Advanced Save Game Six Empires Huge Map and Minor Races

[UesugiKenshin]

The sabotage budget would be so high that it would be more effective to build troops and starships than invest in sabotage. You would do limited military intelligence because it largely would damage their diplomatic relations with member species and thus cause significant harm.

Other forms of sabotage would have very low rates of effectiveness.

Military espionage would give players clues to minor secrets in BotE and that would be the primary goal after useful details on the galaxy map and fleet movements and military analysis of sectors.

So espionage could be for storytelling for human single and multiplayers. Some of which would be bad intel or half-truths.

Which would be more nuanced and interesting to players?

1. The player gets an intel report and so ends up attacking a sector as a pre-emptive strike.
2. The player gets their fleets there and then realized the Rotharians intentionally gave them bad intel to cause two species to attack each other.
3. The player gets partially correct intel, but the aim is to attack the player's enemy, not them, and thus they have seriously erred as that species was acting with similar goals, and they nearly bombarded and invaded a would be ally.

Intel is often WRONG and bad intel can cause serious errors.

There could be more depth to BotE in keeping with the cerebral nature of the game.

[UesugiKenshin]

I took off a few weeks to get some perspective. Things are crazy here with talk of states seceding as the presidential election was obviously stolen. The voting machines nationwide did all kinds of illegal activities like they communicated over the internet to foreign countries, the Democrats own major shares in the machine and software companies, huge errors in tabulations, stolen ballots, crooked judges. It goes on and on and civil war seems inevitable in the USA. There is talk of martial law every day.
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It's turn #419. The Omega have no competition and could crush all in the galaxy, but I don't want to do that as the Omega have treated the major races with benevolence. They have alliances with all as I don't really want their sectors.

However, and this is dastardly, the Cartare have superior troops at the upper level, so next time their treaty is up, then Omega will attack just to test if taking their sector allows the Omega to create Cartare troops and ships.

As the Omega, what I would prefer to do is keep doing research, improving infrastructure, make my own better ground invasion troops and far better ships. With the Balancer mod, the plan will be to have those unlock with level 15+ tech.

Even if I could do trades with other major and minor species, the income is so abysmal, that it seems silly, but I will make more slots for resource routes and trades in the Balancer mod. If I can learn how to add natural resources beyond six, which means a whole redesign of the trading system, I may do so.

See every turn now, the Omega can make 22 million by resource manipulation, so why bother with trade? Newer infrastructure will do things like extract resources that do not appear in mapped sectors so that every sector is ultimately self-sufficient with very high tech.

I also am experimenting with the interstellar storage which is like the major race's bank. The maximum on mining is 125,000 so as that is reached, and if you do special research, no loss occurs and no charges are created, thus each turn you can deposit 20,000 in all the natural resources in there to share them across your empire.

I created lots of excess mining resulting in immense profits which allow the Omega to maintain a total fleet of 1100 starships. If I wanted, I can double that. I already am doubling my total ground forces to invade the 37 sectors under Cartare control.

[UesugiKenshin]

In my opinion, the game would be far more interesting if major races...
1. Can't use intel agencies for espionage and sabotage until level 14 is completed.
2. They would win the early game every other current way.
3. But several advanced save games are made to challenge better players who want to fight.
4. So some would have high tech levels and so would use intel agencies.
5. But the empires would be balanced so mostly sabotage would fail...just like real life.
6. But gaining minor races with sabotage ability would make it more favorable.

As it is now, the Omega have 8.4 million intel points and 4.6 million for internal use. I want sabotage to require VAST numbers to reflect major spy networks across the galaxy and not something easily done.

But then have these options too.
7. A way to win by terraforming gas giants so some big advantage happens like increasing population limits and special natural resources. That means modifying the javascript.
8. A godlike mode were they evolve through genetic engineering. That means modifying the javascript.
9. Increasing the number of planets routinely in a sector and increasing natural resource availability. That requires changing the javascript.
10. Better balancing of the minor races. In a modded preset version, the empires would grow on their own and say in turn #400, only then do they start diplomatic relations.
11. I don't like that so many minor species lack space faring. That seems wrong. Eventually that should be possible.

[UesugiKenshin]

On the largest galaxy map, especially with changes, a single game (a campaign) might take a year to finish and be a real genuine struggle to totally control the entire galaxy.

When you get as powerful as the Omega are now, it frankly is boring to just crush others. I would rather have extremely powerful empires so this never happens in an advanced turn preset save game that is in a mod. Taking a single sector is a major achievement and should not happen easily in a preset galaxy with six strong empires.

