Hostile Planet Takeover

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Oberlus
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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#31 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 10:13 am It is my opinion that it doesn't help the enjoyment of the game to be given results rather than how to find them.
I.e, "try to diversify your strategy" is a good advice, "use that strategy" is depriving the reader of finding it himself.
Yeah, right, absolutely. When someone doesn't know a better way to do something and asks for advice, the best advice is always "try something else", "think outside of the box" and the such.
Usually, when someone posts their troubles to achieve something, what they are looking for is nothing more than a generic abstract advice that won't interfere in their learning process. The whole point of the posting is not to get new useful information, it is only to give others the chance to pretend they know better without having to really show it.

wobbly
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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#32 Post by wobbly »

Regarding stability: On game startup I'd consider going into the balance tab on the side and switching baseline planet stability to +5. This will make for a more forgiving game. The default of 0 is not necessarily best, as this area of the game is still being worked on. 0 gives a fairly unforgiving balance (but manageable). +5 leads to a reasonably freer game. To some degree its just a matter of preference.

Daybreak
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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#33 Post by Daybreak »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 10:10 am
Daybreak wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 9:46 am But Oberlus, that is against AI's that are poor at playng, against you an very experienced player, and 400 turns is a lifetime in itself.
Gray Area is playing against AIs. Your comment seems misplaced.
Well basically I am saying
a) if you were playing other experienced humans, then you would not achieve the same result in 400 turns; and
b) The AI's play poorly to experienced players. They don't play that poorly to an inexperienced player. And lol if you now tell me they don't play differently to different types of players, I'll fall off my chair....
Oberlus wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 10:10 am LR implied FO 0.5 is 4x slower to play because of influence upkeep, which is false. It is slightly slower than 0.4.10.
Well it is an approximate by LR, and I think he is right. If the AI's were able to play better, then the turns would blow out exponentially.

Daybreak
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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#34 Post by Daybreak »

wobbly wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 1:21 pm Regarding stability: On game startup I'd consider going into the balance tab on the side and switching baseline planet stability to +5. This will make for a more forgiving game. The default of 0 is not necessarily best, as this area of the game is still being worked on. 0 gives a fairly unforgiving balance (but manageable). +5 leads to a reasonably freer game. To some degree its just a matter of preference.
+1

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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#35 Post by Oberlus »

Daybreak wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:50 pm Well it is an approximate by LR, and I think he is right. If the AI's were able to play better, then the turns would blow out exponentially.
No, he's not. Try it yourself, finish a game of 200 or 300 systems with 0.4.10 and with current master, then tell me.

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LienRag
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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#36 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:13 pm Try it yourself, finish a game of 200 or 300 systems with 0.4.10 and with current master, then tell me.
There was an s in versions of the game, I compare not only to the very last version before Influence but also to versions before your nerf.

But yes, at least for most players (OK, at least for me and for the players that manifested themselves on the forum) the version with Influence is clearly and largely slower.
Maybe you are able to to milk the resources given by Policies since you seem to have a very keen eye for that, and indeed some Policies do produce a quite high yield that compensate for the Influence cost, but you can't expect new players to get that.
Maybe you do expect me to have this level of proficiency, but you're wrong...

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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#37 Post by Oberlus »

When starting a game, you can set the cost factors of technologies, buildings, ship hulls and ship parts. If you lower the default values, e.g. from 2.0 to 1.0 for techs, and from 1.0 to 0.5 on the other three, you'll get a faster game.

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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#38 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 10:31 am Yeah, right, absolutely. When someone doesn't know a better way to do something and asks for advice, the best advice is always "try something else", "think outside of the box" and the such.
Usually, when someone posts their troubles to achieve something, what they are looking for is nothing more than a generic abstract advice that won't interfere in their learning process. The whole point of the posting is not to get new useful information, it is only to give others the chance to pretend they know better without having to really show it.
I certainly can't talk for the OP, but what I've read from him is questions about the mechanics of the game (which I answered when I could), not asking advice on the best strategy.

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LienRag
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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#39 Post by LienRag »

wobbly wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 1:21 pm Regarding stability: On game startup I'd consider going into the balance tab on the side and switching baseline planet stability to +5. This will make for a more forgiving game. The default of 0 is not necessarily best, as this area of the game is still being worked on. 0 gives a fairly unforgiving balance (but manageable). +5 leads to a reasonably freer game. To some degree its just a matter of preference.
Indeed, the previous versions had a Stability baseline of 5, and it was set to 0 for the new version in order (I guess) to emphasize the new importance of Stability, but nobody really had more serious thoughts about the level that would be best.
In current MP game we're playing with +5 and it's clearly easier.

