🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <yZudnZa7eZR...@comcast.com>, bwar...@stardock.com 
says...
> In general, my view was that the AI worked pretty well but militarily was 
> disappointed. The main issue was its lack of coordination in projecting 
> military power into a given quadrant.  The result was hat looked like the 
> age-old "Death train" (That's where units uselessly throw themselves at a 
> wall dying with no purpose). There simply wasn't enough analysis on putting 
> units together and using them effectivley.

An invariable problem, I suspect.  You need strongish AI to strike a 
balance between opportunistic raiding/exploration/dispersed defence and 
attacks in force.

Part of the solution is often to change the rules.  Civ4 did away with 
separate attack and defence parameters, and instantly the cost to the 
AI of ill-judged cavalry raids was reduced, though not eliminated.
 
> A lot -- A LOT -- of work has been going into the AI of Galactic 
> Civilizations II in order to not just make it "challenging" but to make it 
> play intelligently.  There were significant chunks of the GalCiv I AI that 
> were scripted.  That is, the AI is programmed to do certain things due to 
> play-testing over and over.  This time around, we're trying our best to make 
> the AI build strategies based on analysis and not rely on scripts.
> 
> The improvements in the AI have led to a lot of changes, probably the 
> biggest one being the elimination of the infamous "The AI knows where the 
> good planets are" issue that GalCiv from the OS/2 days on up to the 2003 
> release of GalCiv.  GalCiv II's AI has to build scouts and look for good 
> planets just like everyone else.

That was more of an issue because some people were claiming that the AI 
played by exactly the same rules, I suspect ;-)

Of course, some people just don't understand the difficulty of writing 
an AI and will always complain when sleight of hand is used to create 
an effective computer opponent.

> To get an idea of what is involved in debugging such an AI, I chronicled one 
> such game.  Mind you, we're now doing several of these types of games each 
> day to tune the AI, to find flaws, etc.  The idea being that when the game's 
> released, the difficulty levels will determine how smartly the AI plays 
> rather than age old "Here's some money (or less of)" way that strategy games 
> have used as a crutch.
> 
> 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

Looks interesting.  I still suspect that computers will not play 
strategy games at strong human level until they develop near human 
level intelligence.  Cheats or handicapping of some kind will always be 
needed.

PS

- Gerry Quinn

"Brad Wardell" <bwar...@stardock.com> wrote in message 
news:yZudnZa7eZRE8UneRVn-og@comcast.com...
> Back a couple of years ago there was a great deal of discussion on Usenet 
> with regards to the GalCiv I AI.  Most people thought it was pretty good 
> but others felt the military tactics were bad.  That while the AI provided 
> a challenge, it mostly was able to do so because it was more effective at 
> managing its economy/industry than the typical human and thus could 
> essentially "win" through brute force.
>
> In general, my view was that the AI worked pretty well but militarily was 
> disappointed. The main issue was its lack of coordination in projecting 
> military power into a given quadrant.  The result was hat looked like the 
> age-old "Death train" (That's where units uselessly throw themselves at a 
> wall dying with no purpose). There simply wasn't enough analysis on 
> putting units together and using them effectivley.
>
> A lot of this came down to being restricted to CPU light algorithms. 
> GalCiv I was a sprite-based game -- no hardware acceleration.  So the 
> graphics were CPU bound.  Even though the AI is, and continues to be, 
> multithreaded, there are still very real limits on how much time can be 
> spent generating multi-turn strategies.  GalCiv II, however, is 
> 3D-accelerated which has freed up the CPU a great deal.  This has allowed 
> for greatly expanded algorithms during military endeavors without raising 
> the hardware requirements (in fact, on the typical PC, GalCiv II will run 
> better than GalCiv I did ironically despite immense graphics improvements 
> and 3D engine).
>
> A lot -- A LOT -- of work has been going into the AI of Galactic 
> Civilizations II in order to not just make it "challenging" but to make it 
> play intelligently.  There were significant chunks of the GalCiv I AI that 
> were scripted.  That is, the AI is programmed to do certain things due to 
> play-testing over and over.  This time around, we're trying our best to 
> make the AI build strategies based on analysis and not rely on scripts.
>
> The improvements in the AI have led to a lot of changes, probably the 
> biggest one being the elimination of the infamous "The AI knows where the 
> good planets are" issue that GalCiv from the OS/2 days on up to the 2003 
> release of GalCiv.  GalCiv II's AI has to build scouts and look for good 
> planets just like everyone else.
>
> To get an idea of what is involved in debugging such an AI, I chronicled 
> one such game.  Mind you, we're now doing several of these types of games 
> each day to tune the AI, to find flaws, etc.  The idea being that when the 
> game's released, the difficulty levels will determine how smartly the AI 
> plays rather than age old "Here's some money (or less of)" way that 
> strategy games have used as a crutch.
>
> 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
>
>

Very interesting. I am glad to see that the computer AI is being taken 
seriously.  For a few years, I was in the camp of thinking that multiplayer 
was the cure for bad computer AI.

