Advanced Save Game Six Empires Huge Map and Minor Races

[UesugiKenshin]

If the mechanics have limited tools to use in their toolkit, then they probably have the wrong tools and just get by. Try getting out a rounded off frozen bolt when you lack specialized tools. It ain't easy.

As a modder, you want at least human players to be able to plan, hundreds of turns prior, so when they develop tactics and strategy, they have every tool they require through starships and troops. A theoretical physicist has to have common sense and work with not just an engineer, but with veteran soldiers with battle experience who know the difference between theory and real wartime applications in actual combat. You don't sacrifice manueverability to save money. That is stupid. You don't want weapons that are ineffective and miss torpedo lock. You want appropriate beam power to cause appropriate damage.

Sadly, the enemy doesn't ever "stand down" although they will retreat. I wish they would hail more. You don't want the enemy to always "fight to the last sentient being standing". While Khaorans do want that, and would admire such resolve, the Terrans would not and probably feel guilty.

[UesugiKenshin]

There have been notable chivalrous military commanders in history who politely asked their understrength foes to stand down so they survive as any soldier can be facing an overwhelming threat due to the imbecile inept political leadership so far away in the capitol. You admire tenacity in soldiers, but you don't hate the enemy usually nor wish their demise.

What is horrendous is billions of civilians dying without a need. That is wrong. That makes veteran soldiers get PTSD and commit suicide as they feel like warped monsters. Soldiers want to face soldiers not slaughter civilians.

Not every battle requires an unconditional surrender. You as the superior commander grant terms so soldiers surrender with dignity and not face cruelties and injustice. What goes around...comes around, and if such barbarism happens even once, then all the trillions of civilians in the galaxy would then never surrender, and that is the very definition of brutality. It makes for terrible occupations of settlements.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TsLxO7-7e0o
You want an overwhelmed enemy to surrender, but understand that some soldiers can't surrender as then their technology can be studied and reverse engineered. Then some feel dishonored or may give up intel under interrogation, and interrogation during wartime can be barbaric.

The Omega are not going to cease conquering, but the manner in which they conquer need not be cruel or unjust. There are rules in war regarding the treatment of civilians, especially women and those vulnerable and medical care and restricting plunder.

The diplomacy screen could have a surrender feature with various levels of terms.

[UesugiKenshin]

In terms of game balance, when empires conquer, then immediately they must act to correct domestic morale in the region, or face an uprising. And it is doubtful the AI would understand the usefulness of low level troopers that enhance morale, when they can build Da'unor Special units in the identical time frame.

Probably you want an advanced level seven unit that has positive morale modifiers yet superior offensive and defensive attributes.

What some games like the Total War series do is suspend production of infrastructure or troops or whatever as there is a period of instability in which production could not reasonably work as their is an uproar by furious new subjects of the empire.

In the case of BotE, the civilians may actually be thrilled based upon who either "liberates" them or based upon total empire-wide morale as some wealthy benevolent empire may actually improv their lot as the prior empire may have been exploiting buttholes.

In my opinion, to balance BotE, the growth rate (which is not just growth but likely immigration in some generalized nebulous non-colonial ship form) is too HIGH.
"Hey the Earth is a real hellhole, so let's all move to Kanorr!" That might be the case, but some alien species may be prolific like Tribbles.

[In the Third Age mod for Medieval 2 Total War Kingdoms, the growth rate for elves is abysmal, so while very powerful, it takes forever to get a large settlement maxed out.]

If growth rate is lower, as at advanced turns, this time span per turn is only two weeks, then it would be more realistic, and like GalCiv2, you then send maxed out inhabited sectors that are fully populated to raise the population in some newer colony. That is logical. Omega Alpha is not growing so send a stream of colony ships to raise the population elsewhere so they can have a massive building program.

That won't work currently as there is a maximum number of colony ships that can colonize an inhabited sector.

And this is important, but seldom an issue, as based on fully terraforming, and are instances...usually with O class (ocean worlds), then space docks are unavailable. If you have a less than 10.0 billion theoretical maximum for population in a sector, then if you achieve a maximum, you might be unable to create a stardock and that is goofy.

[UesugiKenshin]

Ideally, you would reduce civilian casualties as it is unrealistically HIGH.

It is helpful to cause higher casualties to then reduce uprisings, but no military commander would do such a thing, or he would be fragged (ie assassinated by his own troops due to being a first rate idiot commander).

