New Custom Mod for MOO2

[scratchthepitch]

This mod is of the ORION95.exe version of the game, with the 1.31 patch.

First, I'll list the programs I used to make this mod.

OCL

View attachment OCLv0.21.zip

This is a good program to use for modifying the tech line up, for weapons, ship specials and ship and orbital specs and several other things. I think it mostly changes things in the game's exe file. To make the changes is as simple as typing in wordpad. You will need Dos Box to use it.

Pickhack

View attachment PickHackv1.0.zip

This is for changing the racepick costs.

MOO2 Workshop

View attachment MoO2 Workshop.zip

This is actually several programs in one. I use it for changing the leader specs and race traits. It's more difficult to use than the others and you will need a hex editor to change the files used by the game. In the help section is an invaluable guide to the hex arrangement in the files.

To change the text in the game, I use a hex editor.

I wasn't sure what to call the mod so just called it ver10 since it's the 10th revision of it. You can download the mod here:

View attachment ver10.rar

The files each replace an identically named file in the folder of the stock game. I strongly advise backing up the originals beforehand in case you run into any problems with the modded files. I've tested the mod by playing a few games, but it's still a possibility that the changes I made could cause someone else problems. This mod was made with the patch 131 version of Orion 2 using the orion95.exe application file. You can download the 131 patch here:

http://www.moo3.at/dl/file.php?id=19

MOO2 is still my favorite of the space strategy games, but there were things about the game I've always wanted to change. Some of the species seemed too weak and I never played them because of that. I wanted to be able to use a larger variety of abilities.

I wanted to rearrange the techs in the tech table. Some were originally placed too late to be of much use. Such as planetary construction. By the time you research this, the game is almost over and there is no point to it because there isn't enough time left in the game to develop any planets constructed. Mid level and later techs were too cheap, taking only a couple of turns to research. More time was needed between tech discoveries to make use of them. As it was in the stock game, I would hold off on using many of the things these techs brought since a few turns later they were already obsolete.

Another thing I wanted to change was the specials the weapons got along with their cost and space requirements. The missile damage was too low for merculite and later missiles. Missiles are easily defeated mid game on, the few that might get through should do more damage to make using them worthwhile. Some beams were too expensive or bulky while others seemed too cheap. Also some beams had too many specials and some not enough. Some of the other weapons I never used because their cost or size seemed to high. So I rationalized the weaponry. I also made some minor cost and space changes to the ships and orbitals.

If you don't have the creative trait, you are really at a great disadvantage. Spying is a hit and miss affair and frequently gets you at war besides. Also, spying usually costs you any trade or research treaties you might have set up. Usually I only played creative species because of this and I wanted to make the species with inferior science still attractive to play. I wanted a way for the species with poor science ability to still gain a few useful techs without having to spy or conquer. To do this I modified the leaders so each will give at least 1 tech when hired. The better ones and the later ones give 2-3 techs. This also makes the leaders more useful and less of an after thought to players. More effective leaders adds another variable to help keep the game interesting.

These are the general things I changed. Subsequent posts will detail the changes more specifically. If anyone plays this mod and finds problems with the game play, please let me know what you found and I'll see if I can change it.


Edit: New version 14 of this mod:

View attachment ver14.rar

Late last year and early this year (2011) I continued testing and changing this mod. I made a lot of changes, some were game changing corrections, such as tech research costs, but most of them are relatively small. Unfortunately I've been on the road a lot this year (and lazy) and didn't get around to posting this update sooner. Also, I displaced the notes I'd been keeping on what I've been changing, so I will have to attempt to list these from memory. I don't want to wait any longer posting this update as I procrastinated posting too long already. I will update the relevant topic posts following with the changes I can remember. If any don't fit in below, I'll re-edit this post and post them here.

Orbitals lacked enough space for weapons, and defensive factors, so I increased these, and made some minor changes to the stats on ship types. Orbitals are more powerful now.

Edit: New version 16 of this mod:

View attachment ver16.rar

I made some more changes, which I will post in the sections below.

New version 17 & 17e of this mod.

