Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Sandbox mode

1. The player turns off all major alien races but themselves.
2. The player has all the time in the world to explore.
3. The player will only be attacked when entering minor alien sectors.
4. Scanning reveals which systems have fleets. They will stay in their own sectors, so are not a threat. Frankly you don't have to build defenses, though I encourage you to do this some to learn BotE better and understand enenergy requirements more.
5. The minor alien races will not neccessarily attack you, at least in the first 300 turns when you encounter their fleets, which are only defending themselves. Some are more hostile than others.
6. When you do get attacked, say your innocent colony ships flies through and gets interdicted, then your colony ship should have been set to "avoid" and you can try "hailing" or "retreating".
7. In some cases, the minor alien race fleet will take pity and not harm your colony ship.
8. They would likely see a warship of any size which has weaponry, shields, and strong hulls as a threat.
9. Sandbox mode is basically a builder's mode. You slowly build until your economy supports rushing projects.
10. There is no hurry to build or do anything.
11. You have all the goals turned off.
12. You cannot do intel missions against minor alien races.
13. This is the strangest epiphany while playing sandbox mode: it doesn't matter what things cost when you rush them. Mining will have accrued massive amouts of storage but the value of ore/crystals falls fast even when it rises very high. The range can climb say to 3000, but then you likely sell to 100-300. Thus millions can be made.
14. Resource routing is limited as most ony have 3. You can spend a lot of time routing resources where they need to go so buildings and ships and troops can be constructed.
15. But doing so is monotonous. And since you have literaly infinite wealth as mining regenerates, then it doesn't matter what the price is of a resource is. You can buy it in the main trade screen so that next turn say deuterium, duranium, and iridium is there so you can keep constructing until your mines are efficient enough to build up storage. You place resources through the main trade screen when it's cheaper to save money, but you can do it anytime.
16. You invade sectors when you want to and have all the time in the world to develop strategies.
17. Most will have peaceful relations with you. It's your choice whether to invade them later if you just have to own every sector in a giant galaxy.
18. It makes no sense for there to be few minor alien races as then, there would be very little war. But that's your choice. 95% minor alien in a 40x40 galaxy works well.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Regular mode
1. You can deselect major alien races to limit the total amount of war. Even giant maxed out maps don't do well with six major alien races turned on.
2. I suggest 1 and that being the Khaoran as they have limited intel ability.
3. You can outpace their intelligence efforts so avoid some sabotage.
4. Sabotage is terribly unbalanced and ruins the game. It badly needs to be readjusted or even eliminated.
5. You could try playing as any other major alien race then and have one on one battles.
6. Were you to turn on even 2 more major alien races like the Terrans and the Khaoran versus you playing the Omega Alliance, then about turn 400, the sabotage will be horrendous and makes the game largely unplayable.
7. Exploration is a contest and you are trying to do it as fast as possible...
8. But you have to protect them, and most will end up with weak borderlands and so have trouble defending them.
9. You have to understand the economic system and carefully sell in a manner that increases your profits so you have no money to waste.
10. Likely you build and scrap starbases to generate profits faster.
11. Starbases increase your range and it's crucial to do so.
12. The AI certainly does this and that is why even on the largest map, you encounter them by turn 400. You might have bad luck and encounter them by turn 300. To me, it's like cheating that the AI in a vast galaxy at 40x40 size, just happens to find you. Come on.
13. Having four major races means you be very unlucky and even get eliminated because of overcrowding. Or you might be far away from everyone else, and so have an advantage.
14. You have to start generating scouts, warships of some kind, colony ships, transports, and troops. The competition can be fierce.
15. You are starting from scratch with no infrastructure and so battles are waged in an entirely unrealistic way by encounters at borderlands.
16. That makes no sense as the galaxy can be huge. The AI will try waging war when technically it makes zero sense economically.
17. The AI will wage pointless battles that end in effective stalemates as they may win, but lose just by fighting when they cannot afford to do so.
18. The major alien races act ridiculous during diplomacy. It's not realistic.
19. Sabotage is waged in an unrealistic manner that would be impossible even at the highest level given the speed rate of starships.
20. The smartest thing to do is high defense, in my opinion, and not do first strikes until after turn 600 when you can actually afford to do so.
21. The AI will do first strike rush attacks every time and when there is only one opponent, that might work, but not when there are two.
22. The more total opponents, the worse rush attacks are as earlier in the game, it means leaving your sectors largely defenseless.
23. That may or may not work due to wormholes. Wormholes may rapidly get you somewhere or may allow the enemy a backdoor past your picket line defenses. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picket_(military)
24. Regular mode from turn 1 will not result in normal military operations as infrastructure and military forces will act haphazardly.
25. It would be smarter to have presets for empires, adjust sabotage, and then have an outstanding game as the bulk of micromanaging would be eliminated, and regular military offensive and defensive deployments would occur as everything was stable and orderly.
26. If we had a campaign editor, then BotE would shine as a military simulation where each empire was somewhat developed by various degrees where they each could logically wage war and still terraform and colonize.
27. But we don't, so BotE is largely unrealistic and akin to all empires like being Spartans all squabbling uselessly in a huge galaxy so such fighting over planets and sectors and resources is absurd. War is most often fought over shortages of resources. BotE is a galaxy based wargame with immense inexhaustable resources. War should not happen until it makes sense due to logical threats. It doesn't compute.
28. As minor alien race fleet can be absorbed through membership, this unbalances the game early on. It's like giving AK-47s to elementary school kids when they have not emotionally developed to deal with them. So they use them to wage war in zany ways.
29. So likely you should way scale down how many minor alien races play as say the Terrans can acquire them way easier than everyone else.
30. You might even lower them to nothing, which would be a shame and unrealistic.
31. Or you can set them very high like 98% and so this may limit major race aggression as there is so much competition, that the AI may make foolish attacks on them, rather than you.
32. An ideal campaign editor would even allow turning on specific alien races that have or lack fleets and place major and minor races in specific places in the galaxy. That is fairly normal and an old paradigm, not a radical idea.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Pacing

