Cheating Mods?

[JLXC]

OK I DL a huge list of Mods. I decided to play a game with no random AIs just a bunch of Mod Aliens. So I start the game, setup looks good. I do my thing and hit next turn. A Ship appears at the wormhole near my planet? WHAT? So it builds a ship and moved it instantly on the first turn? I rush build a Defense post, and get attacked on the 2nd FREAKING Turn! Within 5 turns of that I have 5 alien ships attacking my homeworld... this is Turn 7!!!! Wow Mods are fun. WTF? What am I missing? How is this fun?

[Lemmy]

i think you just had bad luck with starting positions. What race attacked you anyway? i read that the Rage are extremely violent and difficult

[Suicide Junkie]

What mod would this have been?

You should get at least 3 turns before any AI can attack you with a ship:
2400.0 - AI designs a ship
2400.1 - AI queues up a ship @ shipyard
2400.2 - AI completes construction and attacks.

edit)
Now, if the AI queues up the ship at the same time as it designs it, you could be hit by 2400.1, and if you're not the first player, that would be on your first "end turn" press.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 30 May 2001).]

[Taqwus]

Are you sure?

I wonder, because it takes a minimum of one turn to build a ship even if it's the cheapest design possible, and one has an 8B planet with a Temporal SY III and max ship-building bonuses.

So the only way this is possible, regardless of mods, is if the AI moved ahead of you and the ship appears at the end of its first turn, rather than beginning of second. In which case it's perfectly legal.

Then, the movement into your system could either be manual movement (most likely), or by spatial anomaly (improbable, but possible. The improbable happens. Ever roll 6 1's on 6 dice? Or deal 2-3-4-5-7 in 5-card draw?)

Incidentally, mods can't change the rules. Read them; they can tweak the tech tree, they can change AI research paths, <I>but they can't change a given AI's starting conditions or the basic rules</I>. In other words, the mods don't let them cheat, and CAN'T let them cheat.


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Alpha Kodiak]

What settings did you use for the AI bonus, the quadrant size, and how many races besides yourself?

I doubt it was the Rage that attacked, as the first two ships built are always supposed to be colonizers. I do believe that there is at least one modpack race that builds an attack ship first, but I don't remember which one.

The mods can't cheat, but they are all set up to try to give as difficult a time as possible to a human (or AI) opponent. This is because, in the long run, a human can always exploit the AI's weaknesses and win.