Mega Evil Empire

[evader]

In a game I am playing I have just become I mega evil emire. 3 questions Coms to mind

1) Has this happened to anyone and what have you done about it?

2) The defualt setting of Mega Evil Empire ore 500k and 170 percent have you ever changed these and to what

3) Once you are the Mega Evil Empire can you go back to making friends again?

[Taqwus]

1) Yes. Oh, and then I act the part -- BEING mega-evil. If they're going to accuse moi of being such a threat (sometimes before I've even fired a shot), well, I'll give 'em something to talk about...

I tend to wait until MEE is declared before ramping up the cruelty level -- such as using biological warfare, engine bombs, heavy use of napalm, atmosphere bombs, and so forth.

2) Haven't bothered to change it. I'd be inclined to increase the 500k to something like 1-1.5 M, 'tho, because I usually play 255-system quadrants where 500k comes pretty early, expansion-wise...

3) Only, methinks, if you lose MEE status.


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Eisenhans]

1: this has happened to me and I have just killed everyone http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif .
2: by changing these settings other empires will consider you to be mega evil later/earlier depending on how you change the settings
3: why would you like to make friends again? You're MEGA-EVIL anyway! muahahahahaaaa!!!!!!
(check the anger textfile this will give you a rough idea)

[DirectorTsaarx]

I'm not certain it's an "AND" condition on the 500k/170% score; I just passed 500k score in my current game, but I'm in 4th place (a distant fourth - 1, 2, and 3 have 1.1M, 1.3M, and 1.6M, respectively). Anyway, I just lost two long-standing treaties (with empires 2 and 3, BTW) in the Last four or five turns. I'm hoping they haven't decided I'M the MEE...

[evader]

I am pretty sure it IS an 'AND' Conditon I had well over 200% of my closet opp. but I didn't get everone mad till I hit 500k

[DirectorTsaarx]

Interesting... maybe the 500k score is the only real trigger? Or maybe something else happened in my game to make everyone declare war on me...

[Puke]

it is indeed an AND condition. i bumped it up to 1000K (okay, 1M for the mathmatically inclined) and 200% because I wanted to build alliances and economically support smaller AIs to defeat larger AIs in a 200 system map. (okay, im a freak)

I had 2M points and the closest AI at the time had 1.7M, I was not treated as MEE untill i had 2X points of the second place player.

[JeffG]

What is this about a Mega Evil Empire? How does this fit into the game?

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Cheers!
Jeff George

[General Hawkwing]

MEE is the point where all the AI go to war with you. Any new AI you encounter will go to war on the turn after the encounter. Somewhat akin to the Western Countries response to the spread of communism after WW2.

[Taqwus]

Well, you know how in many (perhaps most) computer strategy games AIs tend to gang up on the human player and treat him most unfairly? In some games, this occurs basically from the start...

In SE4, they won't... up to a point.

Look in Data/Settings.txt. There are a few relevant settings.

1) There's one labelled, IIRC, AIUsesMegaEvilEmpire. If it's true (default), then there are certain conditions under which all remaining AIs will focus on you (or, on another AI if it becomes MEE).

2) There's a score threshold -- by default, 500k. You may want to increase this if you like large quadrants.

3) There are two relative thresholds -- by default, the one for an AI is higher.


If a player's score exceeds *both* the score threshold (500k default) and a ratio of the second-place score (1.7x for you, 2x for another AI IIRC), and AIUsesMEE is on, then the AIs all turn Murderous and declare war regardless of how well you've treated them or continue to treat them. MEE status will be lost if either necessary condition fails to hold; then the AIs may eventually calm down again.

You'll know if you've achieved MEE when you start getting Messages that your race has exceeded its natural limits and is a threat to all other sentient life (or similar foo)...

Note that even when you're MEE it IS possible, through espionage for instance, to get AIs to declare war on each other... it's that they hate you, not that they all suddenly love each other as well.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[DirectorTsaarx]

I finally figured out why everyone started declaring war on me - first, I accepted a Partnership treaty; when the "partner" was able to see all my worlds, the "% of allied colonies to use as target for anger" (or however it's worded in the settings.txt file) kicked in & the partner got angry about all those colonies. I guess he was hoping to expand throughout my territory...

Anyway, the second problem is that other races started colonizing in systems where I had colonies, and vice versa. Most AI's (at least in 1.19) get upset about sharing systems...

And, finally, I discovered that one of my enemies was using the intel project that fakes Messages, and was inciting others to go to war with me! What a pain!

That's all right, though. I'm having fun glassing enemy planets (except for the good ones, which I invade, hehehehe).