The year is 2226 and the Epsilon Quadrant has an uneasy peace between the three major powers in the sector -- the Terran Alliance, the Drengin Empire and the League of Worlds. The war, intrigue, and destruction that follows came as both a surprise and yet preordained. This is their story.
My role in this is to act as the observer for the AI. How they play, are the super abilities in Dark Avatar working? How are they balanced? The goal of the super abilities is that they be exploitable but still be balanced. That is, they should be immensely powerful but equally powerful between civilizations. My job as the AI programmer is to make sure that the AI is good at exploiting these super abilities as well.
Today, I will watch how the Drengin's Super Dominator matches up with the Terran Alliance Super Diplomacy ability against my Super Annihilator bonus as the League of Worlds.
A promising beginning...
My home world has a decent asteroid field nearby and some good planets not too far away.
The Drengin and Terrans aren't so lucky. They start out very close to each other.
A lot of people don't realize just how much balancing code there is in galaxy creation. We'll get people who want galaxy creation to work like world creation in Civ where all players are equally spaced. So for those of you taking the time to read this, let me explain what I mean by a balanced galaxy...
The Terrans and Drengin are close together. That's a disadvantage. The Drengin adn Terarns have an asteroid field that is right between them. The Drengin have a class 11 world there is very close to them but the Terrans have more planets that are of high quality that are nearer to them than the Drengin's but are significantly further away.
While they are both relatively far away from me, I have to go through them to get to the bulk of the good planets. However, there are several good planets closer to me than them and there are more galacitc resources near me than to them. Each game randomly generates a galaxy that is designed to be relatively balanced but not in the usual blatant "every player is equal in all ways". Each game is supposed to require some adaptation.
Some AI improvements
The Scout code has been improved for Dark Avatar which means the AI should get better at colonizing. That is one of things I am testing.
Preparing for Xenocide
My custom civilization has the Super Annihilator ability. This gives me the ability to research a tech called Spore Weapons which can be used to construct ships that will, on an undefended planet, completely wipe out the colony and turn it into a toxic world.
The first wave is away
By May 2226, the status looks like this:
- The League: 5 planets with 50 points of use.
- The Terran Alliance: 6 planets with 38 points of use.
- The Drengin Empire: 4 planets with 27 points of use.
Starbases:
- The Drengin Empire: Two resource starbases
- The Terran Alliance: 1 influence starbase
- The League: 1 Economic starbase
I have a significant advantage at this point. We will see how things continue.
The colonization phase in Dark Avatar is a totally different animal than seen in previous GalCiv's. The first wave still occurs with players grabbing the freebie planets. But there's a lot of good planets that just require a specific technology.
The best planet in the quadrant is still unused by January 2227. That's because it is a barren world. So what is everyone researching right now?
- The League (me): Xeno Industrial Theory
- The Terran Alliance: Stinger
- The Drengin Empire: Advanced Computing
(I make some adjustments so that the AI will prioritize more if there's a really good planet nearby).
The Pre-Boom
One challenge I have to deal with soon is the fact that the AI doesn't yet deal well with yet.
One of my next projects is to rewrite the Starbase mode and the planetary improvement code to work more in line with how the game actually plays out (as opposed to theoretically how I thought people would play the game <g>).
Though in the case of the planetary improvement code, that was one part of the AI I wasn't involved on until post release. The style in which it was written is very different from mine so I've always had a hard time massaging the planet improvement code for the computer players. Dark Avatar is my chance to go and write it from scratch in the style I'm more used to.
My initial weapons flatform is the V-1 Uniter fighter.
vs.
vs.
It's still way too early to tell who is going to win the arm's race.
The Terran Alliance isn't yet ready to talk to me about signing treaties. I'll try back with them soon.
New feature: You can't keep going back and talking to races over and over. Only every few weeks can you (unless you're a Super Diplomat in which case you can go back much more often).
Concerned
One of the changes in the build I'm using is that trade routes grow in value over time significantly. The net result is that they can generate an awful lot of income now for players if they survive long enough.
I still lead the way in industry and research by May 2228, but the military power of the Drengin and Terrans has begun to grow significantly. It was time to begin my own build up.
The Spy Wars have already continued to progress. I've cut down the # of spies players get pretty dramatically. It doesn't change the fact that the player that is out in front is going to get walloped quite a bit.
The Drengin were gearing for war -- with me. It was time to get into gear before it was too late.
The Drengin have specialized on missile weapons. So I begin researching counter measures for that -- point defense. The Drengin are slowly catching up to me economically. I need to prepare my own assault.
My home world is full of activity.
It was an arms race.
My power is that I can conquer planets painlessly relative to my enemies. A few hits to key Drengin worlds and they would be down for the count.
And so it begins...
The first attack occurs quickly as my forces engage. It ends in victory for me.
The opening battles would see our 3rd generation fighters going up against each other. On the Drengin side they have the Kiklar-Fighter:
vs.
Across the quadrant, battles raged...
And I was getting smeared.
And having played evil, I now got the Terran Alliance on my back.
My spore ship took a world. But with both the Drengin and Terran's on me, there was little hope.
Their ships were meant to fight the Drengin Empire but they did just as well crushing me.
My equivalent ship, the generation 4 frigate was known as the Valiant class.
While considerably more lethal, I only have a few.
This is not a good scene. The Terrans and Drengin closing in on Paridon, my home world.
My last hope fleet... 7 ships vs. 18 in the first round.. 18 Drengin. The Valiant was taknig out multiple ships per round but it wasn't enough.
I put the rest of my ships into a single fleet for a last stand...
My ships, optimized against Drengin weapons, managed to only receive 37 hitpoints of damage despite all of the Drengin ships being Frigates while only three of mine being frigates. Unfortunately, I lost my fighters and this was just one of dozens of similar fleets.
This happens again and again. 99 shots fired vs. my 32 shots. But they can replace their 12 units, I can't replace the two Frigates.
It's over.
Now it's time for me to stand back and watch the Drengin and Terrans fight it out.
In the end, the Drengin Empire prevails. Admittedly, when there's only two civilizations, a super diplomacy ability is going to not mean much against the military dominator.
Conclusions
I wasn't playing particularly hard but the Drengin Super Dominator ability is a bit too powerful. I checked the code and it looks like it's creating too many ships so I tweaked that. My slowness to get freighters out really bit me big time too as it gave the Drengin and Terrans a huge economic advantage that I didn't have.
If I had really wanted to win, I should have rushed them. That is really what the spore ship is all about. You get in there and take out key worlds before they have time to get their economy going. I am pleased with how the new planet improvement system is working for the AI. Much MUCH better. No more adjusting at the edges, a whole new system. Right now, only the Drengin have it (another reason the Drengin did so well).
Next up...
Finish the Super Diplomat goodies for the human player. Work on Super Breeder. And then get onto the Super Manipulator.