View attachment ver17.rar

View attachment ver17e.rar

Use ver17 if your computer cd/dvd drive uses the drive letter "D". Use ver17e if your computer cd/dvd drive uses the drive letter "E". All of the mod versions prior were for cd/dvd drive letter "D". I discovered that the mod tool requires that the cd/dvd drive to be the same as when the mod was made using it. It changes the ORION95.exe file, so whatever drive the cd/dvd player was on when the game is installed will be in that modded ORION95.exe file. I cant think of a way to change the cd/dvd drive letter in the file itself. So if you use the mod version with the wrong cd/dvd drive requirement, the game will try to find the cd/dvd using the wrong drive letter and fail.

Included with the files in the latest mod download is the text file I used to mod the ORION95.exe file (ver17.txt or ver17e.txt) using the OCL modding program at the top of the this post. If your cd/dvd drive uses a letter other then D or E, you can use that text file to see the changes I made and copy them over to the OCL text file that program extracts from the ORION95.exe file.

The only changes I made to the game from ver16 was to remove a ship special didn't work (it was an extra in the game software that I thought was coded, and just left out, but it doesn't seem to be coded in, either) and to change the tech tree a little bit where this special had been. Otherwise, the mod is the same as ver16.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Leader changes

I made quite a few changes to the leaders in the game. Some are similar to what they used to be while others are substantially different. All the leaders have been improved, weak leaders especially have been substantially improved. The changes in the leader's abilities can be seen when they show up to offer their skills. The nature of the individual skills have not been changed.

Since most of the species don't have the creative trait, they wont be able to research most of the techs. While they all have strengths elsewhere, this still left them at somewhat of a disadvantage. Especially the AI players. To make these species more appealing to play, I gave leaders techs. This helps offset the disadvantage and at the same time makes use of the leaders more fluid. Instead of sticking to the same leaders all game, which is what I used to do, players will be more motivated to maintain a higher turn over of leaders. It adds a little more interest to the leader aspect of the game while giving poor researchers at least a chance of discovering some sorely missed techs now and then.

Unfortunately, only a very few of the leaders will tell you the techs they have when they arrive offering their services. I don't know how to fix this. If you hire the leader, you still get the techs, though. Because of that, below, I've listed the leaders and the techs they offer.

Colony (Ver16 in blue, if different)

KIMBUZZI - hyd. farm
EMO - res. lab.
CRASSIS - auto. fact.
GALIS - spaceport
LYDON - biospheres soil enrichment
YOTA - Space acad.
URRO - clon. cen.
GARRON - alien man. cen.
HOURI - tach. comm., pol. proc., plan. grav. shield tele. train., pol. proc., plan. grav. shield
DRAXX - neur. scan. cyb.-sec. link
RAILEIA - iner. stab., holo simu., recycl. terra., holo simu., recycl.
KHUNAGG - battlestation, mer. miss. sub. farms
RASH-IKI - robominers, plan. miss. base armor bar.
KIRISUS - plan. supercom., sub-space comm. plan. supercom.
VALIN - titan const. biospheres
AILIS - xeno psy.
CHUG - terraforming plan. rad. shield
ANDROGENA - soil enrich., tach. scan. food replic.
GROGG - plan. stock exch.
NIMRAAZ - plan. rad. shield, pow. armor anti-grav. harn.
FELINA - opt. comp., atmos. renewer, sub. farm robominers, plan. const., atmos. renewer
BRAINAC - plan. const. height. intel.
BLACK RAZOR - tele. train., battle pods neur. scan.
CASSANDRA - weath. con. sys., bio. fungi, vir. real. net. core waste dump, psionics, deep core mining
MENTOX - autolab, posi. comp. neuton scan., autolab
TANUS - no change
MATRIX - stealth suit subspace comm., microbiotics
ORPHUS - adv. city plan., stealth field adv. city plan.
CLAW - rob. fact. biomorphic fungi
TORG - micro. const., phas. rifle rob. fact.
VOTT - gal. curr. exch. nano disa., auto repair unit
MEGATRON - astro uni. android farmers, scientists & workers
ELECTRA - psionics, gaia, plea.dome astro univ., stealth suit, weather cont. sys.
MALOVANE - deep core min., cyber. comp. micro. const., megafluxers, per. shield
NECRON - height. int., microbio. gal. cur. exch., flux shield
XANTUS - gal. cybernet, core waste dump gaia trans., gal. cybernet

