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Donal Graeme
Donal Graeme
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Evil Civilizations are disappointing me...

January 13, 2007 10:24:59 PM from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I don't know if I am the only one, but it seems as though the evil civilizations are not nearly as dangerous in the latest versions of DA. When playing on tough or intelligent, it seems as though they severely lag behind on building up their military. Several times I have entered the mid-game and the evil AI just starts to build ships. Is anyone else noticing this? Is there something wrong with my settings? I have checked, and I haven't accidently gimped their resources or AI at all.
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Donal Graeme
Skigi
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Reply #1 January 13, 2007 10:42:49 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Yeah, I saw that too. I began preparing for a war against the Korath, and not only did he not have anything in the way of military but he hadn't even researched any weapons. I think while I have the highest Singularity Drivers he had Plasma 2.
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Donal Graeme
TheGreatEmperor
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Reply #2 January 13, 2007 11:04:38 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
It happens, in my opinion it matters who gets stuck with what kind of capacity. The AI, although preset with a personality, will still try to think of new ways to excell against the player. Plus theres always the glitches and patches, its still the beta mind you.
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #3 January 13, 2007 11:21:42 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I wish galciv2 was more in depth. I WANT TORTURE! There should be decisions what happens to criminals,pirates and other cool choices.

Responding to the post, I have no problem with the drengin, however, the Korath are weak.
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #4 January 14, 2007 1:55:43 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Funny, I find the Korath to be a bigger challenge than the Drengin. All too often the Yor and the Drengin are a pushover. The Korx seem to fair a little better, if only because of their trade advantage, although they never seem to exploit that properly.
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Donal Graeme
sam0t
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Reply #5 January 14, 2007 3:47:10 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Gah I too yarn for a new beta for these particular reasons.

It seems that all the AI:s are good in building up their economy and planets, but its like their military thinking has been thrown out of the window Great hopes for next beta, Iam assuming we get one before the final release.
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #6 January 14, 2007 9:28:43 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I am assuming we get one before the final release.


No, we won't (according to the devs).
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Donal Graeme
sam0t
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Reply #7 January 14, 2007 9:37:00 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Darn!!

I do not wish to overplay current beta because of unbalancing stuff etc. Well guess the final is worth the wait, all new graphics and stuff. Going to be long month or so
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #8 January 14, 2007 1:32:19 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
What worries me much more than the month of waiting is the current state of the game. Somehow I doubt that they'll be able to fix and balance it all, especially without the (open) beta testers.
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Donal Graeme
Frogboy
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Reply #9 January 14, 2007 1:52:12 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums

What "balance" are you talking about?

If there are big balance issues then the "open beta" isn't saying much about them. 

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Donal Graeme
General Homsar
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Reply #10 January 14, 2007 3:22:27 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
So jou think there should be more moral desicions too, JubJub15?
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Donal Graeme
sam0t
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Reply #11 January 14, 2007 3:42:41 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I guess people are not bringing balancing stuff up that much anymore. They have all been discussed in lenght after the latest beta was released. Things that I remember are these:

1. Mega events need some balancing work. How often and when they happend etc. Personally mega events seem to be ok to me, however I have not played huge amount of games with latest beta.

2. Some AI players fail to build up even defensive military. There can be players with zero military ships during middle game.

3. Moral decisions should have more dire consequences and they should pop up more often. This is my personal opinion, but I sence there is bit support for this.

Those two are the most clearest examples, others can fill in the rest. I guess people tend to be silent since they take it for granted that these issues will be balanced and handled. Guess we should keep more noise about things
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #12 January 14, 2007 4:29:02 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Frogboy's question makes me realize how easy it is live (work, play, fight) with a mistaken assumption. I figured "balance" issues were what the devs kept first in mind and that us "public beta" folks were there to help give UI feedback, respond generally to the new functionality, and help catch subtle bugs and minor text glitches.

I solidly agree with samOt's point about mega events and have strong sympathy for folks wondering (here and in other threads) about how well the AIs are adapting to the new game elements. Until this thread, I've just assumed that the play I was experiencing was quite different from what I'd see after RTM.

Putting Frogboy's remarks together with my feeble understanding of how hard it is to build a graphically rich, database-driven game for a very broad set of possible hardware configurations, well, you know the old saw about what "assume" can make out of a relationship...

p.s. The moral decisions question seems more like something to put in the "what can we get for free from these game junkies with coding skills" bucket. DA 1.3, maybe?
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #13 January 14, 2007 5:16:51 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I just played another game, tweaked things a little, and the evil civilizations finally started to build up militarily. However, they were much, much slower in this than the good/neutral civilizations. While things seem more balanced now, I wonder why this is the case.
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Donal Graeme
ruy343
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Reply #14 January 14, 2007 5:48:46 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
well, it seems to me (not that I've played as much as you peoples, and I also don't have the DA expansion yet) that the Evil AI's fall behind technologically, and they never get the chance to catch up.
this would explain why the good races beat the evil ones to the militaristic punch.
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Donal Graeme
Frogboy
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Reply #15 January 14, 2007 6:08:52 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums

That's some good feedback.

