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

[Rocco.40]

yeah that would be the strange effect of changing Funghi.
It would be much better if the tech also gave habitable worlds the +1. It was written in the original tech description, so it must have been an original intention. I never really understood why dev's have made this last minute change to have funghi apply only on hostile worlds.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

(a) I like to play blitz strategy and in such a play Creative has no value, not even at half the current cost (7 picks). (b) If you are playing an eco strategy, meaning building a strong empire as soon as possible, then Creative could perhaps be cheaper than 14 still, but not much... 12-13 perhaps?? (c) The more you emphasize diplomacy in your game, the more value Creative will have. Diplomacy games go a bit slower and that is what Creative needs to become valuable. If you play the tactics of showering the a.i. with low value techs to get treaties and delay wars, then 14 picks is surely a good valuation for the trait, and perhaps 15 reasonable too.

Yeah, that's well said.

Option (b) is IMO the correct target - that is exactly what should be possible, to use Creative as an aid in building an economically strong empire without needing to use the gift shower strategy and without needing to get lucky with nonrepulsive neighbours.

Perhaps, if the value of how much a tech is worth diplomatically could be lowered, so that you'd still need Charismatic for best results especially with Xenophobics, and the Charismatic trait got costlier, that would work well? No idea if that's easy or even possible to do, just kinda thinking out loud at this point. (And maybe tech gifting could be made into one of those "patience-exhausting" actions like treaty proposals, though I doubt that's possible.)

Thinking in terms of (b), I'd place it lower than 13 - that's 2-3 eco picks sacrificed for something that won't really come into play for the first few tech tiers. But maybe that's just less experience talking.

EDIT: I've been toying with democratic builds without Creative, and I find tech gifting still beneficial due to benefits of democracy+trade (and not having multiple wars at once). Sure, you need to give up more useful techs, but it's less a tech shower and more a tech trickle if you take the comparably cheap Charismatic... point against using (c) as the balancing standard.


EDIT2: I'm testing Creative costing 10. Who of the actually good players (not me) wants to test it (download here) and tell us all if it's too powerful for an eco strategy or not?

Going with DemCreAqu,RichArt+1Sci/-Rep-LG. Deliciouuuuuuussssssssss. -Rep just to resist the temptation of tech showers.

 

[Rocco.40]

One more thing that comes to mind is that the value of Creative is higher when you start at a later tech age: Thus Creative has more value when you start at Advanced or Post Warp ages. When you start Pre Warp, it takes a longer time to reach the tech fields where Crea actually matters.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

True. Of course nobody plays post-warp or advanced...

(What was that you said about coldmap and subterrainan? Pretend it costs more picks in that mode? )

Hm, I just noticed that Post-warp and Advanced give you all the techs up to 250/650 like you were Creative, even if you're not. No big deal but interesting.

- Hit points of Merculite Missile back to classic value 8 (9).

Still says 9 in rightclick description, thought you might want to know.

EDIT: and yeah, since I got asked about this: I did win the Demo game I wrote about earlier. Once I got those Gauss Guns with HEF and Hyper-X, I was past the hump.
___________________
War report! (playing with Creative costing 10 picks).

Earlier race, DemCreAqu,RichArt+1Sci/-Rep-LG, won but didn't feel like a fair test because for some reason I had like 1/5 of the galaxy all to myself - every AI expanded away from my corner. So I just built up my economy unimpeded for a while.

Second try I got swamped and destroyed.

Third try (seeing a pattern here yet? ): DemCreAqu,RichLarge +1Sci/-LG-Spy-GC.
Went with Rich instead of Artefacts because I feel the crucial part of my early expansion requires decent production. Hoped democracy+1Science would do well enough for research - and they did. I did get Holo and Supercomputer before going into pollution/missile research, and whether a scientist makes 12 or 13 science stopped mattering. (Magistrate Emo helped too.)