Ship

RUOLA - fus. beam plan. mis. base
CYR - fig. garr.
GRUM - troop pods laser rifle
HAWK - aug. engines mass driver
GIZMO - fus. drive scout lab.
AQUASSARIOUS - trit. armor fusion drive
V'LARR - mass dr. deut. fuel cells
ALTOS - cl.1 shield
SPARKY - deut. fuel cells battle pods
TYRANNOUS - fus. rifle
JARRED - scout lab, irr. fuel cells ecm jam., aug. eng.
MUKIRR - bomber bays titan const.
KHER - ion drive tac. comm., rein. hull
SLITH - battle scan. fus. beam
GRAK - armor barr. pow. armor
CAERN - cl.3 shield opt. comp.
SLAG - grav. beam battlestation
NILE - neut. blaster trit. armor
DIABLO - cyb. sec. link, anti-grav. harn. tac. scan., emis. guid. sys.
NIHAGG - transporters hvy. armor, sec. stat.
KYTRYL - zor. armor ground bat.
KRONOS - dim. portal. urr. fuel cells dim. portal., range. unit
TULOCK - gauss can. battleoids, irri. fuel cells
MYSTIC X - phasor adv. dam. cont., merc. mis.
SKAINE - ion pul. can. neut. blast., fus. bomb
KARG - anti-mat. drive ion drive, bat. scan.
DANTOS - plasma can., hy. fig. bays iner. stab., bomb. bays
TELIK - hyp. drive, neut. armor cl.3 shield, zor. armor
DALAN - disrupter, cl.5 shield fast mis. racks, phas. rifle
LOKNER - no change
XYPHYS - no change

Ver14 changes:

Most of the leaders have the same techs, but a few were changed. Unfortunately, I don't have access to my notes to list them (when I do, I will update this list). The player can always find out which tech after they hire the leader by checking their tech lists in the info section during the game.

Additional Ver16 changes:

The specialist fields of the leaders are now different. Cassandra is now 4th tier and Electra is now 3rd tier.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Race ability changes

I made some major changes to the costs of the abilities so I could change the different race traits. I stayed fairly close to the original general strengths of each race, but by changing the costs of the traits, was able to give each race more abilities. I also fixed a couple of pet peeves I had about the game as originally set up.

The first is the large amount of population used just to provide food. Modern industrial countries now use approximately 5% of their population to produce food. It's absurd that MOO2 required 50% of the population producing food. This supposed to be the high tech future, not the neolithic. After colonizing a few planets, I could have as much as 75% of the population of the home planet just producing food to feed the rest of the systems since most planets cant produce any food initially (IE: barren, radiated, toxic). To fix this, I gave all the races at least +1 food. So custom species could also take advantage of the change, I reduced the race pick cost to 0. Likewise, I reduced the cost of +2 food to around what +1 food originally was. With this, you no longer need to use 1/2 of your starting population to just produce food. Just around 1/3 farming. Testing showed no problems with this change and I think it makes the early game more enjoyable since players don't have to use the bulk of their population just to produce enough food, and they able to build other items faster now.

The second pet peeve was the lack of command points you got. In the early to mid game, I found it too limiting. If axillary ships didn't use up points it wouldn't have been so annoying. The amount of points was barely enough to support a fleet strong enough to attack another system. Add in the transports and you're in the red even with 50% taxation. If you don't have a lot of trade treaties, you're drowning in debt. The AI never seemed to suffer from these crippling debts to support a huge fleet and I suspect this is one of things in which the AI were programmed differently from the players. To fix this I gave everyone the warlord trait. This provides a more reasonable point total for early and mid game play. The race pick cost is 0 so custom players can use it free like the +1 food.

When starting a new game and making your choice of which races to play, you can see what each race's traits are by passing the mouse cursor over each one. The only thing that doesn't show up correctly is -.5 tax. For some reason this is displayed as 1. But +.5 tax displays correctly and +1 displays correctly as +1. There are 3 races who have the -.5 tax, they are Bulrathi, Meklar & Sakkra. The "cost" of the different racepicks is different, and in many cases less, so you can use more racepicks in custom races than you could in a stock game. The see these changes, select custom for the race.