Gray Area, you understand that Production nor Research do not start to grow before a newly conquered planet reaches 5 Stability, right ?
This hasn't changed from previous versions (that I played) of the game, but now growing to 5 is quite harder.

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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#40 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:51 pm I certainly can't talk for the OP, but what I've read from him is questions about the mechanics of the game (which I answered when I could), not asking advice on the best strategy.
Oh, sure. My mistake.

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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#41 Post by Daybreak »

LienRag wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 10:13 am
Daybreak wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 9:46 am A lot of players will go for asteroid hulls, to fight off monsters, if that helps.
It is my opinion that it doesn't help the enjoyment of the game to be given results rather than how to find them.
I.e, "try to diversify your strategy" is a good advice, "use that strategy" is depriving the reader of finding it himself.
Sometimes you need a hint - he will still need to investigate how to achieve that.

When I started playing I found a youtube video about what to put into my tech tree - at the time it helped immensely. Now I know how poor it really was, just like the starting guide, as it is now too old, here in the forums. At the end of the day, it still gave me a direction, instead of floundering around.

We have to be careful we do not inadvertently lose people who are lost, because we play god and assume they are ok with finding everything out themselves, because that is what we like. For example I give you a story of a pizza store - it was found that new staff making pizzas would put less of any ingredient they did not like, and more of any ingredient they did like.

Oberlus wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:13 pm
Daybreak wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:50 pm Well it is an approximate by LR, and I think he is right. If the AI's were able to play better, then the turns would blow out exponentially.
No, he's not. Try it yourself, finish a game of 200 or 300 systems with 0.4.10 and with current master, then tell me.
You misssed the whole point - you are an exeperienced player, playing against AI's that play poorly.

Grey Area is an inexperienced player that got up to turn 1350 (Wow) which tells you two things
a) He is kind of doing ok overall; but
b) The AI's are bad, as an inexperienced player would never have got too that many turns, in the 4.9 version, where the AI's would have killed you off. Which as bad as they are, he is actually now experiencing.
Oberlus wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:49 pm When starting a game, you can set the cost factors of technologies, buildings, ship hulls and ship parts. If you lower the default values, e.g. from 2.0 to 1.0 for techs, and from 1.0 to 0.5 on the other three, you'll get a faster game.
Does not help with the influence facotor, now the biggest detriment to the game. Well not directly anyway - more ships means more territoy and natives conquered which may lead to better influence.

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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#42 Post by Oberlus »

Daybreak wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 9:53 pm You misssed the whole point - you are an exeperienced player, playing against AI's that play poorly.
Maybe you missed the point? LR is an experienced player. An newbie players in older version also reported very long games.
Anyways,
Daybreak wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 9:53 pm a) He is kind of doing ok overall
Actually not. Normal ,if he didn't even know how to invade planets until very late in game.

Looks like we are talking about different stuff. I'll leave you to it.

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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#43 Post by Daybreak »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 10:09 pm
Daybreak wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 9:53 pm a) He is kind of doing ok overall
Actually not. Normal ,if he didn't even know how to invade planets until very late in game.
You left out the "but" at the end

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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#44 Post by Gray Area »

LienRag wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 7:33 am
Gray Area wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:16 am In one fairly long game, I had changed the Focus on enough of my empire's planets, from either Industry and Research, to Influence to continually increase my empire's overall Influence. Unfortunately, the end result was a noticeable reduction in my empire's total PP available per turn.
Yeah, that's the basic idea.
Influence is supposed to have other uses (most of them not implemented yet) but as of now it's basically a way to keep in check the runaway effect (early production leads to the ability to invest in settling more planets which leads to more production).
Not sure that it's working in a way that's entirely enjoyable, but it's working as expected.


Gray Area wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:16 am I had been about 1,350 turns into that particular game, when it became clear I could not build ships fast enough to beat the first foreign empire I had to face.
Wow ! The game drags on indeed in the new versions and victory that was usually achieved in one or two hundred turns now takes a few hundreds more, but 1350 turns is certainly a long game (I never went that long).


