Modding the A.I. Bonus
 

It would be nice if we could give the computer players a bonus but be flexible in what areas the bonus applies. As we know, Low bonus gives x2 to intel, research, and resources; medium bonus is x3 and high is x5; and construction rate is x1.5, x2, and x3.

Sometimes I want to play against A.I.'s that have lots of bonus ship production but not necessarily more intel or research. So I think that can be done by using cultures. Instead of using the standard Low, Medium or High bonus to the computers, assign a new culture to them that includes the bonus.

So, for example if an A.I. has "Warrior" culture, it normally has -2% Research, -2% Intel, +5% space combat, +5% ground combat. If you want to give it a high bonus, instead of using the high bonus in the game settings, you could assign a new culture "Warrior with high A.I. bonus" that has the equivalent bonus: +400% production, +398% research, +398% intel, +5% space combat, +5% ground combat, and +200% space yard rate.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...20Cultures.JPG

Then, if you wanted to give the A.I. a bonus to resource production and construction rate only, you can create additional cultures which have bonuses in those areas only and assign them to the A.I.s.

Re: Modding the A.I. Bonus
 

I couldn't figure out how to have two pictures in one post...
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...ures%20mod.JPG

Re: Modding the A.I. Bonus
 

Hey, thats indeed a quite good idea. Then again you need to design the AIs by hand (if you want specific enemies) Really nice idea though !!

Re: Modding the A.I. Bonus
 

Makes sense to me. Even if it was a simple change such as making the bonuses apply per-level of difficulty setting it would be a good way to make the game have a wider range of play.

I still feel drawn to my personal area of interest which I feel SEIV is particularly suited for which is a 3rd party program to re-write files in a "randomizer module". That chart would be one way for people who are too well versed in the races of SEIV to get some surprises. If, amoung other things, it rewrote Berserker into Majorly Berserker.

Re: Modding the A.I. Bonus
 

I might be wrong, but I believe that there is a maximum for culture modifiers of 50%. It's quite a time I made some "super cultures", so it may have changed.
What you can do however is to combine the hard coded AI bonus and special culture modifiers: if you choose medium bonus and a special culture with production of +25% you get e.g. 375% production bonus.

Re: Modding the A.I. Bonus
 

I do not recall how far I went with my own uber culture, but a bonus of 1000% works fine, at least for production and construction.