Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

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marcOSX
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#76 Post by marcOSX »

godel wrote: If you want challenge use etty, if you don't use Gys. No?
I tried a similar setup with Ettys. Will keep you informed on the result, but as soon as I find some other species, they build my scouts. The beginning is fun tho, as it is almost the same to explore with scouts or with the frigate lol. I will post turn 100 with Etty.

What I would like most is to have some good reason to send an expeditionnary army long away from supply lines deep into enemy territory to get something, maybe build a transformer there and hack and whack it. For now I see no reason at all apart just the fun of it. :lol:

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MatGB
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#77 Post by MatGB »

Easy mode: Chato on Young Galaxy, Gysache with at least some natives.
Normal mode: Humans
Hard mode: Egassem, any setup.

There's been discussion in the past that the AI needs to get better at late game stuff, but the team has been working on Other!Cool!Features recently which should help overall.

Plus, there's an acknowledgement that the early choices within the tech tree are a bit too obvious to a more experienced player, and I'm not a huge fan of some of the early game choices the AI makes, but as we've agreed we want to rewrite wha the early choices are...
Mat Bowles

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

godel
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#78 Post by godel »

MatGB wrote:Easy mode: Chato on Young Galaxy, Gysache with at least some natives.
Normal mode: Humans
Hard mode: Egassem, any setup.

There's been discussion in the past that the AI needs to get better at late game stuff, but the team has been working on Other!Cool!Features recently which should help overall.

Plus, there's an acknowledgement that the early choices within the tech tree are a bit too obvious to a more experienced player, and I'm not a huge fan of some of the early game choices the AI makes, but as we've agreed we want to rewrite wha the early choices are...
Awesome! And Thanks!
Keep the current level of smarts for the beginiers. Keep the current level of choices, even if the choices are changeds, for same.
The game is not finished, we should not expect perfection.
Egassem I can handle in a fast start game, though any slow research race vs a stealth race is a very hard battle.

godel
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#79 Post by godel »

Someday having an option to specify the opponent race(s) would be nice, especially for beginners.
This goes with the dream of specifying an aggression level for each.
it is a far off dream, and is not demanded.
But keep it in mind, please?

marcOSX
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#80 Post by marcOSX »

MatGB wrote:Easy mode: Chato on Young Galaxy, Gysache with at least some natives.
Normal mode: Humans
Hard mode: Egassem, any setup.

There's been discussion in the past that the AI needs to get better at late game stuff, but the team has been working on Other!Cool!Features recently which should help overall.
Thanks and keep the good work. This game is great !

godel
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#81 Post by godel »

Giving beginners that information on what is hard and what is easy would be good sometime.

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MatGB
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#82 Post by MatGB »

godel wrote:Someday having an option to specify the opponent race(s) would be nice, especially for beginners.
This goes with the dream of specifying an aggression level for each.
it is a far off dream, and is not demanded.
But keep it in mind, please?
You can specify the races by setting up a multiplayer game with just one human player. You can't, yet, specify AI aggression but that might happen in the future.

Bear in mind that you have to tell the game to use autosaves in multiplayer, and reloading a multiplayer game can be a bit of a pain, but it does work.
Mat Bowles

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

Scara
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#83 Post by Scara »

I recently played the xenophobic Eaxaw and was surprised of the difference in game play. I wondered why production and research kept so low, but when I found out about the malus on both the own side and the other species causing the "trouble", I was already battered. I think it is logical the malus goes in both directions. I had no closer look at the mali, but it might make sense if the mali for the eaxaw were less than the mali on occupied alien species. Is there anyway compensating them? I didn't get to exobot's but they probably don't cause mali?
So if that's the case I guess the straight forward solution would be to use the concentration camps to eliminate the other races and plant exobots on every planet not habitable by the Eaxaw?
To be honest I never used cc yet... in the beginning I was a bit shocked to find this concept in the game, but being a dead end in the research tree and no necessity of building them at all, I already thought them as strategic element of some sort. Probably exactly what xenophobic species need...
I'll try the eaxaw again, cause I haven't been prepared of the impact on game play by the xenophobic game concept.

