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

[Overlord2]

If I can fit a 200 size Stasis field on a cruiser then I can easily fit a 250 stellar on a battleship (two in fact if I strip most of the specials)... It may be the 4000 damage it now does that caused me to mention it. Damage to cost and sizes ratio are high.

Two things to comment on. First about the space: - first of all 250 points for stellar is a high level of miniature. You will need to pass 25k, 30k, 35k and 40k of hyperadvanced techs. Usually games do not last that long since there are weapons, which could be used before to resolve the stalemate situation, if any. Besides stellar could be used earlier on higher hulls like Titan and Doomstar, which is substantial addition to overall firepower. Another thing with placing stellar on battleships is that it limits number of other specials you could put on the same ship due to lack of space. In result you get poorly defended BBs, which can be easily blown by faster ships.
Second point about the damage/space ratio:
a) Stellar has a little shortcoming - it does enveloping damage, consequently you will have to do 2 shots vs class 26 shielded BBs with multiphased shields.
b) many other weapons have same or almost same damage/space ratio and can be used earlier than you get such a high miniaturization for stellar. For example: spatial compressors, disruptor cannon, particle beam, plasma torps, not speaking of other special weapons like assault shuttles or emg rockets, which have utmost ratio, if they can strike (in case of assualt shuttles - overwhelming ground combat advantage).
So stellar is by no means the best weapons in the game. With this regard many players consider spatial compressors to be the best since it completely ignores any defense specials.

PS Is there any particular feedback that you would find useful?

I am working to improve VDC further, including singleplayer, so any bug discoveries or finding/reporting shortcomings of the game or things that you'd like to see is very useful.

[Mormegil]

Hi guys!

Yesterday I tried to survive antarans attacks with the next race pick:
Aquatic +9
High Gravity +4
Totalitarism +0
Artifact Homeword +4
+2 Food +7
+1 Production +6
+80% Growth +6
Large HW +2
Charismatic +2
Fantastic Traders +1
Lucky +1

-0.5 BC -11
(maybe I was wrong with some of picks costs - sorry )

I started in Normal size Galaxy, 6 players, monsters/events/antarans is ON, Normal difficulty, Average tech lvl.

so my
1. Homeworld was large abundant ocean - specialized as research center.

Initial location was pretty good: I was able to colonize
2. Rich Large Swamp (specialized as production center - 50-70 points/turn by 85 turn)
3. Abundant Large Tundra
4. Poor Large Terrain (same star system as 3. tundra)

On turn 60-70 I employed great research leader - +45% research and +22 reseach per turn - attached to homeworld. Homeworld's research output was about 120-160 points/turn.

by turn 85, when antaran usually arrives, techs were
Research Labs -> Fighter Garrison -> Auto Factories -> Deuterium Fual Cells -> Pollution Processor -> Mass Driver -> Fusion Drive -> Heavy Armor -> Internal Stabilizer -> Biospheres -> telepatic training -> Cloning Center -> Soil Enrichment -> Missile Base ->

I was able to defend aganist 1-4 invading antaran scouts on my main colonies above, using Fighter Garrison + Missile Bases + Star Bases. But my new-founded colony with only fighter garrison was destroyed by single scout, which just flew to planet and drop some bomb presents So possible single fighter garrison (interceptors with Mass Drivers) is uneffective vs any invading antaran fleet.

On turn 100-105 my main production center (?2) was attacked by 2 antaran destroyers.
my missile base + FG + Star Base + single defensive cruiser were destroyed without any casualties from antaran side.

5 turns later another antaran fleet attacked my ?3 tundra. Same defense + radiation shield on a planet vs antaran 1 destroyer + 3-4 scouts. I was able to explode only destroyer :/ Dubious consolation for kiiled planet population

Maybe I failed in research sequence?

Do antarans attack absolutely random colonized planet in galaxy?

Do you turn ON antarans attacks during MP games? It seems like antarans can randomly attack only one player, in this way another one gets handicap.


Thank you.

