Proposed Solution to Mega Evil Empire Problem

Barnacle Bill · #1 January 28th, 2001, 12:28 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Q:
What would a human player do? .... Not so easy to program I think.

I don't know...the latest edition of Starfire rules has a very extensive modelling of "Non-Player Race" behavior that is in the form of rules and die rolls against various numerical NPR personality traits. It looks like it would be pretty adaptable to SE4. Among many, many other things it covers the NPR deciding to go to war against you and delaying while it prepares, or until it resolves some other war in progress. It also has multiple "levels" of war which the NPR will choose with a die roll modified by its own numerical personality traits, what you have done and the circumstances. Off the top of my head, it sems like there are 4 levels ranging from just squabbling over a system to trying to exterminate you.

Jubala · #2 January 28th, 2001, 04:29 PM

Bill, the more you talk about Starfire the more I want to play it. I actually went to my local gamestore and asked if they had it but they didn't even know what it was. I'll keep looking.

ColdSteel · #3 January 28th, 2001, 04:36 PM

The suggestion I made here would only only fix what I feel is a very abrupt and artificial feeling transition to the Mega Evil Empire AI state. It would smooth that transition out some and better fit it to the race's differing characteristics. Obviously there are still some other AI issues with how the game handles Mega Evil beyond this that the suggestion would not fix. So, here are some more suggestions dealing with those:

One easy (code-wise) way to deal with the issue of the AI not being ready to declare war when the Mega Evil AI state is tripped would be to have a ME threshold AI state in the game. Say if the race's Mega Evil setting is 50 then when it hits 40 the game would trigger a change in the AI state to "Prepare to Attack". Then when they do finally declare Mega Evil on you, at least they'd be prepared to fight.

Another suggestion that might work for the very weak races is not to openly declare Mega Evil on you at all. That is, declare it, but only to themselves as an internal AI state. The game AI state would then attempt to ally with stronger races and use Intelligence, Politics and other means to subvert you but not openly attack you which would be sucicidal. Politically, they could ask existing allies to declare war on you or give resources and ships to allies already at war with you. In this way they could fight you indirectly without being openly at war.

Any thoughts on these additional ideas?

Baron Munchausen · #4 January 28th, 2001, 09:01 PM

Changing the way Mega Evil is calculated so that each AI reacts at a different point would be good. Another thing that would be good is a "warning" threshold prior to the "turn against you" threshold and a special set of Messages where the AI can complain about your aggressive expansionism so you know what's happening. These two feature together would contribute greatly to the realism of the Mega Evil feature. Of course, you'd have to allow for neutrals to remain 'neutral' and not be overly prone to turn against the larger empires. Being only one system, they'd be triggered very early in large games.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 28 January 2001).]

Barnacle Bill · #5 January 28th, 2001, 11:49 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Jubala:
Bill, the more you talk about Starfire the more I want to play it. I actually went to my local gamestore and asked if they had it but they didn't even know what it was. I'll keep looking.

You can't get in in stores right now, as it is no longer marketed by the original publisher but direct market via internet, etc... by the designer. The website is at http://www.starfiredesign.com/starfire

ColdSteel · #6 January 29th, 2001, 04:18 AM

Okay, I sent these suggestions to MM so we'll see what happens.

Jubala · #7 January 29th, 2001, 05:00 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Barnacle Bill:
You can't get in in stores right now, as it is no longer marketed by the original publisher but direct market via internet, etc... by the designer. The website is at http://www.starfiredesign.com/starfire

Ok, that explains that. I've been checking out the starfire site and lurking a little in the forum, but I usually don't understand much because of all the ingame abbrevations used. Like discussions on shipdesign. Plain gibberish if you ask me.

But I do understand enough to know I want to play the game.