Sandbox mode is a slow paced game for thinkers who like the idea of planning a galactic empire. And the pacing slows down based on how large and how complex the galaxy is constructed.

If not patient, say you're the kind of person who plays chess with clocks to limit how much time can be spent per turn, then either play an advanced saved game to save yourself the time doing micromanagement or play in regular mode.

There is nothing fast about moving 260 ships doing scouting, terraforming, colonizing, probing, building outposts/starbases, transporting troops, creating fleets, and deploying and redeploying.

War is mostly acting and waiting for counter-response. BotE is not an unrealistic arcade game.
Zuletzt geändert von UesugiKenshin am Sonntag 14. Juni 2020, 17:41, insgesamt 2-mal geändert.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Pacing

Regular mode
At first the game is slow because you have limited options. Midgame about 300-400 it picks up as you hopefully have ships in place to launch attacks or defend borders. As the turns increase, and sabotage is launched and attacks and counterattacks, it really clips along. You are doing everything and with an increasing number of ships, and likely the turns take longer and longer to resolve.
Zuletzt geändert von UesugiKenshin am Sonntag 14. Juni 2020, 17:42, insgesamt 1-mal geändert.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Terraforming/colonization

Sandbox mode
You might send many colony ships to the same sector to maximize resource acquisition. Terraforming is not a fast process. Many structures need to created and resources are needed to do this. If you are not an intelligent strategist, this game is not for you, unless you want to learn to become one. You send scouts out and methodically send colony ships in waves. You make starbases mostly to increase range as there is no other major alien race and minor alien races will not generally leave their sectors.

I have seen the Xiborg leave their sector, but not attack major alien races. I believe it can get triggered if anomalous entities are turned on as they will definitely attack or cause harm.

Regular mode
You are trying to "claim" territory as fast as possible by terraforming or hopefully an M class planet is there so you just colonize it. You extensively scout to claim the sector before another major alien race does so. You are racing for the prize. You and the AI "claim" territory by starbases so sectors fall within your borders (sphere of influence).

You easily get into "Cuba" situations where that land ownership by a rival threatens your empire as it might be a staging area for an attack.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Terraforming times with high percentages of minor alien races

Sandbox mode
Most of the good sectors with an M class planet are given to the minor alien races. This means you most often have to terraform to even start colonizing a sector.

Regular mode
This seriously slows down sector control. You have so much more terraforming and the heat of battle is a constant threat. Your colony ships are vulnerable and you just can't protect them all. You might choose to pick off the enemy colony ships, or let the enemy do the heavy lifting of terraforming/colonzing and become a Viking Raider with warships and ground invasions. You might just choose to twart the enemy's or enemies' expansion plans.

