[MoO] ICEMOD: mod design, race design, strategies

[Dukinson]

I'm playing a game where I acquired adamantium armor and my ships have around 1/10 the structure they should have. IE battleships with 40 structure and 400 armor. It appears to be more than just a visual bug, I was wiped out by a seemingly inferior fleet.

 

[Rocco.40]

That is a really weird glitch. Can you provide the savegame?
[via speedyshare]
Also, which exe were you playing?

 

[Dukinson]

Due to a limitation of this forum, I had to change the file extension.

 

[Rocco.40]

thanks for file - I can see the problem;

in tactical combat games the standard armor is:

140
FF 4/4
DD 10/10
CA 30/30
BS 50/50
TT 80/80
DS 150/150

ICE
FF 4/4
DD 12/12
CA 30/30
BS 50/50
TT 90/90
DS 150/150

in strategic games the standard armor is:
140
FF 4/4
DD 15/10
CA 25/30
BS 40/50
TT 80/80
DS 300/150

In ICE is can see now:
ICE
FF 4/4
DD 15/12
CA 25/30
BS 40/50
TT 80/90
DS 300/150

In ICE, the numbers for Destroyer and Titan have been altered (10>12 and 80>90) for both structure and armor
It seems that for strategic games the armor is updated to these new values but the structure values are not.
Which makes sense because they are from a different table.
And in fact, atm I do not know the location of the table for Structure values in strategic combat.
I need to look at this more closely which will take time.

Fortunately, I am currently studying al the bug fixes that have been made in VDC exe and next ones on the list are related to armor & structure.
FYI- These are:
(a) Star Bases armor bug for cybernetic race and engineer leader for non-cybernetic.
(b) Antarans Starfortress Structure Hp Bug.
So perhaps can look at this interesting bug in the same round.

Two things that would really help me forward:
1. Do you see this in all your games, or just in this occasion.
2. Also, if you say acquired the tech, does that mean stealing or trading rather than researching?

EDIT: Ok, so I have already localized the Non-tactical ships structure table.

 

[Dukinson]

Yes I stole it, but I would be surprised if that was any different than researching it. I will look more closely in future games at how the structure changes as I progress through the armor techs.

 

[Rocco.40]

Have just completed couple of checks:
This problem has been present in MOO2 since version 1.1
(and is thus also in 1.31, the 1.40 fan patch and in my mod)

In some way, it is a relief that I have not introduced this, on the other hand this will make fixing it much more difficult.

In strategic all ships are automatically updated / redesigned whenever a new structure/armor tech becomes available (that is also all ships that are already flying around)
With every new armor tech, only the Armor is updated and not the structure, all the way up to Xentronium Armor.
Over time, as tech progresses the delta between the the two becomes increasingly large. Now this might be by design, but I do not see how that is a good mechanic.
So lets just call it a 'native' MOO2 bug.
Will try to see if I can localize some code for the automatic update process.
tbc

 

[neilkaz]

I've never seen this structure bug issue, but I only play tactical combat.

I was also unaware that you couldn't put tanks on a scout if not playing tactical.

If that is the case, then the cost for outpost ships does need to be set back to 200 for ICECOLD.

 

[Dukinson]

I just checked several games in strategic combat with 1.40 and sure enough, all the structures of my ships were short changed. This is definitely not an icemod issue.

That aside I noticed something with androids. They are supposed to be tolerant but when I attempt to build more with a subterranean race on a non gaian planet, I am warned it will kill colonists. Shouldn't those androids inhabit the sections of the surface my colonists cannot? Also I can transport androids to planets beyond their maximum. A minor issue but perhaps you can easily fix it.

I had an unrelated question to add. Does ground combat factor into strategic combat? It sure is a factor in tactical.

 

[Rocco.40]

androids. They are supposed to be tolerant but when I attempt to build more with a subterranean race on a non gaian planet, I am warned it will kill colonists.

Yeah, this is a known MOO2 mechanic. Droids do not increase pop for Tolerant AND Subterranean races. Ref. http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II:_Battle_at_Antares/Growing_your_population

Does ground combat factor into strategic combat? It sure is a factor in tactical.

