Advanced Save Game Six Empires Huge Map and Minor Races

[UesugiKenshin]

Say you create a 3 raider fleet. You attack, and then disband the fleet and fly off in three directions to disperse and then reassemble again. That would be cruel but effective along a border.

Any fleet can only fly as fast as the slowest member, so fast raiders can do a lot of damage and interdicting them is a strategic guessing game.

15 or 18 raiders organized to join and regroup in different fleets each time they disperse could ravage a frontier and deny a slow moving fleet from catching them.

5 or 6 groups of three constantly joining and breaking off and dispersing and then in a rotation could baffle pursuers.

In Ireland, at the very end of the medieval period and into the renaissance , hobilars were light cavalry and were sure-footed and since not wearing armor, could rapidly coax heavy cavalry into swamps and their armor would weigh them down. And then laugh as the heavy cavalry got ambushed as they got stuck in the soft mire.

Hobilar "Try and catch me you big OAF!" Then hysterically mock them when stuck and dragged from their mounts.


Moors in Spain used similar tactics on light cavalry that infuriated their enemies. They would flank and wreck soldiers who were surprised to be attacked thinking the front lines would be where the action was.

Being stronger ain't always better whereas being more manuevable and able to evade due to being unemcumbered is always helpful in battles.

The Welsh had a nasty habit of hurling javelins backward at their startled foes who thought they were going to trounce them and run them down. Nope. They would lure them into chasing them.

[UesugiKenshin]

If the Chinese had not discovered gunpowder, would another nation have done so?

Undoubtedly yes given the common chemical ingredients. People who have secrets easily spill those secrets for money, security, fame, or power. Alchemy quickly spread and the knowledge was easily disseminated by any magister smart enough and willing to perform rudimentary experiments. And in turn, the al chemy or chemistry was born.

But the premise of Frank Herbert's Dune novels is there is one rare ingredient only found on Arrakis and that unlocked not only extreme mental stimulation leading to savants able to be living computers, but also fold space. And the spice melange then made dramatic genetic changes that allow the navigators to do so, not a engineered machine using physics laws.

So while we cannot easily mod the trading program based on six natural resources, BotE already can be made so only one system can create a powerful armed large capacity transport. So that idea could unlock a whole special type of starship or even a starship so powerful it is analogous to a fleet.

You could do something which required an immense energy source to even construct something special.

So in doing so, then there are sectors that MUST BE POSSESSED at all costs as it is the only way something can occur. Thus all empires lust for it and so are willing to wage war to have it or control it.

Even the Emperor in Dune would not stay so long without controlling Arrak is. You could configure it so a sector is critical to advanced technology or some special troop that can defeat all others.

[UesugiKenshin]

Certain systems allow special energy projects that allow an immense amount of energy to be unleashed whereas standard energy cells require a lot of the population to create regular power. So only certain planets can ever make such power as the population might be tasked to make power, but then be unable to do anything else like mine or grow food or do intel or research or build industry points.

See the issue is without a map editor to place planet classes, then such a rare sector is totally random and would vary across new games.

You could have gas giants be able to allow immense energy creation for such a mega project.

Or you could simply have very high tech levels do it so a race happens like the race for exploiting nuclear fission or the space race occurs. But then you unraveled the whole concept of a strategic location.

[UesugiKenshin]

You can set the starting planet types in a major empire though so give a nudge that would unlock special projects that might only occur at some later date based on research of advanced technology. This is why the same planets show up in the empires.

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... anets.data
This is the major planets data file and the wiki explains how to define those planets.

It is a shame that the minor races have no comparable planet default setting to define their home sectors. If so, then at least all of their sectors would stay consistent across all games, though the galaxy everywhere else would vary.

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... techs.data
You could set it so empires by making choices in their research then may or may not unlock certain special research that gives them unique research that can be gained no other way.

See that is how the Omega can have slightly faster starships as there is a defined upper warp speed limit, but with special research...and solely by that method, allows an override of this in a minor way.

