Primitives for proportions?
 

I'm actually resurrecting an old conversation here. A year or two ago there was a fairly active thread here about modding primitive (or, to be politically correct- technologically impaired) races into the game. I think it was generally considered too much of a pain in the arse to mod for minimal results, since such races would be pointless cannon-fodder for regular races in the standard game. I remember the thread taliing off with me wistfully dreaming about a mod which would make the map seem much more big and empty and hard to colonise, where ground combat reigned over orbital bombardment and where primitive races could still remain useful and independent by virtue of being strategic allies.

Now, hey presto, we have the proportions mod, and I think it would be the perfect setting for primitive races.

Now, you might be wondering what the point of such a race would be, since they could be easily glassed with a single ship and conquered with only a little more effort, but you have to remember that in Proportions mobilising even a moderate invasion fleet is a far bigger ordeal than in the regular game, especially if the target planet is a long way away and you have the Xi-Chung on your doorstep.
However, offer those primitives a few sparkly things and strike up a partnership with them. Suddenly you have a friendly resupply base and an eyeball in (what might be) a strategically important position, as well as a handy supply of resources through trade. You could also gift your new friends some weapons platforms or ships (mental image of Ewok driving AT-ST in Return of the Jedi) just to really surprise and humiliate your enemies. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Finally, conquering them would provide a valuable source of developped real-estate and population (especially if they breathe a different atmosphere): Think of that as a bonus for whoever gets there first.
Besides all that it would add flavour. You would be effectively modelling the exploitation of technically-underdevelopped aboriginal cultures by more advanced imperial forces which we have seen in our own history, and I can imagine even hardened players getting quite protective over some helpless indiginous society who have dragged involuntarily out of their depth into interstellar warfare...

I'm no modder or I'd just do all this myself, and I'm not appealing to PvK because I know he is too busy and/or sick of modding anyway. So what I'm hoping to do is inspire a fellow Proportions enthusiast to create a bootleg Version of Proportions with primitive races enabled.

Here's how I imagine it would work:
The primitive races could be assigned to some of the neutral slots, which many proportions players don't use anyway. All normal technologies (ships, engines, weapons) would have to be assigned to a zero-cost racial tech, and primitives to another, so that they each have a seperate set of technologies available to them- just like the nomad/ pirate/ regular choice in P&N mod.
Then, a new set of "primitive" techs would be introduced. Now obviously, any tech level prior to space age could be used but I'm imagining a very basic pre-industrial race here. It could just as easily be industrial-revolution tech, so you could recreate War of the Worlds=-)

At the start of the game they'd get a cool array of weak but cheap primitive infantry units and weapons (spears, bows, knives), a few farming/ mining facilities, some weak counter-intel and that's about it. They'd have to have their own Version of the cultural centre too, which would produce useful quantities of orgs and mins, maybe a negligible amount of rads and intel and have a space port ability. No resupply ability, no repair, nothing else at all. These cultural centres would be upgradable to better Versions, but only after some research.

The primitive races would have a tech tree all of their own, but since they can't produce research points they would only be able to get new techs by forming a Trade and Research alliance with a more advanced race.
Space-faring races ought to be able to gift them techs as well, although this might be impossible to implement. 'Advanced' primitive tech would include:
-(most important) the ability to resupply spacecraft. This makes them useful as allies to more powerful races.
-improved min, org and output
-improved intel production, improved counter-intel, maybe some simple offensive intel?
-rudimentary rad production,
-some improved infantry and ground weapons (siege engines, cavalry, rifles)
-simple weapons platforms: not with weapons, but with armour (representing the ability to protect themselves from orbital attack)
-rudimentary anti-plague tech.

So what does anyone think? Is it worth doing? Is it possible?

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

Early space flight primitive races. Capable of building sattelites and small orbital bases. Could even give them primitive missle and particle weapon technology for defensive purposes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

This sounds like a very fun idea.

It would not be too difficult to make certain techs 'savage tradable': all you have to do is pick out certain techs and not make them require the non-Primitive racial tech. You could even have zero-cost sub-techs that yield below-par components, facilities, ship sizes, or Intel Projects that have certain 'real' techs as prerequisites, so that when a race gets Intel I they can then research Primitive Intel I for no cost and trade it to the Primitives, who can then do whatever they want with it.

I think the Primitives should have the capacity to produce some small amounts of Rads at some point, just so they can support a ship given to them by a player. "You gave a baseship to the Ewoks? Do you know what they're going to do with that thing?!"