But now that I'm busier with life(TM) I prefer to play my strategy games 
against the computer only. I just don't have time to spend a day looking for 
someone else to play. So a smart and challenging computer player is very 
important.

-Craig 

"Craig Swanson" <csw...@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1Z6dncRATaZm20jenZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@giganews.com...
>
> "Brad Wardell" <bwar...@stardock.com> wrote in message 
> news:yZudnZa7eZRE8UneRVn-og@comcast.com...


<snip>

>> 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
>>
>>
>
> Very interesting. I am glad to see that the computer AI is being taken 
> seriously.  For a few years, I was in the camp of thinking that 
> multiplayer was the cure for bad computer AI.
>
> But now that I'm busier with life(TM) I prefer to play my strategy games 
> against the computer only. I just don't have time to spend a day looking 
> for someone else to play. So a smart and challenging computer player is 
> very important.
>

I still like and play multiplayer games.  But I feel like there are plenty 
of games now that cater to multiplayer.

To use an analogy, I'm glad there are MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. I love 
that game.  But I also am thankful that there are good single player RPGs 
like Knights of the Old Republic.

Similarly, as much as I love to play Warcraft 3 on-line or even Age of 
Empires 3 online (let alone Total Annihilation or waiting for Supreme 
Commander), some strategy games I just want to sit down and play and enjoy 
at my own leisure the detailed world that my strategy game is in and have 
competent computer players.

That's one reason I was glad Civ 4 had good AI.  They did a great job on 
multiplayer but I want to play it single player and I want more strategy 
games, particularly turn-based, to work on having a good single player 
experience.  But I digress.

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

> -Craig
> 

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwar...@stardock.com> wrote:
> Back a couple of years ago there was a great deal of discussion on Usenet 
> with regards to the GalCiv I AI.  Most people thought it was pretty good but 
> others felt the military tactics were bad.

"Bad" is a bit stronger than I'd put it. It was still better than the
vast majority of strategy games out there, but the vast majority of
strategy games has seriously brain dead AI. I'm glad GalCiv1 at least
made a serious attempt at decent AI, and it was all the more fun
because of it. I'm still playing it.

>  That while the AI provided a 
> challenge, it mostly was able to do so because it was more effective at 
> managing its economy/industry than the typical human and thus could 
> essentially "win" through brute force.

It's not even that it's more effective at running its economy, but
that it gets a big economic bonus. Given time, I will catch up
economically even without wars. Mostly because of the wonders and
trade goods ofcourse, because the AI rarely manages to grab more
than one or two of those.

> In general, my view was that the AI worked pretty well but militarily was 
> disappointed. The main issue was its lack of coordination in projecting 
> military power into a given quadrant.  The result was hat looked like the 
> age-old "Death train" (That's where units uselessly throw themselves at a 
> wall dying with no purpose). There simply wasn't enough analysis on putting 
> units together and using them effectivley.

This is a problem with absolutely every complex strategy game out there.
Their attacks lack focus, which means that in the best cases, they're
decent at defense, but little else. The only exception I can think of
is PG3SE; there, the AI sometimes seems to be mounting a decent counter
offensive, although I think it's usually either prepared by the human
creating the scenario, or the result of some clever scripting.

I think an important part of fixing this is to:
A) make the AI realise that Death Knights without transports aren't
going to win the war, and
B) transports without support from superior firepower are going to
lose the war.

For good combined arms, you need:
1) Some tough ships of the line, and enough of them to fight off the
enemy,
2) Transports to take planets, and
3) Fast raiders who use their speed to jump from behind the protection
of the big ships and wreak some havoc.

The AI should be trying to group his ships in groups with each of these
types present in sufficient numbers (although type 3 isn't really
vital). They don't have to travel to the front in these groups, but
once they get to the enemy planets, something of the appropriate type
has to be nearby, or he's just wasting time.

Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights aren't
going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding more Death
Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my current game, a
handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a gigantic fleet of Arcean
Death Knights while I still had to build my Dreadnoughts with which
I wanted to conquer all of his planets. I think I had a single
Battleship. He caught me with my pants down, and wasted his time
and his fleet on chasing down Starfighters he could never hope to
catch.

> A lot -- A LOT -- of work has been going into the AI of Galactic 
> Civilizations II in order to not just make it "challenging" but to make it 
> play intelligently.  There were significant chunks of the GalCiv I AI that 
> were scripted.  That is, the AI is programmed to do certain things due to 
> play-testing over and over.  This time around, we're trying our best to make 
> the AI build strategies based on analysis and not rely on scripts.

