GalCiv II: v1.1 BETA Change Log

What we've been working on..

Published on March 24, 2006 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

V1.1 BETA Change-Log (March 24, 2006)
+ New Option: No tech Trading. Players can prevent any tech trading by anyone.

+ New Option: Blind Exploration. Players can now start out not knowing where the other civilizations are located.

+ New Option: Disable Minor races. No minor races.

+ New Option: Randomize player intelligence. This will scramble opponent intelligence by around +/- 10 points to have more variance.

+ New Option: Randomly pick opponents. Players can simply choose to play against N opponents and it will pick them out.

+ Ship Design Screen re-designed to allow far more visible space for designing.

+ Ship Design Screen supports panning with left-mouse button held down.

+ Ship Design Screen displays installed components in a grid list. Right click to remove a component.

+ Ship Design Screen supports rotation of components. See options screen to control how much you can rotate them.

+ Ship Design Screen supports copy/pasting behavior with ship size/rotation. If you select an existing component and then select a new component, the new component will automatically take on the size and rotation of the installed component you had just selected.

+ Ship Design Screen supports symmetry in rotation. Select an existing component, then select a new component to add on and then RIGHT-CLICK on the appropriate rotation dial and it will mirror the rotation automatically.

+ Ship level doesn't add as much to max HP.

+ Option now to display an animated dotted line showing where your selected ship is going.

+ How many turns it will take to reach a destination can be displayed at the destination target for selected ship. Note that you can hold down the Shift key and drag select multiple units.

+ If low-level espionage achieved, you can see the destination of selected enemy ships.

+ AI values range technologies more

+ Sensor techs increase sensor ability

+ Lots of little AI tweaks not worth mentioning but together will make a substantial difference to making the AI more enjoyable at low levels and more challenging at higher levels.

+ AI's more aggressive about expanding range with starbases. (some of them anyway)

+ Uncommon habitable planets tweaked to make them slightly more likely to have habitable planets.