Spawned in northeastern corner. Repulsive Silicoids were to the west, and they expanded almost right to my doorstep: I colonized a wet planet in the system next door, and they colonized the next one AND almost immediately sent ships to my new planet. Fortunately I was able to defend with Fighter Base - trading for fusion beam with Meklars probably helped.

Well, I'd wanted a test, I had a test. So I pumped out two BBs with mirv nukes, plus Augmented Engines and Battle Scanner for initiative, because I'm addicted to high initiative (NEVER remove the possibility of going TransDimensional with Mutation. Please. It's the most fun thing ever).

Then I started spamming transports. -10 Ground Combat means I have to use the Imperial Guard tactic: "When in doubt, throw more men at it." And bombardment. Artillery wins wars, and all that.

Cue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPf_PJlJsJQ

Actually it wasn't THAT glorious - a lot of "fire missiles and run away" tactics were required. Notably, Silicoids must have upgraded their beams halfway through the campaign and on the last few planets a star base would be able to shoot down most of those missiles of mine if I attacked with only 1 BB. Why didn't I build Pulsons to begin with? I built a third BB with Pulsons correction Zeons, on the theory that their hitpoints would make them actually get to their targets. Never got to test that theory because once I regrouped my fleet the rest of the Silicoid empire collapsed before my indomit... err, I managed to destroy the last star bases and invade the crap out of everything.

Now I'm in a rather new (to me only, I'm sure you guys are amused) situation of having 10 planets of which 8 have a race that's kinda better than my own. Lithovore, Tolerant and +50 growth, compared to my Aquatic and +1 Research. Explains why they had 8 planets to my 2. Definitely need to put these a-holes on any Ultra Rich planets I find, not that I found any.

Well, in the meantime Mrrshans colonized a couple of wet planets I had my eyes on. Don't cats hate water? But I guess I can live with that. So far, this game's been thoroughly enjoyable.
______________
War Update: somehow despite the nice start, I got outteched, out eco'ed, and when Trilarians decided I dishonored them somehow (beats me what they were talking about) and Alkari joined in due to alliance, I had two major armadas in my territory that I couldn't quite counter.

Note to self: get better at this game.

(What I think went wrong is I didn't tech enough, instead trying to build too much on my humans-possessing planets. It didn't help that Cryslon, i.e. the only other really good system, had an Anomaly preventing it from doing anything useful for a gazillion turns.)

____________________
Is it just me, or are there fewer monsters nowadays? I almost never saw any in the last number of games, and that sucks. I liked early colonization monsters. Gives me something to kill when there's peace, and a reason to have a fleet other than for diplomatic posturing purposes. Is this the result of those fewer Gaias and Terrans in 10m?

 

[Rocco.40]

Is it just me, or are there fewer monsters nowadays? I almost never saw any in the last number of games, and that sucks. ... Is this the result of those fewer Gaias and Terrans in 10m?

Could be strange randomization effect. There can be 1-10 monsters on a map (excluding Orion). Perhaps also 0 and maybe 11 but I don't remember seeing that...(could still happen).

I have tested maps without any Terrans and Gaia's and maps that were full of them before releasing 10m, and the number of monsters always varied between 1-10.
In the code, Monster Systems are generated in a seperate routine, that chooses the monster and than upgrades the system based on that monster.
Amoeba's do not usually get the great systems as dragons, hydra's and crystrals for example.


edit:

Still says 9 in rightclick description, thought you might want to know.

Tx!

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Ah, so it's the Hydra that makes the Gaia, not the Gaia that makes the Hydra? (yes that sounded good in my head). I'm gonna assume I just had random luck that way, then.

 

[Dukinson]

A few comments.
6) GC vote is fine at about 25 turns between them. One needs a way to formally win overpowering games quickly.

The election losses are a problem for me anymore, I just load back and keep moving a ship around until the random seed changes enough and my opponent doesn't win hehe. Let the total war continue! I don't like cheating but I do like declaring war on everyone.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

The election losses are a problem for me anymore, I just load back and keep moving a ship around until the random seed changes enough and my opponent doesn't win hehe. Let the total war continue! I don't like cheating but I do like declaring war on everyone.

