Balance Mod Available for SE:V

[NTJedi]

No custom ship sets.
The number of colonies range between 2 to as high as 24.

2 seem to be doing good researching levels
7 seem to be doing average researching levels
8 seem to be doing poor researching levels

I'll be sending the savegame soon... perhaps I just had bad luck.

[Arralen]

Originally Posted by NTJedi

Here are the settings I've used: ..., medium AI difficulty, ....

I bet this is to blame.
I started at least 3 games with high difficulty/low bonus and paradise quadrants, and never noticed any "main nation" AI turtling in any deparment.

In fact, I had to go in settings.txt and reduce the AI bonus from 2.0 to 1.3 to make the game more sensible - AI was just "pouring all over the map", those with a good start developing an expansion speed that left me no choice but to restart (I'm playing with simultanious move, so there's no way to "manually" beat down fleets of 5 times mine's size ...).

As I'm always trying out new mods with master password enabled and all scores visible, it's easy to look into it if something really goes wrong. Yet, the AIs are doing quite well .. notice the Abbidons are completely out-researching me (again), despite having only 2 planets more then me !!!
Just in case somebody wonders - player 13-17 are obvisouly minor AIs which do not leave their home systems. Yet No17 seems to have gotten a lucky draw ... .
While looking at this - would it be possible to make shure that minors build intel centers?

Play   Ress   Reas    Int   Tech   Sys  Planets  Pop
 1   205659  27140   9888    74    12     35    14547
 2   307655  33661  10190    85    17     39    14678
 3   299299  23459   8430    85    13     31    12293
 4   293068  45185   9240    96    13     37    14920
 5   211536  30192  10335    80     7     19    11722
 6   153791  23598   5995    77     8     25    12668
 7   152219  23628   5670    87     6     19    13568
 8   239393  20072   5280    74    12     32    13868
 9   142391  26448  10015    81    11     24    11372
10    93741  20459   7820    79     7     15    10782
11   225398  12266   3210    70    15     36    12294
12   195353  12758   5400    73     6     19    10683
13    81347   3129      0    43     1      2     5443
14    39923   4165   2510    43     1      4     3200
15    26438   3149   1210    43     1      3     2680
16    24768   2952      0    43     1      1     2500
17   104384   3609   1405    45     1      4     4656

[Arralen]

Some notes from my "test" games:

- AI uses up to 10(!) light organic armor in FF
- AI uses 1 main gun on Troop Transport, but no PD (e.g. Ukra-Tal 1x Acid Globule)

- AI offers nonaggression in all systems with 5% ressource tariff upon first meeting, even if they're rated higher
- minor AIs still offer intersettling treaties, now even "bribe" to get them offering tariff or tech levels (which they normally don't have)
- in general, AIs are still much too eager to do intersettling treaties
- AI asks for military assistence for a mere trade alliance treaty (trade 15% / non agg. in all sys. / share maps / share minef. codes / share medical)


- would it be possible to edit the default TF/fleet formations? E.g. have TFs flee in formation to give them better PD coverage, or have ships abort attack at 5%-10% (internal) damage ?

[Captain Kwok]

There's no implementation of difficulty levels in SE5. I also haven't added any difficulty features yet either in the mod. :P

If an AI only has a handful of colonies, their colony type distribution might be skewed towards whatever the planets it has are best at.

[Arralen]

Originally Posted by Captain Kwok

There's no implementation of difficulty levels in SE5. I also haven't added any difficulty features yet either in the mod. :P

Oh, really? I guess the following options are purely cosmetic, then?



I'm not sure 'bout the AI difficulty level which was turning off ministers in SE4 and supposedly is in SE5 as well, but I'm pretty sure the "Computer Player Bonus .." lines in settings.txt do work, e.g. while the doubled research points do not show up in the comparison screen, they do show up on the research screen if you log into an AI position (but they're gone as soon as you hit "end turn", for obvious reasons)

//--------------------------------------
Computer Player Bonus Points Multiplier Low                           := 2.0
Computer Player Bonus Points Multiplier Medium                        := 3.0
Computer Player Bonus Points Multiplier High                          := 5.0
//--------------------------------------
Computer Player Bonus Queue Rate Multiplier Low                       := 1.5
Computer Player Bonus Queue Rate Multiplier Medium                    := 2.0
Computer Player Bonus Queue Rate Multiplier High                      := 3.0
//---------------------------------------

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Captain Kwok

There's no implementation of difficulty levels in SE5. I also haven't added any difficulty features yet either in the mod. :P

During new game setup, under empires there's a computer player difficulty level... which I setup as Medium.

Originally Posted by Captain Kwok

If an AI only has a handful of colonies, their colony type distribution might be skewed towards whatever the planets it has are best at.

Based on my current game it seems the AI opponents need 8 or more planets before investing within research facilities.

Originally Posted by Arralen

I started at least 3 games with high difficulty/low bonus and paradise quadrants, and never noticed any "main nation" AI turtling in any deparment.

In fact, I had to go in settings.txt and reduce the AI bonus from 2.0 to 1.3 to make the game more sensible ... ...

I see... I was using medium difficulty with no bonus for the computers. Thanks for the suggestion, these first two games are mostly allowing me to learn the game since there's so much to learn. I'm expecting my next game to have increased difficulty settings.

[Captain Kwok]

Originally Posted by NTJedi

During new game setup, under empires there's a computer player difficulty level... which I setup as Medium.

I know there are difficulty settings that exist in the game setup menu, but I'm saying they don't do anything.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Captain Kwok

I know there are difficulty settings that exist in the game setup menu, but I'm saying they don't do anything.

Wow, I had no idea... thanks for the heads up.

[Makinus]

Kwok: in your page says that the Small Systems mod increases turn processing time... any idea by how much? if it´s less than 50% i´ll try SEV again with your balance mod and small systems mod...

[Captain Kwok]

On average, it cuts down the time of the movement phase by about 50%. Overall, I'd estimate you get about 25-30% savings depending on the frequency of combats.