (which is a cheat, but minor and necessary imo) but that it didn't lose ANY of the excess minerals accumulated. I sent the save file to firaxis as a bug report, but it got ignored. The "no loss carryover" is way outside of the game rules of play. So i guess what I am trying to say on that, is if the AI is allowed to do things the player is not, that is a cheat. If it just makes a better decision, that is good programming. In your example, the AI (would have) only followed a steady price plan. If the AI was not impacted at all by doing excessive price changes, that would be outside of the game.

That is why my first assumption was an outrage. (glad i was worng). a unit getting extra movement that a player can not get with ANY race setting would have been a cheat.

And as i said before, selecting "harder settings" is not a cheat either, as long as the AI plays within the game parameters.

I am not a programmer, by any strech of the imagination. So if I used a "wrong term" somewhere but you got the point, then at least I explained myself enough. (sorry if I repeated myself too, I am tired and a little foggy headed)

[ January 30, 2003, 21:15: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm quite sure this would be lucky guesswork on the part of whoever scripted the AI's they were facing. I've done SE4 AI reasearch files, and studied what the AI does with them, and I'm quite sure that it does not cheat in this way.

Quote:

And yes, it is probably the total score. But that is still a cheat in games where we humans cannot see the others score.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It's clearly shown to be the total score in the AI files. I would also agree with couslee that it's not really a cheat - the players chose not to be able to see other scores. The fact that they can't prevent the AI doing this, for purposes of MEE, is not so much a cheat as a feature limitation.

Also, it seems to me that there are so many important things that the AI can't do which humans can, that most things the AI can do that humans can't, are small compensation - the AI is clearly at a massive disadvantage, because the game is complex in ways that humans can understand well, and AI's can't. Some compensation can be made with reasonable techniques like trying to estimate power with the score. I don't think it would make sense to want MM to program a huge separate analysis function to try to duplicate the way humans guess at enemy strength. It would be cool, but not as cool as the other features we got from MM in the time he would have had to take to develop such a system.

PvK

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Lol, almost forgot why I pulled this thread up. considering the lenght of the other post, I thought i\t better to make a second one. Different topic.

I have a non-neutral AI that has been sending missle ships to attack one of my planets. Due to the unique match of "his" weapons against my WP, the only thing that happens every turn is a stalemate and continued blockade. I have been dispatching his units with a cheap ramming ship, but alas both get lost when one of my desings is built. No problems there. But because of his steady flow of missle ships, he has negletced to expand. he has tech I want, and is an "other" breather. So I want to force a surrender with minimal population loss on his side. But i can't seem to get a blockade going. my ships keep glassing the planet. I even tried to make a specific strategy to give the ship, but it still is not working. Is there an easy way to establish blockades in Simu games? I even reduced the planet damage setting to the min 10% (won't go to 0). That didn't work either. i do want some/one/whatever ships with weapons in case it either builds a WP, or sends one of his ships to clear the blockade. I probably could send a PDC only ship there, but that would not do any good against some of his designs, nor would that destroy any WP. I do not have troops yet. But even if i did and captured all his planets save one, I still need to establish a blockade to force the surrender. Any ideas?

oh yea, I was going to check the encyclopedia malfordica before posting, but forgot. will go there now, but posting this anyway cause i don't want to re-type the details out again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Edit in: LOL, blockading is not even a listed topic. and the faq does not address this in PBW.

[ January 30, 2003, 21:39: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

If the priority is to not harm his planet the best way to blockade is to set your ships strategy to "No get hurt". It will run for the corner and stay there. Will not approach the planet and will not fire on it. You might lose a few to enemy ships or fighters as they don't defend themselves very well. They will stay in the corner and only shoot at ships that get in range. Also occasionally they will begin within range of the planets weapons and might get shot at the begining of combat. But they wont approach or fire at the planet.

Geoschmo

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

I thought about that G, but if i did do that, then ALL of the ships with that desing would follow "don't get hurt" which kinda defeats the purpose of weapons. will give it a shot with a custom strategy, and put the single blockader in it's own fleet and give it that strategy. maybe that will work. that way, my other fleet and single ships can go on as usual.

I sure use up a lot of fleet names in this game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
repair fleet
temp1
temp2
ect..ad nauseum
too bad the game gives you it's defualt choice only once.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

LMELSAO (ever lovin skinny)
end turn
AI attacks my fleet and get slaughtered.
AI sends message in the same turn:
"Please consider entering into a trade alliance with us."

after 27 turns of a steady steam of ships attacking me, and not making any progress. and NOW he wants a treaty? Now that my "cheap shot" missle fleet is in his home sector? I bet he does!
Stupid Terrans. bar har har har.

Gonna work on that blockade strategy. lol

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">.

In the game in question, both ships had the same speed, so would have moved on the same day, which they did after my fleet had it's siesta.