The Primitives should have superior infantry and, if possible, militia to start. This is both to keep them from being easy prey (human vs. AI, after all), and to account for the fact that they probably still kill their own food.

Since the Primitives are not only AI, but dumbed-down and limited AI, plaguing them out of existence would be too easy. I feel that these races should have plague resistance, of some sort, from the get go. This could be said to reflect their hardier, already survival-of-the-fittest lifestyle.

There could be a non-Primitive tech tree, let's call it Uplift for now, that specializes in techs to be traded to Primitives: Resupply, Troops and Infantry, Anti-Plague, and Repair ("Now listen here, little-bear-people. This is a Wrench. I know it looks kinda like a hammer, but you're gonna hafta trust me on this one...")

With these techs requiring a non-Only-only tech to research, but not non-Primitive only themselves, the Primitives could not get them on their own, but could get trade for them or even steal them. These techs would be better than the ones available to the Primitives, but not as good as non-Only-only techs.

If you give another player a transport with Weapon Platforms on it, the Weapon Platforms are his too, are they not? That would be fun. ("How in the blue blazes did Ewoks get CSM V??!" "Look at the hull of that Weapon Platform, sir. Those Weapon Platforms are Narn.")

I haven't modded, but the way I understand it, this should all be possible. All except the Neutrals part... I was under the impression you couldn't mod Neutrals.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You could do all:

Dirt Races
Steam Races
Space Races

But each would require their own Racial Tech tree, to keep them separate.

Or perhaps the Dirt Races could move up to Space Races. This could be very amusing in a Huge (255) map with only a half dozen players.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Kinda sounds like ....US!..... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You can mod neutrals. By deafault they have pure vanilla AI_General files. But you could set them up with whatever you want that is affordable in your mod. There is a bug that limits the number of neutrals in a game to 5 IIRC. Don't think that's ever been fixed. So if you want a game with a lot of primitive races you'll need to use regular AI spots. Might be preferable actually because a neutral Primitive that has been uplifted will still be limited to their own homesystem, while a regular AI is not.

Geoschmo

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

put copies of the normal tech high up the primitive tech tree? with a max of 20% of another races research, it might work. you'd also have to turn of mega evil.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

You're right about Mega Evil, that would throw a real wrench in the gears. ("Damn you, little-bear-person! This does not go here!" "Yub yub!" "No, it doesn't.")

So, the only thing that is not open to alteration, concerning Neutrals, is their inability to leave the home system? Everything else can be changed?

And what about WPs? Can I gift WPs, will the AI know what to do with a transport full of WPs or will it jettison them and fill the transport with carrots for the winter?

The one place I see conflict in the real-tech vs. Primitive/Uplift-tech is Intel. Real players may be tempted to use Primitive/Uplift Intel. This should not be possible, as P/U Intel will probably need to work differently for the little bastards to make affordable use of it.

This can be solved by another layer of racial tech. Primitive-only Intel tech that requires Uplift Intel to get but costs little or nothing to research.

Also, do AI ever use Analyze on captured or traded ships?

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

Hey big dawg.
What's wrong with my proportions ?
I know I haven't been working out as much as I should lately, but.....

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually I was thinking about this Last night, and while I agree that they should get a small amount of rads, it would make more sense to have rad-free, giftable "basic" techs available to space-faring races. For example, if you gave a quantum engine to someone from the Vicorian era (think H.G.Well, Jules Verne) he would have no clue as to how it worked or how to operate or maintain it. However, although he probably couldn't design and build a working rocketship of his own, he could ( given a little training) probably operate, understand and maintain one at a basic level if you built it for him. He might even be able to manufacture a few spares for it. So you could have a set of "rocket engines" and so on that are available to normal races, but aren't particularly useful (because they are slow, inefficient) except as gifts to primitives. They would be perfect for primitives, who can maintain them easily because they don't use rads. Also, it means the primitives could maintain it but not repair it- or at least, they wouldn't be able to repair the engines, although they could probably fix the crew quarters or bridge if necesasary. This would instill a real sense of entropy in the primitives when trying to uplift them to far, too fast.

