Star Trek BAQ3 Release

[kobayashi]

Version 3 is completed. Anyone who downloaded the beta version please relace it with this one. Comments are welcome.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/BAQ.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/BAQsnd.zip

FINAL SET OF CHANGES

UNITS
Swapped in Norexon Warbird and new Griffin transport for Roms.

Neutrals have two new ships, Vulcan D'kyr and Talarian Destoyer
Transports now have a move of three instead of two but come after the first starship.

Additional Cardassian Hideki scout given to barbarians.

Borg assimilator which was seldom seen in version 2.1 has been changed from a diplomatic unit to a combat unit.

Fixed the minor bug of having range numbers for starships.

New graphics for Photon Cannon unit, plus it can now attack air units to prevent probe stacking for air cover.

SDF units and barbarians have new look plus spelling for SDF Bn corrected.


GRAPHICS
Many of the improvement and wonders now use my newer icons.

Romulan, Federation and Klingon specific techs now have their own icons.

Space around planets is now the same colour as normal space.

Energy Barrier added at the Galaxy's edge using a new energy terrain.

Goodie huts (lifeforms to search for) are now very easy to spot.


EVENTS
The KOBAYASHI NO-WIN option is now the only option. The easier set of events has been done away with. Instead, there are species specific event files to give the AI an upper hand.

Neutrals have four planets to start off with instead of two.

Added the Gamma Quadrant event. The event message of reaching of the Delta Quadrant has been removed since there is already a Delta Quadrant Wonder.

Federation no longer has to attack Neutrals to get their unique unit.



MISC
More types of planets can be mined._

The number of minerals per row has been reduced from 14 to 12.

Various minor improvements to the tech tree._

You can now build android factories when you are supposed to.

Many wonders which previously became obsolete very early can now last much longer and are worth building.

The home systems have been adjusted to give each of the major races the same rate of expansion for AI. Klingons no longer have 5 goodie huts in their home system

Music from T.R.O.N. and ST Dominion added.

Made names of some leaders more appropriate.

More planet names for each race so it is harder to run out.

Changed the Romulan Warbird unit slot so the AI would build it.

There is now a blanket ban on negotiation with the Borg.

The AI will now use cobalt devices liberally.

The innate tech trees of the 3 major races are no-longer researchable by the other races.

Ship design proliferation is reduced. Ship tech trees are now disjointed so getting an early ship design does not allow you to eventually build later ships. Freighter designs which the AI likes so much do not lead to any other ship designs.

A HTML Readme

 

[yaroslav]

:b: A nice scen to play with, kobayashi.

Have you consider to do an scen about Start Trek with the federation, kinglongs and everyone starting with an already builded empire and PBEM-playable?

 

[kobayashi]

Sort of can do it right now in BAQ. Just use the accelerated start up method as mentioned in the BAQ documentation. But I think in this case the 'Easy' events set should be used instead of the 'Multi-player' events so all the Empires are nicely developed by 2230. I did that dozens of times when testing. Because of the way I designed it, the result varies each on each run depending on various random factors like who gets golden age, who builds which wonders and which AI goes down the ship design route earlier. For example, sometimes the 'Kirk beats the Kobayashi-maru' message pops up in 2212 and other times it arrives as late as twenty years after that.

just to recap

start a new scenario as neutrals
activate cheat mode
reveal map of vikings/german or french as the case may be
set human player to none
press return until the date progresses to 2235 or so.
set human player back to neutrals
save as a new scenario like BAQ100.scn

Was this the first time you tried it or did you play BAQ ver 2.1 before? Just wanted to see if anyone has played both and noticed the change.

 

[Ohwell]

OK I've tested it a bit today and correct me if I am wrong but aren't the Romulans supposed to get Plasma Torpedoes before Bi-Cobalt Devices? Other than that I love it, the game looks great and the added touch of the new life forms, Cardassia, and more neutral planets is good. You are right; it is much harder now, I'm having a bit of trouble on Prince as Rom's.

I had played 2.1 before but admittedly not much so I can't make much of a comparison, but the patch made alot of good improvements.

