Tale of a Game - from a play test perspective

[God Emperor]

Turn 60;
War against the Piundon goes well - have destroyed all 5 of their colonies in the Gamma 2 Sgr system for no loss and took out two more destroyers. Now have three destroyers and four lt cruisers opposing them. Cant push any further forward due to supply difficulties.

PS: Piundon just initiated a combat - 8 of their (crappy) destroyers versus 3 of my lt cruisers. Destroyed all of their ships for loss of two armour.....Piundon have just dropped back to 7th position.

Terrans are down to one planet somewhere and they still wont surrender.
Am still appeasing the Klingons, Rage and Colonials. Klingons have claims over two of my systems but have not taken any action so far.
Mineral reserves now around 70,000 and ship building program is in full swing.

Player position Ratings;
1st Romulans 35 planets, 56 ships
2nd Klingons 29 planets, 41 ships
3rd Borg 34 planets, 50 ships
4th Me 32 planets, 30 ships (yay!! back in top 6)
5th Piundon 17 planets, 52 ships
6th Abbidon 12 planets, 26 ships

7th Rage 20 planets, 33 ships
8th Shadows 21 planets, 33 ships


Diplomacy
Me At war with Terrans and Piundon
Borg At war with Norak, Shadows, Colonials and Abbidon!!!
Romulans At war with Darloks and Norak
Klingons at war with Narn and Sergetti
Abbidon At war with Borg
Piundon At War with me
Rage At war with Pyrochette

Comments
Still not sure why Borg ships are not being equipped with Shields even though they have the tech. Something to do with boarding tech?
Borg are at war with most of their neighbours and this is slowing their progress.

Klingons are continuing to do well. Ships are very heavily designed - Lt cruisers are now equipped with DUC IV's, shield IV's, contra terrene engines, armour III and Solar Collector II's. Sergetti and Narn are in a lot of trouble.

Piundon have colonised som nice Mining Colonies, but their maintenance has again exceeded their production rate, so they will be triggering the auto mining colony build rule again. I suspect that their ship production rate (Construction_Vehicles file)needs to be looked at in order to reduce their boom-bust economy.
Ship wise, Piundon are packing Crystalline torpedoe II's on their latest destroyers, and have four carriers in action.

Rage still looking very good and their Lt cruisers are packing Shield V's, PPB V's and PD V's. They have a good spread of planet types.
The No Storage Messages have stopped for time being.

Romulans are still the meanest mothers in the valley. Are deploying Lt Cruisers with DUC IV's or Missile III's, Shield IV's, contra terrene engines and 5xArmour III's. Planet wise, they have a very good spread of planet types by virtue of the sheer number of planets that they have colonised. Still expanding despite their wars..

Shadows have recently colonised a couple of very good minerals planets. If they can develop them and hang on to them, things may improve for them.
Ship designs are good with Lt Cruisers packing Shield IV's, contra terrene engines and parasite or globule III's. The Shadows do not appear to be under much military pressure from the Borg so my earlier concerns may not be well founded.

Abbidon are doing very well. They dont have a lot of planets or ships but have very advanced tech (psychic weapons V, shields III, contra terrene engines, Lt cruisers).
These guys could be a serious contender for top AI in this game. They are friendly with most races and are only at war with the Borg.
Just remembered that these guys are using the Filler Techs which explains their well focussed research (and high score - up to level 26 in Filler Tech 1 and 2).


[This message has been edited by God Emperor (edited 20 May 2001).]

[DirectorTsaarx]

First of all, let me say I'm enjoying reading these Posts. Good analytical work; I hope modders & MM are paying attention. I have yet to make time for modding my own AI, but I'm certainly taking your comments to heart!

quote:

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Originally posted by God Emperor:
Still not sure why Borg ships are not being equipped with Shields even though they have the tech. Something to do with boarding tech?

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Probably. ISTR a discussion about using armor for boarding party ships, at least until shield regenerators are available. Mainly because using the boarding parties drops YOUR shields, leaving an unarmored ship rather vulnerable. Once regenerators are available, of course, the shields will come back after a boarding action (at whatever rate the regenerators can handle), so shields become a bit more useful again.

[God Emperor]

Turn 70;
War against the Piundon continues to go well - have destroyed all 4 of their colonies in the Becrus system and built a resupply colony in the Gamma 2 Sgr system. Now have nine lt cruisers and one cruiser opposing them (destroyers have been reassigned to exploration duties). Again, I cant push any further forward due to supply difficulties.

Piundon ships are still very crappy - have destroyed a further 22 destroyers in 3 encounters for no loss. Piundon are now in 10th position.

Terrans are down to one planet somewhere and they still wont surrender.
Am still appeasing the Klingons, Rage and Colonials. Klingons have claims over two of my systems but have not taken any action so far. Rage have established a claim over one system and have dropped to cool. Have begun mining the warp point to them.

