TDM-Modpack politics in really big game

I notice suicide_junkie has some Posts as big as my file, so I am pasting the source of the previous post zip file into this post so it can be read without aol.

I am at turn 31 and have reviewed my plans for colonizing sphereworlds. I have 35 colonies now (20 sphereworlds). I have plans for 16 colonizing fleets (carrying 1000 population and 100 mines each) to depart within the next 10 turns. That takes me up to 51 colonies, which is considerably more than all but the Sergetti (48). Now that would be nice but there is a catch. In my experience the AI break treaty commenting on your taking too many planets at about colony 43-47. So I can get away with this burst of colonization, but with no trade treaties I will be hard pressed to continue my expansion to the remaining 210+ systems. I have questions.

1) Does the TDM-Modpack AI break treaty based on your total number colonies, or colonies in systems he claims, or on your colonies he has actually seen, or on some other basis ? I already know about the per attack location and per ally ship things, but is there any other factor I am missing ? Below is a racial anger summary percent allied/ per attack location. Following each race is regular decrease and minimum anger then relation. Last comes estimated number of colonies that will be ok. Is that minimum anger forever, or just when you first meet ? If I can believe this then I should make peace with the Rage until I go MEE now that he is over his initial reaction !! If the regular decrease is 2 and the race gets mad at 20 % and per attack is 2, then with over five colonies seen you lose ground every turn. Is that right ? If so then as the AI explores and sees more of my colonies, they will get angry very soon....

0/2 Eee -4/0 not met - any
0/2 Phong -4/0 brotherly MA 15 - any
0/2 Toltayan -4/0 brotherly TR 9 - any
0/3 Rage -2/30 moderate war - make peace ? - any

10/2 Cue Cappa -4/0 angry war - make peace ? - 20
10/2 Ukra Tal -4/0 brotherly TR 20 - 20
10/2 Colonials -3/0 brotherly P 16 - 15
10/2 Piundan -2/20 receptive MA 15 - 10

20/2 Narn -3/0 brotherly TR 20 - 7
20/2 Toron -3/0 brotherly P 20 - 7
20/2 Sallegra -3/0 murderous war - make peace ? - 7
20/2 Amonkrie -2/30 moderate TA 0 just did - 5

30/2 Abbidon -3/0 not met - 5
30/2 Drushocka -3/0 displeased war - 5
30/2 Cryslonite -2/20 warm TA 7 - 3
30/2 Sergetti -2/30 warm TR 20 - 3

35/5 Pyrochette -3/0 receptive TR 7 hmmm...... - 1
40/2 Krill -2/20 murderous just broke treaty but not war yet - 2
40/5 Xichung -1/20 Murderous (break soon ?) TR 20 - half a colony ?
The Xichung will hate anybody they trade with ! Is that right ? It seems they are as confused as the Rage! There must be some other factor operating besides regular decrease, otherwise they would have broken treaty long ago!

Ship Anger is also interesting. Nobody cares about ships except as noted below. Values are per no treaty/ per ally/ per enemy ship
Love allied fleets! Narn 1/-1/1 Toron 1/-1/1
Do not get mad at enemies! Amonkrie 2/0/0 Cryslonite 1/0/0 Krill 1/0/0
Ally ships ok Colonials 1/0/1 Piundan 1/0/1 Rage 3/0/2 Sergetti 2/0/1 Xichung 3/0/4
Mad at any ships Pyrochette 2/1/3

If I can believe that, then my relations with the Krill will be better if I declare war ! And is it my total ships known by treaty (impossible!), ships seen (not likely), or just those in systems claimed by the AI ? In any case it looks like I have a problem with the Pyrochette. I do not want to change any of the settings, but would appreciate any insights offered by the race creaters.

