Winning depends on planet type availibility matching your ra

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xdsfgdfghdf
Space Krill
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Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2016 8:36 pm

Winning depends on planet type availibility matching your ra

#1 Post by xdsfgdfghdf »

If you cant expand, but your opponent can, you cant win. I dont care how smart you think you are, you wont win with just one planet, on any setting. I think this is the source of some of the frustration new players are experiencing.

If you chose a race that likes inferno, and you dont find an inferno planet to colonize before your opponent finds his planet type, you wont win. Difficulty level dosent matter, research strategy dosent matter, nothing else matters. Its a flip of a coin (actually, a 50/50 would give better odds). Whoever knows what settings spawns what planets, and the races that match them, wins.

This game is weak sauce as it is. Please include logic to spawn equal (or close) to the same number of habitable planets for each race being played.

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MatGB
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#2 Post by MatGB »

a) what version are you playing as the game is set to spawn planets near you.

b)
research strategy dosent matter,
Planetary Ecology.

One of the cheapest techs in the game, the one most players choose as their very first tech.

It won't, of course, help Egassem, as they're also a Narrow Tolerance race which, deliberately, makes them harder to play.

But they can still win, easily, without planting a colony for ages, you just need to play to their strengths. Learning how to do that takes experience, and working out how to make this clearer in game is something we need to work on.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Ruldra
Krill Swarm
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#3 Post by Ruldra »

I'm playing Egassem as we speak (typical difficulty/6 opponents/500 systems).

In my current game there are very few inferno planets nearby, but managed to find two planets with native species. Quickly made troop ships and invaded them. Now I can colonize tundra, toxic and swamp planets (of which there are plenty close by). My two Egassem planets are set to industry focus and building outposts en masse to colonize as much as possible while my slaves are in charge of research. Also lucked out and found an inferno planet with a computronium moon, which will give me a much needed boost to research.

This is turn 24 by the way. It's coming along nicely and I'm not expecting much trouble later.

So...no, you can't win with only one planet, but even as Egassem you can find ways to colonize more planets and expand your empire. But then again, newcomers shouldn't be using Egassem anyway, they're by far the worst race and meant to be a challenge.

defaultuser
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#4 Post by defaultuser »

It can be annoying and challenging when there aren't initially many suitable planets. I've had games where the initial colony ship sat around for quite a while waiting for an opportunity. As noted, that's where research comes in. Not only to improve habitability, but to be able to use exobots if that would help.

Ruldra
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#5 Post by Ruldra »

It's turn 72, only met one other race so far but at this point the game is already over. I snowballed into such a huge empire that my number of planets, production and research output are far above everyone else's. My opponents are using Mass Driver 4 when I already have Plasma Cannon 4 :lol:

But, this only happened because I got lucky and found a couple of natives that helped me colonize more planets. I honestly don't know what I could've done without them. Egassem can colonize toxic and radiated planets with Xenological Genetics, but that's around 250 RP. It'd take forever to get there with their mediocre research.

Could an Egassem player succeed in a galaxy without natives?

xdsfgdfghdf
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#6 Post by xdsfgdfghdf »

> what version are you playing as the game is set to spawn planets near you.

0.4.3 on ubuntu

> In my current game there are very few inferno planets nearby

I *often* (as in more than half the time) have no planets nearby for quite a way. Ive set starlane and planet frequency to high. I should post screenshots, sometimes its downright ludicrous. Its like

•------O-----O------O-----O------O-----O------O-----O------O-----O------•

Where • = my home planet and the one on the right is a system with 1 planet. At that point I hit reset.

> It's turn 72, only met one other race so far but at this point the game is already over. I snowballed into such a huge empire that my number of planets, production and research output are far above everyone else's.

This has me thinking....

Ive been playing, trying to learn the game, so I set it to 1 opponent, 25 systems. Perhaps Im gimping myself with so few systems?

Also, we need a guide. There are things I have discovered (after 20 games) that were not mentioned anywhere. For example, each planet can have a industrial center. (Duh, right? Find it in the manual though) Theres a ton more I bet I dont know.

Also, why is ctrl+enter = next turn? Can I make it just enter?

Also, I am *constantly* flipping between research and the gear icon (F3 and F4) If I could just view research in a pane, that would be awesome.

Also, whats the harm in showing the whole research tree, but have the things you havent researched greyed out? Currently I just have a screenshot on the other monitor to refer to, its annoying though.

Also, if Egassm is so hard, make it unlockable by number of games played. This would keep the frustration level for newbs like me down.

Ruldra
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#7 Post by Ruldra »

xdsfgdfghdf wrote:Ive been playing, trying to learn the game, so I set it to 1 opponent, 25 systems. Perhaps Im gimping myself with so few systems?
This is the no.1 mistake newcomers do in the 4X genre. They want an easier game so they play in a small map. You're actually making things harder! Not only you have less room to expand, you're meeting your opponents very early - which means early war.

I don't remember what's the default settings but set the galaxy to 200 systems, that's a decent number. Go ahead and add 6 AI players but set their agression to beginner mode. When the game starts you can offer peace to them (click the crown at the top, right-click the empire name and propose peace). Since it's beginner mode they all accept. Now you can play around as much as you want and only declare war when you feel like it.

