Custom Race- Best Stats? - Page 10

originalbork · January 8, 2003, 20:15

Are you crazy, in andvanced tech you get everything you need with a creative. Whatever the other guy starts with you go to posi's and cl3 and anyone else non-creative is dead. Uni Crea Sub in ave or min rich and many possible in org. You start by destroying all but 1 or 2 of your marine bases for money. You have far more command points than anyone else, full planetary defence cabability, both H armor and R Hull. In prewarp the 8 points kills your start but in Adv tech it is a requirement.

vmxa1 · January 8, 2003, 22:03

You did not say anything I did not already know. How so ever, it can be very hard for a creative race to expand as far as some other race. The adv tech lets others get things that they can better use than you can. A uni-crea type will not be as bad off, but lessor creative race could and do have trouble. I did not mean to imply they will get clobbered all the time, only that they are not a lock to win a 100% of time as many claim.

booklord · January 9, 2003, 00:21

The half food/half industry aspect of cybernetic is indeed near worthless. It's getting auto-repair right out of the gate that I find to be most advantageous. Given my ship designs I'd say its the most powerful combat oriented race pick out there. ( Great for defense too. Gives your star bases a real edge. ) I normally try to time my first cruiser one turn after I discover heavy armor.

( Of course to be fair, the computer must be given credit for 1) choosing some fairly poor ship designs 2) engaging in some lousy tactics during ship combat )

originalbork · January 9, 2003, 12:01

VXMA,

What the heck is your point in one post you say that creatives are a better pick in prewarp than advanced and in the next you tell me that everything I said you knew when I disagreed with you.

In an advanced game the simple truth is any noncreative race is essentially uncreative to 650 tech and 1 900 or 1150 tech and uncreative is a huge negative.

Even a bad creative race(why take one) won't be shorted by not getting to chose all of the early key techs.

In a prewarp game the 8 points for creative will slow your growth in planets and research through the required techs so there it is a huge disadvantage in growth.

vmxa1 · January 9, 2003, 14:09

Originally posted by originalbork

"What the heck is your point in one post you say that creatives are a better pick in prewarp than advanced and in the next you tell me that everything I said you knew when I disagreed with you."

It is not that hard to understand, I think you are wrong. It is correct for some creative races. The problem is that you do not accept that some people will play a "weaker" race to see how it fares. I am not going to be playing only the best possible race every game. If I did that I would soon be bored.
Anyway I could be wrong about that point, it is only the impression I have from the games I have played with creative. It is not a scienific test and may be invalid.

"In an advanced game the simple truth is any noncreative race is essentially uncreative to 650 tech and 1 900 or 1150 tech and uncreative is a huge negative."

Like I said this is not a revalation. It does not matter to the AI as it is not clear that they will make proper choices or that this will slow them down. They will steal or trade for techs that they do not have.
Consider that now they hve maybe four sysem to get production and research from, instead of one. Given that they have a edge research they is a bigger boost for them than you. If a race like Klacs or Sakka are close by they will soon be making you life hard. Blockades and attacks. They now have battleships that can be used to blockade you and the junk that comes with yours will notbe able to defeat those ships until you can refi them.

"Even a bad creative race(why take one) won't be shorted by not getting to chose all of the early key techs."
I think you have admitted that you can lose regardless of the race. Many factors can put you in a spot that you will lose. Ok, maybe not you I forgot, even though you remind us all the time that you are the greatest. But us mere mortals are capabile of losing a game here and there.

"In a prewarp game the 8 points for creative will slow your growth in planets and research through the required techs so there it is a huge disadvantage in growth. "
I am sure I have made this point before.

The only thing I am trying to say is that from my perspective Creative is not an automatic win at impossible as many people claim.

booklord · January 9, 2003, 15:06

I would argue that there is no 100% victory race pick selection. There's always a chance that the game will put you in a location that makes victory impossible.

( Advanced tech may be different. but I almost always take the standard start unless I'm playing a race with powerful research bonuses then I start in pre-warp )

If you play for a peaceful start, you can find yourself completely hemmed in by an aggressive enemy which prevents you from creating colonies outside your own star system.

If you take a wartime start, you can be flummoxed by finding yourself alone. By the time you find anyone else the tech levels have raised to the point where your racial picks have become insignificant.