 

[Zabba149]

Thank you for your dedication kobayashi! I'm surprised this release hasn't received more replies...............know that your work is appreciated!

 

[kobayashi]

Originally posted by Ohwell
OK I've tested it a bit today and correct me if I am wrong but aren't the Romulans supposed to get Plasma Torpedoes before Bi-Cobalt Devices?

True technically speaking. It wasn't possible to make the Romulans require Plasma Torpedoes before getting Bi-Cobalt Devices since other races can't research Plasma Torps. I thought it was the next best thing to go on the (apparently wrong ) assumption that players would be more interested in getting the Griffin transport (which requires the Plasma Torp) before anything else. Glad you enjoy it so far.

And Zabba, thanks for the kind words.

 

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by kobayashi
Sort of can do it right now in BAQ. Just use the accelerated start up method as mentioned in the BAQ documentation. But I think in this case the 'Easy' events set should be used instead of the 'Multi-player' events so all the Empires are nicely developed by 2230. I did that dozens of times when testing. Because of the way I designed it, the result varies each on each run depending on various random factors like who gets golden age, who builds which wonders and which AI goes down the ship design route earlier. For example, sometimes the 'Kirk beats the Kobayashi-maru' message pops up in 2212 and other times it arrives as late as twenty years after that.

just to recap

start a new scenario as neutrals
activate cheat mode
reveal map of vikings/german or french as the case may be
set human player to none
press return until the date progresses to 2235 or so.
set human player back to neutrals
save as a new scenario like BAQ100.scn

Ok, but do you think is PBEM-playable (and a good game, in fact)? I think that the fact that Democracy (Sindycate) is only avaliable for Federation, and the fact that the Borg is very agressive sometimes and other times more "peaceful" could put the scen in the "not optimized for PBEM list"

Was this the first time you tried it or did you play BAQ ver 2.1 before? Just wanted to see if anyone has played both and noticed the change.

I played version 3.0m but I've not played the 3.0 extensively, so I haven't noticed too much differences. However, if you allow me to do some critics, I will do two:

A) [Very Technichal] The technology called 'start' that all (playable) civs have since the start of the game has prerequisites! Why??

B) There are a lot of times where I ended with some technologies of other playable civs (let's say Romulans and Klingongs tech and I'm Federation). I don't feel very comfortable with that situation. There is no way to stop the Federation to build these foreign units?

Thank you in advance

 

[Ohwell]

Ok, but do you think is PBEM-playable (and a good game, in fact)? I think that the fact that Democracy (Sindycate) is only avaliable for Federation, and the fact that the Borg is very agressive sometimes and other times more "peaceful" could put the scen in the "not optimized for PBEM list"

I think you are right on this fact, it would work a bit better if they were allowed Democracy(Republic) instead of Syndicatism. Since the Klings cannot have any such government they are rather behind in this regard, unless I am completely missing the Kling strategy.

Rom's do just fine in Empirism IMO.

 

[kobayashi]

The is a bit of confusion here. Actually the Federation's special government is Democracy(Republic in generic Civ2) which they get in the second half.

Syndicatism (Democracy in generic Civ2) is available to all via the Neutrals and Orions.

It is not practical for humans to use Syndicatism (Democracy) as at any one time you will need dozens of cobalt devices and have dozens of units in space transports since it will cause massive unrest via the double red shields. But it is ideal for the AI who can play at Chieftan level happiness constraints.

Democracy(Republic) is a good compromise for the federation as it is better than early government.

The rate of discoveries slows down after you have a few advances and 'start' has the sole purpose of reducing the initial discovery rate. It has no impact beyond that but fulfills its purpose in the early game. Its not tradeable or anything.

 

[kobayashi]

The point regarding the proliferation of race-specific techs is valid. I have done what I can to minimize that but short of banning diplomacy, there is little more to do. You can solve the the problem to a degree if you don't give your own ship designs away.


This is a post from the Beta thread.


I will implement discontinuous tech lineage (like in ZWK) to ameliorate the problem. So that getting Constitution will not mean you can eventually build Sovereign.

