jmas's now-shadow game

[RefSteel]

@jmas: Good thought on Combat Transporters, but it appears that d0om and Jon Sullivan were correct: I loaded my endgame save file from Imp14, canceled my Meklon invasion, abstained in the vote, crash-researched combat transporters, and sent a new invasion as soon as it came in. No one had interdictors, and the result (with ~40 transports against 20 stinger/scatter bases, even with my anti-matter drives and advanced armor) was "all transports have been destroyed."

@Sargon: Wow - I can see just from your latest comment that your new save file mapping is a huge step forward.

Certainly a temporary alliance could have established contact and started the Mrrshan-Sakkra war. The contact may be broken later but war stance would remain, I believe.

This is consistent with my experience too. We've seen several examples of AIs establishing contact based on alliances of course (even though the player can't do so) and I seem to remember wars surviving broken contact (i.e. still in effect when contact resumes) even for the player.

[jmas]

@RefSteel: To clarify, was that just one run of the invasion? I wasn't quite sure from your post. In any case, even if it was multiple runs, 40 transports isn't a lot. Even assuming Neutronium Armor (the strongest) vs. Scatter Pack 5 (the weakest Scatter Pack), and three rounds before transports reach the planet in the (invisible to the player) space combat (the best I can tell from the guide for Anti-Matter Drive), each base could take out 4.5 transports on average within that time (guide gives 1.5/round, x 3 rounds), and so 20 bases could take out 90 transports on average. Do you have large enough planet populations to send more troops than that in a single group ? If not, planetology could be "crash-researched" in the same manner, since advanced soil is available and complete terraforming is always available. let me know-- I might test it if you (or Sargon) don't, but I'm not sure exactly how soon I would do it--prob'ly in a few days.

As a side note, the figures in the guide's table for the number of transports destroyed per volley is the same for Zeon missiles and Scatter Pack V at all armor levels. And V is only the weakest scatter pack, so scatter packs provide easily the best return on investment for anti-transport defense (as always, outside of other factors of course, such as whether other weapons allow you to take over your opponents' planets instead of waiting for them to send transports to yours ).

@Sargon: Thank you for the detailed information about spying on that turn, that was enlightening. Here is the 2422 save. When you say the Sili could have broken the treaty: I thought that the point of the way the game handles peace treaties for AIs is that they consider them binding until the clock runs out (and that part of "binding" is that their spies go into hiding and stay there), unless you do something within that time that they consider a violation of the peace treaty on your part, and I thought that if that occurred, they would immediately re-declare war.

I was doing my best to honor the treaty; the only thing I see that could maybe have provoked them is my spying, but even that is set to "hide" and has been since the treaty was signed. And since I don't even have a spy yet in 2421, and since (I believe) spy purchasing and activity occur simultaneously for all races like fleet movement, AFTER everybody takes their turn, then even if having spies in hiding would provoke them to commit an "act of war," if you will, then it would have had to be the presence of a previous spy that upset them. (Though now that I'm finally about to post, I just noticed that the Sili caught a spy of mine between 2420 and 2421 according to report from pressing "C" in 2421). But again, the idea that the Sili changed their behavior depends on whether espionage is off the table for an AI during a peace treaty in the actual game and not just in the strategy guide.

The explanations that seem most likely to me is that either:

1) espionage is simply not off the table for AIs during a peace treaty. In which case I'd be curious to know whether sabotage is either, since I've also seen sabotage in other games shortly after treaties were signed (I believe within eight to 15 turns; although of course they could have been frame jobs).

2) #1 as above, but with more: AIs take exception to YOUR espionage/sabotage (or maybe even "hide spying") during a peace treaty, but they don't let a treaty stop them from doing espionage (or maybe sabo too). Has almost the same flavor to me as AIs blaming you for treaties that they broke. Wouldn't that be crazy? Oh wait, that actually happens in the game.

[RefSteel]

Well, if combat transporters work the way they're supposed to, the chance of zero getting through out of 40, even in just one trial, would be on the order of one in a trillion, regardless of defense - they're supposed to allow 50% of transports to ignore defenders entirely! Just in case it was a different bug though, like just adding a 50% chance that each hit on a transport would turn into a miss, I ran several more tests, with stacks of 92 transports at a time. First, with no combat transporters but research nearly complete, roughly 20 survived each time. Next, with Combat Transporters up and running a couple turns later ... roughly 20 survived each time. (I used my Swipes and Sirians to clear out all the enemy fleets on each occasion to make sure only the 20 bases were being tested.) No change in Meklar tech, no one close to Subspace Interdictors, and no change in base count. Number of surviving transports varied within the same narrow range (18-22) in both sets of tests.

