TDM-ModPack 2.00 BETA

[Atraikius]

I posted an update for the Ork's AI based on comments from recent test games. Also posted the beta Versions for SFB Gorn and Kzinti until I complete filling in gaps left by available models.

[taterbill]

I'm just curious... Are the new AI's now building troops and capturing planets, or are they just glassing them over and moving on?

Thanks,

Bill

[Rollo]

quote:

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Originally posted by taterbill:
I'm just curious... Are the new AI's now building troops and capturing planets, or are they just glassing them over and moving on?

Thanks,

Bill

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Sorry, guys. No news today, I was too busy with other stuff. I'll try to post some more tomorrow.

Regarding the troops, I have seen a couple of the AIs build troop ships and they also have troops in the research and constuction files, but you won't see that until the late game or a game at full tech. If you want to have the AI use troops in the early game, use the Aquilaeian, Orks and Space Vikings (please correct me if I am wrong and if there are others, as I have not seen all the AIs, yet)

Rollo

[Rollo]

Before I post more statistics, let me update the current situation until turn 120:

Rage (turn120): Rage expansion has slowed down. They have colonized all planets that they have access to (plus add a few new ones), but they are having problems now expanding outward from their current territory as their colonizers are crawling towards their planets. They have met some resistance by the Norak and Xi'Chung and are hit hard by Toron intel. They have 3 warp point closers, but haven't used them, yet (Well, there is no need to do that really at this point, so that is a good thing.) I will keep an eye on those and see if they are used, if the Rage come under pressure (if that ever happens). They are currently having a deficit on minerals, because they are building monoliths everywhere, but they still have a large stockpile to use. They will have huge amounts of resources in the future.

Toron (turn120): The Toron are still sending out their colonizers everywhere and have settled some systems in war torn regions of the quadrant before any of the actual combatants did. They have huge amounts of intel that they use mainly against the Rage and a little bit against the Vikings. They have lost many ships, though because of Pyrochette mines.

Xi'Chung (turn120): The Xi'Chung are doing better now. They have stopped the Rage incursion into their systems. Because of the layout of the map they can only grow by invading the Rage.

Dra'Kol (turn 120): The Dra'Kol have the potential to grow, as they have found a nice undisturbed region of the quadrant. They have set up some colonies there a long time ago, but there is still a lot of unused planets. Perhaps they could use some more colonizers in certain AI states. Now they have not only the Vaxin, but also the Vikings to deal with that are slowly advancing into their space. All intel is currently being used against the Vaxin.

Piundon (turn120): They Piundon are holding their ground against the Toron and are advancing against the Sergetti. They have destroyed many Sergetti worlds and have now room to settle.

Colonials (turn 120): The Colonials are almost destroyed. They have only one small world left.

Norak (turn 120): They are doing better now and resettling the worlds they have lost to the Rage as well as setting up new colonies elsewhere. They have a troop transport, but that has not been filled with enough troops and is not included into a fleet, yet.

Vaxin (turn120): The Vaxin have not made much progress lately. They have suffered a little bit from a new war against the Norak and have not been able to gain much ground against the Dra'Kol. They have set up two colonies deep in Viking space on huge breathables, but still haven't settled on the planets in the former Dra'Kol home system.

Vikings (turn 120): The Vikings now have room to grow and to become big after they (almost) destroyed the Colonials. They are sending their fleets and colonizers into Vaxin/Dra'Kol space. We will see what will come from that, but the Vaxin/Vikings partnership seems to be quite stable so far. The will research rock colonization soon and resettling the former Colonial homeworlds should give them a boost as they breathe the same atmosphere. Only one of the Viking troop transports is currently in a fleet and so far they only captured one world during the war against the Colonials.

Sergetti (turn 120): While the Sergetti were busy against the Pyrochette, the have lost a large part of their empire to the Piundon. What's even worse is that they have not been able to make use of the former Pyrochette systems as the Toron were faster to move in their colonizers.

Pyrochette (me): (turn120) While almost beaten, the Pyrochette have been responsible for some heavy losses to Toron fleets with mines as well as glassing unprotected Toron planets. Please keep in mind that they are not getting the computer player bonus, as they are a human player under full minister control.

diplomacy (turn 120)
Rage: none with Toron, war with Xi'Chung, none with Dra'Kol, war with Norak, none with Sergetti, war with Pyrochette
Toron: none with Rage, MA with Dra'Kol, war with Piundon, TR with Norak, P with Vaxin, war with Vikings, TR with Sergetti, war with Pyrochette
Xi'Chung: war with Rage, TA with Sergetti, MA with Pyrochette
Dra'Kol: none with Rage, MA with Toron, MA with Colonials, MA with Norak, war with Vaxin, war with Vikings
Piundon: war with Toron, P with Vaxin, war with Sergetti, MA with Pyrochette
Colonials: MA with Dra'Kol, TR with Vaxin, war with Vikings
Norak: war with Rage, TR with Toron, MA with Dra'Kol, war with Vaxin, MA with Vikings, TA with Sergetti, war with Pyrochette
Vaxin: P with Toron, war with Dra'Kol, P with Piundon, TR with Colonials, war with Norak, P with Vikings, TA with Sergetti, P with Pyrochette
Vikings: war with Toron, war with Dra'Kol, war with Colonials, MA with Norak, P with Vaxin
Sergetti: none with Rage, TR with Toron, TA with Xi'Chung, war with Piundon, TA with Norak, TA with Vaxin, war with Pyrochette
Pyrochette (me): war with Rage, war with Toron, MA with Xi'Chung, MA with Piundon, war with Norak, P with Vaxin, war with Sergetti

More later...