Of course you could just gift 100000 rads along with the ship...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This is also a good point. I'm not sure about superior infantry, but they probably ought to be about equivalent. It's worth remembering that they will be completely unable to build anything other than infantry for the first X turns (until they get uplifted). This means that while their infantry might be weak, they will have one hell of a lot of it=-)

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Also very true. I like the survival of the fittest idea. I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, you don't want them to be too vulnerable. On the other, realistically they would be very vulnerable. Also, although it's easy to destroy them, they would pose so little threat that most (human) players just wouldn't bother. Maybe put plague prevention 2 on their cultural centres, and allow them to upgrade to 3 or 4 after uplift. The only trouble with this is that human players would find a way to exploit this "free" plague-prevention tech.
Finally, since half the racial point selections are irrelevant to them, they would all probably have very high reproduction and happiness traits, which (I think) would go some way to countering the effect of plagues.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah, this would be cool. Especially the steam races, the more I think about that the more I love it. The other great thing is that because of their limited selection of units and ships, you could make shipsets for them very very easily: a few infantry pics, a race pic, a couple of AI files (Build infantry, build more infantry, yubyub) and that would be it.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not sure about the progression, unless it was *really* slow (ie five hundred turns or more to progress)

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Excellent (rubs hands together, in a Mr Burns style)

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not sure about this. What it will probably do is unload/ jetisson the WPs, fill the transport with ewok warriors and catapults and go invade someone.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Just make it less effective or more costly than the real thing, then real players will have no reason to use it.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Or do your idea, that works too.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, never.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sorry P, but there are some proportions that just can't be improved by working out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This idea I like, but there is something I do not understand: I thought both maintainance and repair costs were determined by the original cost of the component. If this is true, than anything the Primative can maintain, he can also repair. Anything he cannot repair, he cannot maintain.

Please correct me if I am wrong. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This solution of yours, I think, is the better solution.

"I have something for the glorious nation of little-bear-people. Here is a ship, it comes with instructions for how to run it."

"Yub yub!"

"Here are some appropriately packaged radioactive elements, you will need these to run this ship."

"Det luktar flingor har."

"No, do not open the package. Do not use the contents of the package as condiments. Do not use these resources in any way other than as you are directed by the instructions. Hey you! Put that down!" <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You are absolutely right here. No real need to buff the Primitive Infantry, as there will be more than enough of it. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think there are many reasons to plague them. They have a homeworld full of facilities. Once the population is wiped out there is no militia to deal with, making an invasion that much simpler. And even if you can only fit 400,000,000 of your own people on their world; it will keep its full complement of facilities. Even if they're junky facilities, it is well worth the trouble, in almost any circumstance. After all, another player can pull your friends away from you behind your back, but to take a planet form you, he will need to deal with your face... or something.

To resolve this, I think it would be appropriate to either make them invulnerable to all plagues, or to give them, as you recommended, level 2 or so in plague resistance and make plagues harder to research. No a whole lot harder, but some. As powerful as it is, plague is pretty easy to get a hold of in a normal game, I do not know how it is in Proportions.

Additionally, the anti-plague tech can be made Primitive only, then players could not get it.

You are very right about it being more realistic to leave the Primitives vulnerable to plague: see Battlefield Earth (or rather don't see it, it was poor, and don't read the book either, it's just a Parable of Scientology so just forget about it).

Or you could just leave them vulnerable to plagues and see how unbalancing it makes the game to leave this simple exploit open to players. I think leaving Primitives in such a manner would eliminate from them any possibility of adding something to the game, but I do not know. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The way I see it, Dirt Races would produce almost no resources; maybe just the slim Mineral and Organic they need to make infantry, and almost nothing more. If you want to give a Dirt Race a ship, you will need to give them enough resources to keep it running for a while, that's a whole lot of all three resources.

I'm assuming these are not Neutral Races, only because I find great amusement in letting the little buggers out of their starting system. Dirt Race combat AI would center around loading up infantry in any ship you give them, heading for the nearest inhabited planet, and invading.

"Oh great, the Ewoks just turned on me."

"What? How bad can that be? They're just Ewoks."

"I gave them a couple of transport ship with WPs. Those transport ship had shields."

"So."

"I take it you've never faced invasion by thousands of teddy bears with guns... I never should have Uplifted them."

Dirt races get no ability to research, and have no tech tree to climb. They are completely dependant on benevolent Uplift

Out off all the things usful to a player, Dirt Races would probably only get Resupply upgrade to one of their facilities.

Steam Races would have Infantry units highly superior to those made by Dirt Races. They would have the ability to produce large amounts of Minerals, Organics, and maybe a little bit of Radioactives. This would mostly be useful only for trade, unlike Dirt Races who aren't much good for even that, but they will be building things.

