Modding

[UesugiKenshin]

Using a hex editor, I saw no immediate recognition of the places where the treasury might be located. If a multiplayer version is offered as a beta, and I could hex edit the save games from that, then I could boost the treasuries of all six empires, then rapidly build up infrastructure, and expand. Then there would be base multiplayer campaigns.

I would not like it, but an intelligence victory game could be made that pitted the Cardassians versus the Romulans versus the Dominion.

I know at one time the hex edit locations for planets was known based on old German discussions of altering the gas giants to class M planets. It looks like at one time that you could boost the treasury, the research, and reveal the map, but not in this version, but a 2007 version.

At the maximum level of 40x40 and 100 density of stars, there is a dearth of available planets for colonization compared to any estimates of the Milky Way. It should seriousy be boosted. And 40x40 is small as a map array and likely only the total known map size of the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans. This is why it's difficult to play with six as doing so does not compare to even the limited known areas of the gamma quadrant. That makes the Cardassians, the Ferengi, and the Dominion seem peculiarly close to the alpha and beta quadrant and in a much reduced map array.

A system is not a solar system but a significant sector with many stacked layers of important colonizable planets representing mixed solar systems. Thus that sector and in light of the map size versus the estimated habitable worlds in the Milky Way galaxy should likely be 9 planets all the time.

But the problem with that is in Star Trek many stacked solar systems in a sector are colonized by competing races. That won't work in BotE. That's why the map array should be much larger or realistically play with only a total of 4 players (but 3 is likely better). A larger map is cumbersome unless the rate of expansion is very high as warp speed seems slow in BotE but it starts in 2121 AD.

[UesugiKenshin]

With a 40x40 at 100 star density map at 50% minor races and 3 players, the game is very interesting as military conquest is hard and diplomacy is vital. Then as there are many systems with planets, but few systems with M class and mostly the AI fills them up with minor races, and you are not strong enough to displace them for some time.

The minor races are too interesting to have at 30%. Some are significant military powers and obviously many have unique buildings.

The beginning is 2121 or so and at 2 year per turn. We have no list of the time progression as this changes over successive turns with it ultimately being 2 weeks per turn but not listing what turns numbers these occur on. That makes it difficult to determine eras.

[UesugiKenshin]

It's sometimes not immediately straight forward from the building descriptors to understand which buildings are granting intelligence bonuses. But if you want to mod them, the easiest way is to load the game and check the research database for objects to see buildings of various major races when playing as those races. It doesn't show the Klingons what the Romulans can build. Then make notes on a backed up building file on what you want to alter regarding higher tech values.

Rinse repeat. Then scutinize the minor race buildings as they only show up in the database when they are under your membership or subjugated by that major race.

As long as the intelligence buildings require significantly higher techtree accomplishments plus energy and rare resources, then they would add end game value that would not be horribly unbalanced.

[UesugiKenshin]

In a best case situation for modding, then there would be multiple datasets so you could play the security buildings as they are configured or modded building files and ship files and troops and minor races and so forth. The Android version limits modding severely as it requires distributing a packed apk that passes the Google Play security check. We can't distribute an apk with just a few data text edited files. That would be forbidden. We could submit modded data files and maybe they are included in a future revision.

That was the way Civ2 and Civ3 and Civ4 took off in popularity. Mods were chosen and distributed with the program and you had an overall editor and especially a map editor. So changed data files could be played as a campaign or scenario on a specific map. Or played randomly by a computer generated map.

We can't use the standard art changes as many borrow from other games and use art from Star Trek and so that has to be licensed. But we could make existing minor races to be chooseable major races and use existing ships as the ones they use. Or we could add new buildings or tweek the settings to adjust the game dynamics like security buildings.

I think selected mods like that adds great benefits to the game that many players would enjoy.

[UesugiKenshin]

A good map editor would allow a designer to not only:
1. place star systems and designate the kinds of planets in that star system.
2. But also place spatial phenomena as that creates choke points that limit the advance of other races.
3. And can specify ownership by race of designated systems.
4. Then add starting buildings.
5. Then add ships and troops.
6. Specifies treasuries.
7. Most often specifies the known techtree of the empires.
8. And specifies the starting relationships.

