"Very Difficult Choice" Mod, irc channel: irc.quakenet.org/vdc

Information, How-to's, and discussion about mod'ing Master of Orion II.
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Green_Knight
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Postby Green_Knight » Wed Feb 18, 2009 8:52 am

Thanks for the feedback - I'll try a max pop growth race next, and then see if I can find someone for a MP game.

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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:05 am

I'm going to issue a new version these days, so don't hurry. :) The coming update may affect race preferences...
Last edited by Overlord2 on Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Green_Knight
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Postby Green_Knight » Wed Feb 18, 2009 1:53 pm

One thing; with the more useful planetary shields the ground defense installations become much more attractive. Overall taking planets are a bit more difficult. Which is good IMO. But I'm not sure I feet that Star Bases/Battlestations/S Fortresses are up to the task. Have you considering increasing the space available to make them useful? Or is it well though out, but I'm not seeing it :D

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Green_Knight
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Postby Green_Knight » Wed Feb 18, 2009 3:31 pm

One more thing; I mentioned previously that Repulsive is worth too much, especially is this is a PvP mod. Six points from there seems a very effective choice. Why not reduce its negative value to actually make it hurt a bit to get those 10 negative picks?

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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:07 am

...I'm not sure I feet that Star Bases/Battlestations/S Fortresses are up to the task. Have you considering increasing the space available to make them useful?
Those have increased space compared to original:
Starbase: space 400 (was 300);
BattleStation: space 1000 (was 600);
Star Fortress: space 2000 (was 1200).
One more thing; I mentioned previously that Repulsive is worth too much, especially is this is a PvP mod. Six points from there seems a very effective choice. Why not reduce its negative value to actually make it hurt a bit to get those 10 negative picks?
I have tried a lot of variations of the negative picks values and finally came to the current layout. The key point is that democacy is affected too much with different layout. For example, I had repulsive 4 points in the first version of VDC, the rest negative picks almost the same as now. Standard negative picks were: repulsive -gc -def -spy or rep -gc -food for cybernetic races or rep -gc poor hw (-4) or lowg -def. So demo was left to take either lowg -def or rep -gc poor hw. On the other hand in one variant I had rep (-4) and -gc, -def and - spy, poor hw (-3). But practically it is th same thing as -6 -2 -2 as in 99% of the cases people took max value of negatives. But the flaw of 4-3-3 layout is that you can't apply mutation properly. For instance +10 spy costs 2 picks and -10 spy 3 picks? the same for ship defense and ground combat...
Additionally I wouldn't underestimate non-repulsive pick set. Repulsive is a big handicap in fact, since it doesn't allow you to hire great leaders.
After all, if you don't want repulsive in your game you can agree with your partner to ban repulsive.

RassaR
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Postby RassaR » Mon Apr 20, 2009 11:52 am

Hi

1)

Uniification 8 points ? ok, but why democracy cost was decreased ? Moreover cost off all important picks for demoracy was also reduced (food, growth). When you have soo much food 50% research bonus is really scary. When you combine it with preatty cheap (for demo players) morale techs and cheap clone tech it seems foolish not to pick demo :-)

imho they main reason why unification was so strong in 1.4 was / is food. You just couldn't use + research bonus because you had to feed all those scientist first :-) and also that is why demo + lithovore was quite good combo.

now we have really cheap +2 food, VERY expensive lithovore. Decrease in food price should decrease uni and feudal price and increase demo price and dictatorship slightly.

When food is cheap demo need fe 20% population to be farmers while uni around 10%. Obviously uni player would rather like something like 40% / 20%.

2) negative picks

feudal / lowg / - 1 prod / food / poor HW / uncreative - all OK. These picks have such big impact on game that they should be promoted. Otherwise no one will take them.