+ Fixed AI bug where it would sometimes put its rally points on planets when it didn't mean to. + AI takes distance more into account than it used to for determining relations. + AI more sensitive to cultural and military build up using new APIs that do fewer false positives. + AI gives more effort towards researching propulsion technologies. + AI puts more effort into logistics techs. + AI puts more effort into miniaturization techs. In all 3 cases it does an evaluation of the galaxy state to determine whether it should be doing this. + Some AI personalities focus on significantly different techs. + AI will design faster or longer range ships depending on its needs + AI tech trading rewritten so that it doesn't do sweetheart deals. Tech trading somewhat rarer now as a practical matter. May need to be balanced so that human player doesn't get too much of an advantage. + AI can upgrade ships if it has enough money and thinks it's worth it. + AI manages colony improvements more effectively. + AI adapts economic strategy based on whether the new "disable tech trading" option is on. + AI generally better at picking techs based on new algorithm for evaluating galactic state. + Some AIs smarter about building constructors/freighters/defense. + Terran Alliance AI will not allow it to fall behind militarily beyond all hope. + Most AIs now will try to upgrade existing starbases more so than building new ones. + Most AIs will tend not to upgrade starbases that exist just to extend range. + Terran Alliance AI builds helper starbases closer to home. + Terran Alliance experimental strategy: Very focuses research - will ignore other weapons techs other than its main strategy. If you're not playing against the humans, you're missing out. + Terran Alliance has a whole new ship design sub-module for having its very own types of ships. + Terran Alliance will build defenders with no weapons (not needed to keep invaders out). + Drengin AI planetary management substantially different from others. + AIs take into account wasted social production (which is no longer wasted) into account when deciding what to build. + Drengin more likely to escort transports. + Drengin will focus more on trying to have the strongest military at all times. + Terran Alliance focuses on diplomacy techs, gifting, etc. to keep relations up so that it can pursue technology. + Drengin and Terran AIs now very much focused on controlling all nearby galactic resources. + Drengin focus more on extending their range of their ships and getting more morale building techs than previously. + Drengin tend to focus more on their primary weapon and defense techs. We'll see how it works. + Drengin AI a LOT smarter about what they research. + Yor AI now derivative of new Drengin AI. + AI, in general, values research more than it did previously. + First attempt, but probably not last, for AI to try to take out resource starbases of enemies where it can find them (as a reminder to players, the AI doesn't necessarily know the existence of a resource starbase, it has to "see" them. So if you have some resource in the corner of the galaxy, don't wonder why it's not getting attacked any more than why you don't see their resource starbases tucked into some corner). + Trade revenue increased on larger galaxies, decreased on smaller galaxies. + Starbase factories improve the production of factories and labs on planets by X%. Half of that increased bonus is "free" and the other half is charged for. + The -2000 ceiling on debt has been eliminated for players playing at higher difficulty levels. + Last vestiges of aborted feature "Propaganda" eliminated. Expansion pack will have "agents" that players and AI can assign to do mischief and counter-mischief instead. + ECONONOMIC ENGINE CLEANED UP! Production and research now works as follows: Labs and Factories produce N production of their kind. How much of their capacity is used is based on the domestic policy sliders (spend rate X what % on each of the 3 sliders is used). That amount is then multiplied by 3 types of bonuses: (1) Your Civ Ability (which you set at start and can enhance by mining special resources). (2) Economic starbases with factories on them. (3) Planetary bonuses that comes from random events, UP issues, etc. 50% of this bonus you get for free -- not charged for it. The other half you pay for out of your treasury. Example: If I have factories producing 100 units and my spend rate is 50% from domestic policy and my military spending is set to 100% then that factory's base production is 50 (50% of 100). If my Civilization ability on military production is 10% and I have an economic starbase doing 5% bonus and I had an event that increase planet production by 5% then I would have 50 + 20% bonus = 60 production. I would only be charged 55 however -- 10 bonus production, 5 free, 5 paid for. + Tax rate angers citizens less (a bit). + Your Morale ability is taken to the .90 power and then added to morale (was .80 power). + Population growth fixed dramatically. This is going to have a significant game play result that we're still having to fix in the AI. Before, on a class 10 planet with a morale of 70 your population would increase at 20% per turn. Now is would change at 3%. The "population growth ability bug" wasn't a bug but rather a problem with having populations in billions rather than millions. The population growth was previously capped at 200 million per turn. 20% of say 1 billion (or higher) reached that cap. So all those bonuses meant nothing. Now, at 3%, if you have a population of 1 billion then you're looking at an increase of 30 million per turn X your population bonus. If your morale is 100%, that gets doubled again. Here's the thing: If you drain a population down to only a few billion, it'll take you a very long time to recover. Say goodbye to mass colony rush. You'll need to be very careful or else you could end up with a vast empire of tiny populations producing no money while smaller empires grow beyond you and conquer your weak but large empire. Population Growth = CurrentMorale X Government Level X PlanetQuality Factory X GrowthFactor. + If your morale is > 75% you now get a 25% extra bonus to population growth. If it's at 100% you get a 100% extra bonus. + Population growth ability taken into account at the very end of this process for maximium effect. + Research Ability used wholesale (previously it was chopped in half). + Base taxes collected now is the square root of the population of a planet. This may be tweaked based on play testing. + New clean APIs: CalcTotalMilitaryProduction() and social and research equivs that just give you how much a planet is producing (for AI use later). + Social Production that is not being used anymore is transferred to military. So you're no longer being charged for social production. However, only the BASE social production is transferred and that amount is not subject to bonuses and so forth (lest there be a lot of cheese tactics and gaming of the social production bonus). So you still need to manage your economy decently but you're no longer being charged for production you're not using. + AI at lower levels gets less money to account for improvements in overall AI. + AI now "adds noise" to its decisions based on difficulty level.
Essentially, on things that are prioritized, AI that is playing as a "dumb" level will have injected into its calculations a noise factor that will result in it coming to wrong conclusions about what it should do and hence do stupid things. It's random + Planets on the verge of defecting are more likely to defect. + AI updated to use its points differently based on new ability costs. + AI Ship design looks at the galaxy size and then decides based on that whether it needs to focus on range or speed more. Before it was one size fits all. + Cost to upgrade ships now cheaper. + Lockup fix: AI could get confused on where to put a starbase and get into an endless loop. + Player and AI on same starbase rules: 4 friendly starbases per sector. + AI more likely to target starbases. + New function: FindClosestEnemyStarbase() + AI will send its ships to guard nearby planets rather than cluster them in hordes. + AI will target military support starbases more so. + Bonus production now displayed in various displays). + Updates to the various screens to display the correct economic data based on the new economic engine (involved 9 different .cpp files). + Planet Abilities decreased in player start-up. Before someone yells (or if someone can answer them on various forums): Before the abilities would then get nerfed in game. For instance, a research ability of 20 was treated as a 10 when calculated. Now, the research ability is half as much in the player setup window but multiplied directly. There's no net change, it's just a display change. + Message changed to tell players they can only build 4 friendly starbases in a given sector. + Most defense modules are now slightly smaller + Logistics change: Large ships now use 6 logistics (was 5). Huge ships use 8 (was 6). + HP change: Large ships get 30HP base (was 28). + HP change: Huge ships get 50HP base (was 48). + Nano Rippper damage changed from 8 to 6. + Capitals no longer provide a morale bonus. + Maintenance on labs and factories increased slightly (1 to 2) to compensate for higher tax income and easier morale. + Factories and labs produce slightly less base production (because the new bonus system provides more bonus production). + Cost of some high level buildings substantially decreased. + Slight tweaks to racial abilities. + Eliminated Galactic Mall and Concert Hall starbase modules. Since influence victory strategies have been strengthened, we require players to have to go for the cultural domination tech path. + Put cost to upgrade an influence starbase at the beginning, subsequent modules are free. + Mining modules have been significantly nerfed since abilities are now directly multiplied rather than modified. + If you have the cultural domination techs, you can build directly to those upper cultural influence modules bypassing the wimpier lower level ones. + Influence modules are less powerful (since you can now go directly to them) but still very powerful. + Fixed some tech tree bugs where the category was wrong. The AI relies on category to determine what type of tech it is since the AI isn't scripted. + Lots of tweaks to technology costs based on play testing and user feedback. + AI values tweaked. Miniaturization was valued very low. So the AI tended to have lots of cheap and ineffective ships compared to expert players. + AI less aggressive at lower levels. + Fixed typo in UP issue. + Prevent Cheese: Do not allow player to open fleet manager for a ship that is fighting. They could disband or change the ships in the fleet.
+ If a component on the ship is selected, size and rotation will remain the same as the selected component when a new component is chosen

