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

[Darza]

Well, actually freerolling of AI in vdc its rather the same as in vanilla, exept each combat last longer. I never tried small, but if you surely can win huge prewarp 7 ai impossible at t100, whats rather easy to prove, than i guess 70 for small is already overkill. Extra racial picks for ai work for you in this case, coz unlike vanilla, where only 2 races can stabilly build theyr first CS on prewarp before you build your battleship, thus hurting your chance for contact and extending your range later, in vdc ai spread fast, unable to defend still, and also every race give you a decent quality pop, thus speeding your later development, while in vanilla you have to manage some weak races like gnolams, mrasshans etc, which have useless pop and no development at all, no new colonies, thus no huge boost in range.

And by proposing to join irc im not trying to drag you into playing multiplayer, its just much more suitable way to discuss stuff, its doesnt mean you should be there 24\7, but if you have time to post here, you could also join there, meant only that.

[Catalyst_Kh]

Not prewrap, standart average setup with free colony ship for each, postwrap or advanced maybe too, didn't tried that. Prewrap is too easy exactly like you said.

I don't see the way of complete freerolling at average startup in small with 7 AI. You need some tech and some fleet, so it takes some time, and when you attack anyone you surely got attacked behind from the other AI, or two. And once AIs landed their 7 colony ships they are tend to build fleet instead of wasting time for building more CSs, as normally they do, because there are not much systems left and too many contacts already. Of course it is possible to win fast enough in multiple ways, but once i didn't won it from first attempt (due to Antarans), i see this generally challenging, especially if you start in the center. And I still don't see how all AI could be owned so fast, as you described. Offer an example.

Of course in huge galaxy it is very easy because of no contact, been in small galaxy is the point - you will be always backstabbed immediately after you went for someone, that is additional fun problem to overcome, which once again takes some time.

And by proposing to join irc im not trying to drag you into playing multiplayer, its just much more suitable way to discuss stuff, its doesnt mean you should be there 24\7, but if you have time to post here, you could also join there, meant only that.

Thank you for invitation, I will join soon. For now I am making posts by pieces, saving pieces in parts before posting, plus some rephrasing and editing often needed, I am not too fluent with english yet. And I am not at the computer all the time, so reading long irc logs and trying to reconstruct the dialog is too inconvenient atm, I already learned that.

[Darza]

Oh, prewarp was for maximum difficulty, ofc its much more faster from average, coz it cut the turns when you research needed stuff, and let you just starting to kill faster, also meaning what every AI's have a colonyship already, so easier to reach them. And also small means no investment in deut cells, so its even more faster to launch an attack

Well, about half of irc population is russian speakers, so no language barrier towarisch.

[Catalyst_Kh]

In Irakly's VDC now small galaxy is stretched to medium size, so fuel will be needed sometimes, but that is minor question. The main is that once you are slowed down by researching needed stuff in prewrap, AI is tripple times more slowed down by his bad algorithm, so in this particular case prewrap is too easy. Making fast win in average small at least demands some insight and knowing tactics, which is not true for prewrap, where winning line is more routine.

[Catalyst_Kh]

...if it were possible somehow to find the AI's building order in game code and at least change all his CSs at colony bases, that alone would make a new interest for singleplayer for many people, and maybe pre wrap will be a good challenge then.

[angra]

It is very easy to survive in “some other” games. But if you claim that you want(like?) a real challenge, then why you are avoiding it?

Do not project your thoughts and interests on me, please. I'm looking for interesting gameplay not for pure challenge. If I needed only challenge then I could create stupid race and skip some dozens turns doing nothing and there will be hard game without any antarans. Strong antarans attacks are good for game atmosphere, they are supposed to be main enemy in singleplayer. If you do not understand this, please, return to your multiplayer games with real challenge. AFAIR antarans are almost always disabled in multiplayer anyway so what are you caring about?

There is no luck factor here, all that is completely in your hands. How much Antarans will attack your and how much AI opponents, it is all managable by your play.

Yes, save/load and you can get any number from RNG, all in your hands. It is only real way to manage number of attacks on you. But you know, I do not like this way.

If you think so, why you are not using them “as a shield” then?

What makes you think that I do not do this? I always play with maximum number of AI. I can suppose that reducing number of opponents will make game harder especially in case of strong antarans attack but I never bothered to test this.