2) I plan on building battle cruiser (BC) yard ships with master computer, six engines, solar sail, quantum reactor, cloak - basics plus yard III and the remainder 500 cargo, which can carry a medium WP and build base yards for a new colony. It will be accompanied on initial entry into each system by three dreadnought attack ships (sweep 4x5, 7 PD, 2 WMG heavy mount) to kill mine sweepers. Next in the fleet is two BC mine sweepers with the basics plus ten mine sweep V for a total of sweep 100. The mine sweepers each carry cargo 1750. Next in the fleet is a minelayer BC with the basics plus 13 mine layers and two cargo to 1280. It is needed in case the enemy has sensors to see past the cloaking. Last is a light cruiser (LC) population transport with basics plus four mine layers and six cargo to 1740 to shift population and mines to secondary planets once the primary planet is planted. Now they go into an enemy system and park over an unused large planet near the center of the system. The yard builds a single engine colony ship in two turns, which plants. The next turn a cargo facility III is built, the minesweepers and LC transport drop 425 population (pop) and 350 mines (launch ten) into the planet and the yard drops the weapons platform. Then the minesweepers and mine layer return to a sphereworld system for more pop and mines. The planet and yard follow the schedule below while the LC is mothballed till colonies start planting (or it could mine enemy yard planets). The schedule is for a new system to plant a colony every turn with 100 mines and at least 14 pop. For this you need one base yard to build the colony, and five yards to build mines taking into account attrition from enemy attacks. You also need at least three yards to build attack ships or weapons platforms. Legend : CF3 - cargo facility III, UPC - urban pacification center III, SY3 - space yard facility III, BY - base space yard, NOT - not built yet, MIN - mines, LCT - LC transport, ATT - attack ships or weapon platforms, COL - colony ship, and time moves left to right.

prime col ------ CF3 UPC UPC SY3 SY3 SY3 SY3 SY3 BY4 BY4 BY4 BY9 BY9 BY9 facilities
Yard Ship ----- BY1 BY1 BY1 BY1 BY2 BY2 BY2 BY2 BY5 BY5 BY5 BY5 - return to sphere world
BY1 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT BY3 BY3 BY3 BY3 BY6 BY6 BY6 BY6 LCT LCT LCT ATT forever
BY2 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT BY7 BY7 BY7 BY7 LCT LCT LCT ATT forever
BY3 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT BY8 BY8 BY8 BY8 LCT LCT LCT ATT forever
BY4 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT MIN forever
BY5 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT MIN forever
BY6 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT MIN forever
BY7 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT MIN forever
BY8 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT MIN forever
BY9 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT COL forever

secondary ----- SY3 SY3 SY3 SY3 SY3 BY1 BY1 BY1 BY2 BY2 BY2 BY4 BY4 BY4 BY8 BY8 BY8 CF3
BY1 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT BY3 BY3 BY3 BY3 BY6 BY6 BY6 BY6 ATT forever
BY2 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT BY5 BY5 BY5 BY5 LCT LCT LCT ATT
BY3 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT BY7 BY7 BY7 BY7 ATT forever
BY4 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT BY9 BY9 BY9 BY9 MIN
BY5 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT MIN forever
BY6 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT MIN forever
BY7 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT MIN
BY8 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT MIN
BY9 ----------- NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT COL

Primary planet plants colony on turns 17 - 19* - 20 - 21* - 23 - 23* - 25* - 26 - 29 - 32 - 35 - 38 - 41 - 44 - 47
50 - 53 - 56 - 59 the * is by the colony not the base yard.
build if 18+ First secondary domed starts in 17 + 18 = 35 plants in - 38 - 41 - 44 - 47 - 50 - 53 - 56 - 59
build if 30+ Third secondary domed starts in 20 + 18 = 38 plants in - 41 - 44 - 47 - 50 - 53 - 56 - 59

