Apollo AI Starting Army

[Barathor]

The existing code needs to be changed for Rising Tide.

The aquatic sponsors start just like the other sponsors on land: with 3 combat rovers. So, they can be out in the middle of the ocean and have 3 embarked combat rovers, haha.

This was already lame enough in vanilla BE (which I created a mod for to fix it). The game chooses the highest strength unit available, so it chooses the combat rovers at 12 strength over soldiers at 10. But, because Apollo AI's start with 1 of each affinity, any soldiers would become marines. Not only would they be stronger, but they would also get defensive bonuses. The game doesn't realize this and places combat rovers instead because it takes a turn for the upgrade to take effect.

By removing the free Engineering tech (which grants combat rovers) and replacing it with a different one, the game was forced to choose soldiers and then they would wind up with 3 powerful marines.

I tried using this in Rising Tide and the aquatic sponsors just started with 3 embarked marines instead of patrol boats, haha.

The code which selects combat units at starts for AI's should just default to soldiers/patrol boats; it doesn't need to be fancy and select the highest strength unit available, like Civ 5, because it doesn't start in advanced eras or anything.

So, on Apollo...

Land Sponsors should wind up with 3 Marines.

Aquatic Sponsors should wind up with 3 Cutters.

and ideally...

Coastal Sponsors should wind up with 1 Cutter and 2 Marines.

No Combat Rovers!!

 

[albie_123]

okay

that's it

from now on anyone who even begins to try to insinuate this expansion wasn't a rushed, untested mess is being sent to this thread

 

[hevans900]

okay

that's it

from now on anyone who even begins to try to insinuate this expansion wasn't a rushed, untested mess is being sent to this thread

Not disagreeing, but Apollo was never really that thought through in Vanilla BE - the devs don't care about the higher difficulties because they're much harder to balance and very few people will play them. This particular oversight doesn't surprise me - not to justify it

 

[Ryika]

And while they're at it they should make it so AIs start with Marines even if other Melee units are unlocked. Combat rovers are more of a penalty than actual use for the AI - they lose them way easier against Aliens AND they start without the Affinity 1 Upgrade that Marines would get.

/edit: ...nevermind. I should really start reading the whole posts again.

 

[Gorbles]

Agreed with the suggestions, personally.

okay

that's it

from now on anyone who even begins to try to insinuate this expansion wasn't a rushed, untested mess is being sent to this thread

Yeah, because this is such a damning indictment and certainly more important that other concerns people have.

 

[albie_123]

Yeah, because this is such a damning indictment and certainly more important that other concerns people have.

It's not the most important, but in terms of raw 'we just didn't care at all about this game' factor, yeah, this is one of the more damning instances.

I mean come on - you design an expansion with one of the most advertised features being water starts and you don't even make sure to change the AI bonuses?

 

[Manannan]

okay

that's it

from now on anyone who even begins to try to insinuate the devs aren't filthy casuals is being sent to this thread

Fixed

Honestly, this isn't news. Apollo has always felt like an after-thought with BE that there has never been much desire to balance for. Not really shocking either when you watch the devs themselves play.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

But with rovers, they steal more pods from you