Rollo

edit: typos

[This message has been edited by Rollo (edited 13 November 2001).]

[Alpha Kodiak]

Is there a deadline for when we have to get final Versions of AIs in? I am testing and balancing a few changes that I made based on the excellent comments made by Rollo and Master Belisarius in their test games, and I want to make sure that I get them done and in on time.

Typical programmer - need to know when the deadline is so that I can push things to the very Last minute....

[oleg]

I think there may be some general setup problem with TDM-Mod Pack:

As most people already know, there is a bug/feature which cause problems with random race picking: SEIV does not allow a race to have several advanced traits with combined points exceeding the race set-up limit, even if you make up deficit buy reducing race traits.
Example: if you have Aquileans (organic+advanced storage=2500) as a random race in 2000 game, it will start with organic trait only and 1000 points left unused. At the same time, Rage (advanced storage+propulsion expert=2000) will have all points utilized.

Of course, as documented by Master Belisarious in the readme files of Aquelians and Pyrochette , it can be easily solved by always using .emp files for such races. This is nice and simple when you have one or two problematic races, but look on TDM-Mod pack -
Aquelian, Narn, Pyrochette, Shadows, Ukra-tal, Toron, Xiati and may be some more races all have advanced traits worth 2500 at 2000 strart.

Thus, when I start a new game I have few options:

If galaxy is huge, I can pick all these races .emp files and still have enough room to put few random races. No big deal.

However, If galaxy is medium/small and/or I want only few AI races I have a dilemma:
Either disable random AI generation and pick up exactly what races I want eliminating quite a big slice of game randomness and fun or, if for some silly reason I want some elements of surprise and uncertanity, take a risk that one or more races will start with 1000 handicap !

Therefore, I propose that all TDM-races should be changed to accomodate this bug/feature. Of cource, .emp files can still be set as intended, but AI_genral.txt files changed. After all, it is in moddler' own interest that his/her race will not nave a 1000 penalty if it is used as a random race in TDM-Mod Pack !

Oleg

[Rollo]

Alpha Kodiak,
if you are making changes anyway, consider putting a Quantum Reactor on the colony ships before cargo storage. The reason for the current slow expansion of the Rage in my test game is that most of the colonizers are out of fuel.

Rollo

edit: typo

[This message has been edited by Rollo (edited 13 November 2001).]

[Alpha Kodiak]

quote:

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Originally posted by Rollo:
Alpha Kodiak,
if you are making changes anyway, consider putting a Quantum Reactor on the colony ships before cargo storage. The reason for the current slow expansion of the Rage in my test game is that most of the colonizers are out of fuel.

Rollo

edit: typo

[This message has been edited by Rollo (edited 13 November 2001).]

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It is in my set of changes underway. Both the Vaxin and the Rage will have LC based colonizers with either quantum reactors when available, or extra supply storage. Tests with the Vaxin are looking good so far.

The only downside comes in a full-tech game. The first colonizers are coming out with quantum reactors even though they are only going a short distance. They are more expensive than necessary, though fortunately, Space Yard IIIs can still produce them in 2 turns.

[Rollo]

Alpha Kodiak,
yeah I know. That is some waste of resources in full tech games. One way around that would be restricting the maximum size to be built in the *very* early game to 310kt and not include Quantum Reactors in normal colonizers, since you are using advanced colonizers with LC hulls later that will carry them. I have run into a similar problem with the Vikings who use CR for advanced colonizers (couldn't fit all the goodies that I wanted into a LC ). I don't really want them to be built in the early full tech game, so I set the "maximum ship size from start" in the settings.txt to 410 for the first turns. However, there seems to be a (possible) bug with that. The AI will not use the specified settings in a game with sim movement, turn based works fine. I have posted that some time ago, but got no confirmation on it (Well, I didn't get any answer that it Does work, either. So I guess nobody bothered to check). If somebody could try to reproduce that, I would appreciate it. I just don't want to send in a bug report that has not been confirmed by at least one other person.

Mephisto, I have noticed that in the beta patch4 the Orks/Krill use the 33s again for the research. That had been fixed in patch3, but has somehow crawled back in (maybe it is deliberate, so just ignore me if that is the case ).

Oleg, I agree with what you said about the advanced traits in the general.txt file.

Rollo

[Rollo]

New Statistics up to turn 150:
The Vikings have taken the lead now. That means we have three big empires now of about equal size and all of them are not really fond of each other. No major battles, yet, as all of them are pretty far apart. The overall situation hasn't changed much, though.

Sorry about no more information, I wanted to post this yesterday, but couldn't get to the forum. Don't have time to write more now.

Rollo