Steam Races should have the ability to Research a little bit. Just enough to slowly move up their own tree. Mostly the results would be seen in Infantry and Armor, with a few upgrades to their facilities available. In the long run, Steam Races will have capabilities much like those humans currently have, with petty WPs that fire sad little missiles and perhaps the capacity to mine their own sector. They might, topping out their tree, even be able to build a few extraordinarily expensive fighters. But they never get a shipyard, or drones.

Steam Races will be easier to Uplift than Dirt Races. Then they can get upgrades that add the Repair ability at one of their facilities, among other things.

Space Races will have Infantry, Armor, and rather pitiful fighters at, or very near, their beginning. They can produce Radioactive resources, but not as well as a Real race. They will start with the petty WPs and sad little missiles that Steam Races end up with, and can get better, maybe even some ineffective Direct-Fire weapons.

As Space Races advance, they will gain the ability to produce better, cheaper fighters, better weapons, and maybe even a tiny little space station. They may get drones. At their top, Space Races will get Escorts, Colony ships (yes, they _can_ expand) and, if they're lucky, mine layers.

Both races that are capable of research can get better Versions of their own techs through Uplift. And, based off Uplifted techs, can research even better Versions. Perhaps that would be where Steam Races get Fighters and Space Races get Colony ships (let them start with Colonizing components, just don't give them a ship large enough to fit it).

It should be a trade off, probably for something the Real Race really wants the Steam or Space Race to have. Something like: you Uplift them the Resupply Depot upgrade they will, from that tech, research all kinds of things.

That's how I see it, anyway. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Excellent (rubs hands together, in a Mr Burns style)</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah, but why? The only difference to Neutrals is they all use the same file set, and they cannot leave their system. Neutrals, as I understand it, are not extra players. Even with Neutrals you cannot go over 20 players. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That, at least, would be the plan. Go 'Woks! <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Cost is such a funny issue with Intel, is some ways it actually makes it better. I think it would actually be better for Primitive Intel to cost less.

But, as you said, the layered approach works too.

If no one else bites, one of us may have to take up modding, Dogscoff. This sounds way to amusing.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

"This idea I like, but there is something I do not understand: I thought both maintainance and repair costs were determined by the original cost of the component. If this is true, than anything the Primative can maintain, he can also repair. Anything he cannot repair, he cannot maintain."

Repair is free- but if you can't build the component, you can't fix it either.

EDIT: and maintance is just a flat percentage applied to the cost of the ship, total. Doesn't matter if you could build it or not.

[ April 24, 2003, 17:21: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

Cost is not a factor in repair. The only question in whether they can repair it is do they have the required technology?

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

This is a sweet idea. Some thoughts though.

If including the 3 levels of primative (dirt, steam, and space) why not give them all essentially the same tech tree, just starting at different points along it. Artificially capping their tech seems kind of rude. With the proper instruction and training (a.k.a. Trade and Research agreement) even feudal societies (or lower) should be capable of being turned into productive vassal worlds. It should only be a matter of time.

To reflect this just create one tech tree with a nice progression from peasant farms to cities and such, and have each type of primitive start at a dfferent point on the tree. For example, the dirtboys tree would start at 1, the steamers would start at the equivalent of 5, and the spacelads at, say, 10. Each individual tech would start at level 1 but that level would include the appropriate advancements of the full tree up till then.

Hard to teach ewoks how to build an escort? Of course! They start at level 1 and the primatives don't get access to that until level 15 (or whatver) and level 15 is mighty expensive when all you can do is leech off of the knowledge of your betters. It's harder to train cavemen, but not impossible.

As far as giving them "upgrades" such as encanced infantry or plague resistance, I say thee nay! These guys are there for flavour, not a challenge. I don't care how many times a tribesman has to kill his own supper, he won't do squat against a hail of laser-fire. Innate plague resistance? There was a reason why our ancestors had a life expectancy of 35 years. If you want to throw it in then perhaps have level 1 plague res. at the beginning of steam (gotta love penecilin) and level 2 at the begining of space with an extra level or two put higher up in the tree.

Does anyone know if you can trade same-name techs with different racial requirements? Does the game consider them to be two different techs or the same for trading purposes?

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

This is a great idea, and there are lots of good sub-ideas here. I had fiddled with similar ideas, but as Dogscoff says, I probably won't ever get time to do them myself.

