Difficult Choice Mod

Information, How-to's, and discussion about mod'ing Master of Orion II.
User avatar
siron
Posts:504
Joined:Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:35 pm
Location:Hamburg
Contact:
Difficult Choice Mod

Postby siron » Thu Sep 29, 2005 7:38 am

Finally, I finished the next version of this mod. You find all details here.

Mebbe this even interesting for some Singleplayers. The prodraces Sakkra, Silicoids and Klackons have sometimes quite impressive results on impossible (depends on bonus picks they get there). They were sometimes even ahead in the history graphs when they have +growth.

The ship design is slightly improved (because most junk is smaller now :P ) but still not good enough imho. But I will look into this. Actually, I have just figured out how ship design works for strat combat (I will add details later). When the phasing cloak, cloaking device is fixed in the next 1.4 patch I will include a strat combat mod...the AI will use these ship specials then.

Edit: Link updated.
Last edited by siron on Sat Oct 22, 2005 6:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
StepNRazor
Posts:70
Joined:Mon Aug 15, 2005 12:42 pm
Location:Tualatin, OR . U.S.
Contact:

Postby StepNRazor » Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:13 pm

A couple thoughts on tech tree.
Move V.R. Net to be with Astro U.
Move Reccyletron to be with Stock Exchange.
Mve posi comp to 1150 Comp Tech move Cyber link there also.
Move holo sim and Telepatchic traing to 650 Comp Tech.
Move Struct Analyzer to 3500 tech move Cyber Comp to 3500.
Put all droids in 2700 with autolabs.

I have a few other thoughts but need to work them out.

User avatar
siron
Posts:504
Joined:Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:35 pm
Location:Hamburg
Contact:

Postby siron » Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:32 pm

I agree that we generally still need a slowdown of the morale races.
Moving pl dome to a higher level was a first step but we see now that it is not enough.
Move V.R. Net to be with Astro U.
Move Reccyletron to be with Stock Exchange.
The combination of these both ideas looks fine to me. Mebbe the sociology field then for 1500?
Mve posi comp to 1150 Comp Tech move Cyber link there also.
This would harm crea races. (optronic comp already removed)
Move holo sim and Telepatchic traing to 650 Comp Tech.
This looks also like a nice idea to slow down a bit.
Move Struct Analyzer to 3500 tech move Cyber Comp to 3500.
I agree that SA is a too easy choice at moment. The SA-EMG techfield is actually an old idea from cybersaber. And I like it but we have the problem that teching is still far too easy in dc and any race get good comp too early. At moment I think that I first wanna see how the both slowdowns (vnet-recyc and holo later) work separately before I change this techfield. I think the fuel cell idea 6-8-10 (instead of current 5-7-9) could also be an option to prevent extreme tech races.
Put all droids in 2700 with autolabs.
When all droids are in the same field I would never take farmers or scientists. Therefore I changed this.

User avatar
StepNRazor
Posts:70
Joined:Mon Aug 15, 2005 12:42 pm
Location:Tualatin, OR . U.S.
Contact:

Postby StepNRazor » Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:47 pm

I think struct analyzer needs a tough choice next to it like cyber comp.
With mole and galactic net together tough choice.
Mole II and Achiels in last tech is good.
But there needs to be a choice opn posi comp.
I thought move it down to 650, but then uni could blitz to easy, and supers are to good like af and rlab so I thought move them up one.

So I had to propose a lot oif swaps to satisfy a move of struct analyzer.
the analyzer wouldn't hurt so bad if hvy or rhul could be used but ini is to important, and bpods also so these early decisions makes struct analyer deadly. Plasma cannon (hits 4 sides) and struct analyser is death incarnate! heeh

User avatar
Cabman
Posts:235
Joined:Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:58 pm
Location:Zabrze, Poland

Postby Cabman » Sat Oct 01, 2005 1:21 pm

Just finished first first dc mod game with PK. And my first impression is that with 50 % morale u tech (and build) much too fast. You just swallow the techs one by one. I think some morale techs (like v-net) should be available at higher level.... Other impressions... after more tests :D

