While reading through the diplomacy information in the Master of Orion strategy guide, I'm going to post how code in MoM compares to that, and (when I did change it) my changes to it in CoM.
MoO information is based on official text, while MoM's is actual game code, so there is no guarantee MoO actually does work like described.

1. Diplomatic effect modifiers based on current relations.

Positive event effect per current relation :
MoO : -100 to +33 : Normal effect, +33 to +66 only 2/3, +66 or higher 1/3 effect
MoM : -100 to 0 : Double effect but cannot raise above +10, 0 to 24 Normal effect, 25-49 Halved effect, 50-74 One third, 75-100 : One quarter
CoM : -100 to 24 : Normal effect, rest unchanged.

Negative event effect per current relation :
MoO : -99 to -67 : One third, -66 to -34 : 2/3 effect, -33 to +50 normal effect, +51 or higher : Double effect
MoM : -99 to -75 : One quarter, -74 to -50 : One third, -49 to -25 : Half, -24 to -1 : Normal, 0 to +100 : Double effect.
CoM : -24 to +100 : Normal effect, rest unchanged.

I can't help to think MoO got this one right and MoM is worse. Doubling the bonus or penalty when the bar is only slightly above or below zero is just stupid.

2. Natural relations gravitation.
MoO : Each turn, relations gain or lose 1 point to move it closer to the starting value. (at least according to the guide)
MoM : First, if random(105)>abs(current relation), then nothing happens. Otherwise, the relation increases by random(2) if below the starting point. If above, there and the turn count is divisible by 10, it decreases by the same amount.
CoM : Not changed yet, but probably should.

Again, MoO is simple, clear and functional. MoM effect is much weaker, and has a bias towards positive relations. Gravitating back to the starting negative relation will barely happen, as 1-2 points every 10 turns, only when the random roll is made it...almost nothing.

3. "Starting" aka "Core" relation points.
MoO : Starting value based on races. +5 every time you offer a tech tribute. -5 for every "oath breaker action". -5 for every war declaration. Player character's personality modifies this by -40 to +40.
MoM : Starting value based on spellbooks. -5 for war declaration. +20 for breaking an alliance (bug). No change for breaking a pact, but both of these add to a different, direct diplomatic penalty variable instead. Again, it is bugged and adds +10 for a pact, and +20 for an alliance, instead of subtracting. -5 is added for every other wizard not involved in the broken treaty. Offering tributes also add to the other variable instead. There is no way to improve the core relations, aside from...breaking your alliances.
CoM : Fixed the bugs above, otherwise no change.

4. Temporary modifiers to reactions.
MoO : Has Treaty, Peace, Trade, Exchange, and Diplomat Gone modifier. Any offer regardless of outcome adds -10 to all of these. -30 to the related one if they aren't interested. They are gravitating towards +0 at end of turn by 10 points.
MoM : Has Treaty, Peace and Exchange variable. Any offer adds a varying amount depending on the offer type and result (a successful spell trade is -60!!!). Value gravitates toward +100 by 10 points at end of turn, and a further random(5) point twice if below 0 and 50 towards AI only. For peace, any negative diplomatic event during war adds one quarter of the event value to the suffering party and subtracts that much from the one doing the action. Diplomatic events add twice their relation change value to Treaty and Exchange modifiers. War declaration immediately sets all of them to -200 on both players involved. Broken treaties do similarly (I think only to -100 though).
"Diplomat Gone" modifier is simply the lowest of the other 3 modifiers instead of having a variable.
CoM : Mostly unchanged except peace, which only gets a +4 per turn if not at war. If at war, based on astrologer military strength, the stronger party is gravitating towards -200 rapidly, the weaker towards +200, and if there is less than 25% difference in military power, the value is unchanged. The amount received from diplomatic actions is unchanged. Also reduced spell exchange penalty and halved the +10 per turn to +5.

5. "-100 penalty"
MoO : When any of the above variables hits -100, excess lost points affect relations directly at halved strength.
MoM : No such effect.
CoM : No such effect.