+ You can click a slot at the top of the window to select a component on the ship. Clicking the slot again, de-selects the component.

+ Clicking a component on the ship, high-lights its slot in the component list

+ Fixed bug where if you choose a filter, and then add a component that should be filtered out, it would still show in the list

+ Size and rotation settings are no longer reset when selecting a new component type

+ Fixed bug where Clear button did not restore modules ( like colony, trade, etc) in the list of available components if they had been added to the ship before clearing it.

+ Fixed an exploit where players could add several modules of different types on the same ship by using auto-place.

+ Fixed not being able to select slots Slots now tint to the correct color

+ Took out the old component "slots" code and replaced it with new code using a grid list control.

+ Implemented the filter controls for choosing function or structural parts, or all parts. Known bug: if you choose a filter then add a component of diff type it will show in the list.

+ Added support for mouse wheel to the rotation dials. They will use whatever increment you have set in the options screen for rotations.

+ Made the constructor highlight slightly less transparent to make it more visible

+ Random ?'s turn on and off on the Opponent screen Polished

+ Functionality on the Opponent Screen added funciton to

+ "OverrideTextDisplay" of Spinners

+ added code to make civ save extra research points when it has more needs for the current tech

+ changed code to save ship designs as .xml files blind exploration now works

+ Changed "Enable Minor Races" option to "Disable Minor Races"

+ Changing any of the Game Options in Galaxy setup will now trigger the galaxy thread to be recreated if it is already running

+ Random Number of Races option working

+ Random Selection of Races option working (PaulB will be cheking in a screen to fix the clipping)

+ Random Intel option working (PaulB will be cheking in a screen to fix the clipping)

+ Added Stat in "Foreign Stats">"Misc" that gives the intelligence of the race.