Not sure if I understand your question. Because, in tactical games marine strength comes into play with boarding actions and there is no such thing in strategic?

 

[Rocco.40]

I was also unaware that you couldn't put tanks on a scout if not playing tactical.

Yeah, strategic has no extended fuel tanks at all in the game, it is not in the tech tree.
Though Outpost and Colony Ships have been fitted with them nonetheless.

If that is the case, then the cost for outpost ships does need to be set back to 200 for ICECOLD.

Icecold can also be played tactical, so will need to consider both game types. Intention of Icecold is to have less planets and high difficulty to reach eachother. Thus the idea of making OP Ships so close in cost to C Ships that they are almost redundant. I have in fact also thought to remove the Outpost alltogether from this mod. Reason offcourse is also that a.i. does not use them and in this way we are levelling the playfield. If a.i. would use these techs, then it would not be such a game defining issue (and much less interesting to talk about as well). Because in strategic the X Tanks are not there, which is another tech that a.i. does not use, the game is even more fair than tactical where you can still fit the tanks on ships although they are more expensive than in classic moo.

btw, what you think of the icecold game start without star base?

 

[Dukinson]

In order:

-Ah I've always played unitol and made sure the game was hard despite playing one of the super races. I assumed from the description of androids they were not functioning as intended.

-I was nearly certain ground combat wasn't factored into strategic combat, but what if I'm wrong? Strategic space combat is a foggy area where you don't really see the exact numbers of how much a given tech tips the scales, you just have to guess and hope you're right. If ground combat had a subtle affect on space combat, I wouldn't be surprised. I had a theory it might but have no idea how to check how much a given technology or racial trait really affects automatically resolved space combat.

-Outposts, I had a feeling you increased the cost to limit player use of them, but then why keep colony ships the same cost? If I see a system out of range but an outpost or colony ship can reach them, it's worth it to just risk a colony ship for the extra 100. At least if colony ships were more expensive, I would look to the outpost ship again. About the computer not using them. I feel the same in that its poor form to use them in a manner that the computer would not. I self impose a rule of only using outposts as scouts and do not place them on gas giants or asteroid belts to attain an advantage the computer would not. The computer sees all, I should at least be able to scout with them. They will send an unescorted colony ship at the complete limit of their range with the fuel tanks, but not if their is a fleet or space monster waiting there. A huge advantage in strategic. What about this: remove their ability to be set up on nonplanets or remove their ability to be deployed all together and give them a 2 scan range (4 with battlescanners) to function as mobile listening posts. Again nothing the computer doesn't have seeing as they're omniscient. Decrease their cost to 200 or heavily increase the cost of colony ships to 1000 to be in line with outpost cost of 400. That will limit expansion, but then again you may see an uptick in the tactic of just waiting for your enemies to colonize and take over that valuable colony with one transport.

-I was a bit torn on the small population and no starbase in Icecold. I somewhat like how it slows things down but isn't that more of a colony advancement setting? I could see it in prewarp but this does change the balance in that races with population and production bonuses (production is already king) have a great advantage in that they can produce that star base sooner and fill in their home planet that much faster. You can still produce a colony ship without a starbase and they are still the same cost. Expansion will be similar to vanilla aside from reduced population. I do like the reduction of planets and empty systems creating natural empire divides in icecold, it's why I play it.

I do like how you made population negative -12 as anyone who picks population negative is normally quite mad in vanilla, especially sub or tol races. But population negative is still very painful in icecold and find myself using lowg. -12 for lowg might be too good and -9 for repulsive might be too little perhaps. Low g is actually a benefit if you encounter low g planets, if you encounter highg, well the penalty is exactly the same. Only normal gs, and you're only hit 25%. Ground combat component is minor. So perhaps -10 for lowg might be more in line but I'd have to play more to be avid on that point.

Also, not being able to control and benefit from your potential enemies is one of the greatest penalties if not the greatest, add to that you'll have less decent leaders from repulsive as your enemies will have hired them before you. Down to -9 from -12 (-6), I do wonder if it's not enough. I do still use it but only because I self impose another rule of automatic declaration of war on all encountered races to dramatically increase challenge.