I just told you in previous post, what would be enough, have you enough creativity to beat that?

Already did this before and it is not hard for anybody. I will even do some math for you. At 70th turn all AI will have two colonies in average. Even if player have only starting colony then there will be 15 colonies total. There were only 10 antarans attacks in 43b. So 5 colonies will survive antarans attacks in any case. Using a bit of combinatoric we get that chance for human colony to survive is 1/3. So in one third of games player survives antarans wave without any additional efforts. You still think that you provided challenge?
Looks like you completely missed main ideas. I will repeat it again: "it was quite possible and not too hard or frustrating to beat antarans even in .43b. There is no need to make them even weaker just because of one lost game". It was not "I'm so cool that I can beat antarans in .43b". Do you see difference? Forget about you obsession in challenge for a moment and read what I'm actually trying to say, not what you want to see in my words.

Never played advanced setup before, but looks too harsh.

Made quick test in small galaxy. There were about 30 attacks total with last one around 120th turn. Most fleets consisted of destroyers or battleships, there were few fleets with titans and one with doomstar. Interesting moment - all fleets after doomstar were like starting ones(3-5 destroyers) though maybe it is just coincidence. One attack every 3 turns looks scaring at first glance but actually is not so hard as AI colonization speed is fast enough to compensate. Only one AI was destroyed, one deadly damaged and one never lost his main colonies. If player is supposed to win a game then he should be better than AI anyway so he can loose only because of very bad luck.

[Catalyst_Kh]

Now i got your point Angra, sorry for misunderstanding and peculiar humor. I don't argue that i can't win Antarans or anything like that, i was arguing only to this point: Antarans assault fleet should be beatable with your own defense (fleet or stationary). Not only outruned by making new planets faster than Antarans are wiping out existing ones. Because i don't see how for average casual player it is interesting to lose his planets each several turns. Of course i can conquer all AI during losing planets, but still i can't hold Antarans ongoing attacks with my fleet for a long time after that, can you? You only can go and kill their home planet, but this you can do regardless of Antarans attacking force tweaks. If you like Antarans to play dominant role as planet wipers you can have i either way, will they be little calmed or not, but other players will gain a "new" option of defending their systems. That is why i didn't saw any logic of your suggestion of letting Antarans doomstars starting attacks from 60-80 moves.

[Catalyst_Kh]

There is no luck factor here, all that is completely in your hands. How much Antarans will attack your and how much AI opponents, it is all managable by your play.

Yes, save/load and you can get any number from RNG, all in your hands. It is only real way to manage number of attacks on you. But you know, I do not like this way.

It could be done without any single save/loads ever. Did i really appeared so dumb to you, that you putted me on this idea? Of course i don't like save/loading as well.

[Catalyst_Kh]

I will even do some math for you. At 70th turn all AI will have two colonies in average. Even if player have only starting colony then there will be 15 colonies total. There were only 10 antarans attacks in 43b. So 5 colonies will survive antarans attacks in any case. Using a bit of combinatoric we get that chance for human colony to survive is 1/3. So in one third of games player survives antarans wave without any additional efforts. You still think that you provided challenge?

It is a fine math, but it is based on wrong assumption, and therefore is incorrect in this particular case. The chances of player's (or any AI's) system is been attacked are not equal, even which planet is been attacked is not equal and sometimes manageable too. If you want you can “earn” 9-10 attacks from those 10 almost each game, or you can avoid 8-10 of them each game, but that is irrelevant to our topic of arguing anyway.

[angra]

That is why i didn't saw any logic of your suggestion of letting Antarans doomstars starting attacks from 60-80 moves.

Looks like I was not clear enough. I like to see doomstars in antarans fleet. But I definitely prefer to see them at a late stage. Actually there is no difference between battleship and doomstar at an early stage - you can't defeat even a single battleship at this stage. So I really like new patch and do not want antarans from 43b.
Now there is five different stages of confrontation with antarans:
1. Attacks start with destroyers which can be defeated by starbase + missile base combo. So weak points are new colonies only.
2. Battleships with death rays arrive and depending of your tech way there is a good chance that your defence is not enough. So main colonies are now your weak points, you need a lot of new colonies to distract antarans from main ones.
3. You have enough fleet to defeat antarans battleships and fleet becomes main defense system.
4. Titans/doomstars come to entertain you. Last bites before peace. Loosing a single well developed colony doesn't really hurt as you have dozens of them.
5. Safe time to prepare for your last battle.