I was worried that these changes would unfairly aid the player, but in test games I found these changes made for much more formidable AI opponents as well. I found games got tougher. The fast breeders filled up planets quickly, the industrials produced large fleets in no time flat and the races with better science zoomed ahead in tech.

The "cost" of these different racepicks is different, and in many cases less, so you can use more racepicks in custom races. The see these changes, select custom for the race.

Ver14 changes:

I tweaked these, and the racepicks, some more a little bit. Any change can easily be seen when setting up a player race at the start of a game.

Ver16 changes:

The standard races have again had changes done to their racepicks. For reference, the new race stats are listed below:

Alkari = uni. gov., +50% pop., -.5 tax, +50% ship def., +50% ship off., -10% ground com., low gravity, poor homeworld, trans. dim., warlord.

Bulrathi = dic. gov., +50% pop., +2 farm, +1 prod., -1 res., -.5 tax, +20% ship off., high gravity, poor homeworld, warlord.

Darlok = dic. gov., +1 farm, -1 res., -20% ship def., -20 ship off., +10% ground com., +20% spy, charism., uncreat., toler., omni., steal. ships, warlord.

Elerian = dem. gov., -50% pop., +1 res., -10% ground com., low gravity, creat., tele., warlord.

Gnolam = Feud. gov., +50% pop., +1 tax, -20% ship def., -20% ship off., -10% ground com., +10% spy, large homeworld, charism., fan. traders, uncreat., trans. dim., lucky, warlord.

Human = dem. gov., -50% pop., +1 farm, +1 prod., -10% ground com., low gravity, charism., creat., lucky, warlord.

Klackon = uni. gov., +100% pop., +1 prod., -.5 tax, low gravity, subter., uncreat., warlord.

Meklar = uni. gov., -50% pop., -.5 farm, +2 prod., cyber., toler., warlord.

Mrrshan = dic. gov., -50% pop., +1 prod., +1 res., -.5 tax, +25% ship def., +20% ship off., +10% ground. com., poor homeworld, large homeworld, artifacts homeworld, toler., warlord.

Psilon = dem. gov., -50% pop., +2 res., -10% ground com., low gravity, artifacts homeworld, creat., warlord.

Sakkra = feud. gov., +50% pop., +1 farm, +1 prod., -.5 tax, +25% ship def., +20% ship off., +10% ground com., -10% spy, poor homeworld, large homeworld, creat., warlord.

Silicoid = feud. gov., -20% ship def., -20% ship off., +10% spy, low gravity, rich homeworld, subter., litho., toler., warlord.

Trilarian = uni. gov., +50% pop., +1 farm, +1 res., -.5 tax, -10% ground com., low gravity, poor homeworld, artifacts homeworld, large homeworld, aquatic, warlord.

Some of the racepick costs have been changed, but these can easily be seen when selecting picks for a custom race.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Tech table changes

I made extensive changes to the tech table. Both in the arrangement of the techs and their costs in research points. The techs now increase in RP cost as you go up in level at a much faster rate than before. Mid level techs will cost as much as the late ones in the stock game, while the last level of tech is 5 times the cost. That may seem too high, but in practice, it actually is not. The researching time per tech now still reduces as your empire grows, but not at the ridiculous rate it did in the stock game. This corrected the mid to late game problem of tech discoveries being to quick in succession after each other and gives the player time to make use of the discoveries now.

Many techs have been switched to different fields and also different levels in the tree, but most are roughly the same in relation to each other as they used to be. The major exception to this being the planet development techs. In the stock game most planet development had to wait till mid game. I wanted to move this up to the early game. Some of the techs originally came too late to be of much use, the lack of others extended the early game doldrums too long. With these changes, players have more they can do during the first third of the game and can now start terraforming and building planets much sooner. It always bugged me about the stock game that usually most of my planets could not be developed till mid game or later, by which time I'm more interested in building a fleet and taking on other players.