While I'm at it, I might as well throw in another critique of the change in Warlord. One of warlords greatest components was how it changed the way a race produced their command points and could produce a fleet without large numbers of starbases and communications technologies. At only one point per colony, it not longer holds its appeal or effect. However, you did decrease it's cost to 6 (8). It's still a decent pick if you're going for ship attack and defense, but I feel as though it's little more than that. I would prefer it at 8 picks like it was. The race I used to play was Unitol warlord, a vicious aggressive race. While unitol was largely considered to be too powerful, and rightly so, I rarely saw the experts throwing in warlord to that combo. What I usually saw was +1 prod added to that combo. So my race had a large hit to early game production but what I would do instead, catch up by neglecting starbases, research battle computers instead of communications, and throw fleets of low tech, highly trained ships at my enemies. Different and fun. If I saw more "Whats the most powerful race" threads throwing warlord into their race, I would more quickly understand this change. I would be interested to know your line of reasoning in changing it.

Would you believe I have more? I'll save it for later.

 

[Dukinson]

I had some more observations about my strategic mode testing. First is that my ships have 0 combat speed. I don't think this is an icemod problem but I thought I'd mention it none the less. When I get trandimensional my ships do get 4 combat speed but nomatter the drive, all my ships have 0 combat speed no matter the tech level or equipped drives. I know combat speed drops with heavily outfitted ships but I never had ships with 0 combat speed in tactical combat. Perhaps this is intended in strategic? Ships aren't getting the beam defense they should is my only concern. *Edit* I made a doom star, it was packed with modules immediately after construction with 11 combat speed. This made it many times more deadly than a titan starting with 5 modules and 0 combat speed. When I stole inter-phased drives, dooms went to 13 combat speed and titans 2. However newly constructed dooms and titans went back down to 11 and 0 combat speed.

Another interesting thing about ships and new tech is that if I have an old titan that has seen many new developed technologies, it will continue to outfit itself with those technologies. Inertial stabilizers, fast missile racks, displacement devices, etc until it has so many modules they scroll off the display box! This sure seems to make them dangerous but once destroyed and replaced, the new ships will only have a few of the best modules. Shouldn't existing ships not be allowed to keep stacking on modules until they become super ships?

Here's yet another issue with strategic you might be able to get around to someday. The advanced techs. They do absolutely nothing in strategic. No miniaturization of anything or the like. It would add something to extra long games as rare as they are if each level could have some impact on the game.

Tech description on Evolutionary Mutation and Thorium fuel cells (icecold) inaccurate. I have a feeling you may know that already though.

 

[Rocco.40]

Ok, we got some ground to cover
First ones;

I assumed from the description of androids they were not functioning as intended.

Already corrected the description for Androids in ICE but maybe a could add some clarification about Droids & Subt. Or maybe I will clarify in the ICEMOD.xls, which is the manual for ice.

Tech description on Evolutionary Mutation and Thorium fuel cells (icecold) inaccurate. I have a feeling you may know that already though.

Thanks for the Ev. Mut. It indeed was still at 4, have corrected to 8.
For Thorium, yes it is wrong. I described it in the Readme. Due to the shared folder there is 1 helpfile for all 3 mods.

About the strategic game setting; I have played it no more than a handful times over all these years. For the mod design, I have only checked that the game setting actually functions and does not stall for some reason (by running passive test games). When I quickly glanced over the code of auto-updates yesterday, I did notice the code looks kind of 'shaky'. Not to say bugged, because I am really no coding expert and I am just learning as we go with this mod, but there are some weird 'jumps to nowhere' and code that continues after a stop signal already has been given etc.
Lets open a new thread to discuss this further, coz most of the mechanics will not be ICE specific and I am pretty sure that I have not introduced any new bugs.

 

[Rocco.40]

racepicks

But population negative is still very painful in icecold and find myself using lowg. -12 for lowg might be too good and -9 for repulsive might be too little perhaps.