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MatGB
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#84 Post by MatGB »

Scara wrote:I recently played the xenophobic Eaxaw and was surprised of the difference in game play. I wondered why production and research kept so low, but when I found out about the malus on both the own side and the other species causing the "trouble", I was already battered. I think it is logical the malus goes in both directions. I had no closer look at the mali, but it might make sense if the mali for the eaxaw were less than the mali on occupied alien species. Is there anyway compensating them? I didn't get to exobot's but they probably don't cause mali?
Eaxaw have identical stats to Humans except the Xenophobic malus and the Great Pilots bonus (they're joint best pilots in the game with the native Mu Ursh species). And yes, Exobots are excluded from the Malus.

We have done some balancing work on Xenophobia to reduce the effect, I forget whether that was before or after the release of 0.4.4, but it is meant to be a disdvantage pushing a different playstyle:
So if that's the case I guess the straight forward solution would be to use the concentration camps to eliminate the other races and plant exobots on every planet not habitable by the Eaxaw?
Yes, the malus on the Eaxaw doesn't apply if all the nearby species in your empire have camps built. You can also research Cyborgs and Xenological Hybridisation and inhabit every world in the galaxy.
To be honest I never used cc yet... in the beginning I was a bit shocked to find this concept in the game, but being a dead end in the research tree and no necessity of building them at all, I already thought them as strategic element of some sort. Probably exactly what xenophobic species need...
I'll try the eaxaw again, cause I haven't been prepared of the impact on game play by the xenophobic game concept.
We've discussed changing various aspects several times, but no one has come up with a solid proposal.

Concentration camps are, in many respects, very overpowered. Mostly because a player that can be bothered to juggle them can get a massive production boost fairly quickly, the xenophobic "wipe out the infidels" strategy can be a fun challenge, it's certainly a very different game, but it's not as easy as the more general approach.
Mat Bowles

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

marcOSX
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#85 Post by marcOSX »

Hello. Egassem try, huge map, low everything.

As promised here is turn 100. I did not pass the first 50 turns this time. But you can see I am also well in advance, and if you consider I just discovered distrubuted thought computing at turn 99, and have zero special, you can assume I have also a winning hand.

With this game I have some competition somewhere in the infinite space, but my progresion rate is steeper.

OK next one Egassem with 50 turns delay :-)
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Turn 100 with the egassem. Even with low natives, i found some aliens to compensate my low research...
Turn 100 with the egassem. Even with low natives, i found some aliens to compensate my low research...
Turn100-egassem.jpg (342.79 KiB) Viewed 882 times

godel
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#86 Post by godel »

OK, how did you do that?
Conquering other planets looks like. Was that true?

marcOSX
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#87 Post by marcOSX »

godel wrote:OK, how did you do that?
Conquering other planets looks like. Was that true?
True. I was on low natives, but still... Point is where is the fun without some cool aliens around? So I used my high prod to get many scouts. I was is a quite lithic neighbourhood for what it seems, as I found an abaddoni planet closeby. These guys can settle in more planets and have no penalty nor bonus to research. So they became my scientists.

All the point was to be able to settle to enough planets to get the bonuses per planet of research and production.

1/ Right order : boost research : elegance and nascent intelligence right away. Then ecology to get subterranean and symbiotic. Then prod to get adaptive automation. Somewhere in between orbital construction and maybe space elevator. Once this is done, head for exobots and distributed thought computing with xenological as spare tech. Normally you will already have asteroids outposts ready to receive size 6 bots. If you can get Lifecycle manipulation right before the colonies finish, you have a good set. Your robots will also research.
2/ a second planet quick even if it's tiny.
3/ aliens ASAP. As you are big prod, build scouts, more scouts. and outposts that you settle eventually to asteroids if nothing better. Extend your reach, find those rare ET somewhere... Look for undefended first, and if some are really interseting, you can get (I did in this game) asteroid hulls and some other kind to get quick this planet.

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MatGB
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#88 Post by MatGB »

Yup, that's how I do it as well, and yes, your numbers look about right to me, that's normally where I am if I've managed to spread out at all, even with Egassem.

It's a snowballing effect, the more planets/species you have, the quicker you can build more/research more, the faster you grow, etc.

I think it's partially that some of the bonuses are simply too big, but mostly that the AI, especially with the new colonising system, is simply slower to get going in most cases, so by the time it's actually into real growth, you're spiralling further ahead.