I just got up from mine, and had this thought.
In turn based if you select a ship or fleet and click on the "warp" button, but remembered you forgot to check something, you can cancel the "select location" by clicking on a non-worm hole sector. If you click on "move to" and have the same realization, you can cancel that by clicking on the ship again. This does NOT work in Simultaneous games. It is possible, that this is the scenario that caused my ship to sit still for one of it's movement days. IF I clicked on the fleet, clicked on "attack" and then changed my mind and clicked on my own fleet to erase the "select target" message. If later I decided to go ahead an attack that unit, I would have clicked on the fleet again, and "attack" that ship. IIRC that was the case, because the fleet had a colony ship in it, and I decided to pull the colony ship out of the fleet so that it would go to the planet not via the enemy ship. Now, there is a game problem regarding that, and that is the inability to cancel a half selected order. Esc does not work, neither does delete or any other key I tried. And therin lies the problem. The "select" does not even cancel itself if you switch to another ship. This can cause a lot of mis-directed ships. Would be a nice feature to add if there is another patch.

[ January 31, 2003, 05:03: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

You can cancel any previously given order with the Clear Orders command (red circle & slash icon, hotkey Delete).

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But that does not work when the order is not completed. I do use that in this current simultaneous game (complete it mulligan style), but in turn based it can be a PITA. Try it, you'll see.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Because of this, I always use the Transfer Cargo button. There are no side effects to using this (except having to close the window that opens up).

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Click a different button then, and SE4 will forget that you clicked move to. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Thanks Fyron, that'll do trick. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

However, I doubt I will be getting into any PBW games. I am sick and tired of watching my fleets do stupid **** in combat. I have been trying a lot of different strategies, with a large amount of varied settings for damage, firing and such. I make a change, and that fixes one thing, and they go and do something else that is just as stupid. It is killing the fun in game for me, and frankly, right now I doubt I could care less about SEIV MP, if it means I have to use strategic combat. I enjoy the game, and enjoy tactical combat. Sure, I wish the AI was better at it, but in strategic combat all my losses have been because the ships go and do stupid things. Yet the AI does the things I would do in tactical. I can't figure out the right settings for what I want the ships to do. Even if I found the right setting for a paticular circumstance, that setting may not be the best for all my other ship not involved in that one combat. If I could make specific strategic setting PER SHIP, it would be a different story, but this "good for one is good for all" stinks. imnsho.

Maybe I will give simultaneous games another chance in a few months, if I am still playing SEIV.

Thanks for all the help you guys gave, it is appreciated.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Couslee, I hear your complaint.

I feel we are not given the means to understand how a particular strategy works. Worse, if we want to create a new strategy, we are given little information on how to create an effective one.

Maybe with a lot of trial and error, we can achieve some level of proficiency in it. But, who wants to spends months trying out all the different permutations and combinations?

Much better if MM would tell us what each part of the strategy menu does and how one part is affected by the other parts and how the other parts are affected by it.

Then it would be fun to construct different strategies to cope with different situations.

But all we have is this strange silence.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Exactly. I have been trying a lot of trial and error, which can be frustrating enough, but trying that in ones first simultaneous game is even more irritating. Each trial (read reload game) has the added irritation of having to redo a bunch of other crap too. I will give strategic more trial and error testing, but in turn based mode another time. Right now tho, I am going to delete the current game, and start a new one and PLAY it, and save all this testing for another day.

Analysis paralysis is a horrid thing indeed.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What strange silence? Aaron doesn't browse this forum. Have you tried emailing him about it? I strongly suspect he would be willing to answer your questions. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Use the simulator to investigate strategies, not an actual game you're trying to play.

To blockade, use a strategy set with "don't target types" set to true for Planets, and Seekers Targetted on Self and Seekers Targetted on Others. This will allow your fleet to attack defenses without firing on the planet.

To have ships use individual strategies, use a fleet strategy with ships set to Break Formation - they will then use their own design-specific strategies.

To have a specific ship use a different strategy from the one for its design, put it in its own fleet, with that fleet set to not break formation.

PvK

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

The simulator is very, very bad. Do not trust it. It is better to setup a test game where you do real strategic combat. The simulator often gives incorrect results.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Couslee,

I feel your pain concerning the seemingly random acts of violence (or non violence as the case may be) of the AI that controls combat in multi player games.

---Time Out---

After reading what I wrote and seeing how harsh it may sound, I have inserted this to say "Everything that follows is meant to be helpful and none of it is meant to combative or sarcastic." The written word is soooo different from conversation where body language can soften remarks.

---End Time Out---

I would make this observation, though. "What is fair for the goose is fair for the gander." In other words, this problem is faced by all of those who play multiplayer.

I would also make the following observation. The true art of strategic command involves trying to get your underlings to do what you want. Having a great plan is not always enough. Finding the right set of orders that will allow your underlings to exert intelligent influence on their actions in light of a changing situation while following your orders when it is still right has been the bane of supreme commanders for all of history. Cases in point... McClellan (American Civil War), Patton (WWII), MacArthur (Korea).

I wonder if Swartzkopf considered taking Baghdad when he was ordered to stop?