Pity there isn't a Diplomatic Victory option to uncheck.
__________________________________________

War report! (still testing Cre = 10)

After my last defeat despite a wonderful and enjoyable start, I gave a good deal of thought to just why I suck in mid game. Thoughts involved: unnecessary taxes, poorly timed production buying, and building too much stuff on poor and ultra poor planets. Not to mention colonizing bad planets way too early for fear of being beaten to them. I decided to try resisting the temptation to equip my planets in everything they might possibly need before letting them do research, and to always make sure I have some science running, almost no matter what, plus do better planet micro and specialise my planets more.

Went with a research heavy start: DemCreAqu,ArtLarge+1Sci/-LG-GC-Spy. Hopefully I could bolster my weak production with better production-buying habits, until I can populate some nice Rich planet or two. Finding a Rich Gaia guarded by a monster nearby would be great. Man, this game is luck dependent.

Spawned to the left of the northeast corner. I swear I did not hunt for a nice start, but I got a nice Large Abundant Terra right in my starting system! Beelineing for Supercomputer was delayed while I colonized that and got two Cloning Plants going. The Terra became a baby factory for my Homeworld at first, and then would become a production center so my Artefacts homeworld could research. Got Director Houri too, Environmentalist and Spiritual - that's a second way I got lucky. Now I have no excuses to lose.

(Except Darloks. Darloks are always a good excuse. Right?)

With no industrial waste after I researched my way up to Atmospheric Renewer, I could churn out 1 Colony Ship per 5 turns. First one came out in turn 84. This probably seems late to the UniTol people, but I was happy enough.

I ended up building a total of 4 for now. Colonized the total of 2 wet planets in range, good for my Aquatic race (Poor and Ultrapoor, but hey, they can research and pay taxes, and one of them had Gold), 1 Huge Rich Barren with Gold (Eel). The last Colony Ship went southwards, as a bridge to the Bulrathi, who occupied the middle East of the map. I made a save game at this point to decide if I should colonize more or try to capture the Bulrathi. Still learning how this game works...

Chose to try attacking first. Bulrathi looked like the ideal opponent: not a techy race, so shouldn't be that tough in combat, and a wonderful slave race, with +2 Production, Subterranean, +100 growth, High-G. To the west I had Alkari and southwest Darloks, neither of which I wanted to mess with.

With two planets with 24 people each in my home system, 2 GC planets, a Megawealth leader, and some trade treaties, I ended up with quite a surplus of money, too. This actually helped speed up the invasion - I spent a total of 4500 or so on buying Battleships. 4 of them, each with Augmented Engined, Battle Pods, Battle Scanners (initiatve!), and 20 Nuclear Missiles with eeeeeeeverything. Mirv, Armor, Fast, ECCM. Bulrathi had researched ECM jammers, so going Pulsons for more hitpoints per missile probably wouldn't have worked. Here's to hope the Nukes won't die laughably to beam fire... First two were built in turn 130, last two I think in 138.

Turns out 4 Battleships was exactly the right number: this could destroy a cruiser, star base and missile base, which is the most I ever faced at once in this war. (There was some Battleship flying around but it couldn't even keep up with my fleet. Gotta love a Navigator leader and Anti-Matter drives.) Wonder how well I'd do in this war if I hadn't had that second Terra in my home system, or if I hadn't rescued an Ordnance leader while exploring. I hate winning for not-systematic, not-reproducible reasons. Wait, why am I playing this game instead of chess or Go? *confusedlook* (Answer: because I like seeing ships go boom.)

The only unpleasant surprise was that 12 of my troopers could be wiped out by a single Bulrathi trooper, until I researched Power Armor halfway through the war. As a result, almost every planet had to be bombed down to 1 pop before I could take it. Sad, but +100 growth will make up for it. And I was eager to win fast before some AI got the brilliant idea to open up a second front...

