Race vs. Culture

[Torkle]

Thanks for all the quick answers.

I'm modifying the Cultures.txt file to be balanced with respect to the racial characteristic costs and needed to know how to compare all of them. For instance, each point in the cultural trait Space Combat should be four times more expensive than each point in Ground Combat since Space Combat is the equivalent of the racial characteristics Aggressiveness and Defensiveness, both of which are double-cost racial characteristics, while Ground Combat is equivalent to the racial characteristic Physical Strength (which is normal cost).

PS - I found the section in Settings.txt spoken of earlier in this thread:

Combat Base To Hit := 100
Combat To Hit Modifier Per Square := 10

[Jourin]

Torkle

I already did that. Check out the Excel spreadsheet included in my Culture.zip file. It balanced all the culture traits based on an equal amount of racial points. I used 800 points based on putting a 2 in all categories for neutral (making neutral a playable culture).

[Torkle]

And why not make Neutral culture the default (and still viable) at zero overall points? That seems more reasonable to me. Here's my revised list:

http://www.io.com/~torkle/spacemp.html#culture

Every culture balances out to zero points.

[Jourin]

Whatever works for you. My goal and yours was to balance the cultures so one culture does not get an unfair advantage.

I analyzed the original culture values and found a range from +525 for Berserkers and Warriors to a -450 for engineers. Explains why Berserkers and Warriors where the favorite culture of all the modded races.

I wanted to keep the values as close to the original as possible without penalizing any of the cultures since people got used to the bonuses from the original text file. Some of the great AIs in the TDM mod pack used the warrior and berserker culture and I did not want to make those AIs less effective. Therefore I wanted a standard number at least +525. Putting a 1 in all values for neutral gave me +400 and a 2 gave me +800. Therefore I used +800 as my base. From a personal standpoint I like 2s in everything for neutral instead of 0s. Makes me want to play a neutral culture more.

To me, the critical piece is not the actual numbers, but that the cultures are balanced and neutral is a playable culture. You method is as good as mine.

[ 06 December 2001: Message edited by: Jourin ]

[ 06 December 2001: Message edited by: Jourin ]

[jimbob]

So then, the questions I have are...

1) Jourin: when you modify the cultural values, do they end up looking something like the ones from Torkles' table (see website)? If so, should this become the new standard for multi-player play?

2) Anyone: what happens to the Berserker & Warrior AI when we take away their unfair advantage by boosting other cultures' values?

[Jourin]

I can not load my htm file, but I will try to use the lit UBB cod.
[list]
Culture Racial Value Production Research Intelligence Trade Space Combat Ground Combat Happiness Maintenance

Neutral 800 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
Berzerkers 800 0 -5 -5 -5 10 10 5 -2
Warriors 800 0 1 1 1 5 5 0 1
Traders 800 0 5 5 10 0 0 0 4
Politicians 800 -1 5 5 5 3 3 5 0
Artisans 800 4 0 0 0 0 0 10 4
Scientists 800 5 10 -3 5 0 0 5 0
Workers 800 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 -2
Schemers 800 0 5 10 5 2 2 2 0
Zealots 800 5 -3 -3 -5 2 10 10 0
Engineers 800 5 2 -2 -5 0 2 0 5
Merchants 800 5 0 0 10 2 -5 0 1
Renegades 800 0 5 5 5 2 0 5 0
Xenophobes 800 10 -20 0 -20 0 2 10 10[list]

Download my culture.zip file and look at the Excel Spreadsheet. It shows it much better.

Whatever number you want to use is not important as long as the values are balance. I am, of course, partial to my numbers.

[ 06 December 2001: Message edited by: Jourin ]

[ 07 December 2001: Message edited by: Jourin ]

[ 07 December 2001: Message edited by: Jourin ]

[Slaughtermeyer]

If the accuracy of shooting at planets is always at least 99%, is there any point in putting ECM on weapons platforms?