Mineral reserves now around 170,000 and ship building program (Cruisers)is in full swing. Have also just begun pumping out fighters and mines.

Player position Ratings;
1st Romulans 38 planets, 56 ships
2nd Me!! 40 planets, 43 ships
3rd Klingons 33 planets, 40 ships
4th Borg 36 planets, 49 ships
5th Rage 24 planets, 41 ships
6th Darloks 20 planets, 54 ships

7th Abbidon 12 planets, 29 ships
8th Shadows 21 planets, 38 ships

Darloks have jumped into 6th spot.

Diplomacy
Me At war with Terrans and Piundon
Borg At war with Norak, Shadows, Colonials and Abbidon!!!
Romulans At war with Darloks and Norak
Klingons at war with Narn and Sergetti
Abbidon At war with Borg
Darloks at war with Borg and Romulans
Rage At war with Pyrochette

Comments
Borg Lt Cruisers are now being equipped with Shields but not neural interfaces and repair systems. Sounds like a space problem.
Borg are at war with most of their neighbours and this is slowing their progress. They also appear to have just about colonised all available worlds.

Darloks are expanding well and have the two weakest races nearby Ships are of good quality - destroyers with Armour III, missile IV's and contra terrene engines. have four carriers in action.

Klingons are continuing to do well. Ships are very heavily designed - Cruisers are now equipped with 4xDUC IV's, 1xshield IV, contra terrene engines, 3xarmour III, 5xpoint defence IV and 1xSolar Collector III. Narn are under assault by the Klingon 2nd fleet (9 lt cruisers) and are in a lot of trouble. Klingons are one turn off of gaining Intelligence compounds.


Rage still looking very good and their Lt cruisers are packing Shield V's, PPB V's and PD V's. They have a good spread of planet types. Rage also have Intelligence and are generating more points than the Darloks!!
Their war against the Pyrochette appears to be going well.
No sign of the earlier No Storage Messages.

Romulans are still the meanest mothers in the valley. Are deploying Lt Cruisers with DUC IV's or Missile IV's, Shield IV's, contra terrene engines and 5xArmour III's. Have just acquired Solar Collectors.
Planet wise, they have a very good spread of planet types by virtue of the sheer number of planets that they have colonised. Still expanding despite their wars..

Shadows are continuing to slowly grow and have just begun building Intelligence centres.
Ship designs are good with Lt Cruisers packing Shield IV's, contra terrene engines, point defence IV's, Solar Collector III's and parasite or globule III's. The Shadows do not appear to be under much military pressure from the Borg so my earlier concerns may not be well founded.
Shadows have just gone Partnership with the Abbidon which may prove interesting.

Abbidon are doing very well. They dont have a lot of planets or ships but have very advanced tech (psychic weapons V, shields V, contra terrene engines, Lt cruisers).
These guys could be a serious contender for top AI in this game. They are friendly with most races (Partnership with Norak and Shadows) and are only at war with the Borg.
Just remembered that these guys are using the Filler Techs which explains their well focussed research (and high score - up to level 26 in Filler Tech 1 and 2).


[This message has been edited by God Emperor (edited 21 May 2001).]

[God Emperor]

DirectorTsaarx,
Thanks for the comments - particularly about boarding. I may need to hold off of shields for the Borg then - they will probably be ok without them due to the self repair systems that their ships possess. Only threat will be from races using armour piercing weapons such as the crystalline races and those using Null Space Weapons.
Regards,
GE


[This message has been edited by God Emperor (edited 21 May 2001).]

[Alpha Kodiak]

GE:

Just wanted to tell you that I am really enjoying this running story of the game unfolding. (And yes, I am paying attention to how the Rage are behaving - so far so good, it would seem.) It is very useful to get these perspectives on the various AI's so that I can improve both the Rage and future projects.

[God Emperor]

Alpha Kodiak,
Was hoping people might fight it interesting/useful. Am impressed with your work on the Rage - good expansion rate and good weapons selections. They aint no bunnies.

Up to turn 72 now, will report on turn 80, or before if something significant happens.

Turns are taking increasingly longer to complete (including the AI). Can now go to toilet, grab a drink and wash some dishes before the AI completes all 16 race turns. My wife is happy to see me out of the computer room though!
My poor old P233MMX is overdue for an upgrade - did upgrade it from 32 to 64 Mb of RAM which seemed to make a significant difference.
Anyway, enough of my ramblings, and back to the game!
Regards,
GE

[Tampa_Gamer]

GE - this thread is a great ideal. I am taking notes on what I need to change with the "crappy" Piundon ships, I am curious though - do they have the tech and are not using it or are they seriously lacking research points? On another note, I have not seen anything positive about the Darlok in awhile, so I am glad to see them survive in a game.

[This message has been edited by Tampa_Gamer (edited 22 May 2001).]