User avatar
PK
Posts:88
Joined:Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:47 pm
Location:Poland
Contact:

Postby PK » Sat Oct 01, 2005 1:26 pm

I always liked dc mod b2 and b3 is also cool. However balance between prod and tech are seriously destroyed. Like Cabman said. Game is much to fast now. Ships are obsolete several turns after they were bulided. The lith should cost not 9 but atleast 11!
PK

User avatar
siron
Posts:504
Joined:Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:35 pm
Location:Hamburg
Contact:

Postby siron » Sat Oct 01, 2005 1:43 pm

I absolutely agree that teching is too easy.
However balance between prod and tech are seriously destroyed.
But I cant see that I have destroyed this balance since it never existed. Or how often have u played a demo techrace in a ladder without bans? :roll:

In a nowh game (4way or 1v1) uni seems to be weak now. (not sure about wh games not tested)
The lith should cost not 9 but atleast 11!
I thought about lith more expensive again. I dont like this idea at moment cause I dont wanna destroy the lith tol race.

But mebbe it is necessary (even with all these cheap food techs).

Cab and PK: I would like to see your feedback with respect to Steps proposals (about slowing down, field for Vnet etc.).

User avatar
PK
Posts:88
Joined:Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:47 pm
Location:Poland
Contact:

Postby PK » Sun Oct 02, 2005 3:35 am

I looked on problem of balance from different angle. I didnt mean balance between original different races. As u probably know I play games where many bans take place. Often races which enemies use are very simmilar (b21). These empires builds, techs in quite reasonable way. I mean the balance betweend the prod and tech of the race itself is not kept.

1.31 uni race:
abnt planet: 3
autofacts: 1
robos: 3
atmos: 88% prod
race: 0 or 1 or 2
uni: x1.5
3+1+3+1/2= 8 or 9 x 1.5= 12/13.5 x 20 man x 0.88=211/237 prod

non arti:3
rlabs:1
supers:3
race: 0 or , 1 or 2
uni: 1.0
3+1+3+1/2= 7/8/9 x 20 man=140/160/180 tech.

Now its cool to build and techs goes by normally.

If u add here a b3 tech race with +50% tech = 210/240/270 rp.

Now these values seems to be the balanced ones but to have some action in game and ships which arent obsolete few turns after they were built the PROD MUST RULE :)

Values are the same like with prod but since early food is a problem when non lith races play and lack of +50% prod bonus gives a real slowdown its not so cool to expand anymore.
If u add a cheap lith its just PAYS to tech not to build.

Of course u can say I can pick two unis in dc mod and play. But i always felt dc mod was not designed to play uni but some other cool stuff with morale etc. I play my uni on normal 1.31 and most guys play dict on dc mod just as me.

I propose to kill early supers and bring robos into better position. Make tol not 11! but 10, uni 8 if u dont like unitolprod and lith 11.
PK

User avatar
Cabman
Posts:235
Joined:Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:58 pm
Location:Zabrze, Poland

Postby Cabman » Sun Oct 02, 2005 5:37 am

I played uni aqua with +20 gc against PK. I was going for a kind of blitz with shuttles. I must say one thing: in dc mod UNI SUXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!
I played it for the last ime :D
About tol and lith: i think it would be ok if both costed 10 points. I always take lith and never lost a game playing it.

User avatar
siron
Posts:504
Joined:Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:35 pm
Location:Hamburg
Contact:

Postby siron » Mon Oct 10, 2005 6:26 am

"Now these values seems to be the balanced ones but to have some action in game and ships which arent obsolete few turns after they were built the PROD MUST RULE"
I don't think that the comparison of RPs and PPs helps much to illustrate the problem. It is fuzzy to compare them (seems you are aware of this) since it isn’t easy at all to derive an "exchange rate". The nominal values itself are meaningless because the utility of RPs depends on several factors like the tech tree (especially the placement of the economical key technologies there) etc.