However...

this is mostly a problem with AI development as opposed directly to game balance, I can't do anything about the former (Dilvish and team can, and are), but I can tweak stats, change costs, etc.

Anything specific you think is overpowered that lets you get that far ahead so quickly? I have opinions but the more contributions the better.
Mat Bowles

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

marcOSX
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#89 Post by marcOSX »

MatGB wrote:Anything specific you think is overpowered that lets you get that far ahead so quickly? I have opinions but the more contributions the better.
Not really, I agree it is mostly that the AI is not catching up.

Now I tried Geoff's recipe and truth is I like it very much. So I cerated a new huge galaxy, 2000 stars. low everything, pressed the next turn button 50 times... I only did one thing in those turns, which in this case had no consequence on the game: I reaserched planetary defense 1 and 2 in case some kraken decide to visit (at 5 research... egassem lol). But apart from that, nada.

Now, at turn 150, I really love the situation. I am not the first, and some blue guy is rocketing up. Among 16 empires, I am right now average. with some aliens ahead. I just spotted the pink one next to me. Good news: he is a chato, so I will take his 200% science planets :-)

Thanks a lot Geoff It was the right answer ! Egassem plus 50 turns ...

This game I want to play it middle and late game :-)
Attachments
This is turn 150, 100 turns after I started.
This is turn 150, 100 turns after I started.
Egassem50-150.jpg (393.73 KiB) Viewed 865 times
50 turns inactive apart from some defense research that I usually research only if really needed before turn 100
50 turns inactive apart from some defense research that I usually research only if really needed before turn 100
Egassem50.jpg (162.59 KiB) Viewed 865 times

marcOSX
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Re: Game balance in 0.4.4 release—feedback needed

#90 Post by marcOSX »

I am going on with my egassem-50-turns game. I want to say that never before had I so much fun in the mid to late game. I am currently at turn 293 (with my core2duo, turns for a galaxy of 2,000 stars take enough time to do something in the meanwhile, like posting here. I took the lead in research around turn 270, and am still back in prod if compared to an unknown foe. Point is I only met 4 out of 15 AI. One of which (eaxaw) I completely eliminated, the other (chato) greatly boosted my research. I will keep you informed but I noticed something after getting my first ruins (I'm in low ruins so I am lucky because it gave me multispectral shield).

1/ Is it as intended that my scattered asteroids hulls equipped with multispectral shields are immune to damage in outer space? Say I have a full ennemy fleet (chato) in one outer space nod (no star). I run into them with a single ship (scattered asteroids + multispectral). Then I block them, and turn after turn I hit them and they cannot hit me. It's a lot of fun, as it allows me to grind the big pink empire, but seems a bit overpowered. If I remember well, I had the reverse situation in another game, also with multispectral shield, playing human against a "spectral" laenfa ship. I destroyed it using ships with high detection. But is it as intended because...

2/Where can I find detailed information about what does the multispectral shield ? The tooltip and pedia are nice, but what I infer from them is that multispectral does not work in neutron star systems. Not a word about "no stars" places. I looked the game wiki, but again did not find the information. Is it the correct wiki? Is the information somewhere in outer cyberspace?

3/ I also have a question about the transformer. It seems it is not working on gas giants, tho I was able to build one there... May I suggest an update to the tooltip? Again in which wiki could I find details about this great building? So far I only use it really as a stargade quicker to build.

4/Trying to use the krill spawner (those pink guys let me a ruin undefended, second I have seen so far. Thanks). Not easy matter to infiltrate enemy empire deep enough to disrupt him and not my invading force... The idea is fun definitely !

5/Which makes me think about something: Do we have a table somewhere with the different hulls and their effects (most notably sealth, speed, shields as I noted some boost shields). As I understand this is a changing matter maybe I can hack a php script to dive in the latest python script and present the information for players...

6/ Is it normal at turn 296 that I had no notice of the experimentors? Galaxy is 2000 systems, shape unknown yet but seems kind of eliptical, with 16 empires. There should not be any problem of space for those guys to fit. Maybe the spawned just too far for me to get notice? In some earlier games it seems to me that the AI is dealing quite badly with those guys and let their monsters hack their planets...
Last edited by marcOSX on Sun May 17, 2015 8:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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