Advanced players would struggle to dominate the entire galaxy and better random events would then happen at a late stage to offer even one more challenge. I like the anomalous entities as they are like bottle episode space monsters on a sci-fi tv serial, but the random events seem weird. I want the galaxy to be very crowded so avoiding anomalous space like nebulas requires effort.

You want it so all empires have 1000 starships and immense ground invasion forces, right? I most want to see how the AI does when they have immense armadas and huge numbers of troops.

I want all of that and better storytelling through little text messages most likely through the diplomacy screen and some random events happening when a starship enters a sector. It should simulate away missions. Morale builds in sectors and then declines through events...most likely. Or crews get experience or lose experience.

[UesugiKenshin]

Turn #423
Even at this late stage, the Khaoran and the Rotharians only inhabit 22 sectors. It is pathetic. All of the other five empires are very small empires. Perhaps it is because when I do natural resource manipulation by rushing and selling off in the same turn, this starves the profit potential such that the AI is making so little that there are very limited things they can do.

I see no advantage to raising the price of natural resources except for my empire. Don't you agree? I never leave the prices above 100 for any natural resources as there is zero advantage, so I pay no attention to the charting function in the system trade window.

And I have experimented with just about every gimmick extensively. I do not think there is a better methodology.

This is why I really don't want to crush any of the 5 major races as they are all so weak.

[UesugiKenshin]

Well it's strange to be the one sabotaging the Cartare, Rotharians, and Khaoran. The Cartare threatened the Omega despite being devoted in the diplomatic tab. I'm colonizing their sectors while they are trying to extort an empire with 1100 starships and a massive ground invasion force. Frankly it's insane. The Cartare have 38 inhabited sectors and I have like 256.

So since the Rotharians and Khaorans both hate the Omega, I turned on military sabotage on all three. Usually when one declared war, the other two follow suit.

Within a few turns, the Omega gained 100 of their small number of starships through sabotage...now a dwindling number. A sizable amount were cloaked Rotharian ships.

It cost about $88 million to double my ground forces and transports as I hurried. Then increased the treasury back to $31 million. At this rate, I don't actually have to lift a finger as they are actually increasing my armada for me. It is so bizarre.

This is why I want to mod BotE, but especially create a scenario where all six empires are fairly equal and have no spy capability until turn #400 so they actually have to work at waging war.

In my opinion, the theft of starships is wildly implausible. Sabotage should mainly be diplomatic with every once in a while detonation of a rare building...so actual fleet battles take place.

[UesugiKenshin]

There are few minor race fleets out there. I took out the Baflids but the Humans have absorbed some and the Khaoran too. When I played a sandbox game with the Khaoran, I didn't have that much trouble gaining members. To me, the fleets are a bit strangely configured more as a gift to empires rather than an offensive and defensive force. I think I'll make it much harder and better configure them. I wish you could play as the minor races as they are the 7th slot, then I could play all seven empires, make them all self-sustaining, and BotE would have a better mod and several pre-configured advanced save games as scenarios...at various difficulty levels.

If we could edit save games, it would save six months of work. That would be spending at least ten hours a day times 180 days so 1800 man-hours. It honestly requires 300 hours to do an empire to turn#400...sometimes more when I would go off on a tangent to test a theory about a better way to play.

[UesugiKenshin]

There is a definite pattern that produces a more ideal result, so I know what infrastructure results in the fastest research and most money producing the best mix of natural resources. If I could set the galactic map and preset the sectors' infrastructure, it probably would take 300 hours. Some empires being too close would result in earlier conflict.

It is very methodical and cumbersome to design in this brute force manner. Ideally there would be a spot on the forum and wiki for these mods and save game scenarios or just include them as parallel add ons or as part of BotE. I bet most people lack the time to ever see the empires get so strong, but that is when BotE will shine.

[UesugiKenshin]

The best method would be to develop all six Empires to some degree before even meeting other minor and major species as so many are hostile and have fleets as that when configured could wipe out important early fleets. Then as the empire is of medium strength, then go make a first contact.

[UesugiKenshin]

With it pre-configured, then ideally some are multiplayer games as acting impetuously most likely is extremely foolish. You have to be an expert player to play the middle of the board and quite a diplomat.

[UesugiKenshin]

The Humans managed to displace the Hiro'akken.
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... ro.27akken

. The Hiro'akken were never intended to inhabit their present home planet and owed their existence solely to an accident. About 400 years ago an Andromedan geneticist made countless secret attempts to cross Andromedans with insects in order to breed an elite unit of strong, ruthless, and obedient minions. After decades of research, the goal of his dreams finally seemed to have been achieved, but he himself was shocked by the results of his work: His hybrids turned out to be too intelligent and stubborn. The Hiro'akken rose against their creator, killed him and destroyed the entire Andromedan colony. Since then they have been very eager to incorporate more areas, which is why there is constant war on the borders of their sovereign territory and their ship officers experience a lot of combat. Hiro'akken combine the advantages of insectoid swarm intelligence with a powerful armored exoskeleton. Compassion, sentimentality or even individuality are unknown to them. They are led by the queens of the Hiro'akken cities.