Therefore I prefer to look at the techs directly. Even when I dislike to look at these nominal “RP-numbers” I agree (already stated here in the thread) that a slowdown of the exponential growth would be fine.
“... and bring robos into better position.”
The idea of these expensive robos was taken from db. I liked it because in regular moo you just need robos and monsters and further prod tech is uninteresting in most games and the whole construction path is almost unused. Further, we have in regular moo just 2 early prodtechs (afacts and robos) and both strengthen uni because of the multiplier effect. But I agree that robos at 1150RPs seems to be too expensive and it hurts uni too much at moment. I don’t wanna give up the idea of expensive robos completely...but robos at 900 RPs might be better.

Additionally, I am unhappy with the recyclotron. It’s true that this tech isn’t that effective like robos to produce a bb-fleet on monster planets. But this tech gives u decent prod on tech planets. There is no trade-off between teching and prod at moment...cause recyclotrons give you enough prod to build a decent high-tech fleet on such planets...when necessary. When I move these prod techs there might be also further options for rhull and hvarmor then. At the moment I prefer sth like this for the next version:

Construction Path :
250: Battlepods, Rhull, Missile Base, Fighter Bays
400: Battlestation, HvArmor, Robotic Factory, Powered Armor (mebbe too)
650: Assault Shuttle, Bomber Bays
900: Robominers, Art. Planet Constr.
1150: Recyclotron, Stock Exchange

But this is just brainstorming.
“I propose to kill early supers...”
I prefer to kill early vnet. (See Steps proposal, also Cabman thinks that 30/20 percent morale for dict/demo should be enuff IIRC – but I am not sure about the right field for vnet at moment, mebbe simply back to gal. Cybernet, i.e. de facto removing it) Also the cheap sociology path is now too attractive. I think it should have the old RP-costs after the spaceports field.

These steps should be a significant slowdown. We will see if it is enuff.
“Make tol not 11! but 10, uni 8 if u dont like unitolprod and lith 11.”
I looked into the lith-thingi a bit recently. In regular moo Lith is the most attractive pick to solve the food-problem for a non-uni race. So it seems counterintuitive that Lith is just 9 in dc. I agree that especially a techrace has to solve the food-problem but there are alternatives in dc.
For example you can replace lith with aqua 2food and large hw (this alternative costs 13 picks in regular moo). I tested some maps with dict sub lith +growth art hw (which was used in several dc games recently) and replaced the lith pick there with this alternative. I have to say that this alternative worked quite well for this race on the maps I tested. At turn 70 the lith was still some turns ahead in tech but because of the large wet art hw the aqua race was closing the gap. So it depends here on wets/natives near hw.
When we talk about the food issue it seems to me that lith is not the dominant problem. One could argue that it is a bit boring that u have to start with at least 4food per farmer (or better 5) but actually we have almost the same problem in regular moo (with the big exception uni tol because of its amazing prod). I agree that it would be nice that races with less food should work and a more expensive lith pick could accomplish this BUT only in combination with more expensive food picks. I think food1 for 3 and food2 for 5 picks might be a good idea.
“About tol and lith: i think it would be ok if both costed 10 points.”
I agree, we could try the following:

Tol 10
Lith 10
Food1 3
Food2 5
Uni 8 (PKs idea to avoid uni tol prod)
Rich hw again 2 (to compensate the Uni increase)

(At moment I try to figure out to increase the negative picks. I have disabled it already...but no clue what I changed actually :) When I finally get it subtler pick costs of 2.5, 3.5 etc. should be possible when we double negative and positive picks.)

User avatar
PK
Posts:88
Joined:Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:47 pm
Location:Poland
Contact:

Postby PK » Mon Oct 10, 2005 7:50 am

Peoples in their expansion ways tends to get all good economy techs before they build war ships and have war techs. Removing vnet will lower the production and technology as well but balance between prod and tech will not be achivied. It will still be cooler to tech then to produce. Placing supers with holosims or vnet would be much more fair to creative race and fair to balance of game. Lith problem is like unitolprod problem now. Even if you try to replace it with aqa 2 food it wont be as powerfull as pure lith I think. Playing with combo of 2 food aqa or lith can be boring like old unitol.
PK

User avatar
siron
Posts:504
Joined:Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:35 pm
Location:Hamburg
Contact:

Postby siron » Sat Oct 22, 2005 4:36 am

I updated the mod a few days ago.