Agree that -pop is a worse trait to have than low-g.
There was a clear reason that -pop was removed from the vdc mod entirely.
The main reason i kept it in the game is that with pop growth settings other than -50,0,50,100 there can be bugs with a.i. race development (as I have described in my page on spheriumnorth).
If I would be able to fix this problem, the -50 would be removed entirely and replaced with a + value.

In classic low-g costs -10 and ice is -12.
I have considered to put it back to -11 picks because as soon as you have the grav. generator you can mitigate this pick and only incur some building cost.
But it is the start of your expansion that is really slowed down by this pick so I left it at -12.
Especially in ICEx, your early expansion is crucial.

Repulsive for -9. Maybe it should be lower. It depends also on game setting (and this is true for some other picks too).
If you play 1-1 than it is very good value. For 8 player games, it might be -10 or more.
Map size also comes into play, with smalles maps when you meet opponents earlier this pick is worse than on huge maps.

Also I considered full race construction for ability valuation:
You can construct a Feudal & Low-G race which uses all your negatives.
For pop-50, if I would make -pop cost -13 or -14, then a Feudal & Pop-50 race is no longer possible.
The Sillicoid have both pop -50 and Repulsive, and this combo makes for the max -21 picks.

Warlord.
Currently you can get for 8 picks +25 Ship Defense and +25 Ship Attack.
Note that the +25 Ship Defense also gives this value +25 for your missile evasion.
Warlord will effectively give you +15 Beam Defense, half that value for missile evasion and +15 Beam Attack.
(and the bonusses increase with experience level to +20 and +25)
For 6 picks you will also get the +1 command per planet.
And last and also least extra marines and tanks on your planets.
It is a decent package deal still.
I am slightly biased as Warlord based races are my favorites and in classic I used this pick often to build huge fleets.
You are right that "I rarely saw the experts throwing in warlord to that combo."
Especially for multiplayer games, Warlord whith the +2 command is valued quite low.
In single player, if you are expanding quickly, the +2 quickly adds up to an impressive number which can sustain very large fleets.
P+1 and +0.5 BC are also 6 picks however so maybe Warlord could be a pick cheaper.

 

[Rocco.40]

icecold

I self impose another rule of automatic declaration of war on all encountered races to dramatically increase challenge.

Perhaps I could put the ICEx races in icecold mod.
Currently it has the regular ice races in. Bringing in stronger races increases your challenge.
I started with regular races as for some players ICEx opponents is a bit too much.

I do like the reduction of planets and empty systems creating natural empire divides in icecold, it's why I play it.

agree!

As for the 6 pop. I guess I just wanted to play a different start after so many years and this wish created 6 pop. I might change it back to 8 eventually coz of your mentioned reasons that it advantages only certain races.

As for the no Star Base. Human player, when they know early contact is unlikely will often scrap the star base for money and use that money to advance expansion. A.I. have no smart tricks at all (only cheats) and will keep Star Base. I will not defend that this element is a superior game mechanic but just thought it is a nice change of game start. I do like it better than the 6 pop in any case. FYI- it was not possible to have PW game without and average start with Star Base. The code is built such that both get it or neither gets it.

Outposts, I had a feeling you increased the cost to limit player use of them, but then why keep colony ships the same cost? ... I self impose a rule of only using outposts as scouts

Ideally I want to create such a mod that you never have to feel bad that you use a mechanic that the a.i. does not. So our goal should be that we come up with such a cost for OP and C Ships that you can be proud of winning a game while making full use of the techs available. I like your suggestion about more expensive Colony Ships. It is something I can really see for icecold. 1000 sounds on the high side but maybe something between 600-800? And then OP Ships between 300-400?

What about this: remove their ability to be set up on nonplanets or remove their ability to be deployed all together and give them a 2 scan range (4 with battlescanners) to function as mobile listening posts.

Could also look if the extended fuel tanks can be removed from the OP ships. These are difficult code changes to make probably (well for me at least).

 

[Dukinson]

Thorium cells:
An idea, the description could read "Unlimited or 18 parsec range depending on game mode".

Icemod vs bugs:
I have been mixing in bugs and icemod critiques. I won't expect you to fix the bugs but perhaps some might be easily fixed so they might be worth a mention. Missing structure is a huge one. If you wish to start another thread for bugs I can post them there, or qualify bugs vs icemod issues in these posts.