-0,5 BC / -1 research / -50% growth / repulsive are not as bad as lowg or feudal or -1 prod Actually i think they are in different league. you get +10 picks for taking -50% growth instead of +50% growth ! 6 picks for repulsive ? who will ever take lowg for 8 points then ? I would change growth to 3 points and BC to 4 points / repulsive 3 points / research -3 points

Valprax
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Postby Valprax » Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:21 pm

Dont find demo over powered at all theres still

Lith +100 sub/ rhw cyber tol +2prod/ that are at least at the same level or better. Uni can work at the same level all depends on galaxy


Minimum changes I'd like to make the game better/ more interesting right now

1) Neg race picks

Repulsive) -6 > -5
Spying-10) -2 > -3
shipattack-20) -4 > -7
poorhw) -2 > -3
ship defence-20 -2 > -3

reasons

u can now still use repulsive/ -10GC/-20SD
but it allows for more like -shipattack / -shipdef
-shipattack/ -spying
-shipattack/ phw
repulsive/phw/-gc
ETC variety dont u love it.! Reason why repulsive remains a good neg is cuz if u are not repulsive u can be charasmatic which is a good pickfor 1 ! or just plain normal som of the leaders u find are game changing

2) Technology

stealth field swap places with gauss cannon

Gauss cannon Lower dmg from 24 to 17?
Particle beam add to old gauss/classv11/warp int tab and change dmg
to 11-31? restore all old mods. lower weapon space cost slightly I think the exact specs would need balancing
Stellar converter move it one level lower on same tree. Its not so great it takes a million space. and it isnt as good as star gate in my opinion

Lilltiger
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Ship speed

Postby Lilltiger » Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:40 pm

I hink ships move to fast to erly in the game making it a cat and mouse hunt all dependent on luck.

Scenario:
t120: opponent establish an outpost taking up 3 planets in the same system close to several of your systems.Bringing alog 3BB and a few smaler ships.
You have 4BB and a few smaler ships, aprox an 50% stronger fleet.

But your opponent can reatch 3 of your systems in one turn, you have no idea wich one to protect.

t121: You choose to protect the wrong system, and your opponent destroys one of your planet in that system, and now to opponent once again can reach 3 different systems, or stay at the current one. Making it eaven harder to choose wich to protect.

Imo this is a major issue with the game as there is no real way to counter it this erly in the game, so insted of being an strategical game it becomes a pure coin toss game.

My solution on how to fix this is pretty simple, put all the engine techs higer up in the tree and move Jump Gate erlier in the tree, or have it avaible at start.

I dont see any real downside to this approatch at all, and it will make Trans Dimentional a more intresting pick (but hopefully not to powerfull).

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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:08 pm

2RassaR
Sorry for late reply, unfortunately I was out of internet for a while and couldn't write an answer earlier.
Concerning your question about picks, I want to say the following: when estimating picks, one should be based on the races, which is possible to construct in terms of the race picks costs. If you find some uber races that can undoubtedly beat other races you’re welcome to announce such. And if it proves to be overpowered in our mp games, I’ll take steps to nerf it.