Here are the major changes:

RACEPICKS
Cab's proposal of lith and tolerant both for 10picks
combined with PK's idea to avoid uni tol prod with uni=8

To compensate the uni increase I decreased rich hw back to 2. (Actually I think that the right value is somewhere between 2 and 3 especially when we play the planets=4 switch)
Food to 3 and 5 picks. (Because of uni increase and races which start with less than 4food per farmer are slightly improved)

MAJOR CHANGES in TECHTREE
Swapped NeuralScanners with Psionics. (slowing down dict a bit. psionics-weather controller decision might favor lith now but alex and me are thinking that
Early hydros in ConstructionPath should overcompensate this.)

Sociology has old costs. (Early federation/astrouni was too attractive)

Holo Sim for 650 now (Step's proposal) and also his idea to move
Recyclotron to the StockExchange field (but this field is now at 1500)
RoboMiners are a field earlier now (I agreed with PK here. I also included his idea:
VNET and Supercomps in same field (have not made play testing if this helps crea too much. But so he can ban supercomps and compensate with morale. I didnt want to remove early supercomps, since they are essential for uni races.)

Fuel Cells have now 6-8-10-12 parsecs range

Planetsizes:
Tiny and small planets are now slightly larger. Basic Gaia size for tiny and small are 5 and 10 in regular moo. In this mod they are 6 and 12. See this post for details how the max pop values for other environments are calculated.

UltraRich planets:
UltraRich planets have now a basic prod of 7 per worker instead of the previous 8. The Planetsize and UR adjustments are moderate attempts for more balanced maps.

------------------------------------------------------------
Peoples in their expansion ways tends to get all good economy techs before they build war ships and have war techs.
Now we have to define whats a "good" economy tech. In previous DC versions anyone took recyclotron cause it was on the path to the essential robos. In regular moo almost noone takes recyclotrons. Why? Obviously, it depends on the ratio of the recyclotrons RP-costs to the empire RP-output if early recyclotrons are useful. Even though some techraces (in regular moo) can reach some uber techs before t100, they rarely do so because the opportunity costs (no wartech) are too high.
Removing vnet will lower the production and technology as well but balance between prod and tech will not be achivied. It will still be cooler to tech then to produce.
I stated above that the ratio of RPs to PPs is in itself meaningless. You just ignore it and add your hypothesis again as argument. And when u observe that by adding morale this ratio is unaffected you should realize that the mod has never changed this ratio in favor to RP. (Early Recyclotron has actually the opposite effect. Astro uni and morale are neutral) The ratio of the empire RP-output to the RP-Costs of the economical key techs is a far more important ratio. And that is what I try to accommodate.

User avatar
PK
Posts:88
Joined:Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:47 pm
Location:Poland
Contact:

Postby PK » Sat Oct 22, 2005 6:29 am

Thx for adding my proposals. Only one thing bothers me now:
Fuel Cells have now 6-8-10-12 parsecs range

Standart fuel tanks with range of 6(9) are much to good! I did 5 in my last mod and played with Cabman. We both had feeling that 4 is ok and 5 is huge. 5 allows to strike fast in around T80-90. And 6 would allow to do blitzes even faster and cheaper! Plz do some tests and rethink if 6 is not too high value. Thx!

Correction: Cab just told me u count from deuterium not standard fuels. My mistake.
PK

donm61873
Posts:6
Joined:Fri Oct 07, 2005 8:58 am
Location:St. Joseph, IL - USA

Postby donm61873 » Fri Jan 27, 2006 1:03 am

Is the mod going to be rebuilt on top of 1.40b22?

User avatar
siron
Posts:504
Joined:Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:35 pm
Location:Hamburg
Contact:

Postby siron » Fri Jan 27, 2006 5:27 am

Yes, there will be an update in the next weeks.

I am also curious if the nohousing switch can improve the AI significantly there. (AI races have better racepicks in the mod.)


Return to “Game Modifications”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 32 guests