Obviously then they will counterattack and ally to gang up on you.

This means it tough to totally terraform and you wish you could take a breather to just colonize.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Galaxy start position

It makes a huge difference if you get a random start position that is unfavorable as that largely determines defenses and resources and expansion. Money is incredibly tight.

In sandbox mode, this is a minor irritation. In regular mode, the delay and the challenges may make you just start on a new galaxy "seed" out of annoyance. An expert playing can make a terrible start position work. Most cannot and are doomed from bad start positions as they can never adapt enough.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Developing borderlands

Sandbox mode
It's somewhat irrelevant but always better to move scouts and colony ships in a circle and then the inner portion is colonized slowly, but the outer ring has the earliest strongest defenses. It's safer.

You don't have to prioritize sectors, but you should as some have only two resources and have a cap of 10 or less billion. Those are very challenging to make work, and really generating ore/crystal to help out, and maybe making troops after turn 600+.

Regular mode
It's essential to develop an outer strong border as essentially a series of strongholds ie a ring of castles, but eventually citadels. You are scouting for sectors that have all resources including deritium and high population caps of 50+ billion. Then colonize the interior.

Great sectors that are citadels can make warships or units and create vast amounts of mined resources.

You prioritize the best ones as you are in a 5K race and then a marathon. In the running world, few can sprint and do long distance running. Those have entirely different body shapes.

If you fail to do this, and colonize outward, your weakest colonies will finally touch the borderlands of the enemy. They will attack, of course. Why not as it takes so long for you to deploy warships? It's very difficult to protect such regions even with fast, long range, strong ships.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Diplomacy

Sandbox mode
Diplomacy helps prevent battles and is important until about turn 620. Most of your money is made by resource routing/creating mines in such a way to manipulate resource prices, not trade. So treaties help as you can safely route your ships without being interdicted. Minor alien races have special buildings which may benefit your race empire wide. That is especially true with espionage/sabotage enhancing buildings. You may gain fleets from members. You may therefore use the ship designer and make super starships by mixing and matching ship attributes.

Then after turn 620+, only some minor races have ship classes that may help you. You probably will be in one sided treaties that actually cost you expansion. Alliances do nothing as minor alien races cannot leave their sectors.

Regular mode
You probably will end up conquering minor alien races. Treaties with major alien races don't last, but are treaties of conveinience. You temporarily pretend to be friends as the AI will ALWAYS stab you in the back. They will deploy their ships to staging areas, cancel the treaty, and then attack.

In advanced turns, treaties are largely useless other than the extremely slim chance of membership of minor alien races with fleets. And you probaby can make far better ships so ther is nothing to be gained.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Ships lost

In Sandbox mode, the number of ships lost reflect those used to make colonies, make outposts, make starbases, and rarely lost in combat (unless you foolishly send a second colony ship to that same sector and foolishly run into a minor alien race's fleet).

In Regular mode, it's all of that AND likely combat and fairly frequently.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Ship movement

Sandbox mode
In Sandbox mode, you initially are moving your scouts, colony ships, transports, and some warships slower than full speed. No maximum warp as you will likely by accident run into minor alien race fleets. Later you have lots of long range sensors arrays (continuum scanners, isolinear, and listening posts). These warn you and remind you. You will forget where they are except they will end up be the "sole unexplored sector in that region", but later they will register as a Question mark ?. If you should pass a colony ship through and they have mercy and don't attack, or hail them, or retreat, then there is a chance diplomatic negotiations begin through first contact. Then, the minor alien race icon shows up in that sector noting that a fleet is present.

Some minor races are prone to be mercurial like the Sevar. They don't trust you and flipflop their diplomatic stance. If they do, and you wandered into their sector, they might attack you.

Regular mode
In Regular mode, you always are careful as cloaked ships could lie in ambush. You will accidently run into either minor or major alien races. It's extremely important to have excellent scanning on your ships and to build long range types in sectors.

Every single turn after turn 630+ take a long time. You will have more than 200+ ships, and you will find terraformable planets, a place to let colonists settle as doing so causes resource acquisition, you realize your navigation will run into astronomical phenomena, you are indicted, you realize something is not right and danger seems to be around, you realize your plans need to be altered, etc.

At any one turn, 28 ships need new orders or changed orders because they just finished an assignment or the galaxy is a dynamic place. It's stupid to waste time and nt be giving orders to a colony ship. They should be busy terraforming, colonizing, or navigating each turn.

