New AI files for CueCappa and Phong

[Q]

Just to raise a little bit of interest:
At my current test game the modified Phong are first of 14 races with a score of 629k compared to the second empire (united floral empire) with 439k. The Piundon are third and the modified CueCappa forth.
I included also the original Phong AI in this game for comparision and they are only on place 12.
The modified neutral empire of the Kithra (Neutral 003 AI posted im the mod section) perform also quite well: they heavily mined the two warp points of their home systems and are now quite secure from intrusions.

[This message has been edited by Q (edited 13 May 2001).]

[dumbluck]

I am running both your mods, Q, but I haven't met them yet. It's turn 95, and I haven't met anyone except the pyrochette, and they only had one system (they were stuck behind a black hole). I'm in the process of taking them over. Hopefully I can get both their Ice colony and their rock colony! (I'm a gas planet type)

[Master Belisarius]

Dumbluck: for this reason, I have erased the black holes from my games against the AIs... All the AIs are really bad, dealing with black holes.

Q: I did a game with all the TDM Modpack and with the Phong and the Cue Cappa.
Mostly I have checked the Phong. Really I liked your job!!
They build very good ships, and lay mines early in the game.
I have two suggestions.

1)The Phong should build some minesweepers. Ok, you have included the minesweeper component into the attack ships. But usually they can not sweep warp points in the early game (a minesweeper 1, can not help much!).

2) I would like that the Phong research first the Cristallurgy Armor, instead research the Shields. Also, remember that the Cristallurgy Armor 2, would help the ship to go through minefields with Mine Heads I.

Great Work Q!

[dumbluck]

quote:

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Originally posted by Master Belisarius:
Dumbluck: for this reason, I have erased the black holes from my games against the AIs... All the AIs are really bad, dealing with black holes.

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ummm, how did you do that? I got the impression from varios threads that the map editor was so buggy as to be useless.

Also, I assume that the pathfinding for the AI is hard-coded, otherwise it would have already been modded?

[This message has been edited by dumbluck (edited 14 May 2001).]

[Q]

Master Belisarius thank you for your comments.
I would like minesweepers as a special ship for the AI too. However in my experience the AI uses the minesweeper so badly (without protection) and does not include them into the fleets (so the fleet gets killed by mines), that I chose the other way.
As for the crystalline armor versus shields: I made the choice because of the research costs: level 1 shields 10000, level 1 crystalline armor 50000. But that's certainly something you might try to change and see if it works better the other way round.

Dumbluck the easiest way is to edit the quadrant text file in the data folder. Just remove the lines with the black holes or put the probability to 1% if you don't like to eliminate black holes completely. So you don't have to use the map editor at all. And in my experience the map editor is working very well.

[dumbluck]

oh. color me embarresed. i've never messed w/it.

[Master Belisarius]

Dumbluck: Q is right. Look for the words "black hole", into the file "QuadrantTypes.txt" under the Data folder. You only need to change the value to 0, or something like this.

Q: Ok. I understand your arguments. But still I believe that a handful of minesweepers could help sometimes, and will not hurt the costs for the AI empire.
In my current game, the Phong started very close to the Pyrochette. With some minesweepers, the Phong would removed the minefield, because the layed warp point, was in the other side to Phong home system...

About the Shields vs Armor. Yep. You're right about the numbers. But also, remember that with the Cristallurgy Armor, you will get some cool facilities.