Simultaneous Games

[couslee]

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.

[Phoenix-D]

"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

[Suicide Junkie]

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?

[couslee]

1.This is also pretty much true for turn-based. Combat is sector based, but your ships arrived at different times.
2.If the 8th sector was on to the planet, that sounds about right.
3.They moved past each other. Combat can't occur between sectors, and if they pass each other between sectors this happens.

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.

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

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.

[couslee]

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 ]

[PvK]

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

[PvK]

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

[couslee]

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

[PvK]

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...

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

[tbontob]

I have never notice the AI cheating on speed either.

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).