Example - when fed (and only fed) researches ambassador class, they will get a 'Next Gen' tech via events which is a prerequsite for Galaxy. Other races which stole or exchanged for Excelsior or below will have to stop at Ambassador class. When extended to the extreme, it would solve the problem completely but that would mean having dual advances slots for every ship design and there just aren't enough slots.


Also I changed the tree somewhat so that the freighter designs, which are usually most popular, don't lead to any other design.

 

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by kobayashi
The point regarding the proliferation of race-specific techs is valid. I have done what I can to minimize that but short of banning diplomacy, there is little more to do. You can solve the the problem to a degree if you don't give your own ship designs away.


This is a post from the Beta thread.


I will implement discontinuous tech lineage (like in ZWK) to ameliorate the problem. So that getting Constitution will not mean you can eventually build Sovereign.

Example - when fed (and only fed) researches ambassador class, they will get a 'Next Gen' tech via events which is a prerequsite for Galaxy. Other races which stole or exchanged for Excelsior or below will have to stop at Ambassador class. When extended to the extreme, it would solve the problem completely but that would mean having dual advances slots for every ship design and there just aren't enough slots.


Also I changed the tree somewhat so that the freighter designs, which are usually most popular, don't lead to any other design.

Sorry for my ignorance, is not to put a non-tradeable prerequitse equal for all the Federation ships (for instance Federation Innate) enough to stop the problem of researching foreign techs?

In TOT you have a bytmask to stop foreign civs from building that units, but that is MGE

Another topic: is just my experience or the Kinglon are the civilization less attacked by the Borgs?

 

[kobayashi]

Originally posted by yaroslav


Sorry for my ignorance, is not to put a non-tradeable prerequitse equal for all the Federation ships (for instance Federation Innate) enough to stop the problem of researching foreign techs?

Another topic: is just my experience or the Kinglon are the civilization less attacked by the Borgs?

Unfortunately advances leading from a non-tradeable advance (like start) cannot be researched. On the other hand, they could be used to make ships from other races obsolete. That would work for a land based game with no Leonardo wonder but in this case it would cause another problem. As the AI's choice of build for ships is not affected by att/Def stats like for land units that would mean they will keep building all the useless ships till the end of the game.

As for the Klingons - your observation is correct. The Borg do attack them but almost never the home systems. That is one of the reasons they do not get an advanced form of government. I have tried to alter this (like by making a borg cube appear right next to the Klingon home systems) but with little effect. My conclusion is that it is to do with the strong 'ocean currents' that exist around the Klingon system (like when you drag a ship to a far away place, they move in the wrong direction). The prevailing 'winds' sweep from the Klingon area towards the Borg area. For the same reason the Klingon AI invariably conducts continuous assaults on the Borg and even captures Unimatrix 01/02/03 in the odd game.

(yes Kobi is crazy enough to spend time making dozens of AI only test-runs on his scenarios)

 

[kobayashi]

On reflection, perhaps there is some merit in looking into stopping the building of other races ships. It is a tad complicated but I think it can work.

I have two free slots left plus 'start' that makes three. Then if I use the advances for the three scout class ships as well by changing their prerequisite to the third generation starships I will have six free advance slots.

I can make all six non researchable leading to nothing but causing the obsolecence of ships and give them to the 'wrong' races at the beginning and give them to the 'right' race via events at the appropriate time. Of course I don't have enough event space right now and I'll have to strip out some of the events to make room.

eg.

FEarlyExp will make Constitution and Excelsior obsolete. All races will have this at the beginning except for the federation who will get it automatically when they discover Ambassador Class.

FLateExp will make Ambassador obsolete and the Fed will get it when they discover Sovereign Class

REarlyExp will make Warbird obsolete. All races will have this at the beginning except for the Romulans who will get it automatically when they discover Vulture Class.

RLateExp will make Cloaked D-7 and Vulture obsolete and the Roms will get it when they discover Norexan Class

KEarlyExp will make K'tinga obsolete. All races will have this at the beginning except for the Klingons who will get it automatically when they discover K'vort Class.