Home system: Hiro'akka

Technological progress: progressive

Special ability: martial

Bribery: difficult to bribe

Spaceman nation: own ships

Special buildings: Hiro'akken merchant fleets: + 50% income on trade routes Hiro'akken Armada: 50 ship training

What stinks is they didn't defeat them, just displaced them as they evaded. So unless somehow I can go and do the ground invasion, they will end up with being able to make those ships.
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... ro.27akken

Those are decent ships especially after sending them through the ship designer.

[UesugiKenshin]

The Khaoran got the Xibren as members but through sabotage, I got quite a few of the initial base fleet.

[UesugiKenshin]

What would be really wonderful would be if espionage allowed you to reverse engineer their tech and so put some of their weapons in your ships or use their hull designs many of which are quite fast or manueverable.

That is why I want a research path for this so an advanced version would combine the best of the best...regardless of membership... as some empires may elect to leave a minor race alone, but absorb their technology...not just for ships, but special versions of buildings like ground defenses.

I want special minor race troops for novelty sake as having 20 of those might take a long time to muster.

[UesugiKenshin]

It's turn #433 in my current advanced save game and the Omega have 277 inhabited sectors. There is a bug where the actual mining values don't properly show up and a savvy player can look at the empires overview screen, system trade screen, and in that particular sector screen and make a guess what the actual numbers are. The bug appears in the GogglePlay regular Android version and in the beta test version as well.

So what I do is cancel all resource routes (I have no trade routes) about every 50 turns and redo them. It is annoying as that takes six to eight hours to do properly to maximize efficiency so the most mining is produced in the most developed sectors. Then save the game and play regularly again.

A standard turn at this level takes an hour to move all the ships and fleets to train or be running a patrol or sent to hotspots plus an escorted group of loaded transport ships with level 6 troops with usually 30 in a fleet. Those escorts are usually Vi class dreadnoughts.

Every turn without fail, I rush any infrastructure or starships or troops taking more than a single turn. That is how to best make money and use up caches of natural resources that are maxed out at 125,000.

The Omega have at least 200 *20 level 6 troops so 4000 units plus a diverse strong armada of 1300 starships with 100 being captured Khaoran, Rotharian, and a few Cartare vessels. They have a treasury of 34 million and have no desire to crush empires that have either 22 (Khaoran and Rotharian) or 38 (Cartare) inhabited systems. The Terrans have 52 inhabited systems and the Heyoun have a weird 56 (spread out like islands) inhabited systems which is nutty and not defensible.

[UesugiKenshin]

I can vary the treasury greatly to experiment with money making (from 5 million to 100+ million) and can test bribery or rush inefficiently, as if I ever get in a bind, there is immense leeway and to gain back lost profits, just make 100 powerful ships which induces a predictable inflationary pattern. Any clever player can see this by looking at the data and doing some financial analysis. Obviously the AI does not do this and why even the strongest is the Heyoun and only have 56 to my 277 inhabited systems as mine are completely built up with redundancy, in case of bombardment, and extremely well defended to the point of being nigh impregnable.

I feel like this is a fairly learnable system by anyone who is the least bit intelligent, thus after learning how, a player might play the next time at a much higher difficulty level. I badly want to configure an entire scenario, but that likely will be through the Balancer mod so every empire will have a significantly different experience, but each can win in a fair way by playing into their major races' strengths.

I do not understand why there is so little energy to market BotE to English audiences and to popularize it. It merely takes a preset scenario so impatient wargamers can start right away versus 300 hours of play. Few would delay attacking for so long, yet that is realistically what war is all about. I would guess between doing this and with some tools like a scenario editor and map editor and minimal animation, a million people would play this. Say create a newer version with minor changes and charge $5 and this would be the best offline space 4x game. Add the random storytelling events and modifiers and have true rich nuanced experience through the diplomacy screen, and maybe create 6 races as alternatives to play, and make fleet tactics as 6 levels of research, and you could charge $15 and that would be a bargain and one of the best space games ever made. With $20 you get 30 mp3 on a soundtrack that rotates. $20 for a cross platform game where you can explore and has real diplomacy or be brutal and a conqueror would appeal to all versus online gaming which is very expensive. And this would have a complex story that would be a little randomly revealed.