Several of the early tech fields give all players all the techs in them like the player had the creative trait. These are the first fields in construction, chemistry, computers, physics and the first two in power. I placed techs in these fields which I thought every player should be able to research. These are the techs:

nuclear drive
colony base
star base
standard fuel cells
transports
freighters
nuclear bomb
assault shuttles
outpost ship
colony ship
fighter bays
extended fuel tanks
titanium armor
nuclear missile
anti-missile rockets
survival pods
dauntless guidance system
space scanner
electronic computer
laser cannon
laser rifle

Even species with the uncreative trait will get all of these when they research the fields they are in.

I didn't find out where the titles of the tech fields are located in the game files, so I left these as they were. They don't describe the techs they hold like they used to. Example: Capsule Construction now contains Advanced Damage Control, Mass Driver & Fighter Garrison. I figured it would be safer to just leave the names as they were, and move different techs into them while changing their cost and levels. The changes I've made can be seen simply by looking at the tech page in the game.

Ver14 changes:

Here I made some major changes in cost and in the name of the tech fields.

The research costs were still to great for the AI to keep up with player, so I lowered these some more. Ended up with a compromise. The costs are now high enough to increase player research time and give the player time to use the things researched before they became obsolete and the AI can now keep up much better. In test games on impossible, the AI was able to rate higher on the research history graph much longer now. I would have liked to been able to cost these at 2 different rates, with the player's costs being much higher than the AI's for a better challenge.

The tech fields have now been renamed as Construction 1, 2, etc. The number representing the level of costs to research. The techs range from level 1 for the earliest ones to level 17 for the last ones. Not all levels are used, so a field may have level 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 12, etc. depending on each costing level used by that particular field. This is so the relative level between the techs in the game can be readily seen when determining the next tech choices to take. Since I had changed the techs around in the mod, this also cleans up a minor flaw that the fields no longer matched the techs they contained.

Ver 16 changes:

I rearranged a few of the techs and made it so each field had at least 2 different techs, except for a few of the highest fields. The techs have also been rearranged so there is a tougher choice picking which tech to research for races without creative. This also makes it more of a challenge for uncreative races.

 

[scratchthepitch]

It seems the earliest generation of beam weapons almost always missed their targets. I bumped all the computers up 25%.

Weapon changes

Beam weapons.

First, I gave most of them heavy and most of them point defense mounts. I then changed what specials they are able to use and made cost and space changes. I grouped together similar beam weapons into several types to determine what specials they should use. As follows:

Mass driver, gauss cannon & disrupter.
Inherent - no range reduction to damage.
Specials - autofire & armor piecing.

Laser & phasor.
Specials - shield piercing, no range reduction & continuous.

Fusion beam and plasma cannon
Inherent - double range penalties.
Specials - enveloping, continuous.
These and the Ion Pulse Cannon I took away the heavy mount and bumped up the power and cost of them to make them powerful short range weapons. Much like their role in the later MOO3. Adds a little more variety.

Neutron blaster & death ray.
Inherent - anti-personnel.
Specials - continuous.

Graviton beam.
Inherent - extra structural damage.
Specials - continuous.

Particle beam.
Inherent - shield piercing.
Specials - continuous, no range reduction.

Ion pulse cannon.
Inherent - ignores armor and structure.
Specials - autofire.

Mauler device.
Inherent - always hits, double range penalties.
Specials - continuous.

Other weapons

Increased damage for missiles, torpedoes, and bombs. This is because they take a while to hit their target. Because of this they are less attractive than beams to players, but the AI uses them extensively. More damage extends their usefulness and desirability and gives the AI added punch. The miscellaneous weapons mostly were too large and expensive for what they can do so I reduced cost and space requirements for many of these. That will also aid the AI since it uses them quite a bit.

Missiles

Increased the damage of merculite to 16, pulson to 27 & zeon to 40.

Torpedoes

Changed cost and space requirements. Increased damage - anti-matter to 18, proton to 36 & plasma to 108.

Bombs

Increased damage of fusion to 6-24, anti-matter to 12-48 & neutronium to 24-96.

Fighters

Minor changes in cost and space requirements.

Misc.

Reduced cost and space requirements.

I would have like to been able to alter the ranges of the beam weapons and make some types have longer ranges than others, like had been done in MOO3. Also I would like to make later missiles move faster than earlier types and also give the assault shuttles more speed. But I didn't find where these things were in the program.