+ NEW FEATURE: Auto-Pilot Lines checked in NEW FEATURE: "Show Auto Pilot

+ Lines" option added to Options screen NEW FEATURE: Resource icons on

+ tactical map are now color-coded NEW FEATURE: Number of weeks to move

+ to destination appears on the destination cursor

+ Tweak: Made dial needles thinner in ship designer

+ Fix: Bug where adding a ship with moves to a fleet with 0 moves restores the fleet's moves

+ Fix: Potential crash in overlay code

+ Fix: Made constructor highlights slightly more visible

+ Fix: Fleet Manager updates context area if fleet is disbanded

+ Fix: Removed code in CalcAStarRoute (used by trade routes and auto-pilot lines) that prevented the route from reaching across a gigantic galaxy

+ added code to FindPath to allow AI ships to get a new destination when they don't have one

+ added code to CanRaceBuildShip to check for an existing model file if it's a user defined ship

+ added code to classShipTypes to save out an XML file for its def. If a ship is user defined and this function can't find a .shipcfg file for it, it will now return FALSE. This fixes the bug that Brad found where he was playing as a custom race and he changed what style of ship he was using.

+Fixed length of the Zombie Army event to make it fit nicer in the box

+Added ability to pan and rotate main map with the Keyboard:
-CTRL and Arrow keys to rotate (with snapback working if activated)
-SHIFT and Arrowkeys to pan main map

+ Old "hardpoint modifiers" that rotated and flipped hardpoints have been marked as "hidden." This removes them from the components the players can choose, and also allows them to keep using the designs they have previously made that use them.

+ Improvement Summary window now shows tile improvements and their effects on the improvement and planet

+ Fixed bug where obsoleting a ship that had been purchased prevents the star port that purchased it from ever building anything else again

+ Improvement Summary Window: Fixed spacing of units

+ removed some references to humanity in the Tech Tree (but only where it made sense to remove, most places it worked well)

+ Fleet Manager: Now displays number representing ship's logistic value in ship thumbnail

+ Fleet Manager: Implemented the command buttons

+ Ship Designer: Implemented "Reset Component" button

+ Ship Designer: Added tool-tips to the new design UI controls

+ Ship Designer: Fix: Scaling selected part now scales ONLY that part

+ Fleet Manager window is implemented

+ Dbl-click a fleet or click on Details in the fleet context window to open it. Use it to add ships to your fleet. Use it to move ships from one fleet to another. It still needs a few graphical tweaks: Some things don't tint Will be adding a number next to the ship icons to show their logistics (like the stacked ships window does)

+ You can no longer multi-select dead ships or ships hidden by FOW (This fixes bug where multi-select highlights empty spaces)

+ You can not cycle through fleets in the ship details window anymore (This is to make way for the new Fleet Manager screen)

+ Action buttons in ship details screen are now disabled if the ship cannot perform that action

+ Fixed bug where text in trade screen would display green when using the money slider even if the AI would refuse to trade a military tech because the civ was too powerful.

+ Fixed bug that Brad e-mailed about (Planet logos missing when zoomed out)

+ Fixed bug in Tutorials window where pressing ESC key would hang the game

+ Fixed UP Starbase Tax law-related problems.

+ Fixed bug where a player could not attack Dread Lord planet with an orbital fleet manager on it

+ Fixed non-working scroll bar in rally point window Added GetTurnsAway function to classStarShip that returns a float indicating number of turns it will take to get to specified tile CTRL+I now displays the number of turns it will take a ship to get to its destination.

+ MiraclePlanets Event: Now updates the overlay icons for the planets. (They used to have "uninhabitable" icons even though they were upgraded by the event)

+ Fixed exploit where you could get around UP starbase module limit using a fleet of constructors

+ Fixed sizing to 0 error message in debug.err in ShipCombatShipsEntryWnd.

