What is the biggest problem in Final Frontier

anyone tried the mod with raging barbarians? It's ridiculous! I'm around 300-400 turns in my marathon game and I've destroyed some 400 defence ships and invasion ships each, some 200 destroyers and 100 battleships.

Only one AI civ still stands and I never met 4 that died first (and I've had only one war and pirates killed my opponent before I did anything). Only reason I still stand are that I removed xp restrictions and managed to build star bases in vital choke points. They still get thru as assaults consist of some 25 - 100 ships and I have few systems outside my protective ring of star bases.

Largest civilization is the pirates controlling aprox 50% existing star systems compared to my measly 10% . Last remaining AI holds 3 systems down from its height of 10 and won't last another 100 turns.

It and other now dead civs could have lasted longer, even indefinitely if they had dug in when they started losing ships and systems to pirates but they didn't seem to understand the peril they were in. They continued to build colony ships and send out their ships to die and leaving their worlds defenceless more or less.

I have my own problems as well as I have tax rate of 80% and it barely covers my upkeep. I'm only starting to get more income because commercial buildings seem to come so damn late and wealth was discovered by one of now dead civs (the reason I have some of those outer colonies was to take over the former homeworld of civ that founded wealth so I could spread it to my cities. Took 100 turns to get some to my home systems because they cant cross the damage zones and had to instead go around half of pirate infested galaxy . For same reason those colonies do not have star bases; my builders can't get there alive at least.)

To sum up problems:
Long turns
Hard to make cash early (or even mid game) without having wealth. And there's not that much you can do to improve cash flow.
Not much to build with workers
Not much to do at start (I'd expect to be able to construct some buildings etc. at start.)
Too slow movement.
More diverse civics and make them available from start and preset for each civ plus more costly to change. It makes no sense to have to develop democracy or monarchy or what not when they've been around centuries before mods timeline.
Too easy to get epic culture level (I'm nearing 10.000 in couple cities and may get 3rd to 5000 before pirates kill the last AI empire. Do I win then btw with no AI's left?)
It costs too much to build second etc. buildings and its boring to micromanage a system as it's hard to tell what’s build where.
AI is moronic. It does not seem to even notice pirates or what’s the idea of moving out their battle ship when system is assaulted by two dozen pirate ships. As far as I could tell (from spying or them being vassals), AI did not build according to situation it was in. It just tries to get more colonies and workers even when assaulted from all sides instead of building useful buildings or defences..
Too few civs for huge map and mostly just bad choices (too much negatives, same with civics).

Pirates are their own category:
they spawn too close your systems; one unseen tile seemed to be enough as there was only one asteroid tile and pirate BS came from it and wasn't damaged so it did not come from damage zone.
They seem to advance at your pace but because their units just spawn, I ended up being attacked by 6 pirate Battle Ships after I'd just researched them. (why couldn't they make game pregenerate some pirate bases at start that would generate pirate ships as time goes by and maybe allow to capture/loot ships and worlds (instead of taking them) to boost their ship production capability and quality of their ships.)
Pirates should only raid my bases/colonies/mines/ships for cash and resources and then vanish to come back stronger later. Not run around pillaging my road network!

Also what's up with no PDE. I was expecting something like New Orionians from Moo3 that would tax us dry and push us around in United planets conferences in order to build an armada or something to retake earth (Moo2 Antaran base would fit right in here. Btw. Can you find earths fate in this mod anyway, its too early in game and its almost over for me due to pirates destroying all other empires).

PDE could have been given single highly developed system but no capability (interest due to ripping all needed resources from poor colonists) to get more, significant tech lead good fleet and defences. The colonies would first have to build up enough strength to defy/over rule his decisions in UP gatherings, usurp their rule and either make new empire here (or gain other normal victories) or solve mystery of earth (by building massive fleet and sending it to earth to investigate). Closer to games time limit what ever had happened to earth could start happening here as well intensifying closer the time limit you get forcing players to race to victory of their choice or face annihilation.

Now how’s that for mod concept? Any volunteers to make it happen?

How about trying the mod with normal barbarians? I didn't even know that the barbarian options even had an effect (maybe they don't). Barbarians spawn much more frequently in FF than the epic game because there is so much more fog. You can't fogbust in FF, so you actually have to deal with barbs. The AI is acting like it always does and doesn't understand FF at all... it wouldn't even be able to play it except for a bunch of python overrides.

The PDE does not exist as a faction in the game. All accounts of Earth in the game are in the tech quotes, but Jon Shafer did post the story somewhere on this site shortly after BtS came out.