Much rarer, but I've seen it happen. Occassionally a computer race on the other side of the galaxy will gain early dominance and expand at an ungodly rate. In one game I finally secured my corner of a huge map, finally met the klackons and saw 2/3rds of the map turn red. It all went downhill from there.

vmxa1 · January 9, 2003, 15:59

That is a factor that is not mentioned much, the chance that a race that is being beaten (by you or the AI) will surrender to another race. A game that was moving along in decent shape sees two fairly quick surrenders to your largest foe and now the game is a big stuggle. I see single surrenders often, doubles are rare.

bakalov · January 10, 2003, 03:41

I have NEVER lost to the AI with the following race, no matter the starting conditions, tech or galaxy ....

Dictatorship
Crative
Artifacts
Large HW
+1 Research
Aquatic

Low Gravity
- Espionage
- Ship defense (or ship attack, does not matter)

You can beat them with ONLY ONE planet, no farm colonies, nothing ..... Even if your only planet freezes for some time in anomaly :-) The AI i sooooo pathetic and "willing to do as you want". vmxa1, do you remember the saves that I posted once ago?
The starting point absolutely does not matter ...

If you lose to the AI with this race even a single game, this means that this game is not for you :-) Just concentrate on research in the following sequence
Res Labs -> AF -> Soil/Cloning -> Supercomputer -> Robo miners. Then Tritanium (and may be pollution proc), Class III, Battle Scanner, Space Academy. You can do this by turn 100 in prewarp for sure. The AI will never attack you till then. Actually it once attacked me at turn 90 but the attack was just a joke and not a treat :-)

If you leave a good creative race alone till turn 90 you are probably dead meat :-) And the AI seems to do so ...

bakalov · January 10, 2003, 03:46

Hey, wake up .... They may surrender, have size and anything ... But you will have TECH. One of ship of yours is worth 20 of theirs ... They never have a good ship design ...

vmxa1 · January 10, 2003, 05:20

Quote:

Originally posted by bakalov
Hey, wake up .... They may surrender, have size and anything ... But you will have TECH. One of ship of yours is worth 20 of theirs ... They never have a good ship design ...

I did not say you would lose, only that it is a sruggle.

vmxa1 · January 10, 2003, 05:22

Quote:

Originally posted by bakalov
IYou can beat them with ONLY ONE planet, no farm colonies, nothing ..... Even if your only planet freezes for some time in anomaly :-) The AI i sooooo pathetic and "willing to do as you want". vmxa1, do you remember the saves that I posted once ago?
The starting point absolutely does not matter ...

Yes I played it out and won.

bakalov · January 10, 2003, 10:21

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
I did not say you would lose, only that it is a sruggle.

Ok, I agree that with non-creative races it may be a struggle. For a good player it may be not ...

For the creative races the struggle is the early survival. That late you can just ignore the surrender event and continue as if nothing has happened.
And the early survival is not really a struggle in SP because the AI can not realize this and at turn 90 it is already too late :-)

For the advanced game you are completely wrong. I think that the creative is simply a must for the advanced tech, SP or MP. If non-creative you can get screwed just because you are missing key techs because the "smart" AI picked other ones for you :-)

The AI sucks in this game ...

For more competent AI I would suggest:
1) Race picks should not be random but instead they should tend to the top 10 races from the MP statistics.
2) build-in strategies again taken from the MP along with the optimal usage of the events and the current state.
3) optimal tech picks for the strategies.
4) standard ship designs that are proved to be useful.
5) exploiting the player weaknesses (and a bit unfair, but, peeking into what the player posess!).

This means that no one can make competent AI until he has played a lot of MP against different styles. This is impossible at the time of the release of the game, but it can be added later by a patch (I have in mind some of the patches from Blizzard for the Starcraft, that added the "insane" scripts for the AI). The AI should be pluggable, and even better, the game developers can give some tools for changing the AI scripts. I know lots of developers that like to play various games (in fact, I am a living example :-) that could be interested in improving the AI.

booklord · January 10, 2003, 10:41

An example of a game I played about a year ago where there was no chance. ( Impossible difficulty , forget universe size )

I started as creative and democratic ( my other picks elude me ) in the bottom left corner of the screen. The only inhabitable star near me was the Alkari homeworld. ( Seriously I had a black hole above me and a planet free world to the right. They were cybernetic, hefty ship combat bonuses, and on an artifacts world. Worse he was an aggressive militarist.

Then came the spies. Stealing left and right. Realizing combat was out of the question because of the Alkari's racial picks, I tried for an alliance. He wouldn't do it. Eventually the Alkari realized its military could squash me like a bug and that ended that.

I tried again. ( I had saved the starting point of the game ) Same result. The Alkari would not make an alliance no matter how much tech or money I gave him. In the end same result.

