Atraikius, please read.

Atraikius · #1 August 16th, 2001, 12:45 PM

I was trying to keep the Warhammer 40K feel for them in which thier normal idea of colonizing is to appropriate a massive drifting space hulk, pack it with 10 times as many troops as should fit, get its engines running, and take over the first planet they found, and arming it with weapons was a must as no sane ork would be without more weapons than he could use. To me, even battle cruisers are too small in trying to fit the Games Workshop image of orks, but when I initially let them up to dreadnuaghts, those really took to long, so I compromised with letting them build them up to BC size. The time for construction I wasn't too worried about because I was trying to get them to have a slower, but steady colonization rate, and I haven't really seen them hit a point where resources are a problem, normally when I flip them over to player controlled they have been only at about 50% for their maintenance, so I have to go back to the DesignCreation file and up the numbers a bit.

Master Belisarius · #2 August 18th, 2001, 05:41 AM

Ok, I can understand your view.

Rollo · #3 August 20th, 2001, 02:43 PM

Master Belisarius and Atraikius,
I am currently running a test with the Orks, the Aquilaeian and my Viking AI. If you are interested I can give you some feedback on how they perform. I wonder which one will send over troops first

.
Btw, I am also using armed Colonizers (no stealing honestly) because in my early tests with the AI I was annoyed how many Colonizers were shot down by pitiful ships (like neutral frigates, ughh). I am still very early in the test (haven't even encountered the Orks, yet), but I'll let you know how it turns out.
What is best setting for a test anyway? I am using a small galaxy with 4 players (just me and them) and I gave the AI a low bonus.

Rollo

Master Belisarius · #4 August 20th, 2001, 03:21 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Rollo:
Master Belisarius and Atraikius,
I am currently running a test with the Orks, the Aquilaeian and my Viking AI. If you are interested I can give you some feedback on how they perform. I wonder which one will send over troops first .

Rollo

Yes, sure! Please send me some feedback.

quote:
Originally posted by Rollo:
Btw, I am also using armed Colonizers (no stealing honestly) because in my early tests with the AI I was annoyed how many Colonizers were shot down by pitiful ships (like neutral frigates, ughh).

Rollo

hehehe, honestly I don't care if someone want to use something that I did.
Anyway, the Aquilaeian colony ships are not "armed colony ships": I only wanted colony ships with more fuel range and cloak capabilities. In my view (only my opinion, of course), strong colony ships are a waste of time (construction time), and resources.

quote:
Originally posted by Rollo:

I am still very early in the test (haven't even encountered the Orks, yet), but I'll let you know how it turns out.
What is best setting for a test anyway? I am using a small galaxy with 4 players (just me and them) and I gave the AI a low bonus.

Rollo

How many starting planets? With your current settings, probably you will meet one or two races very fast, and then, if you have started the game with 1 started planet, they will have a short time to develop their own empires.
Although I have optimized the Aquilaeian to play without bonus, I think that always is good play at least with Medium AI bonus.

Rollo · #5 August 20th, 2001, 04:02 PM

"hehehe, honestly I don't care if someone want to use something that I did.
Anyway, the Aquilaeian colony ships are not "armed colony ships": I only wanted colony ships with more fuel range and cloak capabilities. In my view (only my opinion, of course), strong colony ships are a waste of time (construction time), and resources."

The colonizers the Vikings use are "kind of" armed. Well, you will see

. I don't worry about the time and cost too much (but I can see your point). I just wanted to include something I have never seen other AIs use to provide some new challenges for players. IMHO the best thing about it is that the players don't recognize a weak colonizer anymore just by its hull.

"How many starting planets? With your current settings, probably you will meet one or two races very fast, and then, if you have started the game with 1 started planet, they will have a short time to develop their own empires."

Only one planet. I have made contact with the Aquilaeian and the Vikings very early. I wanted it that way, because I am interested about the early stages of the AI mostly. IMHO they have to be quite strong in the beginning, when the humans are still vulnerable. *evil* HeHeHE */evil* The Aquilaeian are giving me a good run for my money, because I don't have good PDs, yet.

"Although I have optimized the Aquilaeian to play without bonus, I think that always is good play at least with Medium AI bonus."

I have developed and tested the Vikings without bonus so far also. I just put in a small bonus, so that at least I have some challenge.

Rollo

Atraikius · #6 August 20th, 2001, 04:08 PM

Rollo

- I would like to hear any comments you might have, I find that they help a lot in finding problems, or possible problems a lot faster than trying to find them myself.

- I don't consider the armed colony ships my idea to steal, I had read some comments on placing napalm bombs on them while I was still testing them. As for the items I found that hadn't been worked out, like initially getting the AI to capture planets, I'm happy to see that someone is taking advantage of it, because it makes all of the time and effort I spent worthwhile.

- Typically, I use a large map with the default 100 systems setting, and then manually select 20 of the toughest races, with High difficulty, and low bonus. I think this gives the AI a 'worst case' setting, while still allowing enough room for expansion. (Plus, with all of the hostile races I normally find that I have enough of a struggle in the early part of the game due to multiple wars, that I'm not even in the top ten until well into the game)

Atraikius · #7 August 20th, 2001, 04:19 PM

- I went to the armed ships myself because I was getting sick of seeing the AI picking off each others lone colony ships, so I got rid of the typical cargo component and cut back the speed on thier initial colonizer in order to fit in a DUC, and later on had them switch to warship hulls so that they could fit even more weapons and defenses on them - found it very amusing to watch a dreadnaught sized colony ship that was armed as heavily as most battleships pound through three enemy systems in an early test game, but reduced them down to BC size due to the time for construction. I wanted to keep them as big as possible to keep with the Orky feel though.

Also, I normally pick 1 starting planet to keep the research slower (tried three once, and had the orks hit me wiht a fleet of BB's while I was still researching light cruisers), and I quit using the high bonus after I started testing the orks because they would max out thier number of ships way to soon.