Advanced Save Game Six Empires Huge Map and Minor Races

[UesugiKenshin]

Why not have cultural exchanges and joint missions and pool scientific research? Maybe they make better energy production which you need and you share trade buildings so they get more income?

Maybe you establish embassies?

You both want military tech but that ain't going to happen. And expansion of research will then unlock better subclasses of advanced vessels anyway.

Some minor races have vastly improved internal security. Why conquer them? Why not exchange research instead and let them stay independent? Everyone wins.

Buying research is a big part of the Civ games. You can have some research that they will sell and others that have such a high value like weaponry or advanced shields that they won't sell.

Now that is something that espionage can deal with. Your spies at advanced levels and by spending a fortune attempt to conservatively and with immense safety try to steal...and likely fail.

[UesugiKenshin]

Having the research is not enough as likely a special resource is needed and so negotiations and theft and battles are over precious unique resources that only exist in a few places.

It is both and not either or. Research is not enough without say dilithium.

[UesugiKenshin]

Example
A spy is created and through a rigorous training program is then dispatched on a fast starship scout to evade enemy ships. They can use a transporter and beam down to the surface as no planetary shield generator is built and or is not powered up...yet. The clock is ticking and eventually that window will disappear.

[UesugiKenshin]

Example
A spy that is rigorously trained similarly transports down to speak with the local dissidents and lowers the domestic morale of a sector.

Or they make an offer the diplomat cannot refuse and blackmail them and this improves the approval rating.

[UesugiKenshin]

See the AI gets benefits based on difficulty levels and never does this, just the human players.

And these are interesting mission based events versus generic espionage /sabotage so there are more steps and it is more fair and happens later.

With low training and inadequately funded and rushed...likely dramatically backfires!

[UesugiKenshin]

With named characters from a similar system like the naming of ships, then troops and spies or bridge crews get recognized for success and players eat that up like candy. It makes it personal that some named character succeeds at huge risk or gets captured and executed.

It really is just storytelling. It can be an automatic process just personalized.

This fires events and makes it seem like more is going on in a dynamic galaxy full of trillions of diverse alien species.

[UesugiKenshin]

A message is fired that the crew of ship X did exceptionally well in a training mission and three sentences in an event. Some are humorous and some are tragic and some cause fear. Maybe a new non-sentient species is discovered or semi-intelligent on an away mission as starship X was over one one of your inhabited sectors.

It is spice and flavor and can be ignored or it can have an effect on something like income or morale or experience.

[UesugiKenshin]

BotE wisely has random events that can be turned on, but the billions killed is AWFUL. If that file had hundreds of them and some had modifiers, then I can write content. So can lots of people. You have a topic of content ideas and they get added and then included in a future update.

[UesugiKenshin]

The Cartare fell, then Terrans, now the Khaoran...as empires, but there are still populated inhabited sectors that if demographics existed, would show them still alive. Billions don't just vanish unless exterminated.

Following history, they then would live on as merged people having descendants and their ancestors would be honored in history museums and monuments.

As this process advances then doom becomes inevitable as more intel points are allocated solely to the Heyoun. This is why vassalage is preferable as I don't desire their deaths. The other empires capitulating means that all intel agencies can be scrapped as irrelevant. The galaxy has no need for espionage and sabotage.

There would be a glut of mined resources. Right now a major portion of workers at enjoying total peace and doing absolutely nothing in reality. They still mine as the programming does not realize there is no place to store it. Some domestic production instead happens. You could pay wages for all and tell them to enjoy retirement. Take a long deserved vacation. Maybe make some resorts in coastal areas and drink some adult beverages.

You eventually could scrap many types of infrastructure as when the enemies are gone, there is no need for defenses. You could retire 90% of the military. You might keep growing in population size by expanding colonies...or not as just let them sit fallow and undisturbed as hundreds of Edens of various kinds even untouched by terraforming. That way some natural process would develop new species over millenia.

[UesugiKenshin]

You could keep the economy going by doing great wonder projects for the entire galaxy. Otherwise wealth is meaningless.

Conquering is not a goal really as having 15 trillion people then has to be administered to still persist. Famine has been eradicated and so you would educate all and end poverty and disease. All that would be left is doing humanitarian missions for the people. Maybe cure old age by preventing the decline of telomere incompetence.

See, I think you then move to transcendence. What would be the next stage in Omega development? The Vi become like the Pando in some sectors in total peace as plants. Everything malevolent, even war, has become eradicated.

Research persists just so the fastest ships can be deployed anywhere with the ultimate armaments and only to deal with alien hostile monsters. You have 10% in number throughout the galaxy. Isolated bughunts persist.