I gave up.
I'm not sure if I know a race that could achieve victory given THAT starting point

booklord · January 10, 2003, 11:21

For more competent AI I would suggest:
1) Race picks should not be random but instead they should tend to the top 10 races from the MP statistics.
2) build-in strategies again taken from the MP along with the optimal usage of the events and the current state.
3) optimal tech picks for the strategies.
4) standard ship designs that are proved to be useful.
5) exploiting the player weaknesses (and a bit unfair, but, peeking into what the player posess!).
********************************************

1) Actually I'd say the game should not give give extra race picks to computer players on impossible. I'd often see games where the silicoids have massive production capabilties, that when you conquer them ( and you'd be a fool not too ) it increases the strength of you empire ten-fold.

2) I'm not sure what they could program for ship combat. However I've occassionally seen computer players stop expanding their empires even though they have plenty of room. ( I guess because their personality isn't expansionist ) Something could have been done about that.

3) Agree with this one. Some techs are just near worthless.

4) Better ship designs would be good. In particular the AI needed to be programmed to know that missiles should be fired as quickly as possible. ( 2- rack only ) Fighters have massive disadvantages. and ships that specialize in one attack type missile, beam, torpedo, capture are superior.

5) I've sometimes seen the computer at war, do things that makes me believe it already does. It just doesn't use the information well.

Now a couple of I'd add.......

6) The computer must learn to REFIT. I've seen BCs with heavy lasers and nuclear missiles flying next to BCs with graviton beams.

7) Leaders must be put on the bigger more powerful ships. How many times have we seen a large fleet attack and see the leaders huddled up on a scout vessels at the far ends?

8) The computer needs a better algorithm to determine whether to engage a planet's defenses or fight a battle. I've seen a number of computer fleets splashed in battles it couldn't win.

9) The computer needs to coordinate sabotage activities with fleet attacks. Does the AI even know how to sabotage?

vmxa1 · January 10, 2003, 19:00

Bakalov, you did not say in what universe you tend to use that creative race. If a small or med one and you like to try for an early end, I can understand the AHW, but if you would play out a longer game and or on a huge map, it seems the 3 picks for AHW would return more added to the +1 R and make it +2. Now all your planets are in effect AHW.

bakalov · January 13, 2003, 05:22

vmxa, I agree ... this is reasonable change in some cases, but I'd rather change it according to the starting tech level (for sure I would change it in an advanced game).

The AHW is reducing the importance of your starting point, so you can easily survive situations like the one described by the booklord. I am playing AHW to acquire the techs I need for an attack as early as possible. Usually I am not settling around but instead I go for capturing of the enemy colonies, and ships if possible, not for other reason but for the money :-) Anyway in most cases their races are better then mine, or at least there is a few of them that are better ....

Booklord, in the game you described instead of trying to make an alliance with the Alkaries you'd have done better if conquered them. I don't know what your other bonuses were but if they were artifacts and large HW you could make it.
If you want try the race I described a few posts ago, and limit yourself to only one colony, no Colony bases or ships, even if you have good planets. If you play well then you'll have to be able to win every game even with this one planet ....

For the spies .... You have to be careful and to look when the first spy will come. Just demand from them to "stop spying". If they are in good relations with you then the chance that they agree is nearly 100%. The AI seems to be always somewhat "ashamed" from spying. Even the darloks when they are not repulsive easily agree with that.

For the aliances - you can try to make alliance if they are the same government as you are. If not then you will need lots of diplomatic bonuses to do that - Xeno Psychology, Diplomat* Leaders, and Charismatic or Telepathic if you have any of these traits. The good attitude is necessary condition for making treaties, but it is not enough by itself. If they do not agree you'll have to try again when you get one or more of the above things.

booklord · January 13, 2003, 12:24

Bakalov,

the problem was that conquering the Alkari early simply wasn't an option. They're early racial advantages of ship defense and cybernetic made their ships signifigantly stronger.

Meanwhile I was trapped on lone homeworld while the Alkari went off to colonize other worlds.

Alkari spies ensured that any tech advances I came up with were in Alkari hands within a few turns. Artifacts homeworld would have only made the Alkari stronger. Large homeworld wouldn't matter either.

It's possible I could have slowly developed a fleet and conquered the Alkari homeworld when I was ready except for one problem. The Alkari wouldn't leave me alone. As some sort of aggressive militarist ( I'd swear the race personality was Kill, Birdy, Kill, Kill ) it would invariably declare war once it got a few ships together. Being impossible level it built its fleet a lot faster than me. ( Not to mention having more star bases meant it could field a larger fleet )

bakalov · January 14, 2003, 05:22

Booklord, AHW + LHW would grant you almost double research from your only colony and twice less time needed to get the necessary tech to kill them ...