"Sorry Sarge about the friendly fire. Mistakes happen in the fog of war. 'Shame about the commander catching a stray explosive tipped armor piercing round. Maybe the next commander won't be such an asshole?"

Surrendering would helpful.

Proper growth rates would keep the actual population much smaller.

Early production would need civilians to do work to construct infrastructure, and that can be a factor on building some infrastructure you need a population of 20 billion to make level 3 whatever.

[UesugiKenshin]

For game balance, when an empire is widely succeeding, then you might have scripted setbacks as otherwise there is no balance in many wargames, and real empires never last, so the entire notion is absurd. Other than the Romans, there are no long lasting empires.

There are ancient civilizations, but their ability to project power is always curtailed by the most mundane factors like weak sons and daughters who inherit being pale shadows of their fathers.

In war, post-battles, you have wounded and dead and injured civilians in all the medical center. Then disease and comorbidity due to complex multifactorial mortality and medical supply shortages, and famine as an occupying force is present and uses up the food supply. Water is tainted by munitions use, and everything is blown up and needs to be repaired. There is no government, but a military governor and efficiency plummets.

And a black market and criminal enterprises rise.

You usually have a massive number of starving diseased shocked refugees.

That is what limits war.

[UesugiKenshin]

The way that Rome 1 and Medieval 2 Total War limits war is interesting. You have regional governors and military commanders and they are named characters. Based upon what they build, and how well they perform defending and attacking, they gain positive or negative attributes. Those then affect the fear of the population or the combat effectiveness or how fast buildings are constructed or profitability of various enterprises.

So the player has to wisely use them, and they might put down rebellions or be dispatched to fight some distant battle. They might be born with handicaps or be loners or gregarious and hence more or less popular. They may have injuries that never heal. They get diseased and die. The players love some and despise many for having feet of clay.

This then causes setbacks or one empire just steamrolls over the others in unnatural ways.

[UesugiKenshin]

When a wargame has scripting, based on difficulty level, then if a minor or major race's particular settlement is weak, then spawned units appear as a challenge so the battle is not too one-sided. This only helps the AI, not human players.

Anomalous entities are the "monster of the week" episodes in any serialized drama that act as "bottle episodes" that aren't really part of the mytharc, but serve to allow routine combat as otherwise human beings get bored.

So the best way is limiting anomalous entities based on advanced turns when the AI and human players are strong enough to deal with them. That is scripting.

Scripting events creates a mechanism for storytelling with subplots.

[UesugiKenshin]

Scripted subplots might have long time enemies unite to fight some monster of the week, then diplomacy return to a neutral state, rather than being one of loathing. The Omega perhaps help the Terrans fight off some enemy, so normalcy returns.

BotE has a randomized event where diplomacy shifts as if new leadership emerges and so a political sea change happens. That can be a good thing. Being conditional is better.

Killing off several billion due to plague makes no sense, but having a mission to construct special medical centers to prevent a plague from getting out of control would be better as the player then can do something to prevent it so it is conditional.

All kinds of buildings could be constructed prior to prevent such mishaps like hurricanes or famine.

[UesugiKenshin]

In the Windows version, the Ship Editor is included, but not functional in the Android version. You have to use the ship designer in the research screen.

Ship design in the unmodded BotE for Android likely means sorting ships by class and then noting "what turn it was made" and therefore making upgrades all along based upon the best available standard technology coupled with minor race tech like torpedo tubes and types.

Write down what you changed as an old ship might have a niche battlefield use. And they will get lost among 2000 starships, but can easily be found by sorting by turn number.

An early Saijin might be weaker but have considerable experience. Never discount that effect. Some military forces have 75 experience points and some have 12,000.

Not every class of ship needs to be the same as old is not necessarily worse as reliable equipment can still be put to use and upkeep costs are proportionally low as they represent a fraction of trillions of citizens. You might scrap to recoup very early ships, but due to the slow top speed of starships, I have some Kaph scouts made in turn#1 still exploring the most northern region of the galaxy in turn #489.

That likely is a 200 year old venerable ship, but doing an admirable job without complaint and who has risked more for the empire as those ships have weak defenses and maybe no offensive capability? That is like the Voyager probe that is still chugging along exploring when it was launched in September 1977. I think we got our money's worth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1
22.8 billion kilometers from Earth!

