So I've tested to turn 118 and had the barbarian problem... There has been about 9 stars captured by battleship IIIs so far and they're getting worse. First time I've seen the problem while testing this minimod.
So far things seem to be running fine otherwise. It's tough to tell how things balance out with everybody just barely fighting off the barbarians.
I wonder what causes that, maybe it's just on certain games? Or do they have the ability to build battleship IIIs once they capture a star? The Battleship IIIs might have started showing up after they captured Meklon...
But on to other things...
Actually I think the barbs/Antarans ideally should stick with spaceships only, not ground troops. (In MoO the Antarans only destroy, not capture colonies.)
I really want to reduce the type of units barbarians can get, but I'm not sure how to do that. (like no ground troops & scouts or something). Any ideas? I noticed some things in the CivilizationInfos.xml that could be related.
Or another idea I had that is related to this is to change the <bNoCapture > setting on battleships & destroyers and such to 1, so they can't capture stars, just destroy the defenses (like BTS helicopters). Then Invasion Ships would be used to actually capture the star.
-It would be more like MoO2's method of capturing stars.
-It would help keep the barbarians from forming their own nation.
-I personally think it would improve the game.
-We could prevent the barbarians from getting invasion ships (if that is possible) to keep them from capturing stars.
-Special defensive units could be added later that focus on on transports to hinder an attacking fleet (to add dynamic to the game.)
I'm not sure if the AI will like it though. I also think the change should wait until later so there is time for testing. What are you guys' thoughts on that change?
* Actually I think you (or I) should make the minimod an official upload. I think it makes an invaluable contribution not just for v. 5.0 and on, but possibly for earlier versions. (I noticed the download count is like 1 now - being me.) At any rate it should increase feedback. But if you don't want that (for whatever reason) that's cool too.
It would be good to keep a separate upload of this "minimod" for people who have to use older download versions. I was confused at what you meant for a minute. Where does a person do an "official upload"? What does this mean? Do you mean put it on the download thread?
I'm going to upload the latest version in a few minutes, so if it's not changed to 1.5.1b yet it soon will be.