SE4 Strategy - An Art or a Science?

[Talenn]

My old mod (pre-gold) had many of those kinds of tweaks and choices in there, but they totally screwed up the AI. Given that my group cant often get enough people to play that we can totally dispense with the AIs, the requirement is that they can at least provide interesting opposition in the game.

I'd love to go back and work on a mod that totally cuts the AI lose, but with the number of times I'd actually be able to use it, I just dont think it would be worth all of the time and effort.

I really liked the Devnullmod as it coincided with many of my own mods (in fact, I even got a small mention in the readme. ). Perhaps now that the new Version is out, I'll give it another go, but the quality of the AI is generally not up to the TDM level for singleplayer play. Most of the folks I play with want to learn one mod and stick with it in multi and single player so that is why we had reverted back to the standard tech set.

Another change that I'd like to see again are real trade-offs in ship sizes. Larger ships should get expensive far more quickly. The way it is now, the larger ship classes are marginally more expensive due to all ships having the same general requirements...Bridge, LS, Crew, and ~6 Engines. The 'hull' cost is only equal to its size, and when a ship is totalling at 5700 minerals, the difference between a DS at 300 and a CA at 500 is miniscule. SE3 did a good job of showing the differences because of the Engine requirements on the larger vessels. Also, since they were build by component rather than cost, a larger ship took a LOT more time to build. In SE4 standard, a DS might take 3 turns and CA only 5. Thats just not enough incentive to build DS's once CAs or anything else are available. In my original mod, cost (and therefore build time and upkeep) was a huge factor in the larger hulls, but unfortunately changing a million AI construction files to 'understand' that was too much of a hassle for something I consider a pastime and a hobby.

Anyways, I'll probably get bit by the 'modding bug' again here in the near future. If I make any significant changes, I'll post 'em up here again for folks to see and piddle with.

Thanx,
Talenn

[geoschmo]

I think with the size of the user base on PBW, there may be enough of a demand for a "Human only" mod. I could be wrong, but I present as evidence that the "No-AI" mod is one of the most frequently used mods for PBW games.

Of course that is a far cry from the general use that a good single player mod like TDM gets, but I think it might be worth giving it a go.

I am getting a little off topic of this thread though so I think I will start a new discussion.

Geo

[PvK]

Talenn, have you looked at my Proportions mod yet? One of the main points (besides slowing down development of colonies and research) is to provide large numbers of valid design trade-offs. Small ships remain viable. Fighters and troops become almost necessary. Trade-offs appear between fast ships and long-range ships, firepower versus protection, quality versus economy, and so on.

I have adjusted the weapons and abilities around to make more variety of effective design. I had started a massive overhaul of the weapons and technologies, but these had to be cut from the original mod design for time reasons before the Gold deadline - just the manual work of re-doing the weapon entires was what took the most time, but eventually I might get around to it.

I too decided the AI had to come second. I actually have managed to get it to mostly work, but it takes way less time to set up interesting game changes that it does to tweak the AI to use them.

PvK

[Phoenix-D]

"No one goes down any of the interesting side paths as they simply dont provide enough return compared to players who 'go for the kill'."

The 'side paths' in this case are mostly more weapons; aside from a few specialized weapons like the Null Space and Shield Depleter, there isn't any reason to go down these, true. My point was more that you don't have to pick any specific weapon to be effective. My weapons selection generally depends on what I feel like using OR what will help me most.

-if I expect conflict very early, DUC
-a little later, PPB
-a little later, torps or meson
-fairly late
-if I am isolated, I research APB or Wave Motion

Phoenix-D

[Askan Nightbringer]

quote:

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Originally posted by geoschmo:
I think with the size of the user base on PBW, there may be enough of a demand for a "Human only" mod. I could be wrong, but I present as evidence that the "No-AI" mod is one of the most frequently used mods for PBW games.

Of course that is a far cry from the general use that a good single player mod like TDM gets, but I think it might be worth giving it a go.

I am getting a little off topic of this thread though so I think I will start a new discussion.

Geo

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I think a human only mod is an excellent idea. I was looking for your new discussion but couldn't find it
I build valuation models for a living and was speculating about using Present Values to analyse the tech tree. I could build a complex model using resource/research costs, current research/resource production and expected growth (and decline because of maintenance) of these parameters to work out say the present value of capital ship missiles 2 vs the present value of point defence 3.
Don't know if it would be useful but it would be way cool


Askan

[Atrocities]

Not to make light of this topic, but too me SEIV is neither a science or an art form. For me stratigy in SEIV is pure luck. Plain and simple, I role the dice everytime I process a turn. Will my race be conqured by a band of green pig people, will my ship make it through the warp point without getting obliterated on the other side? Stuff like that.

[Hank]

quote:

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Originally posted by Atrocities:
Not to make light of this topic, but too me SEIV is neither a science or an art form. For me stratigy in SEIV is pure luck. Plain and simple, I role the dice everytime I process a turn. Will my race be conqured by a band of green pig people, will my ship make it through the warp point without getting obliterated on the other side? Stuff like that.

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I strongly disagree. SEIV far from pure luck (otherwise I wouldnt be playing it!). SEIV is built on strategy. In strategy, you direct your forces to produce a favorable result from combat.

Probability is the "roll of the dice" you mention. The Science of Strategy is predicting the outcome of combat via probabilities. Calculating this involves math and while it can be tedious, it can be solved.

The Art of Strategy is plan or method by which you finesse the probabilities of combat to achieve that favorable result. The Art involves such things as trickery, feints, misdirection, essentially strategems. The Art is the human side of combat, where you win by out-thinking your opponent.

[ 01 May 2002: Message edited by: Hank ]