Gray Area wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:16 am Up until then, I had been spending most of my resources fighting off monsters.
I had one game like that, and it was quite interesting to play as it was very different from the usual, but I wouldn't play it again as it becomes a bit tedious on the long run.
Have you tried tweaking the settings of the game ? I don't play with monsters on "high" anymore and even "medium" has recently been cranked up to eleven so is not always interesting.


Gray Area wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:16 am And, that was in a game that went over 1,500 turns before it became obvious that foreign empire # 2 was building ships, and feeding them into battle significantly faster than I could. For what it's worth, I had already beaten empire # 1 before I ran into empire # 2.
That's not actually a problem if you destroy the enemy ships at the same rate that they are produced...
And the AI is predictable enough that it's not really that hard to do this.
It takes time to figure out how to do so and is one of the most enjoyable part of the game, so I will let you do it on your own.

Note that on a Galaxy with a lot of monsters, there should be a lot of monster nests, so you may want to take that into account and see if you can use it to your benefit.


Gray Area wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:16 am As far as foreign species are concerned, it's been detrimental for me to build and land troop ships on foreign planets in order to completely conquer them, and absorb them into my empire. When I did that, the overall effect was a noticeable reduction in my empire's total PP available per turn, after having spend a lot of turns building Troop Ships, and a fair amount of PP that could have been better spend on attack ships. I suspect a better strategy would have been to simply blockade and bypass the planets of foreign species, rather than wasting all the turns and PP required to conquer them.
(...)
Also, as of this post, I haven't paid much attention to the likes and dislikes of foreign species. But, I will do so in the future.
Well, you're doing something wrong.
The new mechanisms make the previous versions' strategy of "grab everything" less of a no-brainer, but conquering Natives or enemy planets is still most of the time a very important boost to Production or Research (usually to the cost of Influence, though).
Your last phrase may be a partial explanation to your problem, but even then it's a bit puzzling.
The only things I could think of that could explain your affirmation there is that you play with a Xenophobic species, you conquer Xenophobic species without understanding that, or eventually that you play with a "bad offensive troops" species and don't switch to a better species for troop production once you conquer one.
LienRag,

Attached is a screenshot of my current typical Galaxy Setup.

Whenever I want to start a new game, I simply add one (1) to whatever was the total number of systems in the previous game. With the latest version of FreeOrion, I'm only up to 151 Systems.

I'm, apparently, a Human Supremacist, as I've only been playing as a human so far. So, I'm not dealing with any of the "Xenophobic Issues" that you have described above.

You are, however, correct about me "doing something wrong." As a newbie, I've been finding that I've been making numerous basic mistakes as I go about learning the game. But, I think I'm learning from my mistakes.

Thanks for your help.

Gray Area
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Gray Area
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Re: Hostile Planet Takeover

#45 Post by Gray Area »

Daybreak wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 9:46 am
Oberlus wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 8:25 am LienRag, haven't you played a single game since policies were introduced? FYI, a game with 200 systems can be finished (all enemy empires eliminated) in less than 400 turns.
Lienrag did mention about 400 turns

But Oberlus, that is against AI's that are poor at playng, against you an very experienced player, and 400 turns is a lifetime in itself.
New players don't have that luxury.
Gray Area wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 3:16 am Up until then, I had been spending most of my resources fighting off monsters.
A lot of players will go for asteroid hulls, to fight off monsters, if that helps.

I am going to make a controversial suggestion - Download Ver 4.9, before influence, and government policies.

Learn about colonising/building ships/Monsters/Ai's without as much Micro Management that now exists in the new versions

Do that for several months, and then switch back to the new version, becuase if you then understand the game a little better it will make it easier to pick up the micro management side of things

I don't even bother playing the new version by myself, to me it is slow/nerfed, however multiplayer against other humans is not.

Also the new version is in Alpha stage, so I hope that the single player games get better over time.

Anyway just a suggestion, as there is lots to learn in this game, and 4.9 will allow you to get in a bit quicker and play quicker - promise yourself though, you will stick with it, even after defeat/ defeat/ defeat, becuase ultimately you will learn to win, and then you will thoughly enjoy it.
Daybreak,

I have yet to experiment with asteroid hulls, but I will do so in the future. The game I'm currently playing has been surprisingly free of monsters so far. And, that is totally atypical in my limited experience.

If I do get too bogged down with details when playing the latest versions of the game, I'll take your advice and try a previous version. However, at this point in time, I think I'm making fairly good progress.

Thanks for you interest and your advice.

Gray Area

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