I would suggest making the "normal tech" tech area actually cost a pretty high number of points (whatever it's actually worth) and then adding a disadvantage everyone can take to give them enough points to buy it. This is what I did in Foundations, and it makes it possible to add other types of races (swarm, extradimensionals, pirate, monster, whatever) as well, and keep creation point balance. I called the normal tech "Industrial Construction" in Foundations, although I wasn't entirely happy with the term.

QuarianRex, the game does know the difference between components with the same name.

For Intel of primitives, perhaps give their facilities a small level of Intel, and then give them a fairly good racial-tech defense mission, and little or no offensive intel missions.

PvK

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If I understand what you are saying, this would be awesome, but quite impossible to do currently in any sort of mod. It would require hard code changes. Everybody starts at the same tech level in SE4. Unless you are setting up a scenario there is no way around that, other then seperate racial tech areas.

Geoschmo

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

LR mod has primitives! Seriously it was one of the earlies planned features.

Speaking of...

I realy an EXTREMELY early early early alpha soon. All my work was lost in yet ANOTHER catastrophic PC crash,ive started anew, with a little help from some backups.

Actually things are going quite nicely.

But anyway back to topic, yeah, this would be VERY cool, and if anyone decides to get to work on this i wouldent mind lending a hand or two.

Later.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I wasn't specific enough. I meant tech areas. If you had two racial techs (say for normals and primatives) with the same name for both (say ship construction) could you trade those racial techs? Does the game tech areas with the same name but different origins to be the same tech area?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, I'm talking about three different tech areas, one for each type of primative (dirt, steam, and space). What I meant is for them all to follow a recognizably similar progression. So at Dirt 5 (or whatever) you would have access to the same techs as Steam 1. At Dirt 10 you would have the same tech as Steam 6, which would be the same as Space 1, etc.

No hardcode changes needed, just a recognizable progression of technological advancement. This way space civs will be able to benefit the most from initial research (as they should) while cave dwellers can also reach such heights if given enormous amounts of help (research alliances) and copious time.

This way all races at least have the potential to reach the stars if not the ability.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

That's an awesome idea!

I would like not just completely primitive civilizations, but also races like Earth today, with the capability of researching missile technology, and DUC, but maybe not the other guns, and with no spaceships, but with "orbital fighters" to defend the planet, weapons platforms, satellites and bases, and maybe drones... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif .
What about an Neutral AI that only builds units and bases?
That would make for a really tough homeworld in Proportions. I can easily see a Primitive homeworld with 300 WP, a 100 sats and a minefield of 100 large mines...., and maybe 40 000 000 infantry...... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

Think about it, we could roleplay a contact, TODAY, of Earth with an space filled of power hungry alien races..... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

What if the Krill Dominion lives 2 systems away from us........ http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

would it be possible to fake system defence only ships using fighters, or do i need to get more sleep?

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

Quarian, what you are describing now is possible. It's pretty much what Dogscoff was laying out in his initial post. The main difference being it sounds like you are are wanting the primitives to be able to eventually make it to space on their own rather than having to wait on a major race to come along and uplift them. That is certainly doable.

Geoschmo

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

(Expanding on the talk of Radioactives and the ability of a Primitive Race to produce/maintain them...)

Would it be possible to create a Sat component that generates Rads from the Sun? An advanced race could have access to this kind of technology, and as one of the first things to gift to a Primitive Race to help them advance. This would provide a pre-requisite for giving Ships to a Primitive Race, since without Rad Production the Primitives can't sustain Ships.

Down the road the Primitives can gain access to more efficent Rad Producers, and eventually reach a level of "competence" to maintain more powerful ground-based Rad producers.

Sound feasable and/or worthwhile?

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

Geo:
I'd rather not have them do it on their own. I like the idea of them having zero research points. That way significant reseach would take centuties (ie. longer than any reasonable game) without the uplifting influence of a more advanced society, and their research points.

I think that it would be extremely sweet if the highers level of primative tech opened up all of the other techs, hence the questions about trading same-name tech areas of differing origin.

As for high-end weapons and such how about giving them lowered Versions of DUCs and CSMs (lets call them Rail Guns and Advanced ICBMs) whose highest values are equivalent to, or just below, those of level 1 DUC and CSM.