That is very standard and decades old. In some cases 25 years old+. That greatly accelerates what begins to happen in turn#1. Then the borders are fixed and it's largely about taking over the minor races by diplomatic and military conquest. So thrilling battles would happen much much sooner and the major races would be balanced.

You have builders and standard players. A builder is often called a turtler as he or she slowly likes developing everything and attacking the AI when it's fair to do so as the AI is similarly strong. Then the bulk of folks want combat and they dislike turtling as it takes hundreds of turns.

With BotE, it takes 300+ turns of turtling to get to a point where it's fair to start interactig with the AI as the rate of expansion and slow warpdrives make it that way.

So BotE is a big turtling program and maybe why so few reviewers and discussion is on the internet. Frankly I don't think most people even know it exists. And that and the fact that the bulk.of communication is in German, and there is no modding on the Android port, and it's old school Master of Orion and Birth of the Federation play (so 1999 technology), then doesn't lend itself to being popular.

But it could be with mods. Not everyone with a tablet has time to play 500+ turns and most do not want to build but play.

This is why save game start positions have so much promise as it's meticulous work, but essentially allows a new player to rapidly get started. That is why there has a mechanism to create using multiplayer, then save these as single player save game empires. Create some save game for all the empires at turns 200,300,400,500,600 and so at various difficulty levels. That way some can just start attacking systems with ships and troops.Some can start deploying ships and troops. Some will tweak what has been built and alter the existing building queues. Some will start negotiations.

[UesugiKenshin]

Other players are military strategists who find the exploits that allow the fastest methodology to create the fastest rate of expansion. They make worlds that are mission specific within an empire. So instead of normal diverse planets from Star Trek, you have research planets, and industrial planets, and so forth and it's very unrealistic as they are made to pump out ships and troops as fast as possible while maintaining morale. They are not planets anyone would want to live on as the citizens are cogs in the machine of war.

Not many people enjoy that military exploitation as it seems rather pointless. It's geared toward crushing the AI by making better ships faster than it can. It's geared towards breaking the AI.

[UesugiKenshin]

There are already 5+ Star Trek games but they are goofy arcade button mashers or MMO games so with ads and paywalled and players buy better ships and crush new players and they are not fun. Sure they have better graphics but require higher Android OS and better tablets. They remind me of crazed pachinko players in 1980s Japan...ie a kind of gaming addiction.

Whereas I think BotE has enormous potential even with no combat animations. But then:
1. The sabotage aspect (not espionage) has to be nerfed on the first three levels and or have huge requirements for an end game situation at 900+ turns where sleeper agents' sabotage and combat is how you win conquest games.
2. It needs mods as that is a big draw.
3. It need save game positions...as most are not turtlers.
4. It needs an editor.
5. It should be marketed as a sandbox game espedially in the mods. These are SimCity folks who create the most ideal utopias and brag about it and are featured on forums for outstanding achievement.

[UesugiKenshin]

BotE most reminds me of GalCiv2 Twilight of the Arnor except it lacks complex outposts and galactic achievements ie wonders. In that game, the combat animations were already determined before fighting but were for pure entertainment, but the combat outcomes were pure math and so it was't necessary to turn them on.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dK10kALgbzE

New buildings based on theoretical maximums could have enhanced outposts. There was not only military outposts but economic and research and cultural ones with diverse add on through infrastructure building.

The Star Trek GalCiv2 mod was tremendous fun. If there is a way to run downloaded mods on Google Play apks, then any Star Trek mod would guarantee a large user base. The base game is fun, it just takes too many turns to get going for most folks. They are not turtlers.

[UesugiKenshin]

There used to be at least 3 cheats in the BotE by scanning the German posts. You used to be able to save a game as the Klingons in say turn 200, then reloading the save game, but playing as the Terrans. Such things made setting up a scenario possible.

What you can do is mod the data files of course as previously discussed, but to make setting up the game easier, you alter two files discussed on the German version of the wiki. One adjusts the starting buildings for each empire. The other adjusts the starting ships.
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... dings.data
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... Ships.data

So you could start with very expensive ships and scrap them for cash and materials, then have money to do things at the start to design on the fly instead of starting with 1000 credits. Of course you coud start with many buildings amd ships, but the upkeep costs would be quite high and cause an issue.

