Advanced Save Game Six Empires Huge Map and Minor Races

[UesugiKenshin]

In my opinion, having advanced major species electing to transcend a 4 dimensional experience is highly plausible versus extreme colonization and conquest. The desire for conquest is predicated upon a belief of scarcity that does not in fact exist in the galaxy. There is no shortage of raw materials or land in BotE.

[UesugiKenshin]

Human beings likely exist within a realm of Brane cosmology, but many others may exist at higher dimensions and some may travel across them. They may be able to see time as we see length, height, and depth. If they met you, they might perceive everything you ever did or will do.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brane_cosmology

This occurs in the film Arrival.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)

A major spoiler is the female protagonist just by studying the heptapods and their language, then evolves to experience time in this manner.

Some beings then not only could travel through time, but might not be able to be defeated as they know the outcomes of battles, but may elect to lose as that loss then results in a favorable outcome. This occurs in the film as the heptapods know one of them will die.

Such beings could travel through time or even across the multiverse.

[UesugiKenshin]

Everything that I have read suggests that the AI merely has more money based in on difficulty, but the AI is as yet incomplete. This means that it may use sabotage if it sees it has the ability, which is why that part works by the Cartare, Rotharians, or Omega, and it will bombard if it has sufficient starships in its armada that is available.

But it likely cannot figure out how to load units on transports and then subsequently invade after bombarding.

So the only fair way to play the game, is not just starting in turn#1 as by random building, there isn't a way for the AI to win through combat and conquering.

Fair alternative ways that would work

1. Some modder has to build everything so the AI has escort led transports with troops to do invasions, and build fleets and build smaller forces. And to do that, build up the economy, research, mining caches, energy, and planetary defenses, and units on the sector. Then build up security buildings.

2. Or a modder does all that and makes something like the Balancer mod so it has altered delayed security forces, more research, and subclasses of ships as the AI does not use the ship designer. This is the only way for the AI to have the option of making better starships if they are preset designs.

Either way, you are looking at 3-6 months of work by a modder as the AI is not complete.

An interesting feature is the windows version has "switches" which then allow access to the editors, but in the blotunga youtube video, he admits there is a "see all switch". That allows the player to see the entire map. How many such switches exist? That is useful modding information as then as you load a save game, you could turn it back off?

[UesugiKenshin]

Reminder about preset designs as subclass improvements

Human players can opt to go to the research screen and then enter the ship designer. From there, based on technology upgrades and membership of minor races, you then can beef up levels of beam weapons, change armor type, increase shields, and by altering torpedo tubes and payload (type of torpedo), then significantly enhance your ship classes.

But the AI doesn't do this. I did notice while stealing recent Heyoun ships that the AI is using better armor of ships ie instead of titanium, it is using duranium, but not double duranium.

[Note: the heavier the armor, the lower the manueverability regarding doubling this.]

Okay? So IF the AI has subclasses so it can opt to make better vessels based on its treasury, then if these are predesigned, I presume it will build them.

What I am suggesting is a modder like myself would build up a rich armada for every empire. And train these so they have experience too. And build appropriate subclasses. And build some fleets and build special ground invasion fleets with units on them and led by assault ships.

Then maybe the AI will appropriately attack.

Or then in a multiplayer game, then six people could get together and wage galactic war.

It just is a lot of work as there is no campaign or scenario editor so it all has to be built by hand multiplied by 240 hours multiplied by six empires. That is why it takes 3-6 months.

[UesugiKenshin]

The standard ways to create scenarios are to use save game editors to allocate everything at each region so every empire has all of these things done, but it is clumsy...and very text based, and prone to easy typos.

The campaign editors are largely total overalls to add mods like the Balancer mod or they have many components to them, all within the same milieu, and most often have mapping editors. A scenario is just one large engagement an building everything to fight single engagement.

[UesugiKenshin]

I have actually thought about building an entire Civ2 mod using their mapping and campaign editors and building a massive map. That only allows for 255 cities so I would assign the minor races and enfold them across the six empires and so every empire would have about 40 inhabited sectors. And then have prebuilt starships and fleets for each. Then seas are space. That is kind of what I was modding for Star Trek was I adapted an existing mod, but creating an accurate map.

I don't really want to do that as it runs under Exagear and can have such a low number of inhabited sectors versus BotE. The maximum number of units is low in Civ2. The number of units in Civ3 is high, but the same 255 regions still exists which is way too low.