With regards to the evil on military -- indeed I agree with you and I've been messing with that even during this weekend.

But that's not what I think of "balance" as much as AI tuning.  Balance to me has to do with how much things cost, how long things take to research, how powerful super abilities are.

The mega events I don't agree with. they aren't supposed to be balanced. That's why they're optional. They're intentionally unbalanced to "mess with" the game.

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Donal Graeme
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Reply #16 January 14, 2007 6:26:52 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
The mega events I don't agree with. they aren't supposed to be balanced.


Umm, what if your post makes me think I meant "tuned" when I said "balanced" earlier? I actually like the basic idea of shaking the snow globe to watch the pretty chaos. But I hope there might still be some tuning underway regarding things like overlapping mega events (e.g. Speed Limit plus Peacekeepers).

They're intentionally unbalanced to "mess with" the game.


I suspect the shudder quotes here are b/c Frogboy has a shred of sympathy for the game killer talk about mega events in some other threads (I've done a share of that). I sympathize with the limits on any given dev team's time, but I still hope we can beg/drag/beat some post-release DA polishing out of y'all
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #17 January 14, 2007 7:28:48 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums

I certainly don't plan to stop coding on the game just because it's "shipped". But at the same time, if someone has selected "shake the snow globe up" and then says "Hey, the snow globe got shook up" I'm not inclined to spend time trying to make the snow globe shaking more gentle.

The whole idea of mega events was to really throw things around. 

Something that can be turned off is a lot less important, I think, then issues like how intelligently the AI adapts from map to map and situation to situation.

Consider these 3 games where the Drengin researched technologies in this order:

Game 1: Player Victory

 Game 2: Player Victory

Game 3:

  1. Xeno Res
  2. Planet Imp
  3. Space Milt
  4. Xeno Com
  5. Uni Trans
  6. Xeno Eco
  7. Dip Rel
  8. Trade
  9. Space Weapons
  10. Beam Weapon
  11. Xeno Biology
  12. Laser
  13. Adv Trade
  14. Laser II
  15. Laser III
  16. Laser IV
  17. Laser V
  18. New Propulsion
  19. Starhip De
  20. Plasma We
  21. Research Centers
  22. Research Academies
  23. Adv Computing
  24. Missile weapon theory
  25. Plasma Weapons 2
  26. Plasma Weapons 3
  27. Basic Mini
  28. Ion Drive
  29. Enh Mini
  30. Basic Log
  31. Invention Matrix
  32. Enh Logistics
  33. Adv Mini
  34. Space Mining
  35. Planetary Invasion
  36. Xeno INdustrial
  37. Impulse Drive II
  38. Fusion Power
  39. Soil Enh
  40. stinger
  41. Phasors

 
  1. Xeno Com
  2. Space Mil
  3. Space Weap
  4. Uni Trans
  5. Dip Rel
  6. Beam Weap
  7. Laser
  8. Res Centers
  9. Laser II
  10. PLanet Imps
  11. Laser III
  12. Laser IV
  13. Laser V
  14. Plasma Weapons
  15. Research Academies
  16. New Prop
  17. Invention Matrix
  18. Xeno Ind
  19. Xeno Eco
  20. Xeno Factory
  21. Fusion Power
  22. Basic Logistics
  23. Trade
  24. Space Mining
  25. Anti-Matter
  26. Advanced Computing
  27. Ion Drive
  28. Impulse Drive
  29. Man Centers
  30. Industrial Sector
  1. Xeno Research
  2. Space Mil
  3. Planet Imp
  4. Xeno Com
  5. Xeno Eco
  6. Xeno Ind
  7. Space Weapons
  8. Missile Weapons
  9. Uni Trans
  10. Soil Enh
  11. Xeno Factory
  12. New Propulsion
  13. Ion Drive
  14. Stinger
  15. Research Centers
  16. Research Academies
  17. Fusion Power
  18. Man Centers
  19. Adv Computing
  20. Basic Mini
  21. Stinger II
  22. Atni Matter
  23. Planetary Invasion
  24. Enh Mini
  25. Basic Logistics
  26. Planet Def
  27. Invention Matrix
  28. Industrial Sector

Interupted

Depending on a ton of different conditions, the AI will tend to research different things. The "Easy" way would be to just have it be scripted to research tehs ame thing. But that makes it predictable and each game the same.  Another easy way would be to just randomize it, but that lacks any intelligence and becomes easy to beat.