Likewise the Cardassians begin with a standing army of troops. You can adjust how many troops protect the homesector. There is a file called startroops.txt and the Cardassians begin with 28,28,28,28 ie they have four type 28 troops in their homesector and those are stormtroopers. How do I know that?

Look in troopinfolist.txt and there it's listed.
28
Stormtroopers
A modest unit in the Cartare Union ground force book. Nevertheless they are highly useful for offensive military operations including planetary invasions and defense tasks.

The point is not to cheat as that proves nothing. The point is to equally accelerate with presets to jumpstart the game. It makes sense that all empires would have modifiers for game balance in turn #1, but if you are jumpstarting it, then it's proportionally adjusted.

The map is generated each time so you can't preset the settlements directly.

If we knew the construction parameters of the save game files, then we could change the hex values. Say we saved on turn #1 and know some of the map, then we alter the values of the uninhabited planets in a system. We could change class and so the entire system is terraformed and who owns it and what infrastructure is on it. How much ore is on it. These things make the game much faster so battles can begin in certain eras.

So obviously based on varying rate of expansion, and if each major race has many scout ships then much of their region is known and and especially so by turn 50-100. Then editing the hex values would greatly accelerate the campaign as everything is already built up. Diplomacy of minor races would be easier too.

The minor race data similarly has what they begin with. If anything, I would make them stronger so less likely to be subjugated, but possibly coaxed into membership into various empires. Their special buildings are why I like them, but that creates a slower start for the main races as that limits colonization.

Such things save weeks of playing turns. If we get a multiplayer version, there is an option to join the game, so the human player plays all sides. Then knows where each is on the map, and intentionally builds in ways so not to create conflict, but to establish defensible borders. Then saves the game after turning over the other major races to AI control.

That multiplayer mode is an old school way three brothers would take turn on the computer to play as seperate empires.

That was a methodology used in Medieval 2 Total War to create very strong initial empires as presets, but then you also had cheats to generate experienced troops and armor class and weaponry.

I think campaigns and advanced save games would most interest Android tablet owners to get them excited about playing the game.

[UesugiKenshin]

Altering the apk

I've been reading up how to do this. Obviously I do not know exactly how to do it. In one method, you unpack the apk. You alter the data in one file only like the initial homesector ships. Then remove the original file and insert your editted file. Somehow you delete the old and drag in the new within the already downloaded apk on your system.

That should work on your home system, but with the Google security protocol wouldn't work on someone else's.

I think a modding section for Android users would be a fine section on the forum, and modders would discuss editted datafiles. Then somehow these would be selectable in the future as alternative scenarios and campaigns. That way creative control is maintained by the programmer.

These would be editted datafiles as some minor tweaks in the offensive or defensive values of some troops are more logical. Or often it's about counter-measures to weaponry. Or it's a more logical progression of weaponry. Or it allows some older ships to still be constructed as they serve a niche like in real life the A10 Warthog. Thank goodness it was not done away with. It's the best tank killer out there and it's decades old.

Whole mods can't be included as some fans are undisciplined about copyright and so the programmer can't distribute them. And the way the Android version is written does not lend itself to loading a mod...but it could just as the old windows version did in 2007-2014 or so. Then Android mods would be here just like the old archived ones.

Those were written for the other version so won't work on the Android format.

I've been playing mods for decades. They are terrific and add tremendous value.

[UesugiKenshin]

It's easy to understand how to extract the apk.

It's pretty easy to find modding details in the German version wiki under the generalized AZ section (in English this means from A to Z and means terms within BotE)and then click on a few data files that are discussed and then understand how to logically make changes.
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... lle_Seiten
There is a disconnect between the modding section on the forum and the wiki, when you have to put those two together to understand what others did. You could download some mods and look at what changes they made regarding buildings and ships to discern what does what.

What is mystifying is how to take the altered data file and replace the original file, then recompile so it runs on your system. If that was clear, then modded data files could be uploaded and shared.

Minor tweaks and some displayed storytelling, like better dialogue in the diplomacy screen with a few more choices, and this game would ROCK!