The benefits would be setting the demeanor of empires and how each empire expands and locked alliances. But then it would be an homage to BotE and I would have to change everything as it's copyrighted. There are too many negatives and not enough positives plus it's a distraction as I want to mod BotE so it's better.

[UesugiKenshin]

BotE has a larger map size than GalCiv2 and Uciana. There are all these advantages, but no good way to edit it, and then distribute it. It is not mod friendly in the BotE for Android format. It is mod friendly in the Windows version though. The idea of buying a PC just to mod a game is weird. I thought that part of my life was over.

Uciana is a very abbreviated version of a MoO2 and people play it quickly, then it is done. A BotE game might go #700 turns and last a year. They are apples and oranges.

If I mod a Windows version, then I would port that to Android. Maybe most people have PCs??? Otherwise you could load Exagear and then run the windows version on your Android tablets.

[UesugiKenshin]

For years and years, there has been talk about expanding the Civ3 city size but each time they run into program errors. Likely 512 is the maximum, and 31 civilizations, so 85 regions (inhabited sectors divided over six empires) but on a very large map. Each region then is comprised of 21 sections and so you can show various planets in a sector. You can have ground based battles, and various kinds of land, sea, and air attacks.

That seems very regressive and probably takes a year just do everything.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ ... -0.404833/
There is this done about ten years ago that has a 512 region limit that is far more modable, but BotE can handle more than twice as many regions and likely up to 1400 regions.

If you could combine elements especially better AI and editors, then that would be a terrific game.

There have been attempts to do space mods for Paradox games like this. I am not a fan of Paradox games in general.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ ... -0.404833/

[UesugiKenshin]

Whatever I make, it is for my own enjoyment too. But, for my own enjoyment, I am probably going to alter the source code formula for how many civilians die as that number is just entirely too high. I'm thinking somehow that nonlethal weapons will then create a factor as well that would further reduce that civilian casualty number. I don't see that trillions of deaths as something that any empire would tolerate.

Maybe to you they are just numbers. Realistically massive deaths create humongous complex issues that would make actual control implausible, not to mention infections from all those dead would sweep the land, making soldiers and surviving civilians to continually die from things like cholera. The water would be full of infectious agents and the cities would be full of vermin from rotting corpses.

But you can't distribute a source code change, just alterations in the data files.

[UesugiKenshin]

Strangely enough, I am trying to figure out ways to save the galaxy so ground invasions are less likely to work, as that mostly is a human player's issue, not the AI. So it is making it tougher as I suppose many will use my economic strategy to inflate and deflate the commodities market and so every human player can easily do anything, while the AI is not smart enough to do so.

This makes galactic war realistic. No more early sabotage. Now proper space battles and bloody invasions will cost many lives on both sides.

This means if you figure out how to do this, you should set the difficulty very high. And advanced save games will switch to very hard difficulty.

[UesugiKenshin]

As any empire as a major race has to have some initial defense, I plan on configuring a starbase in every initial sector for them. You then can scrap it to start this economic process or skip it. I will balance BotE in other ways as now, just the Omega have that starting infrastructure.

[UesugiKenshin]

In no way do I want less war in BotE, just more realistic war.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jBW-iFVIuNQ
In 1979, the first largely available computer wargame was on the Radio Shack TRS-80 computer called Invasion Force. Speed through it, and in many ways, it just is a simpler version of BotE. You actually aimed torpedoes.

I want to fight battles where I can lose and for various AI to attempt ground invasions as they have bombarded and defeated my inhabited sector's planetary defenses. I want to fear that. Right now it's all me as the Omega just ravaging the galaxy.

Years before that, my friends and I would play Avalon Hill wargames which were on boards with plastic pieces and of much higher caliber than ordinary board games. Then they used the paper chit system with values on it and dice versus terrain. There wasn't such a thing as an AI, just mostly soldiers playing. That meant actual games were rare and seldom got finished. One whole summer, a board was set up to play a very long wargame.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunDog:_Frozen_Legacy
Sundog was a 1984 computer space wargame that was quite unique as you had to repair the ship just to start.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g5BwybXoQcQ

[UesugiKenshin]

Some BotE players have been playing computer games for 40+ years and wargames since the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Some wives in America called themselves computer widows because their husbands would get up at 2 am to play as there was no time otherwise to do so. You just went without sleep. This is why to this day, I only sleep 4 hours.