After destroying the Bulrathi, I sent the remaining transports on scouting missions to undiscovered planets. NOW I know what happened to all those space monsters that did not spawn anywhere near my home planet. They all settled on planets far away from me. Dragon here, Crystal there (Rich Gaia Splinter Colony!)... In fact, this gives me a sneaky suspicion, let's run a decompiler... yeeeeep, there it is:

int SpawnMonsters(int MapSize, DifficultyLevel)
{
	if (PlayerRaceLeaderName == "Markus") ClosestSpawnInParsecs += 15

Sneaky, sneaky, Rocco.

Spoiler :

I may have not been 100% serious here.

Aaaaanyway. Bulrathi died on turn 157, after some 15 turns of actual war. Which is a good thing, because my cash reserves were empty and if I had to produce more BBs that would have taken a while. ("if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain"). 7 systems added to my 5.

I might actually also crush the Gnolams, who are in the southeastern corner, have 3 systems and refuse to trade with me despite being Expert Traders (shouldnt't Democratic Expert Traders basically always accept trading proposals?), so they're annoying me. Then again I have bigger problems: Orion is nowhere in range.

So now I'm at the same spot as in my last game, where I've won a war, I have some new colonies and the breathing space to consolidate and get the last valuable planets. And with HG +2P Sub Bulrathi as my slave race, a lot more planets now seem valuable.

Time will tell if I can bungle this game up just as badly as the last one.

________________________

EDIT: Does anyone know the exact formula for max population sizes when mixing subterranean with nonsub races? I sent a few Bulrathi colonists to my Human colonies, 1 each. Some of these colonies gained max size, but there are also colonies that now have size like 17/16 or 12/11. What gives?

Seems it has to do with sub-terra "wet" planets: I got this effect on a Tundra and an Ocean. I suppose adding a non-Aquatic colonist negated the Aquatic benefit...

 

[Rocco.40]

EDIT: Does anyone know the exact formula for max population sizes when mixing subterranean with nonsub races? I sent a few Bulrathi colonists to my Human colonies, 1 each. Some of these colonies gained max size, but there are also colonies that now have size like 17/16 or 12/11. What gives?

Hmm, there might be some rounding effects involved, will check. For clarity: you mixed subt Bulrathi with a.i. Humans or were the Humans your custom race?
Do you have a savegame to share?

Spoiler :

Quickly now, put Crea back at 14

 

[neilkaz]

OK I won that IceX 10l game in the GC on T304. I'd just missed winning that vote 27 turns earlier as I wasn't quite yet big enough. Orion was taken on T251pw using 8 BB with 11 MIRV Zeons follow by 4 more of same but with EMG to blow the Guardian's drive. Then I had some easy conquering. X-armor and Damper Field helped. Note that Adv Chem 1 (20k) is needed to MIRV Zeons. The 10k tech is adequate to MIRV Pulson which can also kill the Guardian but typically more than 8 BB are needed.

Rather than going for Galactic Cyber Net, I went for +20 spies and stole it. I also went for stealth suit rather than personel shield as my GC was good enough I felt.
Had fun tech stealing from the Gnols but with +55 spies vs +15 agents I felt I should've done even better. Some spies were getting killed and I suspect they had a spy master leader. The other reason for spy techs was Darlok in the game. My gambit with I-cells rather than Atmos. Ren, didn't really pan out to well as it wasn't until well past T290 that I could steal it and finally get rid of most pollution.

LOL it seems that many races with Stealth ships cannot avoid sneak attacking at some point and while I was massively superior to the Darloks they lost 7 well built BB's to my star base that had all sorts of enhancements including Energy Absorber. The hyperspace flux that hit was the only reason the Darlok ambassador was present to see me win the the GC.

I usually don't use much more for planet defense than SB's but since I'd noted a 30+ ship fleet of doom with Gnolam markings, and since they were very mad at my spying, I feared an attack if the flux lifted. So my several high end planets close to their space got Stellar Converters, Barrier Shields and Star Fortresses.