[Overlord2]

Yesterday I tried to survive antarans attacks with the next race pick:
Aquatic +9
High Gravity +4
Totalitarism +0
Artifact Homeword +4
+2 Food +7
+1 Production +6
+80% Growth +6
Large HW +2
Charismatic +2
Fantastic Traders +1
Lucky +1

-0.5 BC -11
(maybe I was wrong with some of picks costs - sorry Smile)

This race isn't good, especially the cash negative. Check the last sheet of the .xls file which is supplied with the mod. There are many good race examples given. Also you can evaluate the race strength by the "eco weights" of the picks.

On turn 60-70 I employed great research leader - +45% research and +22 reseach per turn - attached to homeworld. Homeworld's research output was about 120-160 points/turn.

Hmm, You got Mentox at 70s? Though if you played 8 player game this is possible.

by turn 85, when antaran usually arrives, techs were
Research Labs -> Fighter Garrison -> Auto Factories -> Deuterium Fual Cells -> Pollution Processor -> Mass Driver -> Fusion Drive -> Heavy Armor -> Internal Stabilizer -> Biospheres -> telepatic training -> Cloning Center -> Soil Enrichment -> Missile Base ->

Your race is weak and tech path is wrong too. Don't need war techs early, got to get supercomputers (after clones) by turn 70-75.

I was able to defend aganist 1-4 invading antaran scouts on my main colonies above, using Fighter Garrison + Missile Bases + Star Bases. But my new-founded colony with only fighter garrison was destroyed by single scout, which just flew to planet and drop some bomb presents So possible single fighter garrison (interceptors with Mass Drivers) is uneffective vs any invading antaran fleet.

With such a low armor no suprise. Most likely you didn't have rad shield either. In such cases it's recomended to get couple of runners to distract the fire or allow interceptors fire more number of turns after the garrison building was brought down.

On turn 100-105 my main production center (?2) was attacked by 2 antaran destroyers.
my missile base + FG + Star Base + single defensive cruiser were destroyed without any casualties from antaran side.

Here it looks you carried out fight wrong. Your forces should have beaten the antaran attack force. Should have split the missiles between two ships, then they wouldn't be able to drop the bombs or approach the starbase for raid.

Maybe I failed in research sequence?

definitely, your research sequence wasn't optimal.

Do antarans attack absolutely random colonized planet in galaxy?

No, there is some algorythm based on which it chooses the target. First of all it attacks the player who got max population from all.

Do you turn ON antarans attacks during MP games? It seems like antarans can randomly attack only one player, in this way another one gets handicap.

No we don't play with ants on. Neither we include AI in our games. Most games are carried out 1v1 without any AI.

May I ask what difficulty you were playing?

[Catalyst_Kh]

Hi guys!
Maybe I failed in research sequence?

The showed research sequence was not optimal. I don't sure what are you asking exactly. Do you want to see a direct solutions how to beat Antarans? Or do you want only to see some vague guidelines and then to find the ways by yourself? If the last one, then the following may enlighten you: one of main factors here is a finished cycle. You need to pick a game turn, after which (rudely saying) you have to switch to war techs only and to building fleet. Before that turn you have to spend all your research in the direction of the most speed up of your race development, and at the same time invest all your production into expansion and pop growth. Depending at your race and the length of the first cycle the best research sequence may be different. In case of MP it may be tricky to "guess" the right turn, but in SP with idea to beat Antarans you can pick it very easily, because you know the right turns and which ships will come. The longer the first cycle is the better, that is why you should hold as long as possible with MB, FG and small chips ships. Starbases are close to useless early on (against Antarans), so don't invest in those early. There are also many ways (and tricks) to speed up your development. The one of those is to sell your home world star base at the turn 0, and sell academy at turn 1. Other ways you should "invent" yourself, or it will not be interesting.

