Advanced Save Game Six Empires Huge Map and Minor Races

[UesugiKenshin]

I've played Birth of the Empires so much more then a standard player because many times have committed 8 to 12 hours a day to playing for months because I take being a beta tester very seriously. I've got the time to do so, so ordinarily a player like me would switch to the next level of difficulty. Then to the next level of difficulty. Then the next level of difficulty, but instead I've spent so much time doing documentation that the level is still set to the easiest level. So I think once players use my advanced save games, what will happen is the same thing for them. They will all be able to switch to a much higher level of difficulty in a very rapid fashion because they will grow accustomed to the way I manipulate the commodities prices and rush infrastructure building. So everything that I have learned I hope I can easily communicate, because the whole point was to educate new players so they have the best possible experience.

[UesugiKenshin]

It occurred to me many weeks ago that the way I play ends up creating a Utopia. And so the morale rating for every Colonial sector gets very high where they have a fanatical level of belief in leadership. But what ends up happening every time is even the most peaceful of the minor alien races who join in membership, end up wanting War almost like it's hard-coded into the programming it's funny because there's an endless amount of money and a perfect level of infrastructure yet the percentage of soldiers fighting ground invasions and in Starships is a negligible portion of the total economy in terms of total numbers in trillions of civilians. Essentially War makes no sense. If the AI was wise, the same philosophical arguments would come to them as well as they're making so much money and mining so many raw materials enabling them to build everything that they want, that usually the minor race will capitulate so it's not necessary to invade. One can just send an endless amount of gifts to the minor races so war is superfluous. When you have millions and millions and millions and millions in the treasury, then it's easier to just to avoid war. It sounds almost like a philosophical thought experiment from grad school. But it's fully realized by playing thousands of hours of Birth of the Empires.

What actually ends up happening is similar to the scene from the film War Games where the AI instead of waging nuclear war plays tic-tac-toe over and over and realizes it's a stalemate so that wars are ridiculous outcome as nobody can win with nuclear weapons. But in playing Birth of the Empires, a very different philosophical outcome occurs, as by certain manner of playing, so much profit is made that scarcity ceases to exist and so conflict is completely avoidable as money can eliminate conflict by diplomatic gifts.

[UesugiKenshin]

What you discover by playing Birth of the Empires, is that scarcity drives conflict on the earth between nations. But in outer space were there would be endless planets to terraform in Endless stars and Endless raw materials, then War makes no sense as you face Infinity. And realize that the growth rate is so high and unrealistic versus what would really happen taking Millennia to occur thus the conflict is even lower than what the player experiences. This is why the game is made for thinkers and not button mashers because you know an obtuse person would never come to these conclusions, they would just stare at the pretty graphics.

Really the conclusion is vast wealth of such an infinite nature provokes Altruism and Benevolence as natural outcomes as conflict is nonsensical when scarcity no longer exists.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F7qOV8xonfY
Joshua the AI created to wage nuclear war as a Deadman System (which the Russians have actually created), realizes the futility of Nuclear War.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MpmGXeAtWUw

WarGames (1983)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand

[UesugiKenshin]

The Omega have 1.25 million in internal security and the Cartare tried to bribe the Dougtaeks unsuccessfully as a result, but they are duplicitous and at the same time ask for a cooperation agreement. That's the kind of Empire they are. So now there's so much money each turn I offer gifts and slowly move each minor race toward membership. And any that were to try to resist and wage war against the Omega would lose...badly. So most end up capitulating. To their credit, the Yimander will never capitulate. They are intractable and cannot admit defeat even it it means their annihilation. They are that way in every game versus the Omega Alliance. They have made an art and ethos out of obstanancy or are the equivalent of puerile minds...who can only say no and contradict.

I don't like random events as what happens is truly random where governments totally change nonsensically and those who loathe you then want to open diplomatic negotiations. Or suddenly billions die. That is a frustrating way to play, but if balanced with campaign scripting, could be interesting even realistic.

Like in history where Nixon, famous for despising Communists, then opens up trade with Communist China.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/19 ... ment-china

[UesugiKenshin]

Turn #293
The Omega are essentially spending 10 to 15% of profits per turn, not the base treasury, on diplomatic gifts each turn which is working. Prior they had difficulty establishing any kind of diplomatic relationship because their attributes are low in this regard. They have since picked up 11 memberships total. But they have encountered 53 minor alien species so you can see it's a pretty low number but realize how many are across the board, and I'm not actively trying to get their membership but I am actively trying to get them to be on better diplomatic relations. By comparison, the Terrans know 23 and 19 are members. You could try bribing them away and it will fail. You could try gifts and it will probably fail. You see the Terrans have a superpower which is their diplomacy. So taking away their members is quite difficult. You would have to diplomatically sabotage the relationship and then have all along been giving them money so that you're on a good footing with them. The Khatoan Empires actually pretty small based on what I can see on the map. I suspect the Rotharians are the same way.

[UesugiKenshin]

By comparison the Heyoun and the Cartare might have their minor alien members bribed away or you can use diplomatic sabotage. I'm sure the Cartare are not well thought of, but are bullies so benevolence might work. It's actually more interesting for each Empire to get stronger so I don't want to short-circuit the process for you. Do what you want, but it's much more interesting to watch peers play than to see an ass whooping.

[UesugiKenshin]

In the Birth of the Empire's documentation, there actually is a feature where Empires facilitate the Rebellion of minor alien races as they're enslaved. So you know especially as the Terrans, you might go in and help them establish their own autonomy and self-determination. And then at some later time, they become members in your coalition. It would be challenging, but the Terrans could try playing by respecting all minor alien races and not asking them to be members. Instead they maintain their own independence and you still help them to protect themselves. It would be slightly different than the Federation in Star Trek. Not every minor alien race should be members. In fact, the people either accept and embrace new members with a positive morale score modifier, or they essentially reject new members by a negative score when one joins.