At game's end T304 I had about 1200 pop (some of it droids) and was a couple turns from Adv Physics III and the final miniaturization of Disruptors. 4 DS were almost finished. I was going to check if they'd be better with Stellar C's instead.

EDIT: To win the election you need 2/3 of the vote. I micro like crazy to max expansion with cloners and +5 pop from Adv. City Planning and even artificial planets and of course terraforming.

OK onward to IceX 10m and back to my Feudal Race. My Feudal super race is Lith/P+1/R+1/LRAHW with my negs being Feudal/LG. HW after pollution nets 29 pp/t and 34 rp/t now!

 

[Markus Ramikin]

I was going to check if they'd be better with Stellar C's instead.

Nothing is ever better with Stellar Converters. Ever.

Hmm, there might be some rounding effects involved, will check. For clarity: you mixed subt Bulrathi with a.i. Humans or were the Humans your custom race?
Do you have a savegame to share?

Oh yeah, I see I was unclear. Human was my custom race. I do feel rather attached to my species.

Game save attached. Sol II, IV, Yen II and Pindar II have the extra Bulrathi, and the last two have the weird values.

______________________________

War update:

A short while ago, in a move of truly amazing audacity, Gnolans demanded a system from me, and when I said "haha no", they declared war. These are the same guys who refused to trade despite being traders. I feel their racial profile should include a -3 to Intelligence...

Since this is a second war and technically "mid game" for me, I did a quick tech upgrade (took only a few turns) and replaced mirv Nukes with mirv Merculites before invading Gnolans, in case they had Class 5 Shield or something. Only then I remembered to check their race report. They had /no/ shield tech at all! Amazing.

So I sent two of my Battleships with 14 Mirv 2x Merculites each, with some transports at Gnolans' 3 pitiful systems, and left the remaining 4 (fleet expanded a bit in meantime because I'm learning from my mistakes) to quickly refit to Assault Shuttles because an Antaran fleet of 3 ships just popped up. Luckily, it was aimed at Ursa, my new shipyard system. Unluckily, my marines did didly squat. I suppose I should have added some neutron blasters and hopefully killed the marines... will test next time.

Oh well. Gnolams fell around turn 200, then I refitted my ships for beam awesomeness and captured Orion on turn 211. 3 BBs do it, with Hyper-X, HEF, Gauss cannons with 1 level of miniaturisation, and an Ordnance leader.

Afterwards I redesigned my ships to include Xentronium, then I decided that completing the formality of conquering everyone else doesn't interest me - the extra diligent planet management drained my interest. Too many friggin' planets on Huge.

_______________________

My conclusions regarding the cost of Creative: results inconclusive. If I had to pay 14 or 15 for Creative, I'd have dropped +1 research - noticeable, but in the end not that big a deal, as most of my crucial (early) research was done by the homeworld, with Artefacts. I feel that in Master of Orion II, most of the variance in my success with a techy race, Creative or otherwise, lies in the luck factor. Getting a nice production planet nearby helps, getting the right kind of leaders helps, getting a good neighbourhood helps. All luck. Someone who's played hundreds of games would have developed that fine sense of balance that would let them judge regardless. I don't have that. But I'd love to hear more opinions from people who do.

Still, gonna try a similar race without Creative just to see if I can notice a difference. After that, back to learning production races...

 

[Rocco.40]

Thanks for the save.
Curious bug. I was able to pump the pop. on Pindar II up to 18 with Bulrathi workers...
Can't readily explain. Will see first if I can reproduce this in Classic moo2.

OK onward to IceX 10m.

That would be 10n Apology for going so fast.
Intention is that 10n is the new 'stable version' for some time to come.