Yesterday I tried to survive antarans attacks with the next race pick:
Aquatic +9
High Gravity +4
Totalitarism +0
Artifact Homeword +4
+2 Food +7
+1 Production +6
+80% Growth +6
Large HW +2
Charismatic +2
Fantastic Traders +1
Lucky +1
-0.5 BC -11
(maybe I was wrong with some of picks costs - sorry )

For singleplayer any race is okay. But of course this concrete race is much weaker in compare to best ones. What Irakly said about ECO points regardes to MP games race strength, but for SP games this point system is a little different, so you may play with races, that are not "best" with standard point system, but this races will still be best for you, regarding your goal to overcome Antarans. Once again, to not spoil your excitement of finding the strong race picks combinations yourself, want only suggest to you, that all race picks should benefit from each other, multiplying it's strength directly or indirectly, they should not be "separated". And of course they also shouldn't ruin each other, like your -0.5 BC is totally ruins +2 food and fantastic traders idea. Also you need to look for timing issue. Most strong MP races are either aimed for fast blitz attacks, either aimed for long term massive development or expansion. Any blitzing, or even semiblitzing race picks combinations are obviously not fit for the goal of overcoming Antarans.

And besides all that, you also need to have some tactical ideas, how do you want to beat invading forces, there are more than one way of course, so think about that too. Good luck to you.

[Overlord2]

What Irakly said about ECO points regardes to MP games race strength, but for SP games this point system is a little different, so you may play with races, that are not "best" with standard point system, but this races will still be best for you, regarding your goal to overcome Antarans. Once again, to not spoil your excitement of finding the strong race picks combinations yourself, want only suggest to you, that all race picks should benefit from each other, multiplying it's strength directly or indirectly, they should not be "separated". And of course they also shouldn't ruin each other, like your -0.5 BC is totally ruins +2 food and fantastic traders idea. Also you need to look for timing issue. Most strong MP races are either aimed for fast blitz attacks, either aimed for long term massive development or expansion. Any blitzing, or even semiblitzing race picks combinations are obviously not fit for the goal of overcoming Antarans.

In AI games repulsive a little handicap, since it prevents to make trade agreements or exchange techs, so should be weighted higher. Also defense skill could get higher weight, becasue AI doesn't utilize bombers properly. Otherwsie all skills are fairly weighted.
About combining -cash with fasntastic trader. It's not completely senseless decision. Fantastic trader gives higher cash income than loss by taxes. But this particular race is bad for food trading, because it doesn't give enough food output. Consequently losing cash income from taxes hits it badly.
As a food trading race one could try uni aqua +60 pop +2 food rich hw fasntastic trader, or uni aqua +60 pop +1 food large rich hw charismatic fantastic trader. For MP this race is still slow, but at least keeps consistency with the underlying idea.

[Mormegil]

May I ask what difficulty you were playing?

I played on Normal difficulty.


Finally I found that any of my tactics were unsuccessful defending against antarans - I think I'm missing something important in gameplay. Now I'm playing without them on Normal - I need more experience

[Overlord2]

May I ask what difficulty you were playing?

I played on Normal difficulty.

I see. Thanks for reporting.

Finally I found that any of my tactics were unsuccessful defending against antarans - I think I'm missing something important in gameplay. Now I'm playing without them on Normal - I need more experience

Practice helps. Try the standard tech path, which works with wide set of races:
hydro farms/f. garrison - auto factory - research lab - biosphere - telepathic training - cloning centres - soil enrichment/microbiotics - holo simulator/else in case of uni - supercomputers - robotic factory - deuterium cells - fusion drives - psionics in case of dict or demo/uni can try smth else - pollution processor - missile base - robo miner plant - then based on situation and other plans.

[Catalyst_Kh]

In AI games repulsive a little handicap, since it prevents to make trade agreements or exchange techs, so should be weighted higher. Also defense skill could get higher weight, becasue AI doesn't utilize bombers properly. Otherwise all skills are fairly weighted.

AI compensates bombers absence by gyro destabilizers, so it is a very minor issue in compare to two main AI defects. Also, spying eco points are different with AI, because AI can't benefit from better spying at player and have far less good things to steal from him. In addition, every race pick, which slows down race development speed early on, but doesn't hurt in middle game - also is much less a problem with AI and virtually doesn't have so many negative points, as in MP. Plus, due to bad tactics, attack bonus is far less valuable against AI, than against real player.