+ AIUpgradeShip will not allow you to use it on a fleet (it will abort gracefully) “Fleets” themselves cannot be upgraded, but the ships in them can

+ Fixed UP Law bug where starfaring tax was applied even if the civ in question was dead

+ Fixed UP Law bug where war tax was applied even if the civ you were at war with was dead

+ Fixed UP Law bug where Starbase tax was applied even on starbases that were destroyed

+ Changed starship::GetFleet function to return a pointer to itself if the ship is a fleet.

+ Found and fixed source of “Influence Flooding” bug. If the invader used the “Use unhappy citizens” tactic, these citizens could be counted as casualties and the casualties would exceed the number of troops on the transports, thus giving a negative population.

+ Fixed crash when memory allocation fails on ship type creation in ship designer. Adds message to debug.err when this happens and takes appropriate action to avoid crash

+ Fixed crash in Polyline. It now checks number of points in the line to avoid out of bounds crash.

+ Fixed CTD on Governor Screen. pColony was not set in governor mini map. Pointer is checked now.

+ Fixed bug where removing components does not remove their tech requirement.

+ Fixed crash when entering victory status screen. Planet was not set in colony::CalcMorale.

+ Fixed incorrect stat shown in ship statistics text (Trade screen)

+ Fixed bug where data on main screen (treasury, tech, etc) would not update immediately after loading a saved game

+ Fixed crash in OverlayGraphic::QueryInterface function. Pointer was not being checked.

+ Trade Screen, if you right-click a ship, you will now get the “ship intelligence report” on that specific ship, instead of a generalized ship type information popup.

+ Trade Screen, if you right-click a starbase, it will now show the correct data based on what modules your starbase has.

+ Fixed a typo in conversations

+ Fixed a “false positive” message in debug.err. It would display “Could not find texture” when PictureFrame images were being set to NULL (to clear the image). This is ok.

+ If population after an invasion is less than 1, it will be set to 1

+ Fixed incorrect data being displayed in Ship Upgrade window

+ Fixed colors in a few end game summary screens to use race color instead of interface color

More to come...

121

Martimus

on Mar 29, 2006

I like the new changes to V1.1. It crashes pretty often, but most of the new features are really nice.

I have one complaint though. Trading has gone from being enjoyable in the previous version to being frustrating now. This is because the other races will only trade with you if you offer 2 to 3 times what they have is worth. Even when you have a diplomatic advantage. It is almost as bad as Civilization is now. The ease of trading was by far my favorite part of this game. It was just too frustrating to deal with other civs in Civilazation, but it was easy here. You could actually make fair trades. Oh well, I guess the "nerf the trading" crowd got what they wanted, it is too bad that they had to ruin what made the game great to me.

(I would just go back to using 1.0X1, but the AI is too easy in that version to give me a challenge. I love the challenge of the new version so I will have to pick which I want more, or just quit playing the game.)

122

Star Dragon

on Mar 29, 2006

Perhaps this is a silly question, but does anyone have a guesstimate as to when the beta will go ... er ... gamma?

123

Kalin

on Mar 29, 2006

The ease of trading was by far my favorite part of this game. It was just too frustrating to deal with other civs in Civilazation, but it was easy here. You could actually make fair trades. Oh well, I guess the "nerf the trading" crowd got what they wanted, it is too bad that they had to ruin what made the game great to me.

Your statements are rather contradictory. I suppose I would be one of the people who wanted to "nerf trading", but that's because you could trade 2000 BC for 3000 BC with high diplomacy. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't see that as being "fair", frankly that's just cheap. I'm all for fair trade, but with trade exploits like these where you are able to bankrupt entire civilizations and then use their money to buy all of their stuff afterwards, that's not right. So I'm sorry that it ruined your game, but something had to be done, and to be completely honest, I'm still not sure that this has been resolved.

If it's just pure tech trading you're talking about, this isn't because of "nerf trading" at all, it's just in how much the AI now value certain technologies. For example, they now value logistic technologies much more than ever, because they think a fleet with another ship will be worth more than a tiny upgrade for their lasers, and I have to agree... giving you logistics gives you a significant power boost, while them gaining 1 space for each lasers doesn't really help them any. In my book? That's fair, even though the technology costs might not reflect that. This forces you to research those core technologies and not just buy everything from them. Tech trade/whoring was one of the cheap methods that most players used to beat the really high level AI, I'm glad that it has been somewhat improved.

