acts of war, war declaration and other topics (my first message!)

[minipol]

i never used ramming before. time to start using it!

[oleg]

I still remember my first encounter with Rage when I just installed TDM: I merely warped to a new system and emerged next to unknown colony ship. Being a benevolent and humane ruler I forbid my scout ship fire on aliens. Next thing my ship was smitterd to pieces...

In later game stages, ramming is a valuable option to organic ships with lots and lots of organic armour.

[Grandpa Kim]

1- war state : I had a few battle with an alien race, but there is no state of war between our empires. I think that the war declaration must be official to have a state of war. What's the use of declaring an official war ?

You can battle with any empire you have "war", "none", or "non-intercourse". The differences are subtle but here is the way I see it. AI's at "war" are very unlikely to accept any treaty from you. With "none", you stand a very good chance of arranging a treaty with them. "Non-intercourse" is used mostly by human players playing a neutral empire (as opposed to peaceful or bloodthirsty). This is about the only treaty such an empire's people will accept without becoming unhappy.

In PBW, many games require that no wars exist before victory can be claimed, so it serves a purpose there too.

2- I've cause some battles by moving a ship on an ennemy ship. Sometimes the computer warn me that, doing that, there would be a battle, sometimes not (erspecially on warp points, I think). Why ?

I must admit, I have never seen this warning.

3- I'm not an english native speaker (i thing you should already know...) and i wold like to know if an attitude "cool" for alien races is more friendly that an attitude "warm".

As tbontob said, warm is friendlier than cool. But don't rely on these to tell you anything important. In one game I have, an empire is murderous towards me but keeps asking for a Trade Alliance.

4- What is the best way to declare a non aggression pact ? I made very ressources gift to an alien race, but they keep on refusing my treatie requests...

The best way is to simply ask for the treaty with no gifts. The problem is, some aliens simply don't want treaties, others only want them when they are at war with someone else. The variations are endless.

5- What's the use of warheads designed to be used by ramming into another ship ? I tryied it on my fregate, and i bumped into an escort : result : two ships destroyed ! I thought that kamikase area was over 'til 1945...

The "ram" ships and "ram" orders do not work very well... at least in my opinion.

6- Do two research centers an the same planet provide two times more research points ?

Yes!!! Put on as many as you like. If the planet has low resource numbers, you can fill it with research centres exclusively.

7- Last but not least. Is it possible to refit an existing ship ? (updating missiles, cannons, engines and so on...). Is it possible to change the design of a ship without creating a new design name (which would not obliged me to have an escort I, escort II, escort III design vessels in the design list)

No, you cannot change a design without giving it a new name. One exception: If it is a new design that has not been built, you can edit it ("Edit" button in the design window), but you then lose the original design. This is good, since you don't want two different designs with the same name.

Yes, you can re-fit an existing ship. We call it retro-fitting. The icon is a triangle with a green arrow circling the border, or use the hotkey as I do-- the letter "G". From here you can retrofit, mothball, scrap or fire on the selected ship.

Hope this helps, Trooper.

Kim

Edit: Holy crap! 15 Posts while I was typing this!

[ September 18, 2002, 03:06: Message edited by: Grandpa Kim ]

[mac5732]

One of the things I would like to see tweaked in SE4 is the fact that you can be at war with another AI player without either side declaring war. Now in the other Versions, the AI would not go to war footing (increased war production etc) unless there was an actual state of war declared. This gives the human player an advantage. I would like to see something like if you bLast, capture another (AI) players, ships, or glaze or capture a planet, that after say the 3rd incident, the AI would declare war or at least break any treaties they have with you and make it harder to obtain another, or something on this order. I don't know if this is still true in 1.78, if it is, IMHO it should be tweaked.

my opinion only

just some ideas mac

[Captain Kwok]

I think of no treaty battles like Federation-Klingon relations in Star Trek during the original series/movies. While no formal state of war existed, I'm sure there were lots of nasty encounters.

[Andrés]

I don't think you'd want to build colony ships only for ramming. But it's a good idea to ram an enemy ship if your colony ship is under attack. You may be able to destroy a small enemy ship with relatively low damage, and even sacrificing it is better than having it destroyed anyway.

Check the facilities in your homeworld, you'll see that you have many research centers and other facilities.

I rarely use non-agression pacts, I start offering a trade alliances (to AI) and trade and research (to humans).

Wish... Considering hostile any ship from an empire you have no treaty with should be fine for agressive races, more peaceful races should consider them peaceful uless they attack first.

[mac5732]

Capt Kwok, I can understand that, however, the AI will not (or at least did not use to) increase his war production at any time unless there is declaration of war from either side which gives a human player an advantage over a AI player. It just needs to be tweaked in order not to give advantage to a human player. That could be say, breaking of treaties, increased intel, but most important for AI player to at least increase some war production and research
IMHO A human knows what he's going to do to a AI player, the AI is not that bright, thus a tweak or two

just some ideas mac