This is really good news. Can't wait to see it. That should help fix
some of the problems I mentioned above.

> The improvements in the AI have led to a lot of changes, probably the 
> biggest one being the elimination of the infamous "The AI knows where the 
> good planets are" issue that GalCiv from the OS/2 days on up to the 2003 
> release of GalCiv.  GalCiv II's AI has to build scouts and look for good 
> planets just like everyone else.

That would be really great. But is the AI smart enough to do that? I
was one of the people who criticised your claim that the game had a
"level palying field", when in fact the AI didn't need scouts at all,
but at the same time, I do understand that smart scouting isn't easy.
And what is the AI going to do when I find a Starfighter early and
start killing off his scouts?

Although I'd love a truly level playing field, an able opponent is
still more important.

> The idea being that when the game's 
> released, the difficulty levels will determine how smartly the AI plays 
> rather than age old "Here's some money (or less of)" way that strategy games 
> have used as a crutch.

Another decision I love. I mean, crutches are better than limping along,
but, to stretch this metaphor a bit further, I would love to see an AI
that can actually stand on its own legs. I've never seen anything like
that.

And again, don't be afraid to make use of the things the AI is good at:
working the numbers, fast processing speed, etc. Make it mean and
nasty and rip my guts out at the toughest levels. It's gonna need it.


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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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


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

mcv <mcv...@xs4all.nl> wrote in
news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl: 

> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights
> aren't going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding
> more Death Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my
> current game, a handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a
> gigantic fleet of Arcean Death Knights while I still had to
> build my Dreadnoughts with which I wanted to conquer all of his
> planets.

It depends what is more important. Attacking a planet, or harrasing a 
group of scouts. ~_^

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Raghar <not...@mail.com> wrote:
> mcv <mcv...@xs4all.nl> wrote in
> news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl: 
> 
>> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights
>> aren't going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding
>> more Death Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my
>> current game, a handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a
>> gigantic fleet of Arcean Death Knights while I still had to
>> build my Dreadnoughts with which I wanted to conquer all of his
>> planets.
> 
> It depends what is more important. Attacking a planet, or harrasing a 
> group of scouts. ~_^

Considering my Starfighters still managed to kill a lot of freighters
and colony ships in orbit of his planets, the Arceans weren't doing a
very good job at harrassing them either.


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

"mcv" <mcv...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message 
news:43d6395b$0$11071$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwar...@stardock.com> 
> wrote:
>> Back a couple of years ago there was a great deal of discussion on Usenet
>> with regards to the GalCiv I AI.  Most people thought it was pretty good 
>> but
>> others felt the military tactics were bad.
>
> "Bad" is a bit stronger than I'd put it. It was still better than the
> vast majority of strategy games out there, but the vast majority of
> strategy games has seriously brain dead AI. I'm glad GalCiv1 at least
> made a serious attempt at decent AI, and it was all the more fun
> because of it. I'm still playing it.

Thanks.  My beef with it was the death trains.  There was all this work put 
into having the AI intelligently project military force and in the end it 
often looked no different than the standard death train stuff.

>
>>  That while the AI provided a
>> challenge, it mostly was able to do so because it was more effective at
>> managing its economy/industry than the typical human and thus could
>> essentially "win" through brute force.
>
> It's not even that it's more effective at running its economy, but
> that it gets a big economic bonus. Given time, I will catch up
> economically even without wars. Mostly because of the wonders and
> trade goods ofcourse, because the AI rarely manages to grab more
> than one or two of those.

Yea, at the higher levels it did.  In GalCiv II, the really high levels have 
money bonuses as well.  Up to "Intelligent" the AI will play its best game 
without any special bonuses.  The goal was to make it so that it could beat 
a good strategy gamer without having to get any bonuses.  I'm still tweaking 
it even as we speak but it's very close.

In GalCiv I, I could beat the AI (without using some cheese tactic) way 
beyond the point where it had started to get bonuses.  In GalCiv II, I can 
beat the AI solidly on intelligent but not a bit beyond that.

>
>> In general, my view was that the AI worked pretty well but militarily was
>> disappointed. The main issue was its lack of coordination in projecting
>> military power into a given quadrant.  The result was hat looked like the
>> age-old "Death train" (That's where units uselessly throw themselves at a
>> wall dying with no purpose). There simply wasn't enough analysis on 
>> putting
>> units together and using them effectivley.
>
> This is a problem with absolutely every complex strategy game out there.
> Their attacks lack focus, which means that in the best cases, they're
> decent at defense, but little else. The only exception I can think of
> is PG3SE; there, the AI sometimes seems to be mounting a decent counter
> offensive, although I think it's usually either prepared by the human
> creating the scenario, or the result of some clever scripting.
>
> I think an important part of fixing this is to:
> A) make the AI realise that Death Knights without transports aren't
> going to win the war, and

Yep.  The AI is much more intelligent in this area.