6. AI asking for additional stuff in exchange for accepting a proposal
MoO : They will always ask for a tech is one is available. Money only if not available amount (random(8)+random(8))*Current turn.
MoM : Depends on how much you fail the roll for the offer, greater failure will prefer a spell, lesser failure prefers gold. Amount of gold is identical to MoO's.
CoM : Not changed.

7. Oath Breaker penalty
MoO : -5 Core relation, -36 Current relation for all treaty types, including peace.
MoM : +20 Core relation for breaking Alliance. +20 to Hidden relation for alliance, +10 for pact. -random(20) to current relation for breaking Alliance or WP. -5 Hidden relation to everyone not involved when breaking anything and you are at fault. When the AI breaks the treaty for your unit being too near, it is run for both players, effectively doubling the penalty on relations between the two involved parties. "breaking" peace is not implemented, nor is the duration of "peace" known to the player.
CoM : Fixed the bug of gaining points instead of losing. No -5 hidden relations to not involved parties. Rest unchanged.

8. Non-agression pact (Wizard's Pact)
MoO : Requires a +15 current relation. Requires passing a roll based on Core+Current Rel+Temp Rel+rnd(100) when offered from player side. No info on AI offers.
MoM : Requires a +15 current relation. Requires passing a roll based on Current+Hidden relations+Relative military strength on AI wizard's continent+random value+Treaty temporary variable.
CoM : Requires +15 but the formula for the roll is changed significantly. As original included a component naturally gravitating towards +100 (the Treaty variable), the roll was almost always successful if the +15 relations was available. Military strength is checked globally instead of only on the continent, and unit combat value is used instead of unit production cost.

9. Alliance
All three : Same as Pact but requires +50 visible relation and a higher roll.

MoO : You are allowed to enter allied territory. Computer players will ask you to declare war on their enemies. If you ask them for the same, it'll always succeed but they might ask for stuff.
MoM : You are penalized for entering allied territory, just like the Wizard's Pact. AI is unable to ask the player to declare war. If you ask them for the same, it'll always succeed but they might ask for stuff.
CoM : You are allowed to enter allied territory. AI is unable to ask the player to declare war. If you ask them for the same, it'll always succeed but they might ask for stuff.

10. Peace Treaty

MoO : Peace variable gets points based on damage done to the opponent's forces, gravitating towards 0.
MoM : Peace variable gets points based on diplomatic events, including damage done to the opponent's forces, gravitating towards +100 and having one quarter of the event's strength in effect, but one half if the player is involved.
CoM : See above when explaining the peace variable.

11. "Inertia factor"
MoO : Long explanation about how the AI (and game rules) cause the game to still attack the player under the effect of peace or non-aggression.
MoM : No idea about the original, but in insecticide the AI actually does not attack during a treaty, although it tries to, it can't proceed with it.
CoM : AFAIK there are no remaining ways for the AI to attack without formally breaking the treaty, including peace. Units already sent out before peace, and engineers building roads might enter player cities, though.

12. Threatening
MoO : You can get a tech considered outdated by the computer, money, or an enforced peace treaty. In the case of the last, there is a +40 relation bonus. Roll based on Total Power rating. -50 to all temporary modifiers. Relation penalty of -30+personality rating.
MoM : You can get a spell (anything possible to offer, no limitations), or gold. If any of these is offered, the AI will avoid attacking you which is what MoM's peace treaty does. There is no relation bonus in any case but there always is a penalty of random(15) points. Roll based on relative military strength on the wizard's continent. Treaty temporary modifier set to -120.
CoM : No change to results but if spell was chosen and it's unavailable, it will try gold instead of nothing. Roll is based on global astrologer military strength.

13. Personality effect
MoO : It seems to affect the core relations mainly, not sure. Values range from -50 to +40.
MoM : It is directly added to most types of diplomacy rolls. Values range form +0 to +50.
CoM : No change, but values range from +0 to +80.

14. AI to AI diplomacy
MoO : Higher difficulty is less active
MoM : Higher difficulty is more active but the code is completely full of bugs and does the weirdest things you can imagine so this is the least of your concerns.
CoM : Higher difficulty is more active, fixed bugs as much as I could : No more trading during wars, trading does not increases the lower the relation is instead of higher, no alliance first, no new pact if already allied which would downgrade it instead, peace actually uses the peace variable etc.

