AI tech trade bug - Page 2

#11 June 12th, 2001, 12:38 AM

I thought it automatically gave him his next level in the tech if mine was higher, and nothing if mine was the same or lower. I have the tech which is being offered. How can you offer something you lack ? For example, I cannot offer a ruins tech that I lack because it is not in my give list. I cannot want ppb before physics two because I do not even know it exists.

Good guess, but no you STILL have not found the bug. Try trading with my brotherly partners. There are only five of them.

#12 June 12th, 2001, 12:51 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Krakenup:
They always accept and end up with the useless starting techs and thank you for your generosity. You can do the same thing every turn.

I never thought of that! Thanks! Its too late for that now in my game, but I will certainly use it in the next if not fixed. But that is not the bug either....

#13 June 12th, 2001, 01:12 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Nitram Draw:

Unless you have expanded rapidly in a 10 planet start you should not reach MEE for quite some time as your score % differance will be harder to acheive.

If I wanted to I could be MEE at 5000k in less than 10 turns (turn 55) by having all my bases build bases. As it is I want breakeven minerals or better at MEE. That will take me until about turn 63-65. I DID expand rapidly - all over the map with my self imposed limit of 39 colonies in 30 systems by turn 30. I can just about double my score every five turns (by having yard bases build yard bases only) but that quickly leads to minerals bankruptcy and just a hollow shell empire. So unless the AI slow down their own expansion rate I cannot do the dominoe surrender trick until about turn 120-130 as usual. It takes a LONG time for just 39 colonies to get minerals up to support a 5000k score with warships, but bases cost half maintenance so that goes quicker. I will mothball yard bases where I need them the least when necessary to avoid MEE... Is that an exploit of the no-score mothball or just smart strategy ?

Marty Ward · #14 June 12th, 2001, 01:42 AM

You do mean 500K right? If you can gain 2.5m points in a turn that must be some incredible empire!

#15 June 12th, 2001, 03:48 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Marty Ward:
You do mean 500K right? If you can gain 2.5m points in a turn that must be some incredible empire!

No it is 5000k. I changed the Mega Evil empire in settings.txt because this is both a 10 planet start and 254 systems, 7000+ planets on map. So the MEE should be at least a factor of 10 greater as a scale factor compared to a regular 100 system quadrant. A yard base is 6 points score. I already have more than 288 of them. It takes 5 turns for a yard base to build another yard base. So that is 1728 points in five turns added to the 1728 of the first yards. Then the 3456 points 576 bases in five turns build another 576 bases to score 6912k added to a modest 600k or so from facilities and battle cruisers already built. But I cannot do that yet, because I lack the minerals to pay base maintenance on so many. See my plan in the "TDM-Modpack politics in really big game" thread.

#16 June 12th, 2001, 02:09 PM

Not to change the topic, but I just finished reading the thread "Does anyone know the formula SEIV uses to calculate score". I wanted to know how much I should allot for my starbases to avoid MEE. It turns out that score is based on one point per 100k tons built. So my base yards are only five points not six, and a starbase will be 25 points. Now here is a trick. It does not matter if the starbase is an empty shell with nothing but a Master Computer in it. So if I have all my yards build starbases, my score will jump to over 288x25+24xx points about 10 million in one turn. All but a couple races surrender. A few turns later I churn out another batch and everybody surrenders. Game over. No Challenge.
With a new patch coming out it will probably be a long time before the next one. Now would be a good time for EVERYBODY to lobby for a change of SOME kind in the score calculation to prevent dominoe surrender based on a score obtained by building shells. The formula could be just about anything besides what it is now and still improve.

I do not know if this board has a way of conducting a poll to get an opinion on the matter, but that would be the best way to lobby if such is possible. The question is simple. Do you want a change in the score calculation ? Yes or no.

#17 June 12th, 2001, 02:22 PM

It has been 40 hours and nobody claims to have found the bug, so I reported it to Malafador. I guess nobody was trying, because with all the hints it should have been easy to find. Possibly it is something peculiar about my game, the race I was trading with, or the tech exchanged. In any case it should take about five minutes to fix, so I expect it will be in the next patch. In other words, if you have been looking for it, don't bother. What I did would be a game exploit even if you knew what it was.....

Nitram Draw · #18 June 12th, 2001, 02:34 PM

There have been lots of suggestions to change what causes the AI to surrender. The one I like best is a combination of military might and economic might not strictly your score. I don't think it is high on the list to change though.
You can get around the domino surrender syndrome by changing each AI to prevent them from ever surrendering but this can make for some loooong games on large maps.

#19 June 12th, 2001, 09:20 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
You can get around the domino surrender syndrome by changing each AI to prevent them from ever surrendering but this can make for some loooong games on large maps.

No, I want them to surrender (when I ask) if I really have them all on the ropes. But using a trick like hollow shell starbases should not work. Perhaps the surrender to a MEE should be based on the combined might of all versus the MEE. Say they will surrender only if their combined might is one third the MEE score, rather than when their individual score falls below the threshold.

Nitram Draw · #20 June 12th, 2001, 09:25 PM

If it just took into account military might, not empty hulls etc, it would be better but I don't think it is likely to be changed.
Ideally the AI would be able to also take into account the strategic situation also when deciding when to surrender.
Just don't ask them to surrender until you've kick their butt around.