Diplomatically you give a sector to them so they have a homeland.

In the Civ games, you have modifiers to demographics to reach a state where these elements are completely minimized. That way you have a report card of how much the People have benefitted.

[UesugiKenshin]

The minor races are stuck in their sectors so pose no threat. So frankly if you either eliminate the major races as empires or have vassalage, then you honestly do not need to divest the minor races of their autonomy.

You instead merely want their technology...or you facilitate the research process coupled with espionage so that all galactic knowledge can be eventually acquired peacefully.

You might scrap old outmoded energy research and make better versions. This goes for everything. An omnipotent godlike major species would do that. You don't argue and quarrel with field mice.

You could have 28 levels of research and just help the minor species from time to time. Rescuing them actually is meddling in their maturation process and isn't good for them. It just overcomes guilt or reduces boredom.

[UesugiKenshin]

In testing what I noticed is that since there is a maximum of 200 morale and that is perfection, then all these positive effects are for naught. And over time as fewer conquests exist, then the people's mood diminishes as there are no more military victories.

I have inhabited sectors at 200 and gaining 6 morale per turn, but cannot accumulate past 200. That is a mistake.

So a subsequent patch might raise morale as high as 300, and so it cumulatively adds up and approaches that, then drifts down to 200 and boredom sets in. Eventually some minor races want autonomy. That is a seriously negative morale check empire wide for the Omega. Some benevolent major races might cut the umbilical cord and of them return to self-rule and this respected by that major race empire.

So the political leadership would either invade some major or minor species or do more morale boosting, or the players just get bored and quit playing. The latter is doubtful given a lot of playing enjoy retro gaming MORE than the trite pay to win model of MMOs on Google Play.

This is why I think offline space strategy games with DLC is better. You at not paying for BotE just maybe $1 for 250 new buildings or 14 levels of research or civil war opposite versions of major race opponents or 250 new starships or 150 new minor races or minor race troops or scenarios.

$1 to DLC versus ridiculous sums like $150 enhancement packages for MMOs that are made so you cannot win without "enhancements".

[UesugiKenshin]

http://www.forum.birth-of-the-empires.d ... 107&t=8125
A lot of people who have played BotE get frustrated by the power of the Cartare and Rotharians to do sabotage. There were so many complaints in the reviews, that I almost did not download it as not only was this an issue, but it was made for German players and it had limited documentation.

This last part was inaccurate. The documentation exists, but it meant players had the unusual step of having to sift through clues in a wiki in German and meant you had to translate it. You literally had to be a detective to figure out how to play. That really caught my eye as space travel would have no manual as well. Those cocky self-confident brilliant physically fit astronauts honestly had to be so clever to just roll with the punches as nobody actually knew what was out there in space.

It was as much of the great unknown as sailing men faced on the first voyages of exploration. A sailor could be taught skills, but had no idea what was honestly out there.

[UesugiKenshin]

That link is a gift for you as I had to pull together little bits and pieces just to try to evaluate who to play. I did not want to play as the Cartare as I did not want to win by sabotage. What I wanted was to so totally understand the abilities and limitations of who looked like they could defeat the Cartare, and then destroy them by sabotage.

And in my opinion, the answer always seemed to be the Omega Alliance.Alliance was such a wry sarcastic idea as there is no alliance. They subvert the galaxy so various species end up controlled by them.

Eventually I felt like an FBI serial killer profiler who understands how that killer thinks. I could predict what they would say and how they saw their role in the galaxy. They are sure not humans, but something else entirely. Demons was my first thought. This species are like demons.

To win at BotE, you have to totally understand how that species would react and what actions they would take. Otherwise you likely can't win as you would play like a human being.

[UesugiKenshin]

The posts there in that dossier on the Omegas allows the reader to rapidly understand them. That took a month or more. They sure are not Trill from Memory Alpha.

The Omega are a species that the Cartare likely fear as the Omega enslave far worse than the Cartare ever could. They would be exterminated or even absorbed as new hosts. That would be the stuff of Cartare nightmares.

And it wasn't just species but how in the world did space combat work, or running an economy, or terraforming, or ground invasions? If there ever was a manual, it would be a thick one. BotE is not a game for simpletons who want time wasters. It really taxes your imagination and ability to discern slowly all these little bits of information.

Every bit of winning this was a methodical planned strategic journey using not only everything I ever learned about military history and strategic wargaming, but making extensive long term plans before ever playing any turns.

Otherwise I couldn't win. That bothered me as everything I saw said Birth of the Empires was a commercial quality game where the programmer had to be brilliant with a huge imagination and immense creativity had then also been a pragmatist and a sci-fi fan.