Play as the humans, they have no advantages or penalties and good for learning the game. Or if you want easy mode, set the galaxy to young age and pick the Chato species. All the bright stars greatly benefit them.
Also, we need a guide.
http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/V0.4 ... Play_Guide
There are things I have discovered (after 20 games) that were not mentioned anywhere. For example, each planet can have a industrial center. (Duh, right? Find it in the manual though) Theres a ton more I bet I dont know.
You only need one industrial center in your empire, more of them have no benefit. It's explained in the pedia.
Also, why is ctrl+enter = next turn? Can I make it just enter?
Hell no. I don't want to accidentally skip a turn like that.
Also, whats the harm in showing the whole research tree, but have the things you havent researched greyed out? Currently I just have a screenshot on the other monitor to refer to, its annoying though.
Click the Locked tab at the bottom of the research screen. The entire tree is shown.
Also, if Egassm is so hard, make it unlockable by number of games played. This would keep the frustration level for newbs like me down.
Also no, stuff are better unlocked from the start. Hovering the mouse over the species will show all their stats. All the penalties the Egassem have should make it clear they're not a beginner-friendly race.

defaultuser
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#8 Post by defaultuser »

Ruldra wrote:
xdsfgdfghdf wrote:There are things I have discovered (after 20 games) that were not mentioned anywhere. For example, each planet can have a industrial center. (Duh, right? Find it in the manual though) Theres a ton more I bet I dont know.
You only need one industrial center in your empire, more of them have no benefit. It's explained in the pedia.
It's important to learn which items are empire-wide versus system-wide. For instance, only one solar generator is needed, but gas giant generators need to be built at each applicable system. The information is always there, but getting used to it takes time and experience.

AndrewW
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#9 Post by AndrewW »

Ruldra wrote:You only need one industrial center in your empire, more of them have no benefit. It's explained in the pedia.
Not exactly. All supply connected systems benefit from an industrial center. If systems are outside the supply grouping, adding an industrial center can still offer a benefit, or as a backup in case an existing one is captured.

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mem359
Dyson Forest
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#10 Post by mem359 »

xdsfgdfghdf wrote:I *often* (as in more than half the time) have no planets nearby for quite a way. Ive set starlane and planet frequency to high. I should post screenshots, sometimes its downright ludicrous. Its like

•------O-----O------O-----O------O-----O------O-----O------O-----O------•
I would like to see a screenshot, if you get this situation again. Something is fishy.
The only times I've seen something like that is in an enormous galaxy (300+), my homeworld is at the edge of an "arm", and planet frequency is set to LOW.

When it is set to HIGH, I've never seen only 2 planets total out of 10-12 systems.

defaultuser
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#11 Post by defaultuser »

AndrewW wrote:All supply connected systems benefit from an industrial center. If systems are outside the supply grouping, adding an industrial center can still offer a benefit, or as a backup in case an existing one is captured.
I seldom build them or genome banks anymore. By the time the tech has been researched I have usually captured the buildings from some nearby dope that I've conquered.

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Vezzra
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#12 Post by Vezzra »

xdsfgdfghdf wrote:> what version are you playing as the game is set to spawn planets near you.

0.4.3 on ubuntu
Ouch. That release is two and a half years old (Aug 2013), so, horribly outdated. For example, it lacks the improved homeworld placing that ensures you have a certain minimum of planets in the near vicinity (among a LOT of other things).

Current stable release is 0.4.5, please upgrade. We can't provide support for outdated releases.

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MatGB
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#13 Post by MatGB »

Vezzra wrote:
xdsfgdfghdf wrote:> what version are you playing as the game is set to spawn planets near you.

0.4.3 on ubuntu
Ouch. That release is two and a half years old (Aug 2013), so, horribly outdated. For example, it lacks the improved homeworld placing that ensures you have a certain minimum of planets in the near vicinity (among a LOT of other things).

Current stable release is 0.4.5, please upgrade. We can't provide support for outdated releases.
This is why I asked the question.

The Ubuntu repos got updated to hold 0.4.5 at the end of last year (I use Kubuntu myself as of last summer), but until then were on 0.4.3, for some reason 0.4.4 got missed entirely. I also strongly recommend compiling from source, I learnt how to do it my first week on Linux and it's a lot better as you can always get an up to date version. But definitely upgrade to the next version using your package manager, the main complaint of the thread has already been dealt with.

Other observations: the game is balanced to have one empire every 15-30 systems. The AI, specifically, is setup assuming that will be the case and actually tends to stall out and not do so well if it's got a lot of expansion space. If you want to limit contact, reduce the number of starlanes. Playing on tiny maps is a bad plan overall, neither you nor the AI have anywhere to go.

We have done a reasonable job of updating the description in game to explain better what buildings are where and which should be once-per-empire &c since 0.4.3 was introduced, there's also a barebones getting started guide in game but that needs more work. That you assumed you dodn't need more than one Industrial Center is GOOD, as that's the intent, but it wasn't at all clear and is a complete waste of resources.

Definitely play as Humans while learning, if you find that challenging, try Chato in a Young galaxy, but Chato have some drawbacks that are harder for newer players to get around.

It's not just enter to skip a turn as you type messages and design descriptions, virtually all keyboard shortcuts are set to require a control key, you can change them yourself if you really want to (remember, the game can also be played multiplayer where messages are actually useful).

You can display the entire research tree, but it's massive, I personally dislike the default setting but it's easily changed and it's recommended you do so. The main reasons to not show it all the time are complete confusion for new players as it's swamping and rendering problems, it takes system resources to generate the whole thing and lower spec machines don't like it.

Seriously, upgrade the install, the game has had so many improvements in the last three years and many address concerns you've raised.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Crius
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Re: Winning depends on planet type availibility matching you

#14 Post by Crius »

MatGB wrote:Playing on tiny maps is a bad plan overall, neither you nor the AI have anywhere to go.
On that note I have to say I have had some really fun games playing on sub-20 systems with 5-10 players. It changes strategies from long-term to short-term as you are immediately in each other's faces. Suddenly species like Egassem and Eaxaw are really great at the start!

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