KLateExp will make K'vort obsolete and the Klings will get it when they discover Vorcha Class

 

[kobayashi]

yaroslav,

I put together a patch which makes ships mostly race specific based on the idea above. I don't have enough advance slots to make it completly race specific but its pretty good. Would you want to give it a try? If its ok, I'll release it as a version 3.1 patch.

(Patch zip removed...its not the real 3.1 patch, that will come out as soon as testing is over)

 

[yaroslav]

Thank you for your effort, kobayashi and sorry for the delay. I've been sick (a cold and a stomacache) so I was not able to hook on Internet. I'm going to give it a try and I'd send you a report tomorrow or the next day

Thank you :b:

 

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by kobayashi

..As for the Klingons - your observation is correct...

That fact (BTW, thank you for the explanation - I didn't know that!), in my humble opinion, could make the Klingons the easiest civ to play with in SP. You can always count on your home system, which is, on the other hand, probably the best home system of the three!

 

[kobayashi]

Originally posted by yaroslav


That fact (BTW, thank you for the explanation - I didn't know that!), in my humble opinion, could make the Klingons the easiest civ to play with in SP. You can always count on your home system, which is, on the other hand, probably the best home system of the three!

Many reasons why BAQ is arranged the way it is is due to the 'official' background.

When I realised that one of the three home systems was more Borg-friendly I put the Klingons there as in TNG it was the Romulans who first faced the Borg (they discovered the big hole in the ground and came out of hiding). The Klingons seldom had anything to do with the Borg.

I considered making a Praxis explosion (terrain change) event to help slow down the Klingons but on closer inspection things are pretty even. Besides having no improved government, the Klingons are not near any Neutral Planet and can't make contact till later in the game.

The Romulans tended to like isolation so I made them take longer to build starships. However they have several advantages. They can contact and exchange techs with everyone once they build the Tal'shar and they have the best second generation government and 'super-spies' and plasma torpedoes. They are the only ones to be able to build an army of psychic warriors if they're lucky (Klingons only get one immobile hero unit).

All said, I think the Klingon game is more straight forward but not neccessarily easier.

 

[yaroslav]

Hi, kobayashi.

I've been playing with the Patch, and I've some notes to point out:

- The foreign freighters appear to be buildable.
- The foreign star bases appear to be buildable.
- The oberth is buildable as Klingon.
- Galaxy is buildable as a Klingon.
- Soveirgn is buildable as a Klingon.

I suppose that the units equivalents to Galaxy and Soveirgn of Kinglon and Romulans are also buildable for all civs.

Also, in the game I'm playin right now I've observed how the AI is slower than in the 3.0 release. Maybe it's just a coincidence in this game, but I wonder if those 4 or so start techs will slow the advance of the AI-controlled civilizations.

I have attached to this post a report with all my moves in my current game, so you can study what you want. I hope you'll find it useful: some designer like this kind of report, some not. I will post more when I finish the game.

BTW, If you want me to check anything in detail, please tell me

 

[kobayashi]

I didn't have enough tech slots to impleiment the last level of obsolescence. I figured as long as the hate trigger was used after discovering the third fourth generation ship, it wouldn't be easy to trade the later ship designs. Anyway I've been considering this shortfall and I'm having another look and see if I can squeeze out another three free slots from the Borg Tree.

I noticed the slowdown in research too and it is due to the extra techs at the start. I have been experimenting with the cosmic research paradigm to negate this effect but that would make the research rate faster in the late game.

Seems that the Borg do make some effort to haraess the Klingons from your report. Can you activate cheat mode and see what's left of the Romulans and Federation?

 

[yaroslav]

The Federation has 6 cities. They have lost one against the Neutrals (Tyco City), but they appear to have not lost any city against the Borg. There are some Borg units in way to Federation's cities, but they don't appear to be too dangerous.

On the other hand, the Romulans are in a bad sitatuion. They have lost their biggest cities against the Borg, and they only control 3, none of which is their capital.

The Neutrals controls 6 cities (without Capital) and the Orions 2.

Do you want the file?