But it can be a real challenge to have it research the right thing at the right time.

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Donal Graeme
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Reply #18 January 14, 2007 8:34:09 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I certainly don't plan to stop coding on the game just because it's "shipped". But at the same time, if someone has selected "shake the snow globe up" and then says "Hey, the snow globe got shook up" I'm not inclined to spend time trying to make the snow globe shaking more gentle.


Well, the problem is not that the snow globe has been shaken, but that it broke. For me, the point of super events is to make the middle and end game funnier by making it less predictable and more challenging. But some events right now are just making the gaming boring to play. The pirates one is such an event, since it utterly destroy the AI and almost remove all the point of building ships until you can tackle the pirates... Same thing for all those trade and tourism revenue booster events, since the almost completly remove the point of morale and economy buildings and techs.
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #19 January 14, 2007 11:47:44 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Something that can be turned off is a lot less important, I think, then issues like how intelligently the AI adapts from map to map and situation to situation.


Point well taken. I guess part of my impulse to gripe was because I really liked seeing the Big Things happen but I balked at not being able (willing?) to work through them.

And I'm starting to suspect that leaving mega events on might leave me feeling "challenged" enough to continue putting off trying the next difficulty level up from Tough...
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #20 January 15, 2007 12:23:10 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Good News Everybody!

Anyhoo, I to explain a little more clearly what I mentioned earlier, I played another game with things tweaked a little. This time I noticed the same problem: the evil AI Civs built up their military later than they normally did(in DL). For most games I find that this means that the non-evil Civs usually walk all over them. This time, however, that wasn't the case. They lasted on a bit, and then things went much better.

The Drengin, who had usually been pitiful beforehand, walked all over the Altarians, and only my military intervention (I was the Terrans) saved them from total destruction. I focused on the Drengin, and captured several of their worlds. The former Altarian worlds I returned, while I kept the Drengin ones, figuring that they should no longer be a threat.Unfortunately, I ignored the Korath for too long, and thus they were able to invade and conquer three minor civilizations. Before I knew it, they had developed weapons technology equal to mine, and built up a military just as powerful.


Obviously the problem doesn't seem to be late-game AI. Rather, there seems to be something wrong with the evil AI during the early game, in the transition from early-game (colony rush) to the mid-game, which is usually where most civilizations build up their military.
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #21 January 15, 2007 7:26:11 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
So jou think there should be more moral desicions too, JubJub15?


yes, but there should be a better choice interface. EX: You kill all o the people in the under water domes. You get a research bonus. If youre a good guy, they will thank you in the long run. Give you presents and stuff like that.

Also! You should be able to customize what kind of evil youre civ is through ordinances. Slave labor= +production -loyalty(rebellion).
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Donal Graeme
sam0t
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Reply #22 January 16, 2007 2:45:11 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
The pirates one is such an event, since it utterly destroy the AI and almost remove all the point of building ships until you can tackle the pirates


Ah exactly this was what I was looking for before. And basicly what I meant by balancing was that the AI does not seem to be recovering from some Mega Events at all. In my couple games with Pirates Mega Event, I have beated the Pirates and AI got totally and utterly destroyed. It was all Mop Upping after that, something I know SD hates as a conscept

Then again with a bit more simplier Mega Event like "the plague", AI knows what to do and recovers from the disaster. So in my mind, some tuning/balancing is not needed for the actual Mega Events, but on how the AI tryes to deal with Mega Events.

Must add. It just seems that after a Mega Event such as "pirates!" AI continues merrily on playing as it used to. Or thats how it seems to me. While with human player all bells are ringing and Iam rush researching better weapons to deal with these Pirate Scum
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #23 January 17, 2007 6:04:51 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Mega Events that unsettle the game like knife, Dread loads and pirats can ruin a game and make it almost unbeatable. All the community is saying is that they can ruin most games. A ruined game is not a fun one.
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Donal Graeme
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Reply #24 January 17, 2007 6:43:16 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Sir On The Edge, in another thread, Brad has persuaded me that there might be something worth considering in the distinction between "wrecked" and "ruined," i.e. recoverability.

While I still suspect the mega events can cause "ruin," e.g. when you have both the Speed Limit and Peacekeepers active, I'm pretty sure I'll eventually be able to appreciate having survived a "well tuned" mega event.
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Donal Graeme
Frogboy
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Reply #25 January 17, 2007 7:12:12 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums

Wrecked is  a matter of perspective.

To the player who has is on the ropes but suddenly has the galaxy cleaned out of all enemies by a third party military force, it can recover things nicely.

We are tweaking these things, but mega events *are* optional.

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