With race like that I would have battleship like:
Tritanium
Positronic Computer
Class III shield
Inertial stabilizer
Battle Scanner
Heavy Armor

5 Hv AF Mass Drivers
10 Pd AF Mass Drivers
5 Free Space,
trained in a space academy by turn 110 in prewarp.

The AI usually is not capable of killing such ship by turn 200. May be the only threat can be an enemy missile base with high armor. To deal with it bring 2 or three of these.
You can refit such ship later when you get Zortrium, Force Fields 4 and 5.

You do not need a fleet to kill them - you need only a ship (like the described one). With AHW+LHW race you can develop the Class III shield by turn 90 without interrupting the sequence for best colony development, and this is the earliest possible time they could attack you.
If you think that this wont be enough, add a missile base + radiation shield and they will not be able to touch you for a looooooooong time, more than necessary to kill and forget them.

And did you read the thing for demanding of "stop spying"? Anyway with AHW+LHW your research would be fast enough to get the techs that compensate for the spying negatives before even establishing the contact with them.

It is much more unpleasant to meet a repulsive darlok than the alkari in such situation. Not only for the spying, but for not knowing when they are going to attack. That's why I prefer a dictatorship race (the one I described). It has almost the same amount of research from the start, but more population (and more production in this way) and no spying defence negatives (actually the dictatorship bonus negates the -spying in the defence, if you get -10 to spying. The -spying offence still remains, but you will not need it as you are creative).

And if you continue speaking about this without trying I wont reply anymore because I am tired of my words falling to deaf ears. If you want to prove me wrong, please post a saved game with the race I described(Dictatorship, LHW, AHW, +1 Research, Aquatic, Creative, Low gravity, -10 ship attack, -10 espionage), no matter the starting conditions, from turn 0, and If I can't play it to victory then I will believe you.

originalbork · January 15, 2003, 16:08

Bakalov,

You seem to be the only other one in this thread that truly gets the game. There are 101 ways (ok more) to beat the dumb ass computer. It is virtually impossible to lose to it once you get the game and ship design.

It would have been fun to play you. You should get on Kali and play Cybersaber, he is probably still the best player there. When I played he and I were equal players.

Bork

vmxa1 · January 16, 2003, 02:36

bakalov, here you go, well I won't it is a loser, just a very poor start. I would say it has all of the elements that was mentioned.
Mentar has 2 gas, med tundra (ultra poor), small barren (poor)
Three systems within D. cell range:
Adib nothing
Goi nothing
Remus med tundra (poor) and med barren (poor)
Klacs are your nearest neighbors, followed by Darloks.
I submit this is about as bad a start as a creative race could expect. This is the funny part, it was the only pass I made, it was the very first and only game I created.
Looking forward to your logs.

bakalov · January 16, 2003, 03:26

Ok, I will play this one :-)

vmxa1 · January 16, 2003, 03:35

I think it is fairly close to what Booklord was seeing, so it should close the book on the issue.

bakalov · January 16, 2003, 03:50

Surely ;-) I will try to make it without using the other planets ....

bakalov · January 16, 2003, 03:55

And, bork, 10x for the good words ... I promise that I will go playing on Kali as soon as I get good enough internet at home. I am always eager for a good game with worthy opponents :-)

originalbork · January 16, 2003, 11:37

Is that start in pre or ave tech?

Look if you are playing pre creative (8) pts is actually a pick which will delay your initial start.

In a pre start ave galaxy, I would never take creative. Many of your early techs are like being creative so it becomes a waste.

The smaller the galaxy the sooner you need to be flying. In an 8 player game doing anything other than huge seems to put players potentially on top of each other.

So in playing an 8 player small, the best race flies first and lays a frigate over the home of another and blockades. This would easily be some version of a demovore. Then you sit for 25-50 turns of frig wars until you finally have a chance of taking down a starbase.

By going 8 player huge you have some room, univore large rich (or +1 pro) is good. Uni-Tol +1 Large is good if you get room because it will boom after initial growth.
Uni-Sub-+1 pro-Arty-Large gets you going almost as fast a univore.

The start you showed to bakalov would be a piece of cake for any of the races I just described to you.

vmxa1 · January 16, 2003, 13:34

Bork, here is the game settings:
Note the race is and the settings are the ones that Bakalov suggested, not my choices. The purpose was to get a game that was close to what Booklord had mentioned. This would give Bakalov a chance to deminstrate his points.

