This IS a bug right!?!

[Grayhorse]

Arent events fun. The only thing I wish would happen, is the game would take into consideration the ship is there and make contact. otherwise, you shouldnt be able to access your ship or base in that territory til you get there. A major issue with SE4 that needs fixed in the gold addition in my opinion.

[dmm]

Mephisto, you may be right but that isn't what the earlier Posts to this thread are saying so I think you are wrong. NORMALLY, you'd be right because NORMALLY you establish contact with an empire as soon as you encounter one of their ships, since NORMALLY there is some path between the two empires (which is how your ships encountered each other). Note that "contact" does not imply a treaty. It just means that diplomats from one of A's colonies could, in principle, travel to one of B's colonies.

What the Posts below are saying is that if a ship from A somehow encounters a ship from B when there is no connecting path between empires then "contact" is not established. No big problem so far. The claimed bug is, that the AI ignores ships from empires with which it has no "contact" regardless of their actions. So they can wipe out colonies, build bases and lay mines on homeworlds, prey on colonizers and transports, etc. and never get treated as enemy vessels.

Someone else should try to verify this. Also, find out if fleets of a contacted empire become "cloaked" by cutting their empire's contact path to an AI. Given the AI's demonstrated lack of memory, I bet they do.

[edit: Of course you are right about the system grav. shield facility. There's almost no way to overcome a "turtle" is there? You can't force your way in and you can't use intel because there's no contact. Your only hope is a random event that "cracks the shell", but you wouldn't know that it occurred so how could you take advantage of it?]

[ 21 February 2002: Message edited by: dmm ]

[rdouglass]

I do not remember having the AI attack me at any of these times (this kind of thing has happened to me on no fewer than 3 occasions - landing in another's empire). That doesn't mean they didn't want to - they may have been focused against other empires that they were at war with, etc...

On the other hand, I have closed up WP's behind a 'juggernaut' fleet (close off WP's so no diplomatic relations) and the AI continued to be hostile. Go figure....

[Mephisto]

Ok, I see you point, dmm. I have not tested this in this special environment.
Just for the records and the lurkers, in a normal situation, a ship is either a "treaty" ship (so the AI does not attack it) or it isn't (bash them, lad's!). However, the AI is often much to busy at another place to react in time.
And yea, SGF's are quite powerful, however, don't forget that it will deny all opening and all closing of warp points. In a PBEM game I pla I have just nailed down a very important warp point so my enemy to come has no chance to close it.

[dmm]

Mephisto,
Hope I didn't sound like I was trying to beat you to death with my logic. I was being pedantic for the benefit of newbie lurkers.

Anyone,
Ever tried walling yourself off with SGSFs and letting others duke it out while you built up the mother of all invasion fleets? Is anyone here that patient?

[Phoenix-D]

I've done that. The problem is that I didn't get myself a big enough chunk, so that by the time my invasion fleet was ready..the attack ended up looking like an infantry assult in WW1. But instead of rifles, my ships had bow and arrow. I found the warp tech early on in a ruin.

Phoenix-D

[Puke]

that or you didnt wait long enough. build some sphereworlds, and even a small chunk would be strong enough to mount a good invasion. of course, your race would have to be isolated for about a hundred years or so, and 1000 turns is a long time to play the game just building up.