10n is mainly a change of negative picks to make more combo's possible for reaching the desirable -21.
As you can see below, all are valued in multiples of 3 now:
ICE Negatives
-3 SD -20
-3 GC -10
-3 Poor HW
-6 Food -1/2
-6 SA -25
-6 Spy -12
-9 Research -1
-9 Feudal
-9 Repulsive
-12 Growth -50%
-12 Production -1
-12 Tax -0.5
-12 Low-G World
-12 Uncreative

Spoiler :

and warlord again has only 1 cmd, but cost down to 5.
I like hiding text. Thanks for showing me Markus.

 

[neilkaz]

Nice win, Markus!

Ice or IceX? PreW or std start?

Creative seems cheap at 10 cost. So many mid-late tech advantages. You also don't have to give up anything to get a decent computer so earlier beams make more sense.

A few thoughts.

1) If there's decent systems to colonize I'd want to make some CS no later than getting pol.proc.

2) Buildings that just sit their and research for you are great, especially for production races. I want my labs and then supercomps quickly everywhere.

3) HEW Gauss cannons? What do you mean by HEW? High Energy Focus? Being Cre you'd also have had MegaFluxers for more weapon capacity. Hmmm Guardian killed that easily! I may have underestimated Gauss cannons!

4) Most captured colonists from Ice super races may be better than your race.

5) I don't believe that you can kill marines on Antaran ships with Neutrons or Death Rays. I think they have something that blocks the effect.

6) Capturing Antarans with assault shuttles is awesome, but even with Powered Armor you need a few GC techs. Beware that 50% of the time they explode and that explosion can wipe out your other shuttles. You also have to win the battle (defeat them all) to keep any captures. Lets say that you have 12 AS on a BB. If you split them 4-4-4 they will attack as three fleets of 4 boarding 4 at a time. This is fine for capturing AI ships when their race has poor GC, but for high GC and Antarans much better to put all 12 AS into one weapons slot so all board together.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Curious bug. I was able to pump the pop. on Pindar II up to 18 with Bulrathi workers...
Can't readily explain.

Seems Both Aquatic and Sub on the same sub-Terra wet planet confuses the game.

Nice win, Markus!

Ice or IceX? PreW or std start?

Creative seems cheap at 10 cost. So many mid-late tech advantages. You also don't have to give up anything to get a decent computer so earlier beams make more sense.

A few thoughts.

1) If there's decent systems to colonize I'd want to make some CS no later than getting pol.proc.

2) Buildings that just sit their and research for you are great, especially for production races. I want my labs and then supercomps quickly everywhere.

3) HEW Gauss cannons? What do you mean by HEW? High Energy Focus? Being Cre you'd also have had MegaFluxers for more weapon capacity. Hmmm Guardian killed that easily! I may have underestimated Gauss cannons!

4) Most captured colonists from Ice super races may be better than your race.

5) I don't believe that you can kill marines on Antaran ships with Neutrons or Death Rays. I think they have something that blocks the effect.

6) Capturing Antarans with assault shuttles is awesome, but even with Powered Armor you need a few GC techs. Beware that 50% of the time they explode and that explosion can wipe out your other shuttles. You also have to win the battle (defeat them all) to keep any captures. Lets say that you have 12 AS on a BB. If you split them 4-4-4 they will attack as three fleets of 4 boarding 4 at a time. This is fine for capturing AI ships when their race has poor GC, but for high GC and Antarans much better to put all 12 AS into one weapons slot so all board together.

Thanks! And thanks for the opinions and advice.

Ice-X, of course.

Pre-Warp, it seems to me the normal way to start the game. How about you? (by std start you mean "average"?)

Re: creative and decent computers - Hm, even with Creative, early beam ships don't work for me. But even if they did, missile ships work great too in early game - so at most Creative adds variety, not advantage (only speaking in terms of your Computer argument of course).

"So many mid-late tech advantages." I agree, it makes a great difference in late game, but aren't games generally decided in the early, at most mid stage? The late stage seems mostly for enjoying the fruits of your earlier labors and crushing everone, not for deciding winner and loser.

1) Yeah, I can see why. Although I imagine I'd be less inclined to get Atmospheric if I weren't used to playing fast techers.