About combining -cash with fasntastic trader. It's not completely senseless decision.

Of course it is not, and, for example, taking +spying with demo is also reasonable, to compensate an unavoidable demo drawback. But it is not reasonable to create a drawback manually and then compensate it. Plus, extra money really works well, but only "getting wasted money back" doesn't, simple taxes will do the job better, without wasting picks for food and trading. And only fantastic traders without any food will be good on itself, if you mean trading with AI.

As a food trading race one could try uni aqua +60 pop +2 food rich hw fasntastic trader, or uni aqua +60 pop +1 food large rich hw charismatic fantastic trader.

Eventually he would figure that out himself, why spoil all the fun by revealing all "secrets"? Once a player gets familiar with game math, it is quite impossible to miss, that uni gives the most food for the lower pick cost at the same time.

[Semmelbaecker]

I know this is a strategy/tactics question, but since its for your mod..

Try the standard tech path, which works with wide set of races:
hydro farms/f. garrison - auto factory - research lab - biosphere - telepathic training - cloning centres - soil enrichment/microbiotics - holo simulator/else in case of uni - supercomputers - robotic factory - deuterium cells - fusion drives - psionics in case of dict or demo/uni can try smth else - pollution processor - missile base - robo miner plant - then based on situation and other plans.

Thats an interesting tech path for several reasons.
1. auto factory before resarch lab? It seems odd to me. Research lab is always the first I tech because it makes everything else faster. Does autofactory so much so that you can stall your research for so long? You have to tech 380-570 (f.garrision + roboF + Research Labs) research points instead of 150-225 (only research labs). This is more than double and given the flat bonus of 5 research points per lab, this is huge especially in the beginning.

2. can you get away without supercomputer, even as non-uni race? i found that one of the most most important technologies. I get it right away after cloning centre.

3. Are robo factory worth it? I find heavy armor to be better. Also I never research the pollution processor because of the merculit missiles. Also robo factories gives you almost no benefit that early because the pollution eats away your production to a large extend anyway.

All in all, this is significantly different and one prolem that I always seem to face is, that I am 10 turns short in getting military ships out. So around turn 100, this is pretty rough because I need to face the first attacks.

My tech path for uni+sub+richHW race is:
research labs, f.garrision, auto factory, biospheres, telepathy, cloning, neural, supercomputer, deuterium (maybe earlier, if no good planets are nearby), merkulit, atmospheric, zortrium, spaceport, havy armor, missile base, robo miners, soilenrichment..

Due to merkulit/zortrium, this is pretty save if you can get out your first warship before you get attacked and you dont need compters for beams, you dont need drives becase you can take the first hit and retreat after throwing missiles and you dont need PD because you dont get hit by any projectile anyway.

Why does one of the most experienced players I know has such a large difference in tech path? What do I miss?

[Catalyst_Kh]

Thats an interesting tech path for several reasons.
1. auto factory before resarch lab? It seems odd to me. Research lab is always the first I tech because it makes everything else faster. Does autofactory so much so that you can stall your research for so long? You have to tech 380-570 (f.garrision + roboF + Research Labs) research points instead of 150-225 (only research labs). This is more than double and given the flat bonus of 5 research points per lab, this is huge especially in the beginning.

This math is incorrect. Try to find the mistakes yourself, it might be very interesting pastime, to do that.

2. can you get away without supercomputer, even as non-uni race? i found that one of the most most important technologies. I get it right away after cloning centre.

The question seems very odd. Why exactly “even as non-uni”? Uni race have the least reasons to miss supers, because uni can't use +20% morale. And you may get better computers at cybertronics, so, why cripple your race so much by missing supers? In some specific cases, when situation favors, a non-uni race may take +20% morale to boost both tech and production (both for 25-30%, if not lith), and/or with the idea to steal supers from somebody with spys. But that is very questionable choice anyway.

3. Are robo factory worth it?

Yes.

I find heavy armor to be better.

But that is the standard tactical vs strategical tech tradeoff. There are very many tradeoffs like that all over the game, not only in tech tree. And that makes a game much more interesting. It is very difficult choice mod after all, so it is supposed to be very hard to make a choice in many places.