Another factor in the trade issue is that now the AI is very sensitive. That is, they will take all those negative points that they have realized and put a lot more weight on it. As a result, they won't like you very much, so they don't trade with you quite as nicely. This makes perfect sense though... so no need to say anymore.

IMO, trading was just way too cheap of a strategy, especially against what is suppose to be an "intelligent" AI. If Brad went back and made the AI trade stupidly like it did before at lower levels, I would have no problems with that. However, at "intelligent", it should be able to realize that you are just ripping it off every time you talk to them. It makes the harder difficulties more interesting.

124

Martimus

on Mar 29, 2006

Your statements are rather contradictory

They are in no way contradictory. As said in The Princess Bride, "You keep using that word, I am not sure if you know what it means." Being able to trade 2000BC for 3000BC is wrong, but I was never able to do this. I found that you could trade 100BC for 200BC, but even then it was considered a gift, since if you removed the money offering on your side, they would still accept the trade. I tride to do that money for money trade I kept hearing about to see if it was actually true, but even after getting full diplomacy bonuses, it was not possible. I am thinking people were doing what I was stating earlier, and were using smaller values.

IMO, trading was just way too cheap of a strategy, especially against what is suppose to be an "intelligent" AI. If Brad went back and made the AI trade stupidly like it did before at lower levels, I would have no problems with that. However, at "intelligent", it should be able to realize that you are just ripping it off every time you talk to them. It makes the harder difficulties more interesting.

If we are friends then we should be able to trade techs on an equitable level. I don't care whatsoever that you think this is "cheating". It is a SINGLE PLAYER GAME, why should you care? If I wanted to cheat, I could just turn on the cheat codes. The point is that the AI actually acted somewhat similar to a person before in that they would make equitable trades. Now they won't consider anything unless they are obviously getting a much better deal.

If it's just pure tech trading you're talking about, this isn't because of "nerf trading" at all, it's just in how much the AI now value certain technologies. For example, they now value logistic technologies much more than ever, because they think a fleet with another ship will be worth more than a tiny upgrade for their lasers, and I have to agree... giving you logistics gives you a significant power boost, while them gaining 1 space for each lasers doesn't really help them any. In my book? That's fair, even though the technology costs might not reflect that. This forces you to research those core technologies and not just buy everything from them. Tech trade/whoring was one of the cheap methods that most players used to beat the really high level AI, I'm glad that it has been somewhat improved.

Actually, I don't mind if the AI wouldn't trade me the "big" techs. I wanted to be able to trade the more minor techs with them. The ones along the planetary improvement lines to be more specific. I don’t like having to give up 2 or 3 techs that I spent 30 weeks researching for a single tech that they researched in 5. That is ^%$ insane, and it pisses me off.

125

Martimus

on Mar 29, 2006

Your statements are rather contradictory

126

Martimus

on Mar 29, 2006

I'm sorry that I sounded angry in my first post. I just was upset that a part of the game that was enjoyable before the patch, is now frustrating to the point where I avoid doing it unless I absolutely have to.

As for the second post... I just wish I could talk to that person face to face to discuss this. I hate this impersonal internet stuff... And I was angry that he/she insinuated that I didn't know what i was talking about...

127

Martimus

on Mar 29, 2006

P.S. the one thing I think I would like to see changed is when you upgrade a ship design all your shipyards start making that.

If you upgrade the ship design and give it a different name, then all you have to do is obsolete the old design and all shipyards producing the old design will switch to the new. Just make sure you say that you don't want to scrap all ships using the old design.

You don't even need to obsolete the old designs. Just upgrade the ship and rename it. All shipyards will automatically start building the new ship. (This has been true since the first patch.)

128

Martimus

on Mar 29, 2006

You don't even need to obsolete the old designs. Just upgrade the ship and rename it. All shipyards will automatically start building the new ship. (This was been true since the first patch.)

