The Rage Collective Version 1.0

Q · #1 March 22nd, 2001, 09:49 PM

1.) Daynarr it is quite rare that I get into a situation where an AI empire would reasonably demand me to surrender

.
But seriously: thank you for this information.

Baron Munchausen · #2 March 23rd, 2001, 04:40 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Daynarr:
1) You can't do it by modding. It is something that AI never does and is hard coded. I am surprised that you guys never noticed it before. I thought that you were flooding MM mail with these reports on AI that doesn't use about half of the diplomatic options even if they exist in their politics file.

2) My vote is 'no go' for Mechanoid. It is nearly useless for 1000 points and the people that really want to have RP before competitive game can change that themselves.
On the other hand, I have included 2 types of emp files for all my moded races. First type with the default roleplaying characteristics and the second with the settings for greater challenge playing with and without intel. You can try that approach as well.

Yeah, I've often wondered why the AI doesn't go begging for gifts when it's low on resources. It will occasionally ask for tribute, but it seems to only realize it can do so once. I'm guessing that it has a "level sensitive" check of some sort. When it sees that it has crossed the threshold it will ask for tribute. But if it remains above the tribute level it will not ask again. I've never seen it ask for surrender. And there is another opportunity for some trickiness here, too. Some AIs ought to pull the MOO trick and surrender to someone else just to spite you.

I must disagree about the value of the Mechanoid ability. The AI is just about clueless with Medical Bays even though I've added medical science to the research queue. There's no type for a "Medical Ship" and I don't want a bay in every ship of a class. So, when plague events hit or some nasty hooman uses bio-weapons, the AI is helpless. Admittedly, it should NOT be...

but it is. This makes an AI invulnerable to that particular trick. Not having to research medical science to defend yourself is an advantage, if a small one.

Q · #3 March 23rd, 2001, 11:37 AM

Baron about the second point: There are some ship designs that the AI does not really use (correctly) as create nebula ships. It is easy to modify their design to have a medical bay and let the AI build at least one. Then plagues should then be cured by the AI. I did not verify this until now, but I did see the AI use a medical bay ship I designed for him. He moved it directely to the plagued planet after the ship was contructed.

By the way to you know of a any plans, that would allow us to create new ship design types for the AI? This would greatly enhance the possibility to create more diverse designs for the AI.

Q · #4 March 23rd, 2001, 01:30 PM

Just had a combat against the XiChung empire: I infected one of their home planet with plague level V (lost my ship in this attack) and thought now I could watch their population die.
Wrong!
They cured the plague instantaneously and lost not 1M population. Locking at their design files I realized their population transports have a medical bay!
Really good work!!

Q · #5 March 23rd, 2001, 07:36 PM

Alpha here a report about my game with the Rage Version 1.0 (I did not yet install Version 1.1 because I didn't want to interfere with the game), full technology:

They are 9. of 15 empires, have war with 3 empires including the number one empire (Ukra-Tal), a non-aggression treaty with one empire (that's me the United Federation of Planets. Well who could resist my diplomatic skills

) and no treaty with the rest. Their ship designs look very good IMO and they construct ships and units like mad and still have enough resources. So I think they perform very well, even if they are only number 9. Having to fight against almost all other empires is quite difficult, so may be they should accept or even propose the NA-treaty a little bit more often.
What you should consider, if you not already included it in your Version 1.1 is a racial trait with special weapons (e.g. crystalline). Their most important problem at the moment in my game are the Ukra-Tal with their organic technology ships!

Alpha Kodiak · #6 March 23rd, 2001, 09:12 PM

Q:

Interesting point on the diplomacy. (They do tend to get a bit aggressive, don't they?!) I probably need to consider bumping up the number of systems to defend, if not the inclination to accept at least low level treaties. I'm not sure what to do with that one yet.

On the racial traits and dealing with organics, Crystaline tech would be useful in that case, but I think the reason that the Rage can build so fast is because of the Advanced Storage trait and possibly the Advanced Movement trait. I may explore the possibility of dropping Advanced Movement in favor of another trait.

Either that, or perhaps the yet to be named mortal enemies of the Rage will have some of those characteristics.

Baron Munchausen · #7 March 23rd, 2001, 09:58 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Q:
Just had a combat against the XiChung empire: I infected one of their home planet with plague level V (lost my ship in this attack) and thought now I could watch their population die.
Wrong!
They cured the plague instantaneously and lost not 1M population. Locking at their design files I realized their population transports have a medical bay!
Really good work!!

That's clever. Now we know where to put the Medical Bays.

Now, can you get a plague cure from an ALLY'S ship with a medical bay? I'd think that military alliance or better should let your ally cure your planets...

The remaining question is: Do races conquered by a mechanoid race become 'mechanoid' just like races conquered by emotionless races become emotionless? They should not, in either case, but I bet they do.