> B) transports without support from superior firepower are going to
> lose the war.

This time there's a lot more emphasis on escorts.  It will, especially at 
higher levels, vigorously try to escort transports.  The one gotcha is that 
now that the AI doesn't "see all" like in GalCiv I that it will sometimes 
still send a fast transport not seeing there's an enemy in the way.

>
> For good combined arms, you need:
> 1) Some tough ships of the line, and enough of them to fight off the
> enemy,
> 2) Transports to take planets, and
> 3) Fast raiders who use their speed to jump from behind the protection
> of the big ships and wreak some havoc.
>

Yep. And one of the other challenges which I'm still working on is 
coordinating the attack -- tough ships take our orbital defenses, nearby 
transport takes over.  That probably wont' make it in to the boxed release 
but I hope to get it into the bonus back (performance right now is a key 
factor and coordination like this is expensive but with further algorithm 
optimization it can be done).

> The AI should be trying to group his ships in groups with each of these
> types present in sufficient numbers (although type 3 isn't really
> vital). They don't have to travel to the front in these groups, but
> once they get to the enemy planets, something of the appropriate type
> has to be nearby, or he's just wasting time.

Yep. The fleets now are very nice in this regard.

>
> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights aren't
> going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding more Death
> Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my current game, a
> handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a gigantic fleet of Arcean
> Death Knights while I still had to build my Dreadnoughts with which
> I wanted to conquer all of his planets. I think I had a single
> Battleship. He caught me with my pants down, and wasted his time
> and his fleet on chasing down Starfighters he could never hope to
> catch.

This one is more difficult than it sounds.  It now TENDS to not go after 
those ships but it will still go after them if it thinks it'll catch them 
off guard.  But no, it won't chase some scout around the galaxy.

>
>> A lot -- A LOT -- of work has been going into the AI of Galactic
>> Civilizations II in order to not just make it "challenging" but to make 
>> it
>> play intelligently.  There were significant chunks of the GalCiv I AI 
>> that
>> were scripted.  That is, the AI is programmed to do certain things due to
>> play-testing over and over.  This time around, we're trying our best to 
>> make
>> the AI build strategies based on analysis and not rely on scripts.
>
> This is really good news. Can't wait to see it. That should help fix
> some of the problems I mentioned above.
>
>> The improvements in the AI have led to a lot of changes, probably the
>> biggest one being the elimination of the infamous "The AI knows where the
>> good planets are" issue that GalCiv from the OS/2 days on up to the 2003
>> release of GalCiv.  GalCiv II's AI has to build scouts and look for good
>> planets just like everyone else.
>
> That would be really great. But is the AI smart enough to do that? I
> was one of the people who criticised your claim that the game had a
> "level palying field", when in fact the AI didn't need scouts at all,
> but at the same time, I do understand that smart scouting isn't easy.
> And what is the AI going to do when I find a Starfighter early and
> start killing off his scouts?

The big difference was going to 3D.  By going to 3D, the graphics were taken 
off the CPU and onto the video card.  So I could have the AI do more CPU 
intensive stuff.

>
> Although I'd love a truly level playing field, an able opponent is
> still more important.

At the highest levels, the AI gets bonuses. But right now, even at the 
highest level it still has to explore and such.

>
>> The idea being that when the game's
>> released, the difficulty levels will determine how smartly the AI plays
>> rather than age old "Here's some money (or less of)" way that strategy 
>> games
>> have used as a crutch.
>
> Another decision I love. I mean, crutches are better than limping along,
> but, to stretch this metaphor a bit further, I would love to see an AI
> that can actually stand on its own legs. I've never seen anything like
> that.
>
> And again, don't be afraid to make use of the things the AI is good at:
> working the numbers, fast processing speed, etc. Make it mean and
> nasty and rip my guts out at the toughest levels. It's gonna need it.
>
>

I've passed on your feedback btw, great stuff.  I can't wait to hear what 
you think of the final game.

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 

"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 

"Brad Wardell" <bwar...@stardock.com> writes:

> Yep. And one of the other challenges which I'm still working on is 
> coordinating the attack -- tough ships take our orbital defenses, nearby 
> transport takes over.  That probably wont' make it in to the boxed release 
> but I hope to get it into the bonus back (performance right now is a key 
> factor and coordination like this is expensive but with further algorithm 
> optimization it can be done).

You are doing all this AI-stuff alone, or getting support either "inside" 
or getting (bying?) it from somewere?