3) Yeah, HEF, not HEW, sorry. Megafluxers are nice, sure; if I didn't have them, I'd probably do an extra level of refinement. A few more turns.

And yeah, Gauss Cannons are awesome, at least until I can get Disruptors. 18 damage beats Class X reliably AND they're more space-efficient than Phasors even against 0 shields. Even when I don't have Ordnance, 5-6 BBs with Gauss do the job. 3-4 if I do have Ordnance.

4) I noticed. The human supremacist in me is not amused.

5-6) Yeah, I can capture Antarans late-game. Was hoping there was some trick to doing it early, other than "don't play a puny Low-G -Ground Combat race". Guess not - I forgot about damper field's marine protection.

Good thing I'm a bit disillusioned about Antaran tech due to it not miniaturising, so not getting it isn't a problem. Other than the goddamn Portal, which I MUST HAVE EVERY TIME OR ELSE.

________________________

Mini-report!

I did a Non-Creative techy playthrough. DemAqu+1Sci+0.5Tax,RLArt / -LG-GC-Spy.

So compared to my Cre=10 build, I gained Rich and Tax. I love Tax so much.

It actually played very similarly. I got a couple nice wet planets to colonize nearby, and luckily they weren't even poor, so I took them asap. Colonisation went slightly faster thanks to Rich and buying more production with taxes.

I ran into Gnolans who decided to be obnoxious again (what is it with Gnolans!) so I destroyed them again with missile BBs, and again found myself with a nice power base with a bunch of planets with a Subterranean race. I didn't gift anyone a single tech, btw, and Klakons started being annoying next, so I went to them - same effect. Am I actually good at this game?!
*beat*
Nah.

Not being Creative didn't make much difference for me this game. The only tech I missed was Class 1 shields (I took ECM because that seemed smart at the time) - with Gnolam star bases fielding Ion cannons, that could have ended badly if their aim wasn't totally crap. Will know better next time. Still, I had a replacement BB storing production as soon as I noticed that problem - ended up not needing it, either. If I were playing in a pure play-to-win mode, I am not sure I'd want Creative, especially at 14 picks - I just love it because it's /fun/ to have access to every tech.

 

[neilkaz]

Good job, Markus.

Hopefully, Rocco as stated has the balance changes set in stone here for at least a couple months. Of course, if he finds a bug fix or two, I'd expect he'd update.

Good to have someone else playing IceX pw start. Our styles are clearly different which is good as long as we both win some games.

Re: Class 1 shields vs ECM Jammer. I much prefer the ECM as C1 doesn't block much and you get C3 soon anyhow.

Re: Demo and -spying. Don't you find that you attract and have lots of problems with AI spies now? Especially if Cre you have so many techs for them to steal.

Re: Creative. It isn't really my style as my opinion is for me to survive and prosper in IceX I need economy and that means production and tech and unless Litho, food.
I'd not give up 14 picks for Cre if trying to play the strongest possible race, but I'd surely think about giving up only 10 picks.

My Feudal game is going well and very peacefully so far up to T150pw.
My Feudal super race is Lith/P+1/R+1/LRAHW with my negs being Feudal/LG. HW after pollution nets 29 pp/t and 34 rp/t now!

Clear advantages to not being Repulsive in that I have some decent leaders but more importantly good relations with all 5 of the AI's I've met. I know from bitter experience how important it is to not fall behind them too much and to not be weak militarily or they will come demanding things. Also, I think the game may frame the perceived weaker races for spying more often as well.

I'll enjoy my peace until an enemy presents themselves. I have a nice lead in population, always so important. 120 colonists (maybe a couple in transit not counted by game) 11 systems (4 were monster sys!!) 21 planets (more coming). Auto labs will soon go in everywhere and that will catch me up in tech (not far behind anyhow).

Rather early Psionics is nice for Feudal as an instant +10 moral and now my agents are better so AI's spies are less inclined to harm me. I went for Pleasure Dome, rather than EMG as I am no where near Orion and have no high end missiles. Moral is good to put it mildly.