If you manage the economy very well with plenty of buildings, then the morale score will overcome this negative scoring. And some would have an entirely different ethos and not be culturally aligned to being in any kind of alliance or coalition. And if you role-play play some major Empires , maybe there are very xenophobic and they don't want other members. They would rather dominate them or just outright annihilate them.

[UesugiKenshin]

There's a feature in Birth of the Empire's where some minor alien spacefaring races can leave their sector so they would begin colonizing. That is very interesting but it's important for game balance if you have 6 Empires, then you would need a lot more planets per sector and you would have to have a very high number of stars that have many planets to support a large enough population per Empire. I was looking at some of the other mods and Dennis made one an so did Ranier where I think where this was the case. There actually were mods in Alpha, which is before blotunga's BotE for Android, which had more than six major races. In testing, I think six is really the maximum for an interesting game on a maximum Galactic map. But what would be interesting would be 12 or even 24 choices so that any number of interesting Empire should be available but you still would only place 6 empires Max.

[UesugiKenshin]

The problem with minor alien species that are spacefaring being able to leave and colonize is they begin with large fleets. And what would happen is they would start gathering up all the good spots and so that would make starting very difficult. The only way I can think of to do that is with campaign scripting. What that does is release units on certain turns. That would be a big change in the source code, but what it would do is allow certain events to happen on certain turns based on conditional statements. Say if one Empire gets many Colonial sectors at a threshold, then blank happens. That kind of scripting allows a continual challenge of a different sort as obviously some Empires are succeeding and failing. There are even conditions where the AI would choose to attack or oppose an AI who is more a more successful player rather than hamper the human player. That's called The Tall Poppy paradigm.
https://thriveglobal.com/stories/unders ... the%20rest.

[UesugiKenshin]

bote0001.sav

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Directions to load a save game by importing it to your device.
viewtopic.php?f=107&t=7739

Here is the start of the Omega Alliance at the beginning of turn #301 as an advanced saved game. They are in the southwest corner.

The Khaoran are in the Northwest corner.
The Cartare totally botched it, but we're under immense pressure. They began on the middle left.
The Rotarians are in the northeast.
The Terrans began middle right.
The Heyoun began in the southeast.

As you can see, the hapless Cartare did not handle being in the middle west very well. Their sphere of influene has been significantly whittled down by the Omega, but also challenged by almost everyone.

The Omega are 5x the strength in every category. They have a treasury of 1.25 million. They are routinely gaining 200,000 to 300,000, but reinvesting it in infrastructure with about 10% going as gifts to sway minor aliens to membership. They have 1.5 million in internal security and are spending 10% on espionage on all but the Rotharians who have not enountered them...yet as they are located in the northeast corner. The galactic map is totally maxed out with every minor alien race.The Omega inhabit 177 sectors and have 16 members.

It's not perfect as it's only turn#301, but it is an outstanding save game to practice and learn.

[UesugiKenshin]

For anyone who plays, you will see that the Cartare tried and failed to hold territory. I sent in waves upon waves of colony ships and colonized all around them, then terraformed their sphere of influence to flip it. Then sent in transports to create outposts and starbases upgrades, which flipped many sectors. They are seriously messed up now and pushed by the Omega. I would feel pity for them, but I have been sabotaged so many times for months in testing by them. Being ruined is what they deserved. I sabotaged them with strategic planning.

[UesugiKenshin]

The Thremdomas as close to becoming ready for membership as they are "devoted now". The Levans became members recently. I've send all serious starships to Lambrecht. I think you will be pleased. I also have a LOT of transports there and Level 5 and 6 troops are scattered, but in the oldest colonies. Those troops will have to be sent transports and escorts. You could make many diverse fleets and they have been gaining experience for awhile.

The Omega completed level 10 research and are working on level 10 special research to get a 20% combat bonus on invasions. I tried to pick the best choices. With careful planning, you might complete all level 14 research by turn 550 to 650 depending on how patient you are.

If you do that, realize you then scrap those facilities to save on energy costs and personnel, who then can be redeployed. Even if you set the manager to 0 for research, it will still allocate some workers, so the trick is to scrap those facilities when you complete level 14 totally as then there is no further gain. I'm addressing that in the Balancer 2.0 mod with six whole new levels and ships, units, buildings, etc.

[UesugiKenshin]

As much as possible, the oldest colonies have maxed out defenses and are powered up. If you wanted, you could micromanage that, free up utility workers, and have them do other things like mining.

I way overbuilt on purpose for redundancy and so you could play around with different configurations.

Right now, you could crush the Cartare. I think it's more amusing to take everything they have by diplomacy which is perversely like a cat who has cornered a mouse. "Your days are extremely limited, little buddy..."

The point was to fully have a great time and prove you can use BotE as is, but almost certainly not as the Khaoran, as SABOTAGE will get them.

[UesugiKenshin]

As you succeed, you can micromanage the intel points as you have an excessive number. Cartare cannot beat the Omega and they can weakly try sabotage as the Omega have an overwhelming counterintelligence ability. I was hoping the Rotharians were closer as then the Omega could pounce on both and RUIN them. But the Rotharians will hide behind the Terrans, if they have any brains at all.

It's still a rough game but the Omega are huge and protected on both sides and way outclass any military forces.

After spending at least two hours do a full military assessment with notes, look at the ship designer and create a series of generational upgrades in stages. You have plenty of base ships, but now mix and match the Heracletes and the Levans an soon the Thremdomas and Karrorr too. You can make some marvelous ships and can afford the upgrades.

If you will be patient, and get more starship tech, from the tech tree and the minor aliens, then make awesome ultimate starships.