129

JCinAtlanta

on Mar 29, 2006

Lots of good discussion on taxes with an apparent consensus to move to a more linear alternate formula. Is it fair for us to ask if a decision has been made and what we might see in an updated beta release?

130

Ybus

on Mar 29, 2006

Ship-designer

I) Some Hulls are not aligned properly. When you add a component left and right for instance they both flip to the right for instance. (Dont know exaclty whichs hulls contain these bugs.) The attachmentpoint in the middle is on some hulls not in the middle but off-center.
II) Adding some components and then adjusting them after they are added makes them flip, hugely decrease of increase in size or the increase/decrease slider works opposite (increase = decrease and vice-versa).

Diplomacy:
I) If you donate some ships to another race. They do not always seem to use those ships.
II) If you donate some ships to another race and you had selected one of those ships before the trade then after the trade the game keeps focusing on the ship that was once yours (The game focus on the ship 'cause you had movement points left, and is waiting for an order but since you can not give one (it is not your ship anymore) the game is kinda in a loop. Ending the turn fixes this problem but this while cause you to end your turn premature.)

131

BladeVenom

on Mar 29, 2006

So does that AI still tech trade amongst themselves? If so how does that work since they will no longer accept fair trades?

132

whismerhill

on Mar 29, 2006

about AI tech trade,
I think most AI should be very wary of giving/trading their tech (which seems to be the case in 1.1according to others reports)
after all did countries trade nuclearpower amongst themselves ?

though I think that some variety could be good
ie one race or two might love to share techs (especially amongst good civ)

what do you think ?

133

Revan1138

on Mar 30, 2006

well it looks like they still haven't fixed the planet night lights not showing up bug

134

Kalin

on Mar 31, 2006

I apologized if I sounded that way, I had no intention of doing that or meant any offense. I merely wanted to state my views on the trading system, which happened to be contradictory with yours. I agree that the impersonal internet aspects isn't the best place to discuss, but right now it's the only viable solution. Unless you live somewhere in DC...

I find this very odd, I had no problem replicating what was reported. Unfortunately I'm a little on the lazy side today (it's Friday, not my fault) so I don't particularly want to go unpack my archived 1.0x version to take screen shots. Judging from your tests, though, I would say this is because you didn't used the Galatic Bazaar, which add 50% value to your trade offers. This is why it was possible to trade 2000 BC for 3000 BC.

You're completely right though, I also consider the above situation an 'exploit', and should not be bothered with, and while Metaverse players might not agree that it should be left alone, *I* am not one of such people. I only mentioned it because it was one of the extreme vulnerabilities of the AI. But let's put that aside and focus on the real problem at hand...

... Tech trading. Please excuse the long, "how to" type post, I have no intention to offend you or anyone else, I just don't know how else to to explain my view in detail. So here goes...

The way tech trading works in 1.0x, with the AI always willing to trade with one another "fairly" (subjective), you as the player is pretty much forced to sell/trade your technology to everyone at the same time. However, this means that when you trade 1 technology away fairly (IE: a tech worth 100 BC for 100BC), you essentially gain the benefit of that technology times however many number of players there are on the map. So if you sell away that 100BC technology to 12 computer players (main and minors), you just made 1100BC (-100BC for its cost). This, I call "Tech Whoring", unlike the Bazaar exploit, is a perfectly legitimate strategy, much like putting Influence Starbases near the AI's planet to conquer them culturally. This is the main strategy used to beat every AI above Intelligent.

This is why I will refer to the AI of 1.0x as being "broken diplomatically" (no offense Brad). You see, an "intelligent" AI, is the best AI available. But while it will recognize and (try to) counter every other strategy from culture domination to military conquests, it doesn't recognize this tech whoring strategy through the current trade/diplomacy model. So it will be perfectly happy to give you that 100BC for your 100BC tech, not realizing that you will end up with 1200BC when you go through all the races. Worse is when you sit there and wait for it to develope a technology, buy it for it's cost, then go and sell it to all the other races. So if you wasted 100BC on that technology, and sold it to all the other races for 1100BC, you just made 1000BC for free at his expense, since he would have made that money if he traded it away. Hence, the reason why you can beat an AI silly even while giving it a 200% economy bonus. This is why there was such a huge outcry for the "no tech trading" option.

