Advanced Save Game Six Empires Huge Map and Minor Races

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SCMK2vfLLMg
Ensign Sito Jada being fairly mentored so she has a chance to succeed is more important than conquering 20 light-years of a sector.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sito_Jaxa

[UesugiKenshin]

If you sit down and compare what every possible strategy 4x game can do versus its requirements, in my opinion, BotE beats them all on its maximum settings.

Distant Worlds collective DLC is called Universe. It can handle a 2000 star map, but it has huge requirements. Stellaris (love it or hate it) can only do a 1000.

GalCiv 2 and 3 can't manage as big a galaxy as BotE and have much more requirements, but a laggy version of GalCiv2 will run the space battle in Exagear 3.02 fully patched.

Imperium Galactica, the fan made Hungarian version, the Imperium Galactica 2 Android version are all fascinating in ways unlike the others with tactical combat, but on very small galaxies.

So the perplexing aspect is why isn't BotE played by everyone??? If all the elements I want are added like:
1. More research levels
2. More subclasses of starships
3. More troops levels
4. Balanced late sabotage
5. Random events
6. A tech victory called transcendence
All of which are doable, then BotE would really be better than commercial space 4x strategy apps. It just won't be as pretty.

But to get the most fully realized powerful AI, it just about has to be pre-configured by a modder, with no fast way to do it, as there is no editor. Interestingly enough, aspects of the Hungarian fan made Imperium Galactica might be useful code for BotE regarding editing.
https://github.com/akarnokd/open-ig/wiki

Here are videos from Blake's Sanctum showing the Hungarian authorized fanmade Imperium Galactica patch. It is pretty terrific.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_CZvTDW9b ... hv&index=1

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ROE_td7mW ... hv&index=2

[UesugiKenshin]

A fully maxed out BotE galaxy is so large that if you played 8 hours a day straight for two months, I doubt you finish conquering the galaxy. That is huge. That is a condensed version of a year of play for a single campaign.

Likely with the Balancer mod, with presets so all the empires are balanced and tough, even though it would start in the turns #300, #400, and #500, the galactic war would be a year of battles. Plus racing to prevent sabotage or cause it.

You would be so powerful, but so is the AI, but humans can customize and make more profit, as any empire, so can win if cautious and logical. Make a mistake and the AI would vaporize your colonies. It should be intense but grindy, not an easy victory.

[UesugiKenshin]

Dullards without imagination likely see BotE and think, "Well it's not very attractive, is it?".

But what you have managed to accomplish is create a method of putting a very believable large galaxy on a very low end tablet. This is remarkable! All of these stars and celestial phenomena and so many planet types and so many extremely imaginative extraterrestrial species. It's ambitious and it works. Only Distant World Universe has ever accomplished that extraordinary goal.

It demonstrates what dedicated fans can do as a labor of love when most are mere spectators.

This modest game and simulation has so many wonderful buildings and believable research and espionage and quite an array of diverse starships. There is a sincere authenticity to the military abilities of these vessels like I have have never ever seen before. Most don't care to aim so high as most lack passion.

But because it's not a creation where programmers are being paid, it evolved slowly and has incomplete aspects about it. These are trivial to some, but more obvious when everything is present. That does not diminish BotE in any way. It's a working system.

I dread the idea of fully populating it as the time commitment will be enormous if I emulate the same level of dedication that Birth of the Empires deserves.

It's not just recreating six working empires fully realized, but six believable authentic empires as each would be different based in their ethos and likely history. An anthropologist upon dwelling among authentic passionate people then has the arduous task of writing about them so casual readers understand who they are. How much moreso it would be to recreate the physicality of dynamic entire empires?

[UesugiKenshin]

If there were no sabotage and one did not rush any construction, then to play BotE to its natural completion might take years. Most human beings are too fickle for BotE.

Sabotage never lets this happen. Sabotage in BotE is like being invited to a holiday banquet and called back to work, only to never eat all the delicious morsels. This is why some players just quit but not because of disappointment, but due to the unnatural truncation that occurs.

[UesugiKenshin]

If you went to an air and space museum, you would see prototypes and subclasses of ships varying by their speed, manueverability, strength of integrity, capacity, range, then by instrumentation and weaponry, and attempts at air defenses.

So when setting up empires, there would be the same thing as each empire tried to stay current with their competitors. And some empires lack critical classes of starships, so would have to compensate with tactics. But they would keep doing research so they could construct these missing gaps. Then alter unit composition in fleets. Then using diplomacy, try to attain substitutions and likewise alter them, and those can solely be made in one inhabited minor race member's sector, so any attrition could be ruinous. They could never keep up in wartime.

See it is fairly complex to propagate a realistic historically logical composition through the passage of time. And the oldest ships scouting would be very vulnerable and trying to avoid engagement so they can keep sending back useful military intelligence as that is the priority, not the own lives as they are expendable. That is until diplomacy confers the sharing of such scouting missions, and then later espionage takes over so the galactic map is accurate and current.

Troops units are rigid, so upgrades by technological leaps are critical.

Infrastructure would be very established in the oldest sectors, and progressively less so by age. Intelligent empire planners could not risk doing this haphazardly on the periphery as that makes the frontier very vulnerable in contested territory. And those outer edges need the strongest number of troops units, continuous shuttling of veterans would advance out there, being problematic as that may disrupt frontier sector morale.

[UesugiKenshin]

The empires less likely to enter into treaties like the soloist Rotharians and the Omega would have to prioritize scouting even more as they would gather no useful intel as they lack those diplomatic arrangements. So the Rotharians can cope by penetrating the sphere of influence of other empires through cloaking and trying to evade sensor sweeps by outposts and starbases. The Omega have no such option, so logically would try to gain members who do have cloaking ability plus scouts. That is a very narrow range and so might declare war with some minor races.

