State of the game: experience reports (long)

[Jourin]

Lucanos. The increase in empire storage to 10,000,000 is not my suggestion for a solution, but the means I used to test my hypothesis. I posted a separate thread with ideas. I agree that the AI needs to learn how to build and manage resource storage.

[capnq]

quote:

---

In the Race_Ai_Settings.txt there is a line:

Maximum Maintenance Percent of Revenue := 80

---

In another thread about the AI's resource management problems, it's been reported that this line doesn't appear to be working. The title of that thread is "Odd 1.30 observation".

------------------
Cap'n Q

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 21 March 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

Perhaps you could enlighten me as to why resource storage is so important.

I never build storage, just more extractors (or research/intel).

As I see it, continual income is better than one-shot savings.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 21 March 2001).]

[Will]

I build resource storage, because it's very bad when I ruin an AI economically and get them to surrender, then I suddenly have large negative production in something (I also have finite resource game, so every point counts).

[Jourin]

Let us take a tiny non breatheable planet with 50% production. You don't get any population bonus so it will only produce 400 minerals. That 400 is one shot each turn. Use it or loose it. Instead build a storage facility and store the extra production from a good production planet. In one game turn you use up all your production and can't start any new build. Next turn you have excess production so you loose. The purpose of storage is to maximize resources.

Reseach and Intelligence get the same bonus for population and happiness. A larger planet will also have more population and usually higher happiness thus more research per buck then a single research compond on that tiny moon. Try build some storage locations and see how much it helps you.

[Suicide Junkie]

I never run a surplus or deficit, though. If I'm making extra, I just build units like mines or sats (less management work than fighters), If I'm losing resources, I just cut back on unit production.
If I happen to be right on the line, I'll trade with AIs to keep the 50K storage I have balanced.

50K seems plenty to me.

With that tiny mineral miner planet, I can get 2 Mines per turn, instead of producing nothing and having storage.

[Lucanos]

Jourin has a point - but I also adapt my production with my income. I've (almost) learned to balance the expenses with the production (I'm sucha nerd).

I also build lots of storage. But I'd rather build good extraction/miner facillities on a planet with a high value.

Sometimes economy takes a really bad trip. It usually happens when you haven't stopped playing for eight hours or so you forget to watch your budget. My entire storage is gone in one or two turns.

Now, that's what I call production capacity.

-----------------------

Oh, and one more thing: If you play infinite resources (which is VERY interesting/nerdy), you would HAVE TO build storage facillities and Value Improvment Plants (VIP). You'd also be ready to scrap some miner facillities before the value reaches ZERO (or as high as possible), otherwise the VIPs have nothing to improve (3% of 0 is 0). But I think I found something of a bug when using these facillities in an Infinite Resource game. The value seems to be increasing sometimes, and other times it is just going down (?).

[This message has been edited by Lucanos (edited 21 March 2001).]

[Nitram Draw]

Another option for helping the AI maintain resources is to lower the number of ships allowed. Make it 100 or 150.
I always build storage but it is probably not needed, as SJ points out you can balance your builds to maintain an even resource flow.
Now if there was a little more variation in the cost of ships/components you may need storage. For example if cruisers hulls also cost 500 organics and 500 rads when you switched production you might need a reserve.

[klausD]

It is of great advantage to build storage facilties.
I always try to have storage 5 times my normal production. Eg if I have 200.000 minerals I try to have at least 1 Mio. storage capacity in mineral.
So I can hold my fleet in peace times at a low level (maybe only 75% of the possible) and in wartimes, my mothballed constructing stations are activated and can build a lot more ships than I could do without storage.
This is an valuable advantage if you fight against empires which are bigger than yours, because you can field an equal fleet/troop size. (at least temporary until your reserves are used)

klaus