Question on Mega Evil
 

Just a curious question, in regards to mega evil, is it possible in the game or any of the mods for 2 or maybe more players, ai, human or combination to be mega evil at the same time??? I 've always just seen discussions on only 1 player becoming the Big E, but, with all the changes and additions to the game is it a possibility???

just some ideas mac

Re: Question on Mega Evil
 

One of the conditions for Mega-Evil is that you have "X% more score than the second highest player"

This effectively limits MEE status to one player at a time.

You could try and make this value negative, and see what happens.

Re: Question on Mega Evil
 

SJ, instead of a negative number, what if you made the conditions the same for player l and player 2, in other words, assign the x% to both the lst and 2nd place player over the rest?? would this work?? or do you have to work with a negative number??

I just thought it might be interesting to have two MEE empires instead of just one. Then the 2 MEE empires would be at war with each other as well as everyone else. Would this be possible?

just some idea mac

Re: Question on Mega Evil
 

An interesting idea to test, but it kind of undermines the reasoning behind MEE. If one player is outstripping ALL the others, then it makes sense for the others to band together against that empire before it is too late and that empire can dominate them all. On the other hand, if there is a rival to the largest empire, then it makes sense for the others to hope those two keep each other in check, or to help the lesser of the two against the largest one. It doesn't make as much sense for all the smallest ones to gang up against the biggest two. In theory, anyway.

PvK

Re: Question on Mega Evil
 

What you are really asking for is a change in the AI. You want the AI to regard anyone much larger than it is with suspicion. Some of this can be modded if you look at the AI_politics and AI_anger files. You can make it less likely to offer or accept treaties from larger empires, for example. And more likely to declare war though that seems suicidal... But the AI is very limited and only some of the effects of MEE can be duplicated by altering AI anger and treaty behavior.

[ May 25, 2002, 19:12: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Question on Mega Evil
 

Tks everyone for your imput, I understand about the one player domination, but say even tho player 1 has outstripped everyone, during the game, player 2 raises up to the same level thru whatever means, what if they were both tied in all the areas that trigger MEE?? If I read correctly, the way the game is set up, only 1 player could reach the MEE standard at any one time, but what would happen if 2 players were identical? MEE then accordingly, would not be triggered because no one player was dominent, but in this case you have 2 dominent. Granted this sounds like a rarity, but what if it does happen, would both then be MEE?? and would the AI be able to handle it? I mean, with a large or huge map, a good number of players and max planets could this be a possiblity? Which raises another point, could 2 players be tied in all aspects in regards to rankings? in other words have 2 players that could both have the #1 ranking during the game?

just a curious and learning Mac

[ May 25, 2002, 21:23: Message edited by: mac5732 ]

Re: Question on Mega Evil
 

Yes, only ONE empire at a time can be MEE. Which means that a map dominated by two large empires won't have any MEE triggered. It's too bad but the AI is limited, like I said. If the AI were more complex it could be told to form a 'league of non-aligned worlds' or some such with the smaller empires in any game. If the AI understood 'borders' and 'proximity' it could even form neighbor/regional alliances in preference to others. More features we can only hope for right now.

Re: Question on Mega Evil
 

I once again thk you for your imput, I'm trying to learn the ins and outs of the internal parts of the game. I guess what i'm looking for is, in current games the number 1 and 2 player can form partnerships, military alliances etc with each other. I would think that the 2 dominent or large races would be enemies and would less likely form partnerships etc with each other. When this happens the smaller players really don't have a chance against both the super powers,
it would be nice if something could be done so that 1 and 2 would rarely or at least have only 1 chance in 10 of forming any kind of alliance. this would be mainly with AI and ai vs human players.This way 1 and 2 would growl at each other, the smaller ones would either form their own alliances or suck up to one of the 2 major races. Would make for a little more interesting. But thanks again everyone, appreciate the insight

just a curious and learning mac

Re: Question on Mega Evil
 

Hmm. To me it seems like:

1) It depends on the number of empires in the game. If there are only 3-6 empires, then ya an alliance of the two strongest is likely going to be hard to beat, depending on details. If there are 7-20 empires in the game, then the top 2 may be easily squashed by an aliance of 3 or more others. Again, it depends on details.

2) Seems to me that it's not a problem for the top two AI's to ally. The AI needs all the help it can get to challenge skilled human players. Now, I suppose if two top humans were partners, the AI might be well advised to try to gang up on both of them. Then again, there are several things humans can do to out-do the AI besides that, and I'm not sure this would be good in all cases.

3) MEE is really meant as an attempt to get the game to be more interesting and challenging once one empire starts to become a dominating super-power. It's supposed to provide a major reaction to what would otherwise be a "well, the game's decided from now on" point, and so prolong the interest/challenge from the AI. I originally suggested MEE mainly to counter the problem (before SE4 was released) where players would go capturing homeworlds in the early game, and/or expand like mad without the AI "noticing" and responding to try to limit the threat. It's a strong reaction designed for extreme circumstances.

I wonder though - by reducing the anger levels from MEE in the AI files, and also reducing the threshold, it might produce interesting results - the player who was currently leading would tend to lose treaty support over a few turns... could be interesting.

PvK

Re: Question on Mega Evil
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">As soon as player 2 closes within less than the trigger level, player 1 stops being MEE.

If two players are evenly matched throughout the game, MEE will never trigger, no matter how far they're ahead of the other players.

The odds of two players having the exact same score are, well, astronomical. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif The score display only shows scores as multiples of .1K, but that doesn't mean that the scores aren't calculated down to the ones digit. Note that if you turn all scores on, and look at the scores before doing anything else on the very first turn, all the empires are still uniquely ranked.