   Jukka

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 02:22:10 -0500, "Brad Wardell" <bwar...@stardock.com>
wrote:

>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. ;)

  Couldn't you have naming conventions like the navy?  DD-One and DD-Two are
both destroyers, BB-Three and CV-Four are a battleship and an aircraft carrier.
No matter what names you give them, it's still easy to see what kind of ship
they are.

""Jukka I Sepp�nen"" <jsep...@vipunen.hut.fi> wrote in message 
news:mnvy80zyxhj.fsf@vipunen.hut.fi...
> "Brad Wardell" <bwar...@stardock.com> writes:
>
>> Yep. And one of the other challenges which I'm still working on is
>> coordinating the attack -- tough ships take our orbital defenses, nearby
>> transport takes over.  That probably wont' make it in to the boxed 
>> release
>> but I hope to get it into the bonus back (performance right now is a key
>> factor and coordination like this is expensive but with further algorithm
>> optimization it can be done).
>
> You are doing all this AI-stuff alone, or getting support either "inside"
> or getting (bying?) it from somewere?

I code all the game AI except for the diplomacy parts (where you talk to 
aliens).

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

>
>
>   Jukka
> 

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwar...@stardock.com> wrote:
> "mcv" <mcv...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message 
> news:43d66ff8$0$11067$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
>>
>> 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.

But consider the following scenario: I'm specialising in mass drivers,
while my buddies the Altarians are specialising in beam weapons. I
get into a war with the Drengin, and because of my mass drivers, he
specialises in armour. We go on for a while, and I end up with Mass
Drivers XXI while he has Armour XXIII. So I talk to the Altarians,
whom I happen to be on pretty good terms with (although he hasn't
joined the war yet), and trade my Mass Drivers I-XXI for his
Beam weapons XVII, and start shooting the crap out of my shieldless
adversary. And I only have 1 more tech than I had before, so it's
not even slowing down my research much (although the Altarians may
suffer). The only way to prevent this is to prevent tech trade
altogether.

But even if you don't allow tech trade, the Altarians can still join
the war, and start shooting the crap out of those poor, shieldless
Drengin.

Although I like the idea, I'm afraid that forced specialisation in
technology may give close allies and/or tech traders a big advantage
over players in a more isolated position. (This may actually be
realistic, but it's also a bit unbalancing.) Instead, I think
encouraging specialisation in ships while allowing diversification
in research would be better.

A way to encourage specialisation in ship designs is to have for each
weapon type also a component that increases that weapon's effectiveness
(either power or accuracy). Let's say that we have Missile Guidance
Systems that increase the power of your missiles by 10%, and Targeting
Systems that increase the power of your beam weapons by 10%. On a ship
with 10 missiles, each MGS would effectively add another missile, but
on a ship with 5 missiles and 5 beams, each MGS or TS would add only
half a missile or half a beam weapon.

Ofcourse someone with Mass Drivers VII but Beam Weapons III is still
more likely to use mass drivers for his battleships, but if he really
needs to, he can still switch. And more importantly, so can his enemy.

>> 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".

But with ship design, they can make several different kinds of battleship,
so you still need a way to distinguish between those different designs.
So how about using "Battleship" or "BB" followed by the "cool" name?

> 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. ;)

I hope you manage to get it back in. It's useful to be able to tell in
an instant that you're looking at a battleship-sized ship, but coolness
is important too.

>> 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. ;)

Ooh! Can't wait. My birthday is conveniently coming up in a month, so
it's excellent timing.

> 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). 

This is so cool. And an honour too. I've never been mentioned in a game
before. Although I'm afraid Ceowulf and Lucian make better shipnames
than my initials.


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

In article <43ddf513$0$11076$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>,
mcv  <mcv...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>But consider the following scenario: I'm specialising in mass drivers,
>while my buddies the Altarians are specialising in beam weapons. I
>get into a war with the Drengin, and because of my mass drivers, he
>specialises in armour. We go on for a while, and I end up with Mass
>Drivers XXI while he has Armour XXIII. So I talk to the Altarians,
>whom I happen to be on pretty good terms with (although he hasn't
>joined the war yet), and trade my Mass Drivers I-XXI for his
>Beam weapons XVII, and start shooting the crap out of my shieldless
>adversary. And I only have 1 more tech than I had before, so it's
>not even slowing down my research much (although the Altarians may
>suffer). The only way to prevent this is to prevent tech trade
>altogether.