If more attack ships are not needed then about three weapon platforms per colony can be built by the base yards during colonization. If the yard ship is not needed at the sphereworld, it can speed things up at the secondary colonies by helping to build bases. Two secondary are enough since the average is 28 planets per system. If the system is secure you can just have all planets do colony ships and skip the mines and weapon platforms. You now have 27 yards in system - an average of one per planet. While this has been going on the other colonies in system have been building facilities. The primary planet does turn 15-17 resupply for a total of four facilities, which is a large domed. It then switches to four colony ships to do the best planets in the system, using the stockpile of mines. Then it does attack ships, and later (when more mines build up) does colony ships or troops. The second secondary does a cargo facility turn 20 then a space port on turns 21-23, after which everything is TBD. Generally speaking every colony gets a yard facility and every domed also gets a cargo facility. This leaves two productive facilities per planet, about breakeven if minerals extraction. So while it would be very nice if the colony is not domed, it is not necessary. A typical large 120 minerals not domed will be 30k and domed are 3k each. The average will be 4.5 non domed per system and about 24 domed. So by about turn 65 after initial entry into system production can be 165k minerals. Since 28 worlds all running consume only 84k this leaves 81k excess - enough to pay maintenance on 12 dreadnoughts. The yards scrap to make fleet slots available unless really needed to build weapons platforms or troops. Until yards are scrapped there will not be slots for roving fleets since 255 x 27 = 6885 which is greater than the 5000 upper limit. The average number systems to plant per sphereworld is precisely six (five if I do them all). So if only two colonizing fleets are built per sphereworld the first two systems will be about 40 turns old when the fleets arrive at the fifth and sixth systems. The first two systems get 27 yards or less, 3-4 get 18 or less, and 5-6 get 9. Obviously you plant the systems with the most planets first. So the total will be less than 4500 yards at the peak. The system fleets consume about 254 x 7 slots and the colonizing fleets another 70 x 8 so only 2500 or so slots are available for yards. I would have to look at the planets summary, but I doubt that more than 60 have over 30 planets. Assume that 120 have 18 to 30. That makes a total of 550 original yards plus 1620 plus 2160 plus 350 = 4680. Hmmm.... I am definitely going to have to skip the yards in any system which can be secured by guarding the warp points.... Hopefully that will be at least half of them after I land troops in the initial invasion.

To support 70 fleets of eight capital ships requires maintenance of about 40k x 70 = 2800k minerals. I plan on an average of three yards per regular world and 14 per sphere world. So running most yards and colonies is another 1200k or so. I plan on 300k research, 700k intelligence, 2500k minerals, 200k organics, 800k radioactives, and 500k ship score to just under the MEE limit I set of 5000k. I scaled the limit by a factor of ten since the map has over ten times the normal planet capacity. I will mothball yards as I approach 5000k then unmothball them all to build fleets on the same turn, jumping my score by 3000k. Hopefully I will get tech early so that I can build the 70 fleets before I have to start mothballing. If so I will mothball as built to keep my score and maintenance low. My sphereworld production bonus should be or exceed 40 % by then and I will immediately build system robotoid factories. That gets me to 3250k/ 260k/ 1040k in just a few turns. So it will be (turn 31 now + 16 to plant + 7 UPC-SY facility + 9 yards + 9 tech + 21 int + (14+18) min + (6+5) rad + 3 org + 19 store) turn 158 before I can afford the fleet blitz (38 turns later than my usual 120). The sphereworld colony builds three yards and they each build three or four more. My plan is to store 15 million minerals and five million each organics/ radioactives to take care of the huge blitz deficit, building storage rather than facilities whenever I am within three turns of capacity. As my yards ramp up I will be building minerals and radioactives extraction to breakeven. Then I will do tech, then intelligence, then resume resource extraction. At blitz I will be deficit 1500k for 5t then 750k when the robotoids build, with 7500k remaining. The sphereworlds build minerals for twenty turns to reach breakeven (taking into account new colonies). The yards will have built about 12000 medium weapon platforms - an average of two per colony to be planted, but moving them from the sphereworlds will be a huge logistics problem (a trip each for 210 cargo 17250 base ships). I could build three times as many but even the sphere worlds cannot hold that much unless I take the time to build cargo facilities ! Alternatively I can split my cargo space to have 21000 x 20 cargo troops and send two troop transports with 150 large troops each with each fleet rather than building troops in new systems. The game should be over with all planets colonized by turn 250 if it does not break from range check error. I am definitely not going to scroll through 7000 colonies doing adjustments every turn ! Instead I will look at the ship list for what 254 colony ships have built and setup a full queue as I plant each colony. Also I will need base ships to shift captured population to the correct atmospheres if the game Lasts that long. Some of the AI are bound to surrender at blitz, usually three or four. What do I get out of this game ? I increase my racial score by 700k - a factor of four. It will interesting to see how the AI in the next game react to that experience level. My game score will be over 25 million - beat that !

Now my question is this. Have any of you done this kind of exponential growth scenario before rather than glassing the AI worlds ? If so, is my strategy on target, and can you suggest improvements ?


PS - I estimate 500 hours (2 months) to play this, so it is not recommended if you have other things to do !



[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 27 May 2001).]