Fighters with zero strategic move would be a great starting tech for a space race. Other techs should also be lower than equivalant starting techs. How about space stations weighing 100, 200, and 300kt. Weapon Plats at 100 and 150kt. Sats at 40 and 60kt. Fighters at 5 and 10kt (remember, you don't have to put engines but some inherent supply would be nice). Infantry with weapons that do 1 damage, boosted to 2 at steam.

Hmm... I might try to work on a basic tech tree over the weekend...

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I wasn't specific enough. I meant tech areas. If you had two racial techs (say for normals and primatives) with the same name for both (say ship construction) could you trade those racial techs? Does the game tech areas with the same name but different origins to be the same tech area?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

I think not. What it would do is make other human players unable to tell during play exactly which racial trait was actually held by the empire, but the computer would still know the difference, because it refers to the racial tech area number, not the name. Actually though, I haven't tested tech sharing in that scenario, so you could try and see, but I don't think it will work.

Unfortunately, SE4 works on logical-AND requirements, and not logical-OR requirements, and techs don't actively give other techs, and you can't research a racial or special tech area, so therefore... you can't have a tech area (or a component) which can only be reached (or even accelerated) from two different techs.

So I think the only way to get get empires that start a game at different points along the same tree would be to duplicate components (ugh).

However, that's only really necessary if you want human players to be able to play the primitives, and to enforce their research rate.

With AI-controlled races, they are stuck with their pre-programmed research path. Therefore, you can program them to research "steam tech or whatever" for a long time before going on to "space tech or whatever", and get the same effect you were talking about.

PvK

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I've just thought, is zero research actually possible? I know you can't get zero resource production because the game gives you a certain amount of "free" resources per turn if you lose all your production capacity.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">PvK, I think that this is a brilliant deduction and makes this whole idea a more practical possibility. You don't need to have separate racial traits at all. You simply have the exsisting tech path that everyone plays on start much earlier in the tech tree than it currently does. Everybody basically starts then as a "primitive race", only the human players know what to research to get to star farring status fairly quickly. The AI would be programed in their research files to not go for the certain "breakthrough" techs that would open up the areas needed for space race status.

Since these breaktrhough techs wouldn't be racial techs they would be easily gifted to the primitive AI and they would be able to upgrade and research farther.

For example. Ship construction. Instead of that being a root tech you make a pre-requisite tech for it and don't tell the AI to research the pre-req. Tell them to research ship construction though. They can't until someone gives them the pre-req. After that they can progress normally.

You could work several levels of these "breakthrough" techs into the research tree so there could be several distinct types of AI primitives. Everyone starts out as stone age. You could program some AI to advance to industrial, some would be left at stone age. All by telling them whether or not to research the specific breakthrough techs.

Another nice thing is that once this expanded tech tree is worked out, you could set up the "breakthrough" techs so that they start out at level 1 in a medium tech game. Then a low tech game would be truely low tech with primitives included, but a medium tech game would be what we are used to now, where everyone is at the level of being able to make space ships and no primitive races.

Geoschmo

[ April 28, 2003, 13:06: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

In fact, the more I think about this, the easier it might be. It's possible we could set this up so the AI need little or no manipulation from the stock AI files. Since they are already programmed to research the various techs. All we need to do is add some pre-reqs to those techs but not tell them to research the pre-reqs. For the AI that you want to develop to a certain point (industrial tech) you give them a couple breaktrhrough techs to research, but not all of them.

Limitiing the AI to zero research points won't be needed. They can have all the research points they want, but they wont have anything to research for the most part. Until they are uplifted.

For those that you want to get their on their own, just much slower, you can add some do nothing filler research techs that they have to research fully before they are allowed to go for the breakthrough techs.

Geoschmo

[ April 28, 2003, 13:39: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

Geo: Great stuff. I only see 2 problems:

1> (I think) the AI is hardcoded so that once it runs out of things to research in its AI file, it will just research anything. I think.
This could be worked around though using "dummy" techs.

2> Cultural centres might cause a bit of a headache. Everyone would start with the same cultural centres, which might mean spending the first 50 turns of the game upgrading your 18 dirt-tech tree-villages to high tech super-cities.

But yeah, it's an excellent idea. All we have to do now is come up with all the new components, facilities and things for the primitives. I might post something along these lines later.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

#1. I had no idea about. I had heard they would reasearch mines if they encountered them, but didn't know they would randomly pick stuff when out of techs in their research file.