Cloaking is way cool and an aspect of playing the Romulans as choices made when clicking on even very low end ships like basic scouts and colony ships! I never expected that. I figured that would happen way later.

[UesugiKenshin]

One attribute of the minor races is corruptibilty. Well I don't like bribes but probably the intention is to use bribes on the more easily corruptible. I'd rather use gifts like some space strategy games use where it's helping some aliens to obviously improve diplomatic relationships but with no expectatation versus a bribe. A bribe seems crude like the minor race diplomat is of low character and personally benefitting. While a gift is to the people as a corpus like ore/crystals or low end technology. Some games have moral quandries like GalCiv2 where you could exploit the locals but choose not to and it affects your racial allignment (the perception of good vs neutral vs evil). But instead, you could do missions or accelerate the goals of every minor race as each has a goal in their techtree.

That helps them and is selfless as it does not benefit the major race offering it. Most likely diplomatic relationships would improve. Some minor races might be irritated (say the isolationists) as they feel they can do it on their own or accomplishing the goal is not truly accomplished. They want pure self-determinism.

[UesugiKenshin]

Races have attributes like sneaky or pacifists or warlike or whatever. So that would affect diplomatic relationships versus their perception say of the Romulans. But I would expect at the higher difficuly levels, that diplomatic relationships say membership to switch just like American colonists asserted their natural rights and left the British empire.

But in diplomacy and conflict resolution, then usually there is a dialogue and choices, and so it's favorable to create resonnance and demonstrate how you both have commonality. And appeal to that aspect of their core personality.

If the minor race is sneaky, " It's hard to know who you can trust. Some are exploiters of others and always trying to get the upperhand. We Romulans understand that as security is our middle name. We would be glad to share basic security technology to help you as we see admirable qualities in your species."

Such a tactic would utterly fail with another species not so inclined. Klingons would be flat out insulted! Being sneaky is dishonorable. The dialogue would have to focus on something less likely to arouse their temper. Sharing weapons tech would be better but risky.

[UesugiKenshin]

I want new people to Play BotE so I have been trying to write documentation of features and gameplay with attached screencaps. But the forum has a set maximum number of these.

It's better to use imgur or similar and save your attachments for the modded files.
https://m.imgur.com
I checked and moddb (which is a long time place where modders hang out and load their modded files) has a section for BotE. So we could link our modded files from there too.

The quandry is modding the Android due to the security protocol on non-rooted tablets. If you have an windows computer, you can load apks there, then use the miniusb port to the tablet, and this often bypasses the security protocol based on tablet settings. I am not so fortunate as I lack a computer now.

[UesugiKenshin]

Because the map is not set in stone, but dynamic, and there is no way to load a map, then any campaign editing is very limited. You could start in new eras of time (instead of 2121, you begin in 2365), but still you can't change your controlled systems other than the homesystem of your major race.

Loading alternate maps is essential to a designed campaign. All we can do (that I can see) is play through as every major race, and develop all major race's turns, then save it so people can play after various numbers of turns ie start in turn#400 on a random map. It's the brute force method of modding.

And that only works if multiplayer is turned on to create multiplayer save games. And it hopefully means you can play as all major races, then revert control to the AI in all major races but one for single player mode.

Such games at higher difficulty levels would be a misnomer as the human player has a handicap on the higher difficulty so unless the campaign designer intentionally plays less well on some major race that will ultimately be designated for the human player, then when the player loads the save game, they all should be equal...which is counter to the design of difficulty levels.

Example
You are creating a 400 turn save game and it's for human players of the Terran Empire (Federation), so you intentionally create less infrastructure, create less ships and troops, develop less minor races into membership, etc. If it's a harder difficulty then the human player is disadvantaged, right?

This would be easy to do with a campaign editor. It's hard to intentionally play less well in a balanced way.

GalCiv2 had an interesting feature which could make turn times really slow down. You could make some races play at genius levels, and others be stupid. It was infinite variety where some were godlike as perhaps they were established for maybe thousands of years more.

Likely in that game engine, just like chess, the AI considered many more permutations of looking ahead if I do that, their counter-response might be this, to which I do this x say 50 turns.