Ver14 changes:

Nothing major here was changed for player weapons. A few adjustments of specials, damage, space used and costs. The main change I believe was the most advanced bomb was lowered in damage, as it was too powerful.

I played around with monster weapon stats quite a bit to make the monsters more powerful. Even tried to make monster weapons available for Antaran ships and for the players, but I ran into too many problems. The problem with monsters is that they could not kill off enough player ships fast enough, which made it rather easy for players to use many small ships to kill the monster. I couldn't find how to change the weapons on the monsters themselves, so I increased the power of the weapons themselves. Those with multiple weapons, like the dragon and hydra are now more resistive, but not much could be done to help the others beyond making their one weapon a sure killer.

Ver16 changes:

Further adjusted ship weapons in damage, space and cost to fix some inconsistencies. Also increased potency of the monsters. Dragons now have weaponry almost as tough as the Guardian.

 

[vmxa]

It would seem at first blush that techs with all the leaders will pretty much kill Repulsive for non Creative.

I agree that missles were poorly implemented after the first one or two. They did need to be faster and more powerful to be useful.

 

[scratchthepitch]

It would seem at first blush that techs with all the leaders will pretty much kill Repulsive for non Creative.

I don't understand what you mean?

I agree that missles were poorly implemented after the first one or two. They did need to be faster and more powerful to be useful.

I didn't see a way to make missiles faster, or to set the range for any weapon. Both of those are something I would have liked to have been able to do. But I was able to change how long the player had to wait before they got the weapon specials. Before you had to research at least 1 tech level higher before you got them. In this mod, all the weapon specials are available immediately except for mirv for missiles. Which comes after researching the next level now, instead of 2 levels as before. The reason I did this is because I usually waited to use the weapon till after I researched the level for the specials, anyway, so why not cut out the wait. That cuts down on the number of times ships need to be upgraded during their lives.

After I played a game with this change, I realized that this was a boon for the AI. The reason is the AI uses the weapons as soon as they get them, which means their ships are frequently armed with the latest weapon, but without any decent specials. Since the AI never upgrades ships, they stay that way. Now with the specials immediately available, I'm seeing better armed AI ships using those specials.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Decided to give the Klackons another try and thought I'd post the starting save, as it looks like it could be tough one and might prove interesting:

View attachment ver10 sep10 kla kaxa.rar

There is only one system within range....

This is on impossible, average tech and age, huge galaxy and 8 players.

 

[vmxa]

Repulsive is goiong to mean it is harder to get leaders, especially early. That means in your mod, less free techs. IOW, in your mod, I would be wise to never use the Repulsive trait, unless I am creative.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Repulsive is goiong to mean it is harder to get leaders, especially early. That means in your mod, less free techs. IOW, in your mod, I would be wise to never use the Repulsive trait, unless I am creative.

Thanks. I think you may have misunderstood and thought I took techs away from the tech tree to give to the leaders. All the techs are still on the tech tree, though they are rearranged somewhat differently by category and level. Giving techs to the leaders does not affect what techs can be researched, or how they are researched, that is the same as before. In the stock game, most of the leaders didn't have any techs, now all of them do. So even if you use a racepick that reduces the amount of leaders that show up offering their services, you are still going to get more free techs than before when playing the stock game because those leaders that you get will have at least one tech each. This will allow a player to pick up some techs they would have missed if they are not playing with the creative racepick. Depending on how lucky you are with attracting leaders, this change may give the player who is not using creative something like 10-20 more techs than they would get by just researching them. If you are playing as creative, you will probably have already researched around 50% of the techs the leaders bring by the time they show up, so giving leaders techs doesn't help creative players nearly as much as the others. The mod shouldn't make playing repulsive any more difficult than it already was.

 

[vmxa]

No, I understood. Still not getting leaders will mean no chance to get a free tech. If you are not creative, you cannot reserach all techs, so as repulsive you have given up one way to gain a tech.

 

[scratchthepitch]

No, I understood. Still not getting leaders will mean no chance to get a free tech. If you are not creative, you cannot reserach all techs, so as repulsive you have given up one way to gain a tech.