#2. Would only be a problem for proportions obviously. While that was the topic of the original post, I don't see this primitive idea as being limited to Proportions mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

I'm not 10% sure about 1, but I think it's the case. Or used to be.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Another good point. I think the rate of expansion and crowded maps of the standard games would make primitives less viable, but there's no reason why it should be proportios only.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

I have a working primitive mod. Its in the early stages and I have to make adjustments to the research files of the various AIs (currently only the terrans and one savage race were being used for testing) but it is working beautifully (if I do say so myself).

This has been quite a learning experience. For one, never try modding when you are drunk. The ideas were good but it took me three hours to find and fix all the typos the next day.

The mod currently has three levels of primitive; savage, steam, and space. Each has their own tech tree that follows the same pattern. For ex, savage goes from level 1 to 15, steam goes from 1-10 (covering all the tech from level 6-15 of savage), and space goes from 1-6 (covering 10-15 of savage). After completing their racial tech (and levels 15, 10, and 6 respectively) they are allowed to research "Galactic Expansion" to open up the normal tech tree. Human and AI players must also research this tech to be able to do anything else.

Originally I wanted all of the commonly shared technologies to be done through tech levels (ie. all three primitives aquiring the tech area "city" at varying times while "city" was the prerequisite for the facility of the same name). I had hoped to reduce the clutter in components.txt and facility.txt but it didn't work. only one of the same-name tech areas was credited as being the prerequisite (the lowest one on the list). That's great if you are a space race but horrible otherwise.

Also, did you know that you automatically acquire the technologies of the tech areas with a start level of 1? This happens even if you don't have access to said tech levels. I had to use racial tech areas to get around this (so that players would start with cultural centers and savages would start with settlements, for example). Twas a bit of a pain.

Despite all that I am almost done. I'll try to post something tonight or tomorow so you can test it out and give feedback.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I have seen the AI research Colonizers, Bases etc. when the Research File is broken or finished.

The continued Primitive Tech advances is a good idea Dogscoff, and at given specific counts, could yield something, or maybe even trigger an event.
~
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Primitive Population Center can be done with Existing Proportions setup.

PVK has a spare Culture Center currently in Proportions that is tagged with Inaccessible tech. A new CC also can be added as well but placement is the key.

Just add a Tech Pre Req to both.
Then change rename Primitive and add the attributes you desire http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Or it can be done for Proportions, if you want to add a Racial Trait and then tie it into the Tech File that ties it to the Facility as I did with AI Campaign.
~
GEO your none Space age theory at low Tech is outstanding.

[ April 28, 2003, 18:28: Message edited by: JLS ]

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

You would have to keep there urban centers low produceing if they can get crushed by a roaming player and Restricted Planetary Exploitation also may be the way to go.

Other wise I will hunt them down http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

quarian: I really can't wait to see what you've done: this has been on my wishlist for a loooong time.

Once we have a fairly mature product, I'll put together a few primitive shipsets.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

I think making the primitives be able to defend themselves is really not something a lot of effort should be spent on. How much of a fight would even we be able to put up against an alien attack on par with Se4 races. Much less so a pre-industrial or a pre-agrarian primitive race. It would not be any contest. My view of the primitives is adding another "resource" for the space faring empires to take advantage of. The question won't be who can kill the primitives, but who can make the best use of them in their empire.

Geoschmo

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

I just posted my Primitive Proportions mod. Check the thread, tell me what you think.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I've just thought, is zero research actually possible? I know you can't get zero resource production because the game gives you a certain amount of "free" resources per turn if you lose all your production capacity.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There is no "empire minimum" for research the way there is for resources. However, there would be research points available on the first turn even if they don't have any research faciliites. But it would be the first turn only.

Geoschmo

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

First glance it looks good

You tied the Traits to Research to Facilities for the AI neutral City slash Culture Center.

well done

Opps, de je vue I already did that in a previous post

[ April 29, 2003, 01:33: Message edited by: JLS ]

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The ground defense is about the same GLV as with the previous neutrals so it will be as tough as it always is to capture a Planet,

I am not sure of block aids though?

But so what, they are not going any where, and the onus is on the Player to take the Planet or make peace.

I like the concept.

[ April 29, 2003, 18:16: Message edited by: JLS ]

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

I believe most primitives should have a ground combat bonus. Just a little, for flavor, so you would sometimes get a Zulus vs. British scenario (high-tech empire underestimates primitive bravery/warrior spirit; primitives win but take huge losses).

About plagues... when Europe invaded the New World, the New World got TB, but Europe got siphylis. Not so good, hm ? I know it's probably impossible to mod, but primitives should be able to plague anyone who invades them.