Population Negative:
I actually think -12 is ok. I meant low g in comparison to it is still slightly more appealing a negative to select. Perhaps change this to -35% at -9 picks if you're looking to fit picks together to preserve races. The other option is to not worry about silicoids having -population and repulsive in stock anymore. Not all the negatives are used. Ship penalties, -bc, -research and industry, many just aren't used. I would try to prioritize balance over preserving the original races perfectly. You could still have them very close.

Repulsive:
Most players will play with several races in a game and multiplayer games are all but a memory. It's now -9 but it used to be -6 or what would be -12 with your mod. EVEN at -12 repulsive is a pick many would avoid. Most players in vanilla would avoid repulsive even at -6 (-12) as it was just that bad. Here's what I might suggest, repulsive really should be taken down to -12 at the very least. Hell, it really should be -13 or -14. In vanilla it should have been -7. Trade and research agreements, allies, trading techs, all negotiation, gone. Not to mention the loss of good leaders. That was only -6? Lowg was -5 the closest to it and far far more appealing a negative. I only selected repulsive because I'm a glutton for punishment and found it a way to increase difficulty. Sure if you're playing one on one it looks pretty good, but I don't know many who play moo2 one vs one. Usually people I know play large-huge galaxy with many opponents for a lively game. It's impossible to balance the game perfectly for all styles of play.

Warlord:
Oh warlord, this might take awhile. I remember this was the first thing I scratched my head at when I played this mod and it seeps into a couple other matters. The valuation of ship offense and defense modifiers and your change to targeting computers. Comparing them to warlords modifiers is indeed a good way to begin looking at how to balance it, but you changed ship modifiers too (in the right direction). Firstly, ship defense was (vanilla) slightly too expensive. As cheap as ship offense was, most still didn't pick that one either. Both were very unpopular. Why was is that ship defense valued higher than offense by the original designers? I'll tell you why. Once you have enough offense to hit your target, anything extra is unnecessary. The extra only comes in handy if your battling the alkari and they tend to suffer greatly in fleet size by having the +50def pick in the first place. Rising your defense ever higher bring you ever closer to invincibility, closer to god! You really can never have enough. The more you have, the deadlier your ships are in an encounter. Also, it's easier to raise your ship attack than your defense through technologies. +125 (+150 with ice) +50 battlescanner. This is done with little space consumed on your vessels. Ya can you can get inertial stabilizers and nullifiers (can you even use both?) but that's late in the game and very space consuming.

So you did another interesting thing, you increased the accuracy of targeting computers. So when I play warlord in strategic, the bonuses I had in attack and defense matter even less and on top of the loss of command points, this basically killed the pick in my eyes. They are hitting my warlord vessels with weaker computers and my added ship offense is watered down by 25 offense given automatically. About the increased ground troops, we both know that won't stop the computers transport fleets and I place virtually no value on it. If they are invading colonies, you're in deep trouble anyways (by the way nice addition of armor barracks, which race wouldn't have tanks by the time they have interstellar travel?).

So in conclusion, yes it is a good value when compared to ship modifier picks... but no one picks those anyways. They should be slightly reduced and defense should cost more than offense. Maybe 3/6 picks for offense and 4/7 for defense. Warlord shouldn't be just a glorified combo pick of offense and defense, basically what it is now. Sure you get a few command points as well as a dash of missile defense but it's no longer the main thrust of the pick. 2 command points per colony is powerful, but as we both agree, most experts didn't run with warlord even then. I would add you felt warlord was strong enough to weaken, yet decreased it's picks down to 6 from a theoretical 8 from vanilla. Why not just keep it at 8 and leave it as it was? I would agree it would be too strong if you restored it while keeping picks at 6. I would like to your thoughts on why you changed targeting computers and also your thoughts on equalizing the valuation of ship offense and defense.

Haha phew, I'll respond to the last post but that warlord rant really took it out of me.