And ship trade. If the AIs are sufficiently clever, I can see a
booming business in building just the ships an AI needs to fight the
current war, and then selling them to him :-)

Alternatively, you can find out which of the AIs has the tech that you
need to win the current war and start buying warships off him. What
the game then really needs is a diplomacy subscreen where you can
negotiate the ship designs that you want them to build for you and
then contract out the construction of n ships to them :-)

>Although I like the idea, I'm afraid that forced specialisation in
>technology may give close allies and/or tech traders a big advantage
>over players in a more isolated position. (This may actually be
>realistic, but it's also a bit unbalancing.) Instead, I think
>encouraging specialisation in ships while allowing diversification
>in research would be better.

I tentatively like the idea of somehow penalising players who try to
specialize in multiple tech directions. It connects well with the idea
that a technology isn't just a blueprint and a bunch of figures locked
up in a safe somewhere, it's something that becomes very much part of
your society. And society will only absorb so many different ways of
doing the same thing. Most of the time, they'll simply use the most
effecient way and largely ignore all the others. This can make it very
challenging to try to develop an inferior alternative even when you
know that this new path will eventually lead to superior results.

It does risk putting you in a position where a game is effectively
lost, however, because you chose the wrong tech path for when the last
alien race needs to be destroyed.

It all depends on how expensive exactly it is to pursue an alternative
research path in the late game. I do assume it's not outright
impossible :-)

>A way to encourage specialisation in ship designs is to have for each
>weapon type also a component that increases that weapon's effectiveness
>(either power or accuracy). Let's say that we have Missile Guidance
>Systems that increase the power of your missiles by 10%, and Targeting
>Systems that increase the power of your beam weapons by 10%. On a ship
>with 10 missiles, each MGS would effectively add another missile, but
>on a ship with 5 missiles and 5 beams, each MGS or TS would add only
>half a missile or half a beam weapon.

This only encourages specialization in single ships, however, not in
entire fleets. With such a system, you would have a fleet with a bunch
of missile ships, another bunch of beam ships, etc.

>> 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). 
>
>This is so cool. And an honour too. I've never been mentioned in a game
>before. Although I'm afraid Ceowulf and Lucian make better shipnames
>than my initials.
>
>
>mcv.

Sounds like a Mega aircraft carrier to me, which is cool enough :-)

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - b...@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Bent C Dalager <b...@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote:
> 
> Alternatively, you can find out which of the AIs has the tech that you
> need to win the current war and start buying warships off him. What
> the game then really needs is a diplomacy subscreen where you can
> negotiate the ship designs that you want them to build for you and
> then contract out the construction of n ships to them :-)

That would be really cool. And it's exactly what happens in many
multiplayer games like Stars!. There it's not uncommon that different
players specialise in building a different type of ship, and then
trade them with each other.

But this may not quite be what Brad is going for.

>>Although I like the idea, I'm afraid that forced specialisation in
>>technology may give close allies and/or tech traders a big advantage
>>over players in a more isolated position. (This may actually be
>>realistic, but it's also a bit unbalancing.) Instead, I think
>>encouraging specialisation in ships while allowing diversification
>>in research would be better.
> 
> I tentatively like the idea of somehow penalising players who try to
> specialize in multiple tech directions. It connects well with the idea
> that a technology isn't just a blueprint and a bunch of figures locked
> up in a safe somewhere, it's something that becomes very much part of
> your society. And society will only absorb so many different ways of
> doing the same thing.

Yes, but this also has an impact on tech trading. If you want to do
this, it should be impossible (or at least a lot harder) to trade
tech. Because at the moment, you do simply get a blueprint and you
can suddenly build a ship without ever having had to research even
any of the prerequisites.

Perhaps each time you get a tech, you still have to spend some time
researching it to adapt it to your own technology. And if you don't
have any of the prerequisites, you have to spend more time on it.

So if I wanted to trade my Mass Drivers XII for someone else's
Beam Weapons XI, without ever having researched beam weapons, I'd
still have to do quite a lot of research before I can use it.

> It does risk putting you in a position where a game is effectively
> lost, however, because you chose the wrong tech path for when the last
> alien race needs to be destroyed.

Exactly. It pays to pay attention to what kind of weapons each AI is using,
so you know who you need to pick as allies in order to defeat others, and
which route will eventually be the best one for you.

Also try to provoke wars between aliens that use different weapons than
you're using, so they'll both invest a lot in defenses that won't be of
any use against you. You get a whole new meta-game this way.

If Brad doesn't want that kind of meta-game, perhaps a bit more flexibility
would be better. How about, if you specialise in mass drivers, you still
improve your beams and missiles somewhat, just not as much as you would
have improved your mass drivers. So when you develop Mass Driver X, you
can build strength 10 mass drivers, but also strength 6 beams and missiles,
for example. So it pays to stick to your specialty, but if you really need
to, you can also use different weapons.