Speaking of unification particularly such uber prod races as uni tol +1 prod or uni aqua +2 prod rhw are not possible in VDC. To achieve that uni was required to be 8 points… though it went through many changes as you can see from the change log. At the same time not all good uni races were cut.
As for demo, well, I might as well agree that demo is a bit at advantage now with 5 points cost.
Roughly demo cost could be determined in the following way: demo = +2 research + 0.5 cash –spy = 5+3-2 = 6 points (in VDC). But demo has that inherent drawback – vulnerability to spying. Sometimes a couple of techs stolen in the late stages of the game may decide the outcome of the whole game. Thus if demo were on equal on its positive sides with dictatorship (by default only dictatorship is alternative to demo since no scientific races can be constructed by other than dict governments) then it wouldn’t be justified at all to take demo as no one eliminates chances of being spied.
As for +2 food pick, it should be compared with aquatic pick cost, not lithovore. Aquatic, giving +1 food bonus and pop capacity bonus seems more valuable to me. Hence +2 food should cost less than aquatic.
About negatives. –cash and –pop growth picks are disaster picks in fact. The feasible possibility to win with these negative picks is to blitz or rush. Otherwise in later games those races would be doomed or at least in great trouble. As for lowG this pick is equal to being – 1 tech & -1 prod till you research gravity generator and in that sense it is temporary disadvantage but nevertheless significant. 8 points seems justified, less means it’d be underpriced (i.e. overpriced as the base cost is negative). Speaking of points I mean the combination of negatives. So lowG at 8 points means it could be used together with –ship defense negative, or poor homeworld or else. One shouldn’t forget that lowG adds additional ground combat penalty.
Finally the Repulsive. This negative pick is underestimated by many. The leaders…is the key question here. The fact is that non-repulsive races are usually offered great leaders, which can independently decide the outcome of the game, while repulsive is sometimes offered no leaders at all. E.g. great ship leaders, which is equal to being +attack race or + defense race and etc.
Generally speaking of negative picks one may divide them into two categories: “serious” and “non-serious”. The serious ones are those, which affect economy, namely: -prod, -pop growth, -research, -cash and etc. Taking one of these negative picks puts you at great disadvantage. The other picks, which I call “non serious” affect other aspects, but are bearable. You can notice that if you take any “serious” negative pick, you automatically become non-repulsive, the least compensation for that. However my position is not to make taking a serious pick inevitable. Now bearing that in mind you have to organize “non-serious” negatives so that it would be possible to construct a practical race.
As I’ve mentioned above, I have tried many various combinations, and finally came to the point of balance. In all other cases either demo was affected badly (since it can’t possibly take –spy negative you can’t find reasonable combination for demo) or mutation bonus worked wrongly.
To conclude about the race picks I want to say that everybody including you is free to alter them at his own views and play in private games with partners (if you can reach agreement over the values with partner :roll: ). The picks cost in VDC mod is just a suggestion of the closest to balance values.
Last edited by Overlord2 on Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:10 am

Dont find demo over powered at all theres still

Minimum changes I'd like to make the game better/ more interesting right now

1) Neg race picks

Repulsive) -6 > -5
Spying-10) -2 > -3
shipattack-20) -4 > -7
poorhw) -2 > -3
ship defence-20 -2 > -3

reasons

u can now still use repulsive/ -10GC/-20SD
but it allows for more like -shipattack / -shipdef
-shipattack/ -spying
-shipattack/ phw
repulsive/phw/-gc
ETC variety dont u love it.! Reason why repulsive remains a good neg is cuz if u are not repulsive u can be charasmatic which is a good pickfor 1 ! or just plain normal som of the leaders u find are game changing
In VDC 19 I made -ship attack=-6 points, so now it's easier to construct non-repulsive race, based on this negative pick :D Hopefully it helps :wink:
2) Technology

stealth field swap places with gauss cannon

Gauss cannon Lower dmg from 24 to 17?
Particle beam add to old gauss/classv11/warp int tab and change dmg
to 11-31? restore all old mods. lower weapon space cost slightly I think the exact specs would need balancing
Early gauss cannon? Don't think it is good idea :P
Besides stealth field isn't that strong as you might suppose - you can't make non combat ships hidden, thus you disclose all your intensions. Also it is totally countered by omni.
As an experiment, I reduced omni cost to 2 points in VDC 19, but if it shows overpowered, I'll put it back to 3 points.
As for partical beam, it performs balance role in vdc - it works as one of the counters to damper field (structure piercing effect, dealing damage directly to ships engines, the same way as ion cannon). Taking into account this new feature it can't be placed elsewhere.
Stellar converter move it one level lower on same tree. Its not so great it takes a million space. and it isnt as good as star gate in my opinion
After I increased damage to 600 it became great :P, kills lightly armored bb with one shot or maybe 2 shots.

Lilltiger
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Postby Lilltiger » Wed Apr 29, 2009 9:47 am

"Besides stealth field isn't that strong as you might suppose - you can't make non combat ships hidden, thus you disclose all your intensions."

But you could be either Telepatic, or just bombing the planets to pices.. No need to capture the planets at all in an 1v1..

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Overlord2
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Re: Ship speed

Postby Overlord2 » Wed Apr 29, 2009 10:55 am

I hink ships move to fast to erly in the game making it a cat and mouse hunt all dependent on luck.

