Noumenon72

Join Date 04/2006

Do the Drengin Ever Start Wars?

Not on my machine -- even Masochistic

My copy of Galactic Civilizations seems to be missing something -- the killer instinct! I am playing a Large Masochistic game (v 1.10.027) where the Drengin have a Military graph that's double the height of any other civilization, 100-power fleets, Hostile with the Drath and Iconians, and still haven't attacked anyone. And it's not just this game.

I have played four or five games so far, starting at Tough and working my way up to Masochistic, and never come close to losing once because the computer never attacks! This really sucks because I know I don't know how to play the game (first game: thought I needed Impulse drive to get more than one movement per turn, didn't see the "engines" tab. Second game: still had $5000 in the bank after two years because I didn't know I needed factories to build anything.) I was ripe for the picking.

I only saw one short war in all those games between two other races, and never got into one I didn't start myself. Let me tell you, getting into wars you've had plenty of time to perfectly plan and prepare for is the boring part of 4X games. I want the computer to punish me while I'm learning by killing me. You learn faster that way, like how Gal Civ 1 taught you not to attack Battleships with Frigates. Being nervous that you're going to die is what made the first Gal Civ so exciting compared to Civilization. This one is, frankly, a little boring! Masochistic is a high enough level for the computer to be pretty far ahead of me on tech and military -- when will that translate into some action?

Is it possible that my system requirements have throttled down the capabilities of the AI? My ship designs show white lights where I place red or green ones. Maybe my CPU is doing the same sort of thing to the game's brain that my video card is doing to its display.

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This is the reverse of my experience - I'm am constantly under attack by everyone and his dog until I build the Dalek Battlefleet and bloody their noses enough to back off.

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That is quite odd, I wouldn't expect that it was throttling the AI down it should logically just take longer if the system is slow right? That's a scarcely-educated guess though.

Has your military been decently competitive, do you actually have poor relations with the Drengin etc? Also have you updated to the latest version 1.1? When you go into the foreign relationships screen and look at the Report on the Drengin, do they have 'too busy to risk a war' as one of the political modifiers?

In my latest game I'm playing as the Drengin and started right between the Torians and those almost-human aliens, both have been hostile or nearly so the entire game and neither has tried to attack me. They haven't had significant military lead however, plus everytime I've looked 'too busy to risk a war' has been one of their diplomatic modifiers. I wonder if that's going off too much now? I know I had another recent game where I was being attacked when I could ill afford it, buuuut, I was still on the pre-1.1 beta I believe.

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Sounds like something weird is going on with your game. If one of the AI players is 2x the next highest player in military, then he definitely should be quite aggressive with unfriendly civs. In my games, the AI isn't shy at all about starting wars.

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My games are usually battle royales.... I live in a bloody universe.....

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This sounds like my experiences too. The Drengin attacked me once, but that was the only time anyone has declared war on me in the multiple games I have played. Maybe it is because I am usually a neutral race, so there aren't any animosities toward me?

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Drengin attack anyone that shows the slightest weakness in my games. And they are quite good at it, they have probably conquered more races then all the other AI:s combined.

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yeah, that's bizarre and is clearly a glitch of some sort. I usually am forced to go to extreme measures to prevent wars, especially once the Drengin think they can beat me. (and even then it hardly ever works). and that's only on tough, even. on masochistic, I would expect you to be attacked almost constantly is you have even the slightest weakness.

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Its just how much the other AI's have military wise. Since the AI now weighs the risk of a total all out -everyone-hates-me-now war, they declare it much less than before. Even if I have ZERO military, if the other civ's military are close to theirs, they rarely declare war.

Especially true if you have alliances and good relations with more races.

I usually only incur their wrath by swamping their planets with influence or parking troop trans/fleets near their worlds or inside thier "borders". But if I avoid that I can tech way up and stay safe for quite a while.

Since 1.1 I can get Huge Hulls, max a weapon tech, and i'd say HALF of the tech tree done by the time > I < even declare a war. This is usually without the AI even looking at me funny. Granted I still get the blackmail for 500bc or whatever but that is usually enough to pay once, and have them leave me alone the rest of the game.

IE: Lets say military of 500, and eight other races, each with a military of 400. Potentially 500 versus 3200. Who would win? They would. *Shrug*

Just what I have noticed

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Achronous

Join Date 03/2006

+29

I find that the Drengin are always the first race to go. Well, they usually start near me anyway.... The Korx and the Torians seem to be quite aggresive. And the Arceans usually jump on the bandwagon once they see that my military rating is down the sink...

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This is my third game now, my second true one, and I'm always under attack by someone, the drengin empire constantly ask me money not to declare war lol..

I'm playing at challenging difficulty on huge map with 9 civilization (yor collective got eleminated too fast !!)
and most of them dont like me since I was the poorest civilization. lol !!!

That game AI is superior to all I have seen in other turn based game. They even anticipate what you are doing !!!

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I not only start wars.......i finish them........usually by roasting and eating the losers........

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Thanks to everyone for the replies. Stromko, I did have good relations, without much managing on my part. No tribute. Some had bad relations, but maybe they paid tribute. "Too busy to war" is pretty common, tried to load the game to check but it crashed right away. I do have 1.1, I'd like to try reverting to a newer version now.

I think Rogue Metro might have it right. If so the Drengin should be more aggressive when there are more civilizations, since we all have the same size military. I played a tiny map with three civs and very slow technology so they had time to build a military. Our combined military was only maybe half or two-thirds of theirs and they did get hostile with me and invade the Drath eventually.

As a side note, I think I like very slow technology. It gives the game more of the pace the original had, and you have time to actually settle in and build research academies before invention matrix comes along, Laser III ships on the way to Plasma Weapons, and so on. With slower technology you're able to use the same ship designs longer. I'm going to turn it to very slow on every game.

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I like fast tech rate with no tech trading, personally, and the Drengin are cleaning house in my current game. It's a shame, because their my big trade partner, and I think I'm going to have to slap them down, or get the Yor to do it for me.

Hey, ManOfWar, you need to get your military going faster. Build lots of 1 or 2 damage fighters, until you have one on every planet plus a couple fleets of three or four. If you do that in the first few years, you'll find the other civs kissing your ass instead of kicking it.

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