 

[Dukinson]

Outpost Ships:
The reason I said 1000 is to keep ratio. I think it's too expensive as well, I think 400 for an outpost is too much though. An outpost ship can be a tactic for a dictatorship, or even better feudal, empire to establish a barracks to increase morale upon colonization. However, the computer does not use this tactic so perhaps outposts shouldn't produce a barracks upon colonization of an outpost. As for removing the fuel tanks, this would be the reverse direction of solving the issue of not having a scout in strategic combat where the computer doesn't need them. If you remove the extended fuel tanks on outposts ship, you would absolutely need to remove the reserve tanks from colony ships as well. That would be interesting.

I have had games where the computer colonizes a b-line straight to my territory across gaps of space I would be worried to scout out with colony ships, I would certainly lose some to space monsters! The computer need not worry about this, they know where those monsters are and they know if you're guarding those uncolonized systems and won't bother with sending an unescorted colony ship. I don't like exploiting advantages over the computer and that is exactly why I play strategic combat. How fair is it to wipe out a fleet twice the size of mine with mass drivers or missile ships simply because I designed my ships much better. It's bland too. Each technological advancement is meaningful rather than something I may or may not set on the shelf and not use. Same goes for the computer. They get phasers, all their ships have them and I'm worried. Equal footing. Strategic is like chess, my pawns are no better designed than their pawns. It all comes down to the tech, crew training, and racial abilities.

Not having powers above the computer is a concept you're preaching to the choir about. The computer is already omniscient and I'm ok with that, I just want a slice of that by being able to scout without having my colony ships wiped out. Losing even one can cost you a close game. Losing a 200 cost outpost ship to a space monster is still painful, but at 400, you might as well just risk the colony ship rather than have a useless outpost ship that cost you an arm and leg floating around.

Solutions might be: (most of these imply a 200 outpost ship cost)
-Remove outpost deploying ability totally (remove the outpost ship and just put a ship in its place that has fuel tanks, I like this one most).
-Same as above but give that undeployable outpost a built in 2 range scanner in exchange. (Mobile listening post idea) The computer would never need this so it's not an advantage over them.
-Remove fuel tanks on both colony AND outpost ships. (Interesting)
-Remove outpost ship deployability on nonplanets (that might be tricky codewise).
-Increase colony ship cost to be in line with increased outpost ship cost. If outpost went from 200 to 400, a colony ship should go from 500 to 1000 or close to it. 2-5 ratio. 300/750 outpost/colony perhaps. (I really don't like this one to be honest. While I like the idea of more expensive colony ships to slow expansion in Icecold, it means leaving outposts at 400 and that's one expensive space monster snack.)

 

[Dukinson]

Haha I knew I was forgetting something, scrapping a star base for 200bc so you can build something a couple turns faster, madness! That said I really don't mind the way icecold starts. It's just fine. I actually think of it as an advantage for me though, the enemy will get battleships more slowly seeing as I tend to play production races.

 

[Dukinson]

Anti Missile Rockets:
This shouldn't be available in strategic combat. It will never be equipped on any vessel after being developed. This isn't an icemod issue but yet another lack of love paid to strategic combat by the original designers.

Lasers prewarp:
A non Icemod bug. In prewarp I don't have to research lasers to build ships that have them. Assume all of these bugs are reported in strategic combat, as I very rarely playtest tactical.

Cyber-security link:
I've been noticing how you've changed the spy techs away from the bland +10 into varying levels and bonuses. Great changes, love it. I do worry that Cyber-security link at +20 might be a bit hefty a bonus, I will still be thrilled with it at +15. Or what about having a greater defense bonus from it seeing as security is defensive in nature. +10/+15 or +15/+20 perhaps. Just a thought. I won't complain either way, I'm just robbing the computer blind after getting CSL.

Food Replicators:
This was actually the reason I downloaded your mod in the first place. I avoided mods but I was so sick of the outrageous cost of food replicators. I saw the maintenance was reduced to 3 in this mod, great. It was only today I noticed it now requires a bc on top of the 2 production to power the replicator. This in many cases is worse than the old replicators. A big colony could spend a fortune to power this thing. Unless you have a race with no moral or unification bonus (unlikely by the time you get them) it's still better to farm on your own. When I picture replicators I think star trek, they are ordered their food and drink in luxury as the height of food production technology. While I don't expect it to be the end all in this game, it shouldn't be a mistake to make one on a desert planet where it was still more beneficial to till the barren desert sands rather than to order your steak and corn from a snazzy piece of high tech. I had biofungi and I was losing 6bc to use a replicator on a toxic planet rather than move a colonist to farm those poisonous soils. I think just the 2 production cost per food is pretty reasonable. It would still be better to farm on most swamps, oceans, terrains and gaias instead of using a replicator unless you have every industry structure in the game built on that planet.

