🚀 go-pugleaf

"mcv" <mcv...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message 
news:43d66ff8$0$11067$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwar...@stardock.com> 
> wrote:
>>
>> Anyway, here's the URL to the AI debugging session entitled 
>> "Human/Drengin
>> wars".  I through in flavor text as well to make it more interesting to
>> read. ;)
>>
>> http://www.galciv2.com/Journals.aspx?AID=98513
>
> I hadn't read it yet when I made my previous comments, so here are some
> more:
>
> First you have trouble with the AI building too many Constructors early,
> later you mention them reaching Transports too late. One easy fix (the
> way a modder would do it), is too make Constructors availlable later,
> and Transports availlable earlier. To be honest, exploiting those
> mysterious Galactic Resources sounds a bit more high tech than getting
> people from A to B anyway.
>
> I really like the fact that the AI does counter design. A game with
> ship design wouldn't be complete without it. A have a few questions,
> though: is every ship a counter design, or does it also make alround
> ships? Perhaps it depends on how much trouble its having with its
> enemy's specialised ships? And can it make one design to counter two
> different enemy designs?
>
> Also, how predictable is it in its counter design? A big risk in
> counter design in multiplayer games (Stars! is my main example), is
> that you may not know exactly how many ships of a certain design the
> enemy has built. If it responds to quickly to a new design, I may be
> able to trick it into building a lot of ships on a type to counter a
> design I only built two of, while I spent most of my time secretly
> building a counter against the predictable AI's counter design. If
> you know what I mean.

LOL.  Until I read your post, the AI had the flaw you describe.  So I put in 
a few hours and had it analyze your ships (the ones it knows about anyway) 
and do its best to see where the bulk of your strengths and weaknesses are.

>
> Ofcourse if players tend to specialise extremely in different weapon
> technologies, this may not be much of a problem, but with more than
> two players, I may be able to trade my advanced mass drivers against
> an ally's advanced beams, and surprise my enemy who has just put a
> lot of effort into a mass driver resistent fleet.

It'll be very tough for players to be jack of all trades and win.  One 
change we did to the game is that techs get more expensive based on the # y 
ou've researched.  So going up through the railguns and such to get good 
mass driver based weapons is good but it'll be tougher to go back and start 
with missiles or phasers or whatever.  So you end up commiting, to a certian 
extent.  You can switch, and players will need to in many cases, but it's 
not trivial to just crank out a fleet of dreadnoughts using the state of the 
art beam weapons and then turn around with another group of dreadnoughts 
with the best missiles.

>
> By the way, I love the unique Drengin ship names, and especially the
> fact that their naming scheme changes when their alignment changes.
> Probably not very hard to program, but still a very cute detail.
>

Actually I did that as part of my game.  The game was pulling the stuff from 
a text file that has a whole series of names based on alignment but then we 
got negative feedback that as cool as it was, it made it take longer to tell 
what type of ship.  So we're back to "battleship".  In 1.x I hope to make it 
an option because well 1) I think it's cool and 2) We already put in the 
work. ;)

> One comment about the Orbital Fleet Manager. For a software engineer,
> it's natural to call everything that manages something a Manager, but
> in a military SF setting, would Orbital Command Center sound better?
>

Yea, that is true.  Will have to see if it's too late to tweak that.

> I'm pretty amazed that the Drengin still put up such a good fight,
> despite not seeing the importance of most of its own planets.
>

There were numerous other errors too.  I'm up to the 10th generation now on 
those battles and I still beat it and each time I find some error in the 
logic.  It's complicated stuff as you can imagine.

> Great read. Looks like a really exciting game. Any chance you're
> looking for beta testers?

Heh.  Well we're pretty much set now.  Goes gold next week. ;)

BTW, in the campaign I named some of the ships after regulars from this 
group.  There's a ship called the MCV (and Ceowulf and Lucian and so forth). 
;)

Brad
--
Brad Wardell
Project Manager: Galactic Civilizations II (www.galciv2.com)
Stardock - http://www.stardock.com

>
>
> mcv.
> -- 
> "Serenity is a very personal work with political resonance and a
> heartfelt message about the human condition and stuff blowing up.
> 'Cause let's face it, nobody cares about that 'human condition'
> stuff... in fact if you notice it, try to keep it to yourself."
>                                        -- Joss Whedon on his new film