Now main scheme is ok(43b was perversion). Main task now is to do fine tuning of antarans strength. And such tuning should not be based on just few games.

If you want you can “earn” 9-10 attacks from those 10 almost each game, or you can avoid 8-10 of them each game

By save/load only. I've tested this in 43b. Use any strategy but make a save before first attack and each turn after this. Play with RNG each turn and you can get anything from zero to all attacks on you. And for each attack you can change target colony if system has more than one. So strategy can affect probability of attacks or their consequences but not what exactly would happen.

[Catalyst_Kh]

This stages i like too.
---
One Antarans battleship is beatable quite early, if it is not way too early, because it is shooting stationaries first, so you don't even need superior initiative, just some iron to be built. But 2nd BS will destroy all stationaries at first move and shoot fleet, so two BS shouldn't attack so early, imho. It would be very nice if 1, then 2 and then 3 and 4 battleships will attack sequentially in appropriate time, not too early and not too late, so player possibly could defend (if he chose to do so), even if with serious casualties each time. That would be close to ideal in my point of view. And good thing it could be done because escalating is partially attached to players progress, so BS's arrival will partially autoadjust. Don't sure when first titans should came up, hope Irakly will tweak it good enough.

[Catalyst_Kh]

If you want you can “earn” 9-10 attacks from those 10 almost each game, or you can avoid 8-10 of them each game

By save/load only.

May i take it as a compliment? Because i did that without save loads, and as you can read upper above at least Darza tried that perk too.

I've tested this in 43b. Use any strategy but make a save before first attack and each turn after this. Play with RNG each turn and you can get anything from zero to all attacks on you. And for each attack you can change target colony if system has more than one. So strategy can affect probability of attacks or their consequences but not what exactly would happen.

If you can change chance variables to (saying for abstract) 90%+ or 10%- by your actions - it is fine for me to call it manageable, no bulletproof guaranties of course. And of course you may get even 1% to work with endless save/loading, but i hope this is not a valuable argument. Maybe for you anything below 100% is not manageable by definition, that is purely personal mentality point here. You are very good with math, calculate amount of attacks 10% from 10 and 90% from 10. What are the raw chances that it would be more than 2 and less than 8 respectively?

[angra]

May i take it as a compliment? Because i did that without save loads, and as you can read upper above at least Darza tried that perk too.

Could you please provide two different saves(two turns before antarans attack in 43b) that illustrate your point, one with low probability of attacks and one with high. It shouldn't take too much of your time to reach 68th(in small pre-warp) turn. Perhaps I'm missing something and it would be nice to learn new trick or maybe we just talking about different things.

[Overlord2]

Hi Guys,
Didn't expect so much discussion on antarans

I expected some update from my support team, but it is delayed, consequently VDC update is delayed too.

Few issues to comment on:
Ion cannon heavy beams for starbases and AI - this is moo2 bug, will fix it as soon as it becomes possible. There is similar bug with overloaded. Overloaded mod used to be on level 1 miniaturization, but was moved to level 3 in VDC, however AI still gets it on level 1.

Antarans will get slight change in new update. I couldn't estimate when the first cruiser arrives so set the antarans resource growth a little too high.

Antarans delay in advanced start is zero (can't change it). But the start is accordingly strong. For instance with silicoids you can get about 1.5~2k research in first 10-15 turns.

AI building priority is its weak point indeed. I will try to fix it as soon as it becomes possible.

@Darza:
I am sure you've got large experience in speedruns, but VDC has been considerably improved with AI. I am curious to see how you defeat all AI in huge galaxy in first 100 or 110 turns. I propose better test: map "cluster" - large galaxy with number of stars same as huge, 8 players setup, average start. Show us Darza how quickly you beat them

[Darza]

Nah, cluster is too easy. Generally you build a bb at ~40 turn from ave and starting to kill. But last time i really tried it was in some older version, 43 indeed have some delay due to missile HP increase (thus BB, CA was enough before), so it result in some speed loss. But it still surely possibly for t100 just not from any start.