[UesugiKenshin]

In thousands of hours of play, I have not seen this bug before. On Taroke, you can make the Interspecies Commune which adds 1+ to empire wide morale. But while it shows up in the structures, it does not show up in the manager screen nor on the energy screen, so I have no idea if it actually is working.

I went to power it up in turn #489 and it is missing.

It takes an enormous amount of time on a maximum galactic map to fully realize all infrastructure or even some ship redesigns as the minor race and major race placement is RANDOM. You might get access to some unusual torpedo tube or torpedo type and never even fire it once in a battle. Bug testing can take years even playing as much as I have.

A BotE scenario and map and save game editor is not just helpful to modders but players and the programmers as otherwise some bug might never be noticed.

[UesugiKenshin]

Turn#489
There is a tiny population of 0.8 billion in a sector with an N class planet. It's sort of an Easter egg or scavenger hunt to find it. The system can't be improved and it hardly seems worth the bother to conquer it as it might have a usefulness, but the population is so abysmally low, what would be the point? What a shame if a minor race got assigned there...especially if they make great starships.

In thousands of hours of play, that has to be the smaller sector as they ended up with two gas giants so cannot expand. I really believe that a sector should have a minimum of 10.0 population or enable gas giants as hostile alien bases for anomalous entities or make gas giants terraformable. At the bare minimum, a population of 7.7 billion is needed just to function and have a starbase in orbit.

An entire sector of gas giants happens rarely thus is entirely useless, which is a missed opportunity as special gravity research is likely useful for stellar formation. Such a place might become a stellar nursery. Jovian gas giants might be involved in stellar formation as failed stars, and a contracting nebula might similarly give birth to stars.

https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagega ... e_643.html
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/what-is-an- ... gas-giant/

The character of Wesley Crusher is an awkard one as the script writers didn't know what to do with him. But one of his shining moments was the Enterprise ended up somewhere and while everyone else was worried about getting home, he said, "Captain, we should study this phenomena as no one else may ever get the chance..."

And Picard said something like, " Spoken like a true Starfleet officer." Science does not halt because one is in peril. It is not all love affairs among the stars and space battles, but stellar cartography as explorers.

[UesugiKenshin]

Every one of these sectors has anomalies and planets and stars and new life in formation besides the sentient ones. The Omega's chief task is to find a way either through robotics or through genetic engineering to live independently. This means studying every life form to see if lessons can be learned or utilized toward that goal.

Minor species could be transplanted elsewhere for medicine or agriculture or commercial use or simply to expand upon education. These are story opportunities.

If you have huge ore and crystals deposits and millions, why not have more buildings just for fun? You create them to add some flavor to the BotE galaxy and mythos. That kind of element then could be an actual trade item...not a commodity...but something that will then be sold and maybe only exists on the Earth. Generate a little income.

There is a funny scene in the film Alien Nation where refugees live in the Earth and they enjoy drinking sour milk as it is like beer to them.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NoYC7PAiDvU

[UesugiKenshin]

I got a kooky idea that just might work. What if I load the advanced turn #300 game and then export it? I will get a fresh bote.ini file. Now edit it so the difficulty is on the highest setting and turn on anomalous aliens. Then focus on making money and research and limit my expansion on purpose so the other five empires do so. Maybe their treasuries will catch up? Maybe I set all my intel points to espionage and zero to sabotage just to prevent them from sabotaging my settlements? Maybe I fight the alien space monsters?

I just try to take 1/6 of the galaxy and no more? If it works, then by turn#500, the other 5 should be extremely strong too. Difficulty changes largely affect money for the AI.

I'm trying to think of a way to make a very hard game now that the Omega are so strong so whoever plays this has a very tough challenge full of battles...and impervious to sabotage, but not using sabotage to win.

This test would measure how much the highest difficulty affects treasuries and if editing the bote.ini even works.

Can the Omega then shield the Khaoran from sabotage if they ally with them?Maybe they beat the Rotharians and Cartare as they are weak?

[UesugiKenshin]

The Omega are very strong by turn #400, and finished research and had a huge treasury, but I cannot remember when I turned on sabotage. If editing the bote.ini file works, then it might take 200 or 300 turns for the other empires to catch up.

I thought that conquering might give the Omega the Cartare ships to customize, which did not happen. So really I could not try to gain minor race tech and let the others have it and just use my own.

Actually I can look at the turn number of all ships and when they are stolen, I got reports plus the turn number should tell me when sabotage theft of ships began.