OK I misunderstood. You're saying by choosing repulsive, a bad researcher is even in worse straits than one who didn't pick repulsive. I see how this will set back repulsives a little more in relation to non repulsives. When you pick repulsive, you get negatives. It's the trade off for being able to use those extra racepick points for something positive. In a stock game, you get less leaders with repulsive, more leaders with charismatic, just like with this mod. At least in this mod, what leaders you do get will have techs.

The amount of leaders you get seems wildly variable. Some games I get a lot, some hardly any, this is without using repulsive and charismatic. I wonder how much difference being charismatic or repulsive makes? Some leaders also attract more leaders, the "famous" ones. I've noticed these do seem to increase the number of leaders I get.

Personally, I think the other disadvantages of using repulsive far outweigh getting a few less free techs, since we are only talking about maybe half a dozen techs or so. Not being able to make trade and research treaties and do diplomacy is much more severe of a handicap.

 

[vmxa]

I use Replusive to prevent any trading. Trading helps the human too much and allows demanding another boost for the human.

You are going to want some neg picks and it is either repulsive or something like Low Grav. Been awhile so I think that was the -5 pick.

I also like the fact that I never get those annoying dialup for this or that from the AI as a repulsive. It is either DOW or Peace.

Replusive tends to mean getting your first leader later than others and it is more likely to be a crappy low grade leader, rather than one of the middle ranking ones. Later in the game, it won't matter.

I frequently never get 4 planetary leaders, even playing out till all planets are mine, even with Loknar.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I use Replusive to prevent any trading. Trading helps the human too much and allows demanding another boost for the human.

You are going to want some neg picks and it is either repulsive or something like Low Grav. Been awhile so I think that was the -5 pick.

I also like the fact that I never get those annoying dialup for this or that from the AI as a repulsive. It is either DOW or Peace.

Replusive tends to mean getting your first leader later than others and it is more likely to be a crappy low grade leader, rather than one of the middle ranking ones. Later in the game, it won't matter.

I frequently never get 4 planetary leaders, even playing out till all planets are mine, even with Loknar.

I'm sure you know this, but in case someone else doesn't, if you have all your leader spaces filled, you wont see any more leaders coming around. You have to leave at least one space in both categories to have new colony and ship leaders show up. Also, if all 4 ship leader spaces are taken, you wont see Loknor when you conquer the Guardian.

In this mod, repulsive is a -5 race pick. It's -10 in the stock game.

With only about 4 leaders showing up in repulsive, that means leaders don't mean much to a player playing the repulsive trait. Was that total of both colony and ship, or the number of each? I'm sure the AI never gets more than 4 in each, unless these are killed in battle. I wonder what happens to leaders killed in battle? Are they out of the game altogether, or do they get recycled like dismissed leaders do? And if a system with a leader is captured/destroyed, what happens to the leader then? I've never had that happen to one of my players. Outside of the techs they provide, I find the colony leaders much more useful up to about mid game. I agree that after about mid game, leaders to don't matter much in a stock game. But since in this mod the later leaders have more techs than the early ones, they still have role in the later half of the game for non creative players.

The leaders are separated into 4 different levels and early game it seems unusual to get a leader higher than the first level. The game usually matches the level of the leader to the player's level in the game. Or perhaps how many turns have been played is the determinant. For example. in the game that I posted the starting save above, I've seen 6 leaders show up so far and I'm at turn 140 now. They arrived as follows:

1st level at turn 18 Garron
1st level at turn 50 V'Larr
2nd level at turn 60 Jarred
2nd level at turn 87 Slith
1st level at turn 105 Houri

I've noticed that sometimes a leader you dismiss will return later, but with its traits then set to higher percentages like those of higher level leaders.

 

[vmxa]

If you have a slot open in either Colony or Ship you can get a leader in that category. If you have 4 ship leaders when you attack Orion, you canot get Loknar. It does not matter how many colony leaders you have at that point.

Yes dismissed leader tends to come back around and from time to time they will show up with a promotion.

Replusive -6 in 1.31 and afaik always was -6. There are no -10 picks. There is a +10 pick.

It would take tens of thousand, if not hundreds of thousands of games to get a true read on it, but it seems to me that you get better leaders as a non replusive. You get then sooner and more frequently.

Again that is only antedotal.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Replusive -6 in 1.31 and afaik always was -6. There are no -10 picks. There is a +10 pick.