In sandbox mode, you can fly at maximum warp sometimes to rapidly get across the galaxy. That is dangerous in regular mode unless deep in your own sphere of infuence. Even still, you might find a sneaky Rotharian that is cloaked and doing a probe.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Retreating is frowned upon by many major alien races. Well, you send very weak ships in because that is all your can muster at first. You want to avoid battle at first or even for as long as possible. That does not sit well with the Khaoran or the Omega Alliance or the Cartare, but lowers morale.

You also send weak single ships because at first you don't know how many and how strong are the ships in that fleet. Later you might accidentally start a war because you sent in a big fleet and so there went that "first contact". Imagine if extraterrestrials sent a large armada to Earth. They don't know what they will face. Well, there is a good chance if only slightly better than us, we would attack. Delaying to defend may not be a good idea. In wargaming, sometimes certain units defend better than they attack. Others are primarily attackers. If you had that data, it certainly would pertain to your rules of engagement. Attacking strangers might be suicide.

You need to understand the ethos of your chosen major alien race. Like the Omega Alliance often suffer a morale loss when they are diplomatic. Eventually it pays off for them, but they would rather conquer, most of the time.

Khaorans hate losing. As a leader, you are expected never to lose. Good luck with that.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Interdiction

In either sandbox or regular mode, each starship has a movement rate. If the movement rate is higher, the starship can pass through a region and not be detected and interdicted. When you know they are around, either major or minor races, you double check your movement rate to avoid conflict. Two starships might be going in opposite directions and intersect in the same sector. Sectors are huge regions. It makes sense that if flying at different heights that this is plausible. It's a function of speed and scanning range.

If you stop in an inhabited sector, and there are starships present, conflict is always possible.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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The rate of exploration

In Sandbox mode, YOU are exploring the galaxy, and you will be doing the terraforming and colonization of sectors. The number of minor alien species that you set will govern the total number of sectors you control and terraform.

In Regular mode, the number of major alien species directly governs the rate of exploration and terraforming and subsequent colonization of uninhabited sectors.

Six major alien races colonize a galaxy faster than one.

That means the priority is on war much faster as the AI will carve out borderslands by employing transports to turn into outposts and starbases, then having created a sphere of influence by these plus colonization plus any member minor alien species, then major empire borderlands are created much faster.

It's always easier to tear down and destroy that to build. Your ability to have terraformable planets is governed by your research level. You might do better concentrating on research that give you better warships to conquer and using rush tactics for this reason as this is a game, not a developed military empire using genuine military tactics. A real empre has limits based on infrastructure, the economy, the will of the people of that empire, and their support of taxation.

This is why a better simulation involves prebuilt settings so war is realistic and not a false function of "game exploits".
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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Re: Sandbox mode versus Regular mode

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Research

In Sandbox mode, the only hurry to research or really anything is the limitation of your time for a campaign before you get bored with it. I'm hurrying as fast as possible to get you a prebuilt empire so you can practice in a sandbox mode game and see what is possible about waging war, and not have to do the minutia, and making it more realistic regarding what an empire would require to conquer a galaxy.

If you research at a steady even pace, then when all six areas of focus are complete, the research system allows you to do special research. This significantly grants your major alien race a bonus tech and up to twelve of these are available.

Now if the research goal is turned on, then it's faster to skip this (as every special tech takes TIME) and just create advanced research infrastructure buildings. These happen within a major alien race's specific buildings, and the minor alien races sometimes have them.

But if you hurry research, you won't get every special research project, but you will get done faster.

Many goals are very artificial. I don't use goals. The last empire standing is what matters, right? The other major races are not going to concede because your alien species did research faster. Or just because you havea higher rate of individual victories does NOT mean you win the war, it means you successful won some battles to earn a percentage.

Goals make BotE like a game and while they are milestones, they are not realistic for the most part.

In the martial arts, especially genuine Budo and Bushido, there are the kind of students who want to have a black belt for the status and rush along to earn it, then quit or just to brag. That is absolute nonsense and not indicative of military prowess or ultimate ability to use it practically to lead soldiers into a sucessful campaign to victory and motivate them to defend it from all enemies foreign and domestic.
Minor Race Database http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... r_(Minors)
Minor Race Ships http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... nen_Völker
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