Any empire could make similar choices as priorities and similarly get that unique speed enhancement.

So you could change the source code and thus create a path forward that allows some special ability to be unlocked.

[UesugiKenshin]

There are buildings which can even be made more than once. And those building attributes are used by the Templar to create 3 defensive fortifications so combined with sector orbital defenses, might make them just about impregnable. The enemy would have to get past orbital defenses, starbases, fleets in orbit, and bombard like crazy, and then invade and overcome the defenders. That is a lot of hoops to jump through.

A modder could effectively make it extremely difficult to take a sector and probably because something unique can only be made there conferring a likely means of an empire succeeding.

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... hl%C3%A4ge
This storyline is nearly ignored in BotE yet is fascinating and I badly want to see some mechanism by which the players routinely see elements of the story unfold.

You have fascinating major and minor races and then once they are members, they become generic, when actually this plot device is why science fiction serialization became so popular. Human beings are compelled by stories. We are inspired by them from the moment we develop independent identities.

If you read this you will see why diplomacy is so difficult to the Omega as the Vi plant symbiotes are actually a plant based parasite and so those taking this symbiotic relationship are analogous to being demonically possessed. They lose free will.

Every conquered major and minor race would lose their self-determination and autonomy in ways that even exceed Cartare slavery.

The Vi would want some way to artificially extend this symbiotic relationship so there is zero resistance and few ways that this lifespan is abbreviated. They would become plausibly immortal aristocrats in a permanent ruling class.

Their ultimate goal would be a genetically advanced host body that has no sentience of its own or an artificial life form like a vastly superior android.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vijGdWn5-h8
The Omega's Vi symbiotes are like Cordyceps fungus that infect ants.

The Vi would turn every species into zombie slaves, not rotting zombies, but devoid of free will.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelli ... eliability
After spending a fortune on military intelligence, it often is unreliable based on the trustworthiness of the source as they may not be an intelligence agent loyal to the nation, but a disgruntled turncoat due to ideological differences, a desperate person who has money issues, someone caught in a scandal and so wanting to get even as soon as possible, a double agent with very divided loyalties based on who pays the best, an actual counterintelligence agent who speaks in half-truths to gain their "benefactor's trust" then telling a strong lie to mislead them.

And then, is the intel verifiable based on other sources or but a single source?

Much of BotE's espionage and sabotage is too good to be true with too high an effectiveness rate and at entirely too low a cost. And of course, impossible give the extreme limits on warp speed so there is no way the Cartare and Rotharian and to some degree the Omega would have so complete a picture and so effective an espionage weapon.

It takes a long time to recruit a local source that is trustworthy. It takes far longer to build an intelligence network just to able to do basic spycraft like dead drops. Planting a deep cover sleeper agent would take generations and most would use cover stories that would fail by minor mistakes.

For every sleeper agent, there probably are 20 others covering their tracks with false ID papers and providing equipment, money, handling details for various assignments, logistics, weaponry, communications, and on and on. Any of them can get caught as they have to communicate with some subset of diplomats who are actually intelligence agents or their facilitators.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u0F984w4vLQ
Number stations are but one way they communicate and most can give bad encrypted intel to throw off codebreakers.

[UesugiKenshin]

Imagine the player gets that raw number station data and after decryption has to determine the validity of the intel. That would be one way to make espionage and subsequent sabotage verification to be largely a guessing game.

But that would be realistic.

To BotE's credit, one can be "careful" which improves the accuracy and safety for the intel field agents or their cover is blown.

[UesugiKenshin]

The primary weapon of espionage is to recruit subversives by funding their activities anonymously, then threatening to expose their depth of subversive activities unless they act as sources and facilitate spies doing fieldwork.

How much would trust such sources? Not very much at all.

[UesugiKenshin]

It is already leaking and in 48 hours you will hear that money was coming from Venezuela and Cuba but actually from China to adversely affect the Dominion software in the US voting machines used in this recent election. And those companies have all kinds of ties to the extremely wealthy Democrat senators.