 

[Rocco.40]

Population Negative:
I meant low g in comparison to it is still slightly more appealing a negative to select.

Agree

Perhaps change this to -35% at -9 picks if you're looking to fit picks together to preserve races.

As written above, I cannot do this as it introduces bugs with a.i. race development. Expansion can stall due to deviating growth rates. Currently I do not know how to fix it. To be clear: there is no problem for a.i. races as long as their base growth rates are -50, 0, +50 or +100.

Usually people I know play large-huge galaxy with many opponents for a lively game.

Agree. Maybe Repulsive at 9 is a bit too cheap, however i don't really agree that Repulsive is really that bad as you describe. In fact, it is quite a good way to get negatives when you are planning to play an aggresive war strategy rather than an economical game.

Warlord:
Oh warlord, this might take awhile.

Good to see a fellow MOO2 player writing so passionately about Warlord.
By now I get your point that you favour original Warlord

I would add you felt warlord was strong enough to weaken, yet decreased it's picks down to 6 from a theoretical 8 from vanilla.

But this reasoning is weird. I don't think classic Warlord was overpowered at 8 picks. For example, I think Uni and Lith were overpowered so I have increased the cost. With Warlord I just wanted to change / rebalance its use as an ability and thus taking some strength away (the command point) leads to a reduction of its cost.

So you did another interesting thing, you increased the accuracy of targeting computers.

Well If you look more carefully at the mod, you will see it is much more nuanced that how you describe it.
Yes, I have increased the Electronic Computer from +25 to +50, as an extra defense for a.i. against early human missile boats. But as you also can see Optronic +50 computer is no longer in its original place. Rather it now sits with Supercomputer at +75 BA. At that point, the mod is essentially unchanged from classic.
Think about the elegance of this solution for a second:
The Classic Optronic computer was a no go really for humans coz Research Labs was pretty much a mandatory pick. A.I. would research it, missing out on R. Labs as they have no clue how to prioritize research.
Now, everyone gets an optronic compu and all will research the labs as it is a singleton. Better for both Human and a.i. player.
Afterwards, the +100 comp is available slightly earlier, but it is a tough choice between that or the Pleasure Dome. Or if you follow a missile strategy, the Em.Guide System. Then the +125 compu is available at the same 6000RP field as in classic, although the overall research spent at that point is 16800 instead of 19700. The +150 then comes as a new comp at the end of the tree for 7500RP or a whopping 24300 total research spent.
All computers come with tough choices in their field. Warlord is not killed at all due to the way computers are organized.
Note also that Warlord is an ability that increases in value as turns progress. The more you expand, the larger the fleet delta can be and the +15 advantage grows to +20 at Veteran (Elite) and +25 at Elite (Ultra-Elite) levels.

Maybe 3/6 picks for offense and 4/7 for defense.

Well that is just wayyy to cheap. I hope you realize you have to factor in 5 picks inflation in ICE?
3 picks means in fact 1.3 picks in classic terms and you get a +25 instead of +20 for that low cost?
It will make the offense pick an absolute steal!
Also I would be inclined to say that Defense should be cheaper than Offense rather than the other way around.

About the increased ground troops, we both know that won't stop the computers transport fleets and I place virtually no value on it.

Yeah offcourse, thats what I meant as well writing Last and Least, so we agree here.
Did you notice btw that in ICE you get more militia?
The ratio is 1/3 instead of 1/5.
I do like modding these cool but inconsequential mechanics

the alkari and they tend to suffer greatly in fleet size by having the +50def pick in the first place.

You probably mean classic Alkari here, because ICE Alkari are a quite good race imho.