odd 1.30 observation

[tictoc]

Guys, i have been using mephisto's mod in my latest game and the resource prob still exists but at a much reduced level and recovery from it is much quicker (i gave up on the stock 1.30 patch game after no recovery after 30 more turns). Here is some more observations from the 1.30 patch:

1. In the log display after a warp point is opened, the source is stated but not the destination.
2. In the face of defeat, the AI refuses to offer appeasement or even enter trading when offered, to avoid destruction, but will remain on a war footing until wiped out.

Any thoughts?

Kudo's to the Toron race in mephisto's mod pack, they have a very good strategy IWO building their infrastructure defence before building up a strong strike force (would still like to see the use of AI boarding or AI use of smart bombs on a planet, but these will come i suspect).

tic

[DirectorTsaarx]

quote:

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Originally posted by tictoc:
Marty...

As i said in my first post, i'm not using any mods, so theoretically, the resources (or AI management of them) should not be 'out of balance'. I would have thought that even at the most basic level (for players new to this amazing piece of software), the AI would be smart enough not to cripple itself or (Emperor), have to rely on the players intervention to give it a bonus just to play on a level par. Maybe this needs to be addressed in the next patch.

tic

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I'm surprised no-one's provided this answer before:

One of the things improved in both 1.27 & 1.30 was the AI build queues. It's reasonable to expect that these problems had been around for a while, with the real source unrecognized, and both MM and the modders just kept increasing the number of build calls in an attempt to make the AI build an appropriate number of ships and bases. Now that the routine has been fixed, the increased build calls just need to be lowered again (or better checks made for % of resources dedicated to Maintenance).

In other words, the resources were pretty well balanced in early patches, but when the latest patch improved the AI's build ability, it's created a situation where resources need to be re-balanced. The law of unintended consequences applies to everything, especially software patches...

BTW - relevant pieces of History.txt:

Version 1.29:
5. Fixed - Rare case where the AI would go into an infinite loop trying to purchase new items.

Version 1.23:
23. Fixed - The AI would try to build defense bases at planets without spaceyards.