The word 'Barbarian' comes from a Greek expression meaning, basically, 'people whose language sounds like Bar Bar Bar'. Therefore, the SE IV equivalent would be... Yubyubians ?

Regarding primitive shipsets... please, please do the Dwarves in Space race / shipset !

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

Combat bonus can of course be set as you please. Some primitives might be good fighters, others not.

Giving some of them plague weapons would be trivially easy. If you want to create some which have built-in infection abilities that aren't entirely intentional, that'd be pretty easy too. The problem is, if they're neutrals, then the only thing they could infect would be colonies in their own system, and only if they had some spaceflight ability. I guess you could also give them some plague causing intelligence missions, which would represent your own traders spreading their diseases to your systems. In Propotions, this could be quite disastrous!!!

PvK

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

Your suggestion for plague causing intelligence missions with potentially disastrous results describes quite well what I had in mind. They should be low-cost missions, so they would be hapenning all the time (potentially infected citizens arrive every day at your planets) but would be fairly easy to block (representing the efforts of your health service). But if one got through, it could be a disaster.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Getting way off topic, I was thinking of something along those lines...would it be possible to make a scenario that matched the description of the SE IV races *exactly*?

In other words:
1) Eee and Drushocka would start nearby (maybe even in the same system http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif ),
2) The Norak homesystem would have 3 suns,
3) Terrans' homesystem is just like ours http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ,
4) Xenophobic races would start far, far away from any other races

...and so on. Sound doable?

(Come to think of it, maybe this should be a separate thread entirely...)

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

i hope it's doable

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

Yup. easily. Just mess around with the map editor. You can designate which player starts where, what's in the system etc.

I suggest altering a random map rather than trying to do one from scratch. It can be somewhat tedious.

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">One defense I would give primitives would be some sort of cultural unity. I can think of three ways this could be done:

>>>>> 1) Make it well-nigh impossible to use intelligence on the natives.

>>>>> 2) Natives ought to be blissfully happy.

>>>>> 3) Make it impossible for the natives to surrender. What good is it keeping a massively inferior race alive, when with a surrender, you could control them completely, get all of their resources, planets, etc? UNLESS there would be some other reason to keep the natives alive...IOW, something the natives could build/do that nobody else could, that would make it worth keeping their Empire around. The 'Plague Intelligence Project' sounds great, but something in addition might be good...off the top of my head, maybe a long-range plague infestation missile weapon, called (for now) Foul Catapult?
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Maybe so, but I was thinking that the natives would build a ship with a unique component, and the player would "buy" it from the natives, by trading resources, Tech levels, other ships, etc. for it.
>
>
>
On another topic, it might be a cool feature if natives didn't actually speak your language, but instead there had to be translations. This would have no affect on gameplay, it'd just look neat http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif . For example:

We have received a message from the Ewok Chiefdom:
" 'Yub Yub Inga Ooooohah...' Translation: We admire the many shiny things your empire has"
(General Message)

...or, conversely:
" 'Yub Yubaaaaaah Yah!!' Translation: We shall play your fighting game with glee!"
(response to declaration of War)

...and so on. Might be fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ April 30, 2003, 21:14: Message edited by: Dingocat85 ]

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

One reason to keep natives alive would be trade. If their production is inferior to yours, they can still receive trade income from full empires, which generates resources which wouldn't exist if they were wiped out. Players can then try to jip them out of those resources through diplomatic trade, threats, intel, or gift them ships which they could maintain on their trade income (unless the AI is too pathetic to realize it could maintanin them with low production but high trade).

Unique intel and techs would be other reasons.

Of course, it'll still be tempting to conquer them and use their population.

PvK

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But if you made them surrender, then you would control them entirely, get 100% of their resources, planets, etc. - It ought to be impossible to force Natives to surrender.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Exactly what I had in mind. Anyone have any ideas on *what* the unique Intel/Techs should be?

Re: Primitives for proportions?
 

Dingo,

Why do you think that primitives would have cultural unity. Usually, the less advanced a culture, the more isolated and fragmented it is. I'm not sure why you would think that they would be acting with one mind, one voice.

As far as never surrendering, primitives may be a little technologicaly backward but they are not stupid. Courage and bravery mean nothing when your foe opens up the heavens and liquifies a small continent with a hail of APB XII's (or even just the threat of such). As for why you would bother keeping them around, that all depends on how you are simulating the primitives.