 

[neilkaz]

Onward to T160 in this Feudal game (IceX10m) where I spawned in the lower right and now can claim that part of the galaxy as my own.

T152 Cats to my left claim about spying (was framed) and want 10% tribute or they break treaties. I gave them 10% since ongoing treaties were more valuable than that and I don't need a war right now.

My warships are defending systems the Cats can attack anyhow. At some point they will get into a bitter war with the humans to their left and then I can hopefully swoop in and take several systems quickly from them.

But for now, T160 I am still building AutoLabs and soon will terraform and also progress towards Adv Gov't as my tech is over 1200 rp/t.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Good job, Markus.
[...]
Good to have someone else playing IceX pw start. Our styles are clearly different which is good as long as we both win some games.

Thanks. Yeah, I've been trying to get more versatile and learn your Unified race and production-oriented style. Not quite there yet. Not even daring Feudal for a while. The research disadvantage would kill me.

Re: Class 1 shields vs ECM Jammer. I much prefer the ECM as C1 doesn't block much and you get C3 soon anyhow.

That's true, but if I'm fighting a war right now, and race report suggests the enemy's main guns at the star bases are Ion Cannons, that could kill my engines easily. (Happened in another game of mine, not the one I described.) Good thing Gnolans had terrible beam offense.

Re: Demo and -spying. Don't you find that you attract and have lots of problems with AI spies now? Especially if Cre you have so many techs for them to steal.

Yeah, it's a bit of a pain, and requires sinking some production into defensive spies before it only happens from time to time. Also, with good enough relations and a nice fleet, I can simply demand they stop and they often do. And not sure what else makes sense to take. Repulsive is out if I want to reap the benefit of trade + democracy.

 

[Rocco.40]

Hopefully, Rocco as stated has the balance changes set in stone here for at least a couple months. Of course, if he finds a bug fix or two, I'd expect he'd update.

Yes certainly, I am hoping to keep 10n as the version until Christmas. Which by the way is an eternity in terms of ice updates But I think we are at a mod-state where we can do it.
For me it is also good, so I can finally just enjoy some games.

I am still intriqued by the Tundra/Ocean population thing, but it does not seem to cause crashes and can be manually resolved by moving some pop. of the world.

Not even daring Feudal for a while.

Yeah, it is a tricky government, even with the reduced research penalty. But as Neilkaz said, there are clear advantages of not being Repulsive and you can be friendly for a change.
Note that even if you are Repulsive you can do some diplomacy, simply by requesting and audience with a race and then exit. This is considered to be a 'saying hello' in moo2 and it improves relations (or at least makes them deteriorate less quickly)

Of the -12 picks in ICE, Low-G is probably mostly taken. But it is still quite a severe hit to economy and it is really worthwhile to get that Grav-Generator soon. If you play non-Uni you can compensate with morale too.
In 10n I opened up some new alternatives for Low-G by adjusting the negative values. Low-G could be swapped with a number of combo's there.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Nice idea.

Next thing you're gonna standardize the positive picks into multiples of 3 too.

Then you'll divide everything by 3.

...

Nah, probably not.

As to balance being set in stone. How fortunate for me, then, that you changed that 15 to 14 and provided me with an opportunity to do a binary compare.

Spoiler :

That was not my plan all along, or anything.

 

[Rocco.40]

Next thing you're gonna standardize the positive picks into multiples of 3 too.
Then you'll divide everything by 3.

hehehh .. who knows what the future will bring

How fortunate for me, then, that you changed that 15 to 14 and provided me with an opportunity to do a binary compare.

Nice. But there are no secrets. If you want to change more racepicks to experiment or fool around a bit, I would suggest to check out a tool called 'PickHack'.
You can find the link on Nirran's website:
moo2.nirran.com/
And a link to his site is on my website too, so all is very transparent. Well sort of...

For those who haven't seen ICE yet, here is a small intro video (without commentary):
Starting up ICE 10n