They would be blind otherwise. Or if entering treaties, face negative morale checks as it would irritate their respective citizens.

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... tle=Tarnen
Who can Cloak and in what manner?

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... Diplomatie
There is a vital table on this page explaining the sharing of scouting intel based on treaty types.

[UesugiKenshin]

The AI is seriously hampered unless subclasses of ships are created so they have the option of making specialized ships as they cannot use the ship designer, while intelligent clever wargamers will absolutely use it.

[UesugiKenshin]

Small scale nimble manueverable fighters would probe the borders trying to flush out adversaries and have to have back up and routine patrols would traverse along corridors and anti-dogfighers would then hunt them down.

You probably have a couple fleets out there deterring invasion forces that are always unexpected.

The AI is foolish and tries to slip in transports to establish outposts. And if you don't get them first, they are tough to displace, but vulnerable as transports. They probably have escorts flying around nearby.

[UesugiKenshin]

So the AI obsessed about the tiny Orissa sector that has a population 10 times the population of Germany (830 million), but literally can't ever amount to much as the way infrastructure is currently configured (you need about 10 billion). Then it did build weird things like 3 minefields instead of one and leveling it to 3, not that it matters as it built several items that all need power and there is no power, and it will have an impossible time powering up anything.

It almost would be better to leave it alone as the alternative is bombarding to vaporize the inhabitants. I did a ground invasion merely to illustrate the futility of trying to control some sectors.

This is why the AI shouldn't autobuild. And why the AI is doomed from the start without a modder configuring everything. It builds haphazardly.

It is not desirable to conquer every sector as it just invites headaches like Orissa. Now I'm going to reload and not invade Orissa, just like I leave the silly Eptiril people to their astrology practices so I do not ruin the intelligence attributes by absorbing them. See previous posts.

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... -E#Eptirel

...Special Buildings : Star Seer Conference : -20% Homeland Security, +1 Morale Empire Wide

[UesugiKenshin]

Before inviting minor races to be members or even if one could invite major races to be members, you have to think whether doing so is wise in a giant galaxy.

Does this invitation help your species, and in most cases it does not. Does this surprise you?

The Omega have no shortage of intel points, research points, energy, mining, no deficits in starship classes as they can build them all. They can conquer like no other, but it is true their level 6 units are not as strong as several others who now are defeated of being defeated.

The buildings of others sometimes aided the Omega in acquiring research faster, and that is all as once you max out, you scrap them. IF I add more levels it would be another matter.

Generally, buildings only help that inhabited sector. Making one specialized starship is thrilling at first, but only helps create one per turn based on deritium limitations.

Superior energy cells only help that one minor race's sector.

Many minor races confer military sabotage bonuses, but I would argue that while it makes sense as they're superior assassins and or shape shifters, this happens hundreds of turns too early and isn't a good part of BotE.

Membership or subjugation is only helpful to prevent other empires by denial of these attribute raising abilities.

[UesugiKenshin]

As the Omega, you have limitless wealth, so it is inconsequential to spend it, as while it limits your cashflow, it is an investment in a minor race's sector, that will be profitable eventually. So you can be beneficent and not feel like to detracts from goals or costs too much.

Being the sole empire in a galaxy is intangible. It is not an objective goal really. No other empires were ever honestly threats. That is just about fame or vanity versus a legitimate military necessity.

Helping the galaxy is a human idea that may not be an Omega idea. No matter what, with 7.7 billion people are ethics on the Earth universal. Neither would they ultimately be so in other empires, though the moral system tries to force the player to roleplay along. Note that I consistently bypasses this by pleasing my people strongly enough that I could do so. If morale's upper limit was 300 as it SHOULD be, then I would never have an issue as long ago, 80% of my sectors are maxed out. I know enough that I can please them without killing half the galaxy.

[UesugiKenshin]

It is the job of a leader to best lead his or her people (and who knows, there may be peculiar genders in the galaxy so not strictly binary. Humans may be peculiar or unique in this regard. Some may create offspring by budding like yeast does.). I'm the least likely person to be politically correct. I seriously doubt that other sentient lifeforms even look human, so why would we have anything in common?

Leading is not always ruling to please the mob through democracy. How repulsive. If one wants to be popular by the pleasure of the mob, then how can you say you lead the minority members of your civilization? That democracy creates slavery and oppression. No thank you. I will stick to republics that represent 100% of the people.

Leading should not be based on popularity as the people seldom know what is best for all. The people know what is best for themselves, not everyone. Leaders have to go against the wishes of the "ethics" of mobs or things never get improve. Those warped ethics perpetuate the status quo.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_ ... r%20values.

That is how castes exist so people tend to get stuck in rigid social orders.

Good leaders are likely implausible by definition as if the people don't know what is best for all, only what is best for themselves, then how can a man or a lady who is the leader know what is best for all?

[UesugiKenshin]

As the leader of the Omega, I consistently made some unpopular decisions and paid strong negative moral penalties, and did so on purpose to beta test BotE.

But this is challenging and may cause a revolution. And the BotE programmers are clever enough to realize that war improves the mood of the people and so bizarrely enough keeps the empire wide morale high enough that the leaders can do what they want. The leader is not a robotic slave to their citizens. Not as long as he or she wages war or commits acts of espionage and sabotage as the Omega.

As long as an Omega leader builds everything to benefit Omega citizens or member minor races, then you can keep the morale rather high.