EDIT: I should also mention that your research was probably lagging. The barb ships that spawn are based off of what 1/3 of the game you're in. You can't overexpand in FF. An early game REX is probably not wise.

deanej said:

The PDE does not exist as a faction in the game. All accounts of Earth in the game are in the tech quotes, but Jon Shafer did post the story somewhere on this site shortly after BtS came out.

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Yes, I know. I'm playing the mod you know . I was just commenting on what kind of picture I had and what I was expecting after reading the scenario description. Having it like I described above would have been so much more interesting

EDIT: I should also mention that your research was probably lagging. The barb ships that spawn are based off of what 1/3 of the game you're in. You can't overexpand in FF.

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Oh and here I tought that pirates were actually researching techs in those 30+ colonies they've captured thus far

An early game REX is probably not wise.

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I had little choise in the matter as barbarian rampage forced me to expand to push back the fog of war and to to be able to force the barbs to enter thru the chocke points in nebulae (and not all directions like they used to when I had my first four colonies. Also only places I could defend were the colonies as any ship cauch outsive was swamped by hordes of pirates. I tried building space stations early but I just could not protect the workers). Then again I only had about 15 colonies at my height. 3 outermost were lost after pirate BS's began to arrive.

I am leading the science race usually having 2-3 more tech than any AI nation has/had in game. I even had 3 vassals at one point (they begged to become one as soon as I met then ). I did not have problems with reseach, there were enough buildings and civics to boost it. How ever there were not much I could do about taxes until about 100 turns ago when I got the banks(?) and now the building from wealth. I can convert production to cash too but my colonies produce too little (20-30 at 15 size) to make difference when I need 500+ to upgrade a ship or rush build a second or third building of a type. As I said, I had tax at 80% just to get by (just to support fleet of 2 defence ships in each planet, 10 star bases (do they cost upkeep?) bit over dozen combat ships and half dozen worker ships and half dozen ships covering space between colonies and in corners so pirates would not spawn there.

Btw, I know expansion is expensive but why then was the 10 colony AI my most direct opponent in tech race or does AI cheat again (difficulty warlord should not give bonuses to AI)? I had tech brokering off to prevent AI tech swap fever it usually has (in normal games I even have tech trading off).

Oh and is there a setting I can change in xml to make pirates spawn 5 tiles away in FoW rather than the 1 its now?

Wow... 30 barb systems. You were probably facing a mixture of spawned and built ships. I think the AI cheats on city upkeep no matter what even in the epic game. The spawning may be a global define value... or python. Hard to say for sure as FF overrides a lot of the game framework with python components.

The biggest problem is I can't it to load

Raging barbs is rough. To cope with it, you have to adapt your anti-pirate defenses. The AI isn't so good at that, and as a result tends to get beaten up. Playing marathon speed is also bad. I'm not sure of the exact effect, but since the players' ships take longer to build, and the pirates still spring up like always, it is easier to get overwhelmed by numbers.

It is possible to fog bust, but it requires squadrons and ships (scouts work OK) to do it. Keep patrolling around your systems, and you can spot and hammer pirates. Starbases also help a lot.


As for early builds and making money, FF has a very different way to work things than the regular game, but I always find something for my workers to do. You can always be building roads. The road network supports trade routes, mobility for defense, and in general is never bad to have more of.

If you have the current patch, the game should play better.

The biggest problem for me is that this game is way to easy to win with cultural victory. I even try the Duel at Emperor level and won before turn 200.
On the other hand, I'd never been able to win a diplomatic victory but, that's my case with all the Civ games.

To cut down on pirates you should play a game with lots and lots of civs.
Since other civs fogbust, it helps. But then you have to worry about their militaries instead of barbarians. I've never played with Raging Barbarians and I don't play super-high difficulties, but lots of civs, about atleast 1 copy of each civ and sometimes 2, definitly makes things easier barbarian-wise but the other civs replace that threat.

Playing marathon in this mod is frustrating because the early-game takes so long to begin with (20 turns to build a ship on normal) and the longer it gets to make ONE ship equals more frustration (on marathon its like 70 turns to build one ship)

Moving on, Has anyone come up with any mods of this mod? Like a Halo-themed mod or Star Wars-themed mod? Anyone?

Ok, here are the edit's I've made to this mod

==done==
+1 trade toue with simple economy, domestic developement and commerce theory
-1 trade route for red sydicate
reduced red sydicate's production bonuses to 10, 10, 10, 10 and 25
anti-ship missile's don't require military support
new text for chanes to trweade routes, to techs and civics
gave planetary defence ships see invisible, and raised costs by 5, 10, 15 (and advanaced start costs by 4, a little, abut 5)

Good, but isn't the Red Syndicate now underpowered?
We need more units in this mod-mod too.
Good job on the changes though!