>>A way to encourage specialisation in ship designs is to have for each
>>weapon type also a component that increases that weapon's effectiveness
>>(either power or accuracy). Let's say that we have Missile Guidance
>>Systems that increase the power of your missiles by 10%, and Targeting
>>Systems that increase the power of your beam weapons by 10%. On a ship
>>with 10 missiles, each MGS would effectively add another missile, but
>>on a ship with 5 missiles and 5 beams, each MGS or TS would add only
>>half a missile or half a beam weapon.
> 
> This only encourages specialization in single ships, however, not in
> entire fleets. With such a system, you would have a fleet with a bunch
> of missile ships, another bunch of beam ships, etc.

You're right, but to be honest, I really like specialisation in single
ships. It adds a whole new level of combined arms. To take Stars! (again)
as an example, battleships there tend to be either slow, expensive, heavy
missile platforms that wreak terrifying destruction once the enemy's
shields are down, or cheaper, lighter beamers who's job is mainly to
bring down shields and remove other distractions and threats, so the
missile ships can do their job. I like that sort of cooperation between
ships, instead of having a single optimal ship-of-the-line that can do
anything.


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

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwar...@stardock.com> wrote:
> 
> In GalCiv I, I could beat the AI (without using some cheese tactic) way 
> beyond the point where it had started to get bonuses.  In GalCiv II, I can 
> beat the AI solidly on intelligent but not a bit beyond that.

If you think the step from smartest AI without bonuses to smartest AI
with bonuses is too big, you could also reduce the bonuses a bit.
Perhaps the AI is so smart now that it only needs a small bonus in
order to stand up to a human? (Reminds me a bit of a legendary go-player
who claimed he could defeat God (the perfect go-player) as long as he
got the first move.)

On the other hand, just in case there are better GalCiv players than
you, it wouldn't hurt to include settings with much bigger bonuses.
Ofource my preference would be that level of AI intelligence and size
of his economic and other bonuses and penalties would be completely
configurable by the player, but I understand that's not how it's
going to work.

>> Also, the AI should realise that his speed 3 Death Knights aren't
>> going to catch a speed 9 Starfighter, and that adding more Death
>> Knights isn't going to increase the speed. In my current game, a
>> handful of Starfighters managed to tie up a gigantic fleet of Arcean
>> Death Knights while I still had to build my Dreadnoughts with which
>> I wanted to conquer all of his planets. I think I had a single
>> Battleship. He caught me with my pants down, and wasted his time
>> and his fleet on chasing down Starfighters he could never hope to
>> catch.
> 
> This one is more difficult than it sounds.  It now TENDS to not go after 
> those ships but it will still go after them if it thinks it'll catch them 
> off guard.  But no, it won't chase some scout around the galaxy.

Even if it doesn't stand a chance to actually catch it, it may still
be worth it to chase the scout or starfighter away, especially because
a starfighter can still kill freighters and colony ships. The problem
is that it needs to use the appropriate ships. So it should use
corvettes to chase startfighters, battlecruisers to hunt corvettes,
etc. It needs to be as fast or only slightly slower, and just a bit
stronger. And one or two ships is enough. A stack of 10 Death Knights
hunting a single starfighter is silly. Even one Death Knight would be
acceptable (although it should try to replace it with a Corvette as
soon as possible).

> I've passed on your feedback btw, great stuff.  I can't wait to hear what 
> you think of the final game.

I can't wait to see it.


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

b...@pvv.ntnu.no (Bent C Dalager) wrote in
news:drl0u0$agk$1...@orkan.itea.ntnu.no: 

> In article <43ddf513$0$11076$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>,
> mcv  <mcv...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>Although I like the idea, I'm afraid that forced specialisation
>>in technology may give close allies and/or tech traders a big
>>advantage over players in a more isolated position. (This may
>>actually be realistic, but it's also a bit unbalancing.)
>>Instead, I think encouraging specialisation in ships while
>>allowing diversification in research would be better.
> 
> I tentatively like the idea of somehow penalising players who
> try to specialize in multiple tech directions. It connects well
> with the idea that a technology isn't just a blueprint and a
> bunch of figures locked up in a safe somewhere, it's something
> that becomes very much part of your society.

In a same way how neuton bomb research has become integral part of US 
industry? There are just a few types of weapons, and they are not 
that hard to research in parallel. Of course actually fielding them 
at once might be somewhat problematic.

"Brad Wardell" <bwar...@stardock.com> wrote in
news:_dudne_TNcq88...@comcast.com: 


> 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). ;)
> 

Mine counter vehicle?

Navy would sue you for copyright violation... ~_^

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:55:37 +0000 (UTC), Raghar <not...@mail.com> wrote:

>In a same way how neuton bomb research has become integral part of US 
>industry? There are just a few types of weapons, and they are not 
>that hard to research in parallel. Of course actually fielding them 
>at once might be somewhat problematic.

