Proportions mod 1.5.2 released (and web page)

[PsychoTechFreak]

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
muahahaha!

PvK

[ 26 March 2002: Message edited by: PvK ]

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Second that.

I have refined my longterm simulation scenario, some interesting side results:
- galactic peace within the first 2 years, means no events from 2400.0 until 2401.9, never.
- the master planet is NEVER affected by high and catastrophic events, just by low and medium events
Definition "master planet": The planet that is selected at game start, first cursor, means in a one homeplanet game this would be the homeplanet. In a 10 planets game, the master planet would be immune from high/catastrophic events, the other 9 could be affected, this goes along also with system events, like star explosions.

Default setup: Proportions, high event frequency, three races Lucky, Neutral, Cursed. I have changed the proportions event.txt, changed the title of every event to low/medium/high/catastrophic according to its severity, this helps to evaluate the number of counts of the different severities, another change has been done to the effect amounts, I have set all of them to zero. I could post it, if someone is interested to do some experiments unless PvK disagrees with it.

BTW, PvK, do you think 1 year is enough time to evacuate a core instable planet in Proportions ?

Simulation status now : 30 years, some interesting results so far, but I will keep my secret for a while

[geoschmo]

quote:

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Originally posted by oleg:
IMHO, the cost of Natural merchants should be increased even more. To start with extra homeworld cultural center instead of useless spaceport is very nice.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Pvk:
Yes, the cost overlooked the cultural center increase. I'm a little surprised it even does that, since cultural centers include space ports. It makes for a way to start with an extra cultural center. I'll adjust the cost - thanks for pointing that out.

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The reason for this is quite simple and predictable. The natrual merchant doesn't need a space port on the homeworld, so they get an extra facility determined by the facilities file. It ignores the fact that the cultural center has an ability it doesn't need (Space Port), it is only looking for abilities that it does need (Resource Production). This selects the available facilitiy that produces the most of the resource needed. Mineral, rad, organic, research. Since the Cultural center in Proportions produces more of these resources than any of the resource specific facilities, it is chosen in each case. In a non-proportions game, after a certain amount of each of the other resources are accounted for, the remainder of the homeworld is filled up with mineral miners. But in Proportions the cultural center is better at that too, so it gets selected.

Geoschmo
EDIT:Err, what I meant to say is that in proportions the standard production facilities have been removed entirely.

[ 26 March 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[PvK]

quote:

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Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:

BTW, PvK, do you think 1 year is enough time to evacuate a core instable planet in Proportions ?

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No, generally not! Unless you are late in the game and have already built a number of large starliners with high-tech cargo bays, and/or you have someplace nearby to evacuate the population. I've played a couple of games where I tried to evacuate homeworlds to escape catastophic events (or even plagues), and even if you emergency-build dozens of transports, although you can save a lot of population, usually many more of them can't be saved. It helps if there are nearby colonies so you can ferry back and forth and re-use transports quickly. So, it's pretty interesting and worthwhile to try to do this, but even with a huge fleet of transports, it's really hard to move several billion people in a year.

Then afterwords, you end up feeling a little silly with a huge fleet of population transports... . Hmm, refit them into hybrid warships?

PvK

[PsychoTechFreak]

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:


I was thinking I'd remove the advantages if they weren't working, but then it occurred to me that once we're sure, we can tell Malfador, who will probably patch it at some point, at which point all opportunistic players who took "Cursed", thinking it would have no effect, will get their due... muahahaha!

PvK

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Mmmmh, let's see, a proportions game might take about 3 years divided by
MM's patch frequency +666


50 year simulation displays the following, and I got enough of it for now:

Abbreviations for severities:
L= low
M= medium
H= high
C= catastrophic

Three races in one multiplayer game,
Lucky race:
L= 12
M= 8
H= 3
C= 5 , Four out of ten planets have blown up

Neutrals:
L= 8
M= 3
H= 0
C= 5 , Three out of ten planets have blown up

Cursed:
L= 15
M= 9
H= 4
C= 3 , One out of ten planets has blown up

Although I have set every amount effect to zero, some of the events still do something, like warp points are closed, ships are teleported through the quadrant, planets explode, stars explode and so forth.

[PsychoTechFreak]

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:


Then afterwords, you end up feeling a little silly with a huge fleet of population transports... . Hmm, refit them into hybrid warships?

PvK

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Unless you do not build them as hybrids from the beginning.

Fortunately, the homeplanet will not be affected by core instabilities.

[Aub]

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
...Absolutely - this is coming in 1.5.3 and 1.6, hopefully tonight or tomorrow...

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Wow! That's great - I'll definitely wait for it before starting a new game.

This is the first mod I see that focuses on balance and improved gameplay (e.g. the "whoever expands faster usually wins" syndrome was bugging me for a long time... now something's done about it!) and I welcome it wholeheartedly

Aub

[ 27 March 2002: Message edited by: Aub ]

[PvK]

Thanks Aub!

Yes, the immediate and decisive award for colonizing was a main target for this mod. (edit: i.e., something I wanted to change)

Oh, I should mention that the improved AI in 1.5 can't correct the mistakes make by the AI running an earlier Version. If you started a game versus the AI before 1.5 and then upgraded, and you want to continue the old game against the current AI, then someone (you or a friend, or even email it to me and I can do it) should go in and play all the AI empires for one turn, in order to simply clear all (or, almost all) of the cultural centers from the colony build queues.

PvK

[ 27 March 2002: Message edited by: PvK ]