It's like the sabotage in BotE. Put a puppet in place so you take over a sector much easier and make military occupation possible in the long run.

[UesugiKenshin]

BotE feels very much like a classic wargame that veterans and military historians and hard core science fiction fans might play. It is made for thinkers and for people with imaginations who do not need to see explosions to get a sense of a space battle, nor see the carnage of military bombardment followed by mechanized warfare coupled with infantry.

My guess if most people saw anything realistic, it would turn their stomachs as war is ugly and brutal when people talk in platitudes of mindless patriotism.

BotE will not have an appeal to dumb people as they probably are incapable of even grasping the economy, much less research, micromanaging natural resources, buildings to manage morale, and espionage and sabotage.

What BotE has done is create a stunning tabletop wargame that runs on a computer under Windows, Linux, or the Android OS. It's a hybrid. It does not feel like a standard computer game.

People presumed that you could do a space RTS when that simply is illogical with 700 starships. Anytime you see a computer animation in such games and that is not realistically the player is actually manuvering 700 starships. If that were the case, the AI could likely beat a human everytime as humans make emotional issues with microseconds of delay. To even start and stop a stopwatch in even rapid succession takes at least 8 milliseconds. Not so to a computer.

What is missing here is the roleplaying and storytelling to maintain the galactic milieu of 156 minor and major alien species. But that is not insurmountable. Every serialized drama has actors dropping minor details that allude to larger realities. And thus through text displays and diplomatic dialogue and events each turn, then that BotE mythology could be conveyed.

And some cerebral folks might shrug and not even read those text event messages as perhaps many are just interesting with no effect. Other if ignored would have devasting consequences as they may never appear again and may be vital clues. Every single day the actions we take to help or ignore the temporarily powerless have consequences.

I think there is a hunger for that rich backstory. It could essentially be like optional missions that have a huge diplomatic effect as your empire ignores the pleas of an ally or even an enemy when listening and then acting might change the future.

[UesugiKenshin]

Diplomacy is a strange fickle beast. You do political favors and shallow insincere people forget they even took place at some cost to the benefactor. Then are surprised when it triggers a memory and they rescue YOU out of a sense of duty and honor to satisfy reciprocity and personal morals and national ethos.

In an ugly divided world mostly filled with shallow insincere false fairweather acquaintences, nothing is more valuable than loyalty.

See the issue, I believe, is the AI probably will never be loyal because it has no emotions or sense of reciprocity. Every empire other than its own is at least a competitor or possibly an enemy, and any attempt to defend puts that other empire in the nemesis category. And the AI become recalcitrant. It becomes fixated on revenge as it is designed to win.

Most human players do not actually want to win games as if they do, the game is over.

Wisely, BotE has a scoring system because while players vaguely want to win over a long period, they do want to be evaluated and recognized for achievement.

[UesugiKenshin]

Anyone playing either the advanced turn #300 save game on page 8 or the advanced turn #400 save game on page 17 could win in 50+ turns, but my guess is they will not do that. BotE will become like a sandbox game as there are endless possibilities as the Omega player is so extremely strong and so superior, that they probably will try to explore and see what they could do instead.

If the AI got a level of diplomatic attitude towards the human player for an extended period, at various positive levels, an internal score might have them realize the human player is not going to take their sectors and is willing to coexist and even help their empire to achieve its own goals.

See if every empire has goals and a long-standing positive attitude exists between two empires where the human player has helped them to achieve TRUST, then maybe even higher level goals could be achieved...that have nothing to do with conquering.

Rewatch the science fiction film Arrival. The heptopods could easily conquer the humans, perhaps as easily as the Omega can now conquer the galaxy. But doing so might ruin them, as perhaps it is only when the humans have autonomy that they actually can help the heptopods when they need reciprocity. The heptopods have a sense of reciprocity that extends to some 3,000 years in the future when we can hardly imagine what those distant descendants will be like.