  As amply demonstrated by Germany during WW2. :)

In article <Xns975BF365...@195.250.128.45>,
Raghar  <not...@mail.com> wrote:
>
>In a same way how neuton bomb research has become integral part of US 
>industry? There are just a few types of weapons, and they are not 
>that hard to research in parallel. Of course actually fielding them 
>at once might be somewhat problematic.

But then no one is claiming that neutron bomb research was cheap.
Which is rather the point: if you want to build a weapon that doesn't
draw upon the general type of tech already in use in your society, it
is likely to be incredibly expensive to do so.

Cheers
	Bent D
-- 
Bent Dalager - b...@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
                                    powered by emacs

"mcv" <mcv...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message 
news:43ddf513$0$11076$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwar...@stardock.com> 
> wrote:
>> "mcv" <mcv...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
>> news:43d66ff8$0$11067$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
>>>
>>> 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.
>
> But consider the following scenario: I'm specialising in mass drivers,
> while my buddies the Altarians are specialising in beam weapons. I
> get into a war with the Drengin, and because of my mass drivers, he
> specialises in armour. We go on for a while, and I end up with Mass
> Drivers XXI while he has Armour XXIII. So I talk to the Altarians,
> whom I happen to be on pretty good terms with (although he hasn't
> joined the war yet), and trade my Mass Drivers I-XXI for his
> Beam weapons XVII, and start shooting the crap out of my shieldless
> adversary. And I only have 1 more tech than I had before, so it's
> not even slowing down my research much (although the Altarians may
> suffer). The only way to prevent this is to prevent tech trade
> altogether.

But this is a good thing IMO.  However, weapons technologies are treated 
differently by the AI than other techs.  The AI will evaluate things a lot 
differently and actually say "We fear you too much to give you such advanced 
weapons" so you would have to be on VERY good terms.

>
> But even if you don't allow tech trade, the Altarians can still join
> the war, and start shooting the crap out of those poor, shieldless
> Drengin.

Good! ;)

>
> Although I like the idea, I'm afraid that forced specialisation in
> technology may give close allies and/or tech traders a big advantage
> over players in a more isolated position. (This may actually be
> realistic, but it's also a bit unbalancing.) Instead, I think
> encouraging specialisation in ships while allowing diversification
> in research would be better.

It is hard to say.  Once the game is released, we will see how different 
strategies unfold. :-D

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

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwar...@stardock.com> wrote:
> "mcv" <mcv...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message 
> news:43ddf513$0$11076$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
>> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Brad Wardell <bwar...@stardock.com> 
>> wrote:
>>> "mcv" <mcv...@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
>>> news:43d66ff8$0$11067$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>
>> But consider the following scenario: I'm specialising in mass drivers,
>> while my buddies the Altarians are specialising in beam weapons. I
>> get into a war with the Drengin, and because of my mass drivers, he
>> specialises in armour. We go on for a while, and I end up with Mass
>> Drivers XXI while he has Armour XXIII. So I talk to the Altarians,
>> whom I happen to be on pretty good terms with (although he hasn't
>> joined the war yet), and trade my Mass Drivers I-XXI for his
>> Beam weapons XVII, and start shooting the crap out of my shieldless
>> adversary. And I only have 1 more tech than I had before, so it's
>> not even slowing down my research much (although the Altarians may
>> suffer). The only way to prevent this is to prevent tech trade
>> altogether.
> 
> But this is a good thing IMO.  However, weapons technologies are treated 
> differently by the AI than other techs.  The AI will evaluate things a lot 
> differently and actually say "We fear you too much to give you such advanced 
> weapons" so you would have to be on VERY good terms.

Can I get it when taking a planet? And even if I can't, I am already
willing to pay through the nose for tech when I'm playing GC1AP. If
there's any way at all I can get an advantage out of this, I will.

>> But even if you don't allow tech trade, the Altarians can still join
>> the war, and start shooting the crap out of those poor, shieldless
>> Drengin.
> 
> Good! ;)

Well, it works the other way too, you know? I can fight one opponent,
but after that, I'll be stuck with the wrong weapons and armour to
fight my next opponent. I'll have to see how it works out in the
game, but if there's any way at all I can switch weapons tech to
surprise my opponent, I will.

>> Although I like the idea, I'm afraid that forced specialisation in
>> technology may give close allies and/or tech traders a big advantage
>> over players in a more isolated position. (This may actually be
>> realistic, but it's also a bit unbalancing.) Instead, I think
>> encouraging specialisation in ships while allowing diversification
>> in research would be better.
> 
> It is hard to say.  Once the game is released, we will see how different 
> strategies unfold. :-D

Looking forward to it.


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