[Megafrost]

So combat transporters do not work at all? I'll have to remember to avoid those in future games. That is, if I ever travel that far down the tech tree.

[jmas]

Well, if combat transporters work the way they're supposed to, the chance of zero getting through out of 40, even in just one trial, would be on the order of one in a trillion, regardless of defense - they're supposed to allow 50% of transports to ignore defenders entirely!

Well color me sheepish. Of course you are right. I got distracted by all the details I was weighing in my mind for my own post!

Sounds like your testing was pretty complete for missile bases. Which raises a point I was going to mention for Megafrost: Jon Sullivan's FAQ said the transporters don't work at all for missile bases but do work for ships. Which, granted, in a game of a substantial difficulty level, where there will be bases and potentially lots of them, a game that's gone on long enough for the player to get transporters, is an awful lot like not working "at all." Hopefully the transporters are equally ineffective for AIs against player's bases...

[sargon0]

Great stuff jmas, this second save gives me 3 new fields (per player) in the savefile! Thank you very much.

I will need to see more examples of confirmed AI steals to be sure but I think this save shows the Silicoids stole from you during the peace treaty! Firstly there are still 3 turns of peace left, as expected, so no suspension of peace treaty. Secondly the Silicoids now have an active spy against you set for espionage - they have increased their threat count/spy wars level against you this turn! Thirdly, I guess (confirmed later), the new fields show the Silicoids stole Weapons tech level 8 from you, ie. Hyper-X Missiles!

I think we have similar ideas on whay may have happened but are just expressing it differently. My spin on it is:
1. In the guide's opening section on Computer Player Spying Practices it says when a peace treaty is enacted then spy expenditure against that former enemy is reduced to zero and existing spies go into hiding for the duration of the peace treaty.
2. It does not say that spy expenditure will remain at zero or that new spies will hide. I take this to mean spy expenditure and use is possible under a peace treaty.
3. Underneath the racial objective spy table it does say that under a peace treaty spy expenditure stays at zero but I think this is an overstatement ie. wrong!
4. Sabotage is always considered an act of war; it is always visible when successful. I take this to mean espionage is possible when not at war (and is usually undetected).

My sequence of events is:
2416 Peace Treaty with Silicoids
2418 Silicoids discover BC4 so reallocate tech and spy expenditure (timing based on 2421 save with 75% of 757 BC tech spend increasing BC5 investment to 2305 BC). Current spy wars threat count is zero so Spy Wars level 1. At this level they will not spy on you if they like you (+19 in guide but needs testing) or if your security spending is at least 10% for 20% security bonus. You are at Wary (-33) even after +40 from Peace Treaty and Security Spending is 4% (for 8% bonus). The Silicoids spy check for their technologist objective has, like diplomat, a high base of 40 (same as any objective at war) plus the reverse of their personality and the reverse of your current relations. They are Aggressive which I believe is -20 (not guide's -10) so we have 40 + 20 + 33 = 93 so a 93% chance they will spy on you. So probably!
2421 Silicoids have 47/57 BC towards next spy, set to Hide because they do not allocate mission until infiltration successful.
2421-2 Completed Silicoid spy infiltrates your base and, since not at war, is given espionage mission which nets Hyper-X.

Three questions.
Why did Silicoids spy investment on you appear to drop to zero in 2321?
Did the Silicoids capture of your Hidden spies in 2420-1 or 2421-2 have any effect (they have 2.4% Security Spending and Comp. level 16 to your 8 so hiding is not foolproof)?
Why were you informed of theft even though you did not capture their spy?
Certainly the spy wars threat count rose from 0 to 1 in 2421-2. I did repeat your 2421-2 move and:
1. Silicoids do not always finish the spy.
2. Silicoids always seem to finish the spy if threat count raised to 1 (the opposite may also be true).
3. Raising threat count can happen with or without capture of your spy.
4. If threat count is raised and the spy is allocated they may still fail, of course.
5. I managed to catch Darloks stealing twice (and later Silicoids). No peace treaty but otherwise similar - threat count raised from 0 to 1 and informed of theft without capturing spy.