Also I never research the pollution processor because of the merculit missiles. Also robo factories gives you almost no benefit that early because the pollution eats away your production to a large extend anyway.

That is incorrect. Factories can give a huge pop housing, can free many pop from production for non-prod races, can give prod boost without any pollution for tolerant races. But heavy armor also good, so choose what you like more, or what you can use better with your strategy.

All in all, this is significantly different and one problem that I always seem to face is, that I am 10 turns short in getting military ships out. So around turn 100, this is pretty rough because I need to face the first attacks.

With best races and best development lines you may have some good stuffed fleet already at move 80, and much better fleet after move 100 (if you skip early war techs). So, seek the ways, that is the essence of singleplayer gameplay.

My tech path for uni+sub+richHW race is:
research labs, f.garrision, auto factory, biospheres, telepathy, cloning, neural, supercomputer, deuterium (maybe earlier, if no good planets are nearby), merkulit, atmospheric, zortrium, spaceport, havy armor, missile base, robo miners, soilenrichment..

This is a good path, but could be farther improved.

Why does one of the most experienced players I know has such a large difference in tech path? What do I miss?

Different races have different paths. Besides, galaxy size affects this path as well. Also, different goals makes even more different paths, because someone plays with 4 planets rule, someone with 100 or 115 turns rule, someone plays blitzing, someone plays for overexpand, someone plays for maximum speed of conquering all galaxy before first Antarans ship comes. And someone plays to overcome Antarans invaders.

[angra]

About research lab vs auto factory. Researching some building is not enough, you need to actually produce it. So if you want to test which of this pathes is better for particular race you should check at what turn you will have both buildings produced in homeworld. Even better would be to check at what turn you will have second colony with auto factory completed.
Merculite rockets are good but advanced nuclear rockets could be even better and for them only tech level matters. It worth to choose pollution processor if you do not plan to advance in chemistry after this level in near future.

[Catalyst_Kh]

About research lab vs auto factory. Researching some building is not enough, you need to actually produce it. So if you want to test which of this pathes is better for particular race you should check at what turn you will have both buildings produced in homeworld. Even better would be to check at what turn you will have second colony with auto factory completed.

Besides that it is also important to compare population at that point, because if AF taken first, then it could house a lot of pop to the comparison point. And that extra pop can easly regain "delayed research", because RL wasn't taken first.

But once again, depending on race, RL first could be better/faster, or AF could be.

[Overlord2]

Hey Catalyst, you remind me one person I used to know before...the way of thinking gives it up

Comments to the questions asked above:
1. Autofactory vs research lab. First of all one shouldn't miss hydrofarms issue. The races, which produce 3 or less food per farmer, should go straight for hydrofarms.
Low prod races should go autofactory first because they don't build well. Prod races can go research lab first, but autofactory first isn't bad either. It allows better housing and also start builiding colony ships faster. Also another point which angra mentioned is that building labs after autofactories had already been built makes it much easier.

2. Supercomputers vs VRN. Dict +2 research races or demo +1 research races can and I'd say should get VRN. Sometimes dict +1 resarch race can opt for VRN.

3. Robotic factory vs heavy armor. Low prod races need extra production facilities, while prod races can do without robotic factory, it helps the housing, which in many cases is important for them.
Heavy armor is good, but there are many other defensive specials, which can compensate... like jammers, lightning field...but if you run into an offense race, which utilizes mass drivers then you are in trouble

4. Merculite missiles vs pollution processor. Mercs are good, but atmos comes comparatively late, thus you stay without pollution cleaning longer. And second point is the cost of the building. While atmos is better it costs 150 BC, while pollution processor only 80 BC. Cheaper building allows new planets to be more effective faster. And third point, mercs make sense when you don't plan armor higher than zort. For rush games mercs might be good decision.

[Catalyst_Kh]

If your nickname was the same, then it was not me, but if you had another one, who knows...

[Overlord2]

There was a player/modder from Ukraine, his name was c'g, you speak very much like him