Learning how to tweak the strategies to get them to do what you want is part of the multiplayer game. I personally always play with simultaneous movement. EVEN if I am playing a single player game. The two ways of playing are very different.

Trying to get all of your assets in the same place at the right time can be frustrating. One trick I have learned is to send some ships a box or two in the wrong direction before sending them where I want them. This allows ships that are a little further away to catch up. Then for the Last half (or so) of the turn, they move together and can support each other.

I have also learned to play with the strategies. You may find the most useful time to be spent on the screen that dictates the amount of damage that should be dealt to a target before ceasing to fire.

Also, if you are using Missile craft to soften planets, you will get surprises because the ships consider a cease fire when the damage gets done. They do not consider how much damage is likely to be done by the missiles that are on the way. Therefore the following happens:

1. Fire Salvo 1
2. Fire Salvo 2
3. Salvo 1 hits
4. Fire Salvo 3
5. Salvo 2 hits
6. Stop firing because another salvo will kill the planet.
7. Salvo 3 hits, planet is destroyed.

This is aggravating to be sure, but all of the players are faced with the same problem.

I encourage you to continue to work on this part of the game. It is, IMHO, the best part. The AI is given artificial bonuses to make it challenging. Humans make the best opponents.

I have been playing multiplayer with a closed group of friends and am about to 'take my lumps' against the experts here. I am sure that I will be at the bottom of the victory list for a while, but think how much fun it will be to improve! These locals had better watch out!

Hang in there, Couslee. It is a bumpy road, but one worth travelling.

Sincerely

Samura Programmer

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

SP, I took nary a word in offence when I read your post the first time. Nor did I think it was harsh.

I know part of being a great armchair general is getting your "troops" to do what you want. The level of frustration I was having was not only trying to determine what each of the strategy settings (firing, damage, ect.) did, but also other game mechanics that I don't have a full grasp on yet. I only got this game around the start of the year, and am still learing the basic game mechanics, and developing a race I am comfortable with, that matches my play style. In trying to get into a MP setting this eary, was really putting too much on my plate at once. I can handel trial & error testing, bug hunting and all that, but not all at the same time that I am trying to get familiar with the game itself.

To give you an idea on where I am at, I have started a lot of games, but gave them the right click of fellowship once I saw that a paticual set of circumstances had sent the empire is a disasterous direction. Like taking a lower percentage on reapir, and also during the same game only finding out about how to use mounts after my cruisers fleets were obsolete even, along with design flaws. when you have made so many mistakes in a game, it is just easier to start a new one. Sure, I could retro fit.....if I had not bankrupt my minerals.

Some aspects of the game I have yet to explore at all, like training facilities, and atmosphere converters (whatever they are called). I have only started partially up the sensor tree and have not had the chance to see how they work, and when it is best to use or not them. Ect.... ad nausuem.

This is what I mean by still learning the basics. I have played about 4 games where I would say I reached "mid-game", and only one of those went towards the end where I could consider building a baseship. Add all that, on top of trying to learn the strategic combat basics, and not being use to simultaneous turns (was my first game trying that). So as one can seen, I just piled too much on my plate.

I am not giving up on MP, but it will take a while to get the basics down to a second nature. then I will address the ins and outs of simultaneous games, and strategic comboat. For now, I am going to play turn based and get back to the basics. I was having zero fun by trying to do too much. And having something to have some fun with, is the ONLY reason I buy computer games.

I guess that is the best adivce I can give other players new to game too. Take your time. Learn the basics until they become almost second nature, then progress into the harder aspects of the game, like simultaneous turns and strategic combat. Just learning the ins and outs of race desing can take several games. And don't feel bad if you get pissed off, delete the game from the save folders and start a new one. Nor should you feel bad about reloading a turn and trying something different. It's how you learn a game. Just don't take on too much at once.

And remember to blink your eyes often. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Edit in:
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I undrstand that. but during one combat, my ships stopped firing at the planet, and turned their attention to an unarmmed base, wislt the planet continued to pick them off one by one at range. They did the same a couple of time, even whe I changed the setting to 80% planet damage, and don't attack unarmmed bases. those were fleet orders, and they reverted to their default strategy anyway. And yes, I had the "break formation/ ships" unselected. Why, I don't know. Figure it out? Be my guest, I will address that another day. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ February 02, 2003, 19:10: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Hearing that you are not giving up on MP is good news indeed!

This game is deep and does take quite a bit of assimilation. This forum has been an invaluable resource to understanding.

Thanks to all who have participated.

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

Sorry for all the editing in the Last post. my thought process gets hosed sometimes because my meds and because of my illness at times.so thoughts come in sporradic. usually right after I hit "add reply"

edit in: lol.
deep yes, but there are a lot of things that are anti-intuitive to me as well, that also has to be overcome.

edits are better then post count raping tho

[ February 02, 2003, 19:14: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: Simultaneous Games
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Really? It seems to work pretty well to me, except that it doesn't take experience or racial modifiers into account.

PvK