Of course, I could be misreading some fields. Anyway since the Computer Player can spy on you during a peace treaty what is allowable for your spy activity? I did successfully steal from the Silicoids several times here and relations dropped but they did not DOW and did not mark me an oath breaker, even when they issued a warning at Tense relations. However there is always the risk the Computer Player will DOW, especially if you are still at poor relations.

[RefSteel]

Hmmmm ... I went ahead and tested Combat Transporters further, and it looks like the bug is worse than Jon Sullivan thought. I was not able to find any statistically significant difference between transport losses with and without transporters - I tried eliminating the missile bases without taking out a large orbiting fleet, and though fleets appear to be essentially worthless for shooting down transports in comparison to bases at high tech levels anyway (the best I could get was an enemy fleet averaging ~5 kills per stack) they are also unaffected by Combat Transporters. I sent in stacks of 100+, 20, and 6 'sports in various tests, and always lost 4-6 transports against the same fleet regardless of the number this left, and regardless of the presence or absence of transporters. I also tried gifting C/Ts to alien races, allowing them to take the orbit of one of my planets, and then crash-building missile bases there (~50 per year with reserves, and more at rich worlds; this part was fun!) before the inevitable 'sports could arrive. All transports were always destroyed. I tried the same thing, but with a massive fleet sent over in lieu of bases - same effect. I tried sending a smaller fleet and comparing its effectiveness at shooting down transports between a save where I'd gifted Transporters and one were I hadn't. No difference observed. So ... it looks like Combat Transporters tech is actually just "Advanced Propulsion Tech 0"!

@Sargon: Very impressive detective work! In my halting attempts to decipher the espionage system, I found that AIs never seemed to complain about tech thefts when only one spy was embedded - I'm not 100% confident of this (nor close to it) but I supposed that they only complain when you steal one of their techs and they catch (necessarily(?) a different) one of your spies on the same turn. I didn't check to see whether relations were affected however; is it possible there's a "successful, not caught, but theft detected" range for spy rolls? (and perhaps that the AI would not be vocal about it when it happens to them?)

[sargon0]

Well according to the guide a successful spy can:

be avoided if one spy confesses - Fate roll 100+
frame another race (in which case you suffer no penalty for other spies detected) - Fate roll 0- and Infiltrate roll 85+, or Fate roll 1-50 and Infiltrate roll 100+
be undiscovered (and only successful spies can cause offense) - Fate roll 1-30 and Infiltrate roll 85-99
be discovered and you take diplo hit - Fate roll 31-50 and Infiltrate roll 85-99

The AI may not warn if it discovers your spy success but it will hit relations. Of course the reality is not matching this so some alternatives must be possible.

[StarLydon]

So ... it looks like Combat Transporters tech is actually just "Advanced Propulsion Tech 0"!

Maybe you all already know this but, I've noticed that if I have Combat Transporters and my opponent has Sub Space Interdictors, then a lot more transports WILL slip by. Still pretty useless I know.

Perhaps Kyrub or Sargon0 could have a look at how Sub Space Interdictors work and fix Combat Transporters? Worth a try maybe and thanks for all the hex editing info, it's great to read.

Other then that, you're right RefSteel, CT's are completely useless against Bases AND Ships.

- just ran a test game to make sure and CT tech does work against an AI with SSI tech.

[sargon0]

@StarLydon: Welcome to the forum! Unfortunately I think the Combat Transporters failure is code based so not something I can help with.

In my halting attempts to decipher the espionage system, I found that AIs never seemed to complain about tech thefts when only one spy was embedded - I'm not 100% confident of this (nor close to it) but I supposed that they only complain when you steal one of their techs and they catch (necessarily(?) a different) one of your spies on the same turn. I didn't check to see whether relations were affected however; is it possible there's a "successful, not caught, but theft detected" range for spy rolls? (and perhaps that the AI would not be vocal about it when it happens to them?)

Re-re-reviewing the guide I think you may be right about the last part. Spies can be cleared/stopped, frame/undiscovered/discovered and escape/eliminated. I always associated being cleared+discovered with being eliminated but it may be only stopped spies that can be eliminated. However stopped+eliminated spies should not cause offense (exception later) so I think the diplo hit can only be for the successful spy (if discovered) - the AI may not warn and the change to diplo can be small so may go unnoticed. The only unsuccessful spy diplo hit should come if one spy confesses in which case no other spy can succeed. I generally use multiple spies in my tests but have now seen my steals with AI diplo hits without AI catching any spy, same as for you being informed of AI steals without catching a spy.