It is funny Neilkaz, we had a similar discussion when Muton came along back in April and showed the power of Sub/Crea/Charisma: sub to be able to turtle a bit with expanding the # planets, and crea/charisma to shower the a.i. with techs and play nice to them. We subsequently increased Charisma from 5 to 6 picks. With Crea now down to 14, the combo has again the same cost
just different valuation of the parts. I do not mind really that this play style gives a sub T200 win, as long as it meant that it was an interesting game to play. That each game can be interesting is my goal with this mod. And it is in fact one of the amazing things of moo2 that it allows for so many play styles. It is why I still play it!
If the goal is to win at lowest turns than Blitz races still easily win in much less turns than Charismatic races, so in that sense I am not too worried about Charisma being too cheap. In addition, the cost of being Charisma is also; not being able to pick Repulsive. From that perspective, chosing Charisma costs 9+6=15 potential eco picks. So it better gives something in return.
And indeed Repulsive sucks, no benefits from treaties and less control over your opponents. Perhaps Repulsive could be -10, just like Crea perhaps could be +13. But at -9 you can build very strong races with this trait and ultimate proof is that the ability is being used for building races. The same cannot be said for Uncreative or -Money, those are hardly used even at -12 picks. Thus the ultimate question about valuation is the total race, rather than the individual ability.
An example of this is the -research pick that is now valued at -9 instead of -8. Seemingly no big deal and probably still nobody will like this trait at -9. Except that it makes an interesting Blitz race possible: 'Feudal, -Res, -Spy'. As blitz races come with Tele, the spy damage is somewhat limited. Spy damage means sabotage by opponents here coz they can spy all they want but will find no techs... with 'Fued -Res' you can pretty much forget about doing any serious research. It would mean suicide - unless you play a Blitz strategy. With some luck, a few helpful techs come from conquest.
Just another thought about a.i. races: I have been quietly decyphering the a.i. code and there is a lot of stuff which can already be modded. But as they are part of a larger A.I. / Diplomacy puzzle I have decided to not touch it at all until a 'near complete' picture of the mechanics is achieved. One of my ideas is that a.i. ambassadors get somehwat more quickly tired of you, which causes that more turns are needed to get all treaties. On the other hand, I sometimes wonder over the 'Gnolam' style. You would expect this race to close treaties readily as it benefits from them the most. But the Gnolam can be quite reluctant. Some thing to figure out still.
Oh .. one more thing:
Are you trying to get me to stop reporting when something works well? Remember I did sacrifice assault shuttles for something that will never matter again after this war.
Yes, please keep reporting! Remember we are playing single player games > with the VDC multiplayer mod, improvement comes from players evaluating their game, finding reasons why it was won or lost. Reporting is the only way I would get such feedback. I receive in this way valuable info (also in private messages btw). It does not mean that every single story triggers a new mod, just some new thoughts that can accumulate and gradually add up to a new iteration.
Anyway, 10n is our version for some time to come. Autumn is coming - on this north part of the globe at least - so a good time to play some moo.
Manipulating AI's can sometimes lead to very easy wins.
Would like some games and analysis to happen with it, other than my own. And I mean economic games, not Cha+Cre diplomatic games.)