Huge map, Impossible level, 8 players, Prewarp, Average glalxy age (this one I was not sure what the settings were so I went in the middle), Tactical combat, antarans on and NO random events. I choose the no random events so that any one playing along would not get something that the others did not get, IOW to make it the same for all.
Dict, LHW, AHW, +1 R, Aqua, Creative
Low G, -SD, -Spy

I do not dispute your points, only to point out that, these are not MP games and that means there is no point in playing the best settings and race for every game. If I did that how long could I play before it was boring? If you don't play some less than optimal settings and less than optimal races, the game would have been in the trash by now.
In a huge map, I would drop the AHW in favor of +R or +P. I mite use Replusive, -SD, -GC so as to disallow any trading or demanding, as it makes it harder. In fact, I may prefer to have Unification and drop AHW and +R.
I would lean towards AHW in a smaller map.

bakalov · January 17, 2003, 04:06

The idea is to prove that the game can be successfully played with the worst possible starting point in Single Player and there is a Race that always wins.

This should be a situation where there are no colonizable planets within the starting system and within the deuterium range, probably with a black hole nearby - It will have to play only with its homeworld from the start. The first enemy to meet should have big offence and defence ship bonuses (like the Alkari) and should be aggressive militarist personality - according to the booklord's description.

The race I suggested is designed to be start point-independent and should be able to survive the worst possible situation (like the one described). Bork, I'd like to hear your opinion on a race that will do fine without more colonies than the starting one.

I'll try to make several more bad starting points and I'll play the worst possible that is similar to the one described by the booklord ......

Vmxa, note that in your game there is a medium tundra ultra poor planet in the starting system, which is not good for anything else but will make a nice food producing colony for an aquatic race. You can get all of the needed food there and use the homeworld to get ~250 RP, or 300+ with a leader .... This will allow you to get the irridium in reasonable time, and the following microlite + nano disassemblers + zortrium armor will make your colony with very high production that will be producing lots of very strong missile boats and any enemy will be screwed ....

booklord · January 17, 2003, 12:03

With a bit of thought, ( and its a shame I don't still have the save game so I could try it out ) there may be a way to defeat the Alkari in that situation.

Concentrate all technology advances on missile technology and send an nasty nothing but 2 - rack missiles ( mirv Nuke or Merculite ) ship and a scout ( so the missile ship after firing can retreat should it come under heavy fire ) to attack the Alkari homeworld. At early tech levels the damage ships like that can do is devastating ( and the Alkari defensive bonus would do nothing against it ). Also by limiting yourself to one tech type ( well sociology and biology could be studied too ) you can minimize the disadvantage caused by the hostile races constant spying. A ship like that would be out of the gate a lot faster than the one you describe and crew training wouldn't even be an issue.

BTW I've used the "stop spying" demand before in Moo2. Unless you've got real good relations or are significantly stronger most agressive and xenophobic races translate that demand as "Please delcare war on me"

vmxa1 · January 17, 2003, 13:50

Quote:

Originally posted by bakalov
Vmxa, note that in your game there is a medium tundra ultra poor planet in the starting system, which is not good for anything else but will make a nice food producing colony for an aquatic race. You can get all of the needed food there and use the homeworld to get ~250 RP, or 300+ with a leader .... This will allow you to get the irridium in reasonable time, and the following microlite + nano disassemblers + zortrium armor will make your colony with very high production that will be producing lots of very strong missile boats and any enemy will be screwed ....

I knew you would not colonize those starting planets, at least not at the start, so it did not matter. If your point is that is not the worst possible start or as bad as the one Booklord had, ok. It will do to serve your point, I think. The first 110 turns are routine, it is after that point that the fun begins. Klacs will go to war and then surrender to Darloks and they will go to war.
So anyway, look forward to seeing this or what ever vechicle you use.

originalbork · January 17, 2003, 17:11

This setup I would probably be playing

Uni Lith Rich Large Rep -Espy

Given that start here is the game intro.

1. Full production build both bases immediately set them to housing. 15 turns for 2 bases tops. Each pop unit past one is immediately shifted to home world until full
2. "Learn to Fly" scouts out colonize anything reasonable. 2-3 CS full production no research. Leave scouts at max range. If nothing worth a crap op once. With any system the set up is the same. Housing till half full then c-base.
3. Usually tech RL to AF to Bio. With a UP I may go AF to RL. All pop farms stop popping so they produce over 1/2 before reaching both AF and RL. Buy the rest and go right back to pop farming.
4. If danger is emminant. Go for BS laser BB and initial conquer of darloks and klackons. If they stay at range, don't grab good battle tech etc. Go robos to supers.

This type of race isn't the best for a tech explosion but is much more capable of protecting itself from early attacks. As such it is more balanced. A uni-tol or uni-sub will be at a disadvantage compared to this race early unless they find a good monster gaia to really jack things up.