Thinker19930602 said:

Good, but isn't the Red Syndicate now underpowered?

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See all those extra trade routes I've dotted around? They still get +1 & +1 from them. Haven't played around much, but I think they still should be strong as ever.
I am considering giving them back +1 trade route (or possibly a special building that gives them +1? Special stardock?) And wiping out the +1 & +1 . Then I'd finally make trade routes give you +1 +1 per 4 (or so) commerce, (not in vanilla, but there is an option) so everyone gets that sort of bonus, but the RS get more. Unfortunitly, giving civs more trade routes suffers from diminishing returns- the nth trade route is less important than (n-1)th. Possibly giving them a trade-route multiplyer might be better.
Unless of course the & give per i commerce on a trade toute is given on the 1st, (i+1)th etc commerce, rather than the ith, (2i)th etc.trade routes
If anyone wants the files, I'll upload them (though the changes are pritty simple) - when I work out how to upload files.

its a bit disorganised in that forum, so: does anyone know of a mod that improves FF's gameplay elements? not so much a TC like the MoO thingy or purerly grahpical changes, but like ... stuff to give FF more flesh, like more wonders, more civics, more units, more resources, buildings. or any additions. I wouldnt even know how to search for it.

Well, these are the files I edited- all xml and one python. I don't know what the proper way of presenting them is, but if anyone wants to try them they can.

They,
+1 trade route with simple economy, domestic development and commerce theory
-1 trade route for red syndicate
reduced red syndicate’s production bonuses to 10, 10, 10, 10 and 25
anti-ship missile's don't require military support
new text for changes to trade routes, to techs and civics
gave planetary defence ships see invisible, and raised costs by 5, 10, 15 (and advanced start costs by 4, a little, aboutt 5)

They make the trade part of the game a little bit 'fuller', and reduce the effect of one expoit; stealth ships on AIs.

Why did you bother with the advanced start costs? It's disabled in Final Frontier as the mod is incompatible with advanced start (even with it re-enabled and the option checked you still get a normal start with a city and a planetary defense ship).

EDIT: It's also better to put the modded files in the same structure as the default ones and zip that up.

deanej said:

Why did you bother with the advanced start costs? It's disabled in Final Frontier as the mod is incompatible with advanced start (even with it re-enabled and the option checked you still get a normal start with a city and a planetary defense ship).

EDIT: It's also better to put the modded files in the same structure as the default ones and zip that up.

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The short answer, is becuase I forgot that. The long answer is that I wnated to be prepared for all eventualities.

Ahh ok, I'll do that next time. What about the fuiles I didn't change: do I include them or leave them out?

Leave those out, as there is no need to include them.

One thing that I don't like is that when I build a colony, I often receive a message that the colony is asking ("rightly", it says) to be released to a different empire, one turn after -I- founded it! They're never any closer to the cultural influence area of that other power than me, either! So weird.

The AI has the oddest tendency to build warp lanes in a 5x5 area around their systems...IMO there's no actual advantage to this, if you ask me, and this comes from a guy who ideally paves two laned routes between colonies when he can.

Next, I haven't bumped up the default difficulty levels yet, but in every game, the pirates capture multiple civilized systems. I just really think it's unfeasible for pirates to churn out Battleships out of thin air before they've even captured a planet. Mostly, a treat pirates as a sort of prestige-building resource, but it would be nice if they had asteroid starbases that could be disposed of to lessen their constant nagging raids. Alternatively, it would be nice if they didn't have access to capital ships except from shipyards on planets they conquered!

I love this mod for what it is though: a mod. Shafer's probably marked this project completed long ago. Ah well.

also: What are UU's and UB's?

UU = unique unit
UB = unique building

both of which concepts that apply to civ IV proper, not final frontier. would be nice to have some though, but it does seem a bit difficult with the unit balance system there is.

tour86rocker said:

One thing that I don't like is that when I build a colony, I often receive a message that the colony is asking ("rightly", it says) to be released to a different empire, one turn after -I- founded it! They're never any closer to the cultural influence area of that other power than me, either! So weird.

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It does this in the regular game too. You can ignore these messages. The logic is that a city which is closer to another civ's influence than your own may fall under its culture and "flip" if you don't set it free.

In the regular game cities are often built within the cultural influence of another player, but more often are close enough to your territory to count automatically as "yours". In FF, colonies are rarely built within the cultural borders or influence of anyone.

Fortunately, you just ignore this message as irrelevant, unless you were planning to build a colony to give away. I don't see much incentive to do this in FF.