You're right about the cost of repulsive. It's been awhile since I played a stock game. In the mod I reduced the point costs of tolerant and lithovore to 5 and 6 respectively. Repulsive is at -5, as I mentioned already, but in looking over all the other negative race picks I noticed the other negative race picks are set to -6, -4, and -2. That means you cant get a -10 total. Originally I had set feudalism and low gravity world to -5 and poor home world at -1, so a -10 with repulsive was possible. Later I had to change those 3 race picks when I revamped the races, but I forgot all about changing repulsive, since I never played using that pick. Feudalism is now -6, low gravity world is -4 and poor home world is -2. In the next version of the mod I will change repulsive to -6 so a -10 total can then be reached.

I notice when the AI sets up a repulsive race, they don't take anything away from that race's traits to give them repulsive, but tack on repulsive and several new positive traits to their existing suite. Most of the other AI races tend to also have improvements over their normal human player set up race pick suite.

 

[vmxa]

That is why I knew your game was not a std impossible game. The AI will frequently have far more than the game allows for human picks. Yours had too few abilities.

 

[scratchthepitch]

That is why I knew your game was not a std impossible game. The AI will frequently have far more than the game allows for human picks. Yours had too few abilities.

Out of curiousity I did a few start up tests of the stock game to check what they get extra on the impossible setting. Then did the same with the mod. It does look like in the stock game AI races get a little more extra race pick changes. But I cant really be sure since in the mod many of the races have more race picks than can be displayed in the Info-Race Statistics windows (these list 11 traits only) so you don't always see all of what they have. In my mod, about half the races have more picks than can be displayed in the Info-Race Statistics windows. In the mod if you don't see warlord at the end of the list, then not all of that race's picks are displayed. In the stock game the stock races have from 2-4 race picks so there is a lot more the AI can have added. BTW, not all the AI changes are positive, some of the AI races get both positive and negative changes to their race pick suite.

Even with the changes on impossible, the AI races are still very weak. That is one of the reasons I set out to modify the game. I wanted AI players to have race pick suites like those a human player could create with a custom race. As for playing a stock race in the stock game, I found that to be boring a long time ago.

Getting back to this:

I use Replusive to prevent any trading. Trading helps the human too much and allows demanding another boost for the human.

I'm not so sure trading is an unfair advantage to a human player. The AI generally wants a higher level tech than they are willing trade for. I noticed that when I have a tech that they don't have, they are willing to trade a lower level item for it, otherwise forget it, they are not interested. I use trading mostly to get the techs I missed on when playing a non creative race. This helps the AI because they get the latest techs, and more than a few times I later regretted trading them certain items when I then had to face that AI in a war. In my experience, if I'm playing a creative race, trading doesn't help to much, if at all.

The AI themselves freely exchange the techs they have, except with the repulsive races. In the game I'm playing now (from the posted start save up thread), all the regular AI are at about the same tech level on the history graph.The repulsives are at around half their level. This shows the regulars all exchange their tech, but that the repulsives are on their own. Since my race is uncreative, I'm way down there at the bottom, roughly about at 1/4 of the tech level of the regular AI races. Even the repulsives are about twice my level, and they are not creative or good researchers, but they are still getting more tech than I am, even though they cant trade with the other AI like I do. I've done pretty good with leader supplied tech and AI trades, but still the AI repulsives are above me in tech. I remember in stock games that the AI repulsives quickly fell behind my tech level as a player, even when I played as a poor researching race. This shows that the changes I made in this mod have probably helped the AI do better at acquiring tech. I think giving all the leaders techs is a major factor.

So I don't really agree that trading is such an advantage for the player, though not being able to trade with the AI, who freely trade among themselves, is a good handicap to create a more challenging contest for a player. I do agree that player demands are too easily submitted to by the AI. About the only time I use a demand is to piss off an AI and get them to declare war.

 

[vmxa]

Unless you have agreed to a trade that was not in your interest I submit that it is an advantage.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Unless you have agreed to a trade that was not in your interest I submit that it is an advantage.

Well, yeah, trading an AI zortium armor in exchange for spaceport did prevent my player going broke and that could be considered an advantage. But I think the AI got the better part of that deal.

BTW, giving your player 1 positive race pick is also player advantage.