In v1.1, this issue is addressed somewhat, with a buy low, sell high system. I'm not going to say it's perfect until I can get more tests in, but the issue is atleast addressed somewhat. What is happening now is that the AI will want more for what it has (if you think about it, this is a perfectly natural response). What this does is:

1) discourages trade between the various AI and allow you the option to give a tech away without having to worry about it ending up with every other race, including it's nemesis, who you are trying to help it beat unless they lose a planet and the tech is stolen (which also makes sense from gameplay perspective).

2) reduces the effectiveness of the tech whoring strategy so that it is still strategically viable, but not so god awful overpowering as to be broken. Here's why...

Assuming that the AI now ask for 2 times (just a nice round number to work with) of what it trades away (and subsequently buy for only 1/2), this means that when you buy a 100BC technology, you have to spend 200BC. Then, you go around and sell it to the other 11 Players, each for 50 BC, you made 550BC. So for all your work, you made 350BC, while the one who developed the technology got 100BC extra, and all the other races gets that technology for 50BC less. You still come out on top, but the other AI gets some benefit and don't get completely ripped off. If you developed the technology to sell, you make 500BC (50x12 - 100), and everyone else gets that tech for half the cost (50BC in this case). As you can see, you still make a profit by being the weapon dealer, but in this new model, the AI also benefits, instead of you getting everything. This, is a counter strategy to tech-whoring, much like putting its own Influence Starbase up to protect its planets from rebelling or declaring war and blowing yours away.

So why did I say that this new AI isn't perfect yet? Well, for one the number seems to be guesswork based upon testing. I'd much rather the computer had some type of formula to determine how much a technology is worth depending on how many other players have or don't have it. Perhaps it is, and I have just missed it completely, but like I said, I still need to test it a lot more to be sure. That said, any improvement in this area is welcomed, so it is much better than before IMO.

With that explained, I would like to repeat my point from my last post. I have no objection what-so-ever for the weaker AIs to behave in the manner that you would like it to. That is, for it to trade fairly. However, I firmly believe that the best AI, HAVE to recognize the situation that it is in, and be able to counter this tech trading strategy. I don't mean that you aren't good enough to play the intelligent AI, but if you want a 'nice' and 'fair' AI, you really should play a weaker one, simply because being nice has never equated to being 'best' (sad but true). It is, as you said, a single player game, and no one cares if you play a lesser AI or cheat, but we would really like to see the 'best' AI act intelligently, instead of it being so awfully nice that we have to ignore trading all together just to be 'fair' back.

The only way I would agree to 'fair' trades from an intelligent AI, is if there is another diplomatic relation beyond Allied (maybe "federation" or something). In this "teamed" style relation, the alliance is permanent, your starbase shares their benefits, when one goes to war, the other is forced into war (no choice, no matter who starts it), and peace has to be agreed to by both party at once. Then, and only then, will I agree that the intelligent AI should trade fairly, because then there's no way for you to screw it over (well... none really easy ways anyways).

So I'm sorry if I offended you, but I really think that having the best AI capable of identifing and somewhat use the tech whoring strategy in its favor to be more important than it being 'nice'. Afterall, if you're too nice you just end up being used.

135

CommanderGizmo

on Mar 31, 2006

So why did I say that this new AI isn't perfect yet? Well, for one the number seems to be guesswork based upon testing. I'd much rather the computer had some type of formula to determine how much a technology is worth depending on how many other players have or don't have it. Perhaps it is, and I have just missed it completely, but like I said, I still need to test it a lot more to be sure. That said, any improvement in this area is welcomed, so it is much better than before IMO.

I would like to see the AI be a little less predictable myself. I kind of like it when there is some randomness or margin for decisions to be a little different between them. After all, most human players have a little personality mixed into their decisions, and it makes it much harder to plan out a stratagy since you don't always know exactly what the computer player will do. I think Stardock has done a great job of putting a little flare into their AI in that way.