Moral issue on "Missle Dance"

[SirDarwin]

Of course if you are attacking a player's fleet, they can use the missile dance to a lesser degree as well, if you want to destroy them you gotta move closer. Or both players can move back and forth

[Talenn]

Hehe...well, no I have no 'moral' objections to it, but is its the easiest exploit of the AI I've found to date. Getting into a 'stern chase' with a missile ship is suicide and the AI loves to do it. A human player wont and will force the missile player to chase THEM. Also, human players will spread out their forces to form a 'net' that the missile boats cant constantly evade.

The AI is also incapable of bringing out ship designs to counter the missiles. Eventually it may have ONE PD weapon here and there. A human opponent will quickly appear with a small group of escort ships that will render the missiles nearly useless.

So, IMO, its really just something I'd like to see go away. It makes the game far too easy against the AI. Its not so bad in single player games as I can always choose not to do it (although I find that silly in and of itself). In multiplayer games though, the AI is simply doomed as players are going to use WHATEVER means are necessary to grease the AI so that they are at an advantage over the other human players in the game.

I've somewhat reduced the problem in my set by:

1) removing CSM's as a starting tech and tweaking the AI research files of the races that are missile dependant to get them early in the game. Now, if you want the missiles, you have to pay for em and if you get into an early conflict, its more difficult to come up with those RPs.

2) Added in a base level 'Early PD Cannon' as a starting component available. It is basically a PD-1 but it takes up 50% more space and can ONLY target missiles.

3) Upping the radioactives cost of the lower level missiles by a reasonably high amount. This means going for a seldom used resource and maintaining a stock of it. The later missiles have no increased cost (IMO, they are simply made more efficient). This has the effect of basically nullifying the missile weapons as cheap and quick cure all. Those missile boats cost a fairly heftly amount to build and maintain and reducing that cost means a substancial commitment to the missile 'tree'. For the early game, its not always possible to continually research a 15k tech.

Thats my $.02 on it.

Talenn

[Talenn]

One final thought....

It amuses me to no end how names like 'missile dance' stick! I deemed it that in one of my Posts a few weeks ago and it seems to have become coined as the 'official' title now.

I referred to it as such as it reminded of a tactic I had seen repeatedly in Age of Empires long ago where people used Chariot Archers to hit and run the slower infantry pieces. It was referred to as 'Chariot Archer Dancing'. When I first saw some friends using the missiles in that way my first thought was of AoE, hence my post terming it the 'Missile Dance'.

And now its stuck forever it seems!

Talenn

[DirectorTsaarx]

Gen. Hawkwing:

Check the thread titled "AI late game Ship Designing problems (turns 100+)" for more insight on the dreadnoughts with Ion Engine III's...

[General Hawkwing]

DirectorTsaarx:
I realize why they have the design, my point is that they should not have it. Ship construction should not be level 7 while propulsion is level 3. No human player would be that unbalanced in research (at least I hope not) .

[This message has been edited by General Hawkwing (edited 12 January 2001).]

[Nyx]

Talenn, It's a great name for it. The first time I saw it used I knew right away what it was a reference to even though there was no definition in the thread, just an off-hand comment.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

[Sinapus]

quote:

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Originally posted by Nyx:
Talenn, It's a great name for it. The first time I saw it used I knew right away what it was a reference to even though there was no definition in the thread, just an off-hand comment.

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Ah, I tend to think more along the lines of "Macross Missile Massacre" which refers to an anime series called Macross which featured huge swarms of missile bLasting the crud out of targets.

Either that or something like what appears in some David Weber novels.

Hm... THAT's what we need. Towed missile pods and dreadnoughts equipped with cargo bays to rapidly deploy and launch them.



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