Scenario:
t120: opponent establish an outpost taking up 3 planets in the same system close to several of your systems.Bringing alog 3BB and a few smaler ships.
You have 4BB and a few smaler ships, aprox an 50% stronger fleet.

But your opponent can reatch 3 of your systems in one turn, you have no idea wich one to protect.

t121: You choose to protect the wrong system, and your opponent destroys one of your planet in that system, and now to opponent once again can reach 3 different systems, or stay at the current one. Making it eaven harder to choose wich to protect.

Imo this is a major issue with the game as there is no real way to counter it this erly in the game, so insted of being an strategical game it becomes a pure coin toss game.

My solution on how to fix this is pretty simple, put all the engine techs higer up in the tree and move Jump Gate erlier in the tree, or have it avaible at start.

I dont see any real downside to this approatch at all, and it will make Trans Dimentional a more intresting pick (but hopefully not to powerfull).
I have several comments on your scenario:
First of all it is t120 it's quite easy to have Jump Gate tech researched by that time.
Second - the essence of moo strategy to meet enemy fleet in the right time and the right place. If you let your enemy reach the point where he can fork you at 3 different systems of yours you already made mistake. The rest will depend upon your luck and planetary defenses. Here planetary shields are of greatest importance since they protect planet from being bombed to zero sometimes.
On the other hand if you make ship engine techs higher, sooner or later it will be teched and situation will repeat: it will be possible when enemy reaches the point where he will be 1 turn away jump from several of your systems...Drives will be priority anyway and will be teched earlier than other things...if you go for something else first like armor and don't get drives you'll be outmanuevred even more easily and your planets get destroyed...even if you have jump gate, it won't help you. Enemy will have better ship initiative, faster missiles speed and higher beam defense due to better engines. So practically this idea is fail.
The only viable solution here is getting warp interdicors. BUT it has a fault it becomes too effective - you can't attack successfully, because by the time you reach your enemy, your fleet becomes obsolete.
In conclusion my advice is to rely more on planetary shields and good ground combat bonuses during planetary invasions.
Last edited by Overlord2 on Thu Apr 30, 2009 6:52 am, edited 4 times in total.

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rewster1
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Postby rewster1 » Wed Apr 29, 2009 10:55 am

The mod is so far fantastic... I haven't tried it multiplayer yet, but I have the house to myself on the 16th of May so I will then if not before. I've already found some quite interesting new strategies that would've never worked in vanilla moo 2. Definitely a lot of fun!

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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:14 am

"Besides stealth field isn't that strong as you might suppose - you can't make non combat ships hidden, thus you disclose all your intensions."

But you could be either Telepatic, or just bombing the planets to pices.. No need to capture the planets at all in an 1v1..
Telepathic from the beginning or mutated? If mutated it means game went long enough that other player could tech mutation too to get that omni counter...
After all if stealth means nothing it becomes useless, doesn't it?
Btw, outposts are disclosed as well, so telepathic doen't look panacea for the stealth field.

Lilltiger
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Postby Lilltiger » Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:49 am

Yes to get JumpGate by t120 isent hard, the reason to lower the cost to tech it was to make population migration less painfull erly in the game cos you wouldent have any good engines.

And if you would focus on engine tech when reserching hunting it then you would severly cripple your defensive power and offencive power meaning that your opponent could split up his fleet to defend and then retaliate and overrun you.

Sure in late game the situation will araise again, but by that time the game would probly already be over or you would have several fleets.

About that outpost argument, it's not viable as I would move my whole fleet together with the outposts and as I would move between the planets in 1turn you still wont know wich planet i will build my tripple outpost on and would have to guess wich brings us to the same issue again.

Have anyone eavent tried to see the result of this in game, bump up the engine teches 4steps or so in the tree.

Imo the warp iredicator does the wrong thing to address this issue, as it only limits the fligt to your planets and not between all planets. I favor the engine /jump gate solution that slow downs your travel to all but your own planets.
Last edited by Lilltiger on Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.


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