15. AI to player diplomacy
MoO : same as AI to AI according to the strategy guide
MoM : the two are entirely different and AI to player (almost) never triggers due to bugs, like impossible to fulfill conditions.
CoM : had to come up with whatever felt right since the whole thing was not functional at all but it is pretty much identical to MoO's except for some formulas and constants (as MoM uses different variables for a lot of things). In fact, MoM code used MoO's values for checks in many cases which explains why the values were so impractical, as MoM variables are different, for example the temporary modifiers are usually at 100, while MoO's are 0. This alone can totally break a check for, say, a sum of +50 or above, one which worked in MoO would cause the offer to have a near 100% chance in MoM under normal playing conditions.

Also, in MoM and CoM, the AI is unable to ask the player to declare war, regardless of alliances. In MoO they can. In CoM they can only ask you to break your alliance with their enemies which works identically in both games. There is no LBX text or event or coding for it, so it most likely wasn't intended to be in the game.

16. AI offering stuff for treaties
MoO : The player gets the offered money even if they accepted the deal without the AI having to offer it.
MoM : Again, the event never triggered, but it did actually give the player the gold or spell if it wasn't needed.
CoM : I made the player only receive the offered gold or spell if it was, in fact, offered by the AI. I would have never guessed this wasn't a bug, but even if it wasn't, I rather have it this way, than gold or spells appearing out of nowhere without an explanation.

To be honest it feels like they try to talk their way out of a bug in the strategy guide, it just does not make sense to receive stuff that wasn't offered.

17. AI offering a reward to you attacking their enemies
MoO : Techs can be offered. Condition is total damage >=30.
MoM : Not implemented at all but text is in LBX for offering gold only. Spells don't seem to be meant for offering.
CoM : Implemented, see thread for details. An Alliance with the wizard is required.

18 : AI threats towards players
MoO : Two threats = war. Positive events can negate the effect of previous treats.
MoM : -75 relation : instant war without a threat. Threat will be displayed, even if the roll for adding to the threats counter isn't made. Two counters = they break your treaty. If not having one, there is a roll for war based on personality and the strength of the action triggering the warning, but relations are not considered in this roll. Positive events could reduce this counter like in MoO but MoM diplomacy has none of those, the only two positive actions are not using an event code and cannot trigger this.
CoM : Unchanged, but warning counters can also get cancelled if there is no event that turn instead of requiring a positive. There is also one type of positive event implemented, the "I'm pleased with you attacking my enemy" type, which can come with gold if allied, and without otherwise.

19. War Declaration
MoO :
-If relation is -90 or lower
-after two threats
-reaction to player's threats
-conquering their colony
-military superiority
-Their ally asked them to (based on relations with ally) join their war
-Other players asked them to join their wars
-Assassination event
-Erratic personality at a 2% chance (regardless of difficulty)

MoM :
-If a relation+local continent military based roll fails, checked at a 1/20 chance only
-If the above fails, checked at an additional 1/20 chance only if militarist or expansionist and not lawful
-at a chance after two threats
-immediately instead of threats if relation is -75 or lower
-conquering a city
-Their ally is at war with the player then they declare on anyone (suspected bug, should be "their ally asked them to join").
-If the player has fewer ongoing wars than difficulty and then on anyone having a -30 or lower relation at a chance (suspected bug, probably should be on player)
-Chaotic personality at a 1/300 chance multiplied by difficulty on anyone
-Every turn at 10% chance if Spell of Mastery is being cast

CoM
Same as above except when
-Their ally asked them to (based on relations with ally) join their war, fixed suspected bug above
-If the player has fewer ongoing wars than difficulty then on the player if -30 or less relation, fixed other suspected bug
-if militarist or expansionist, not peaceful and not lawful then if having military superiority (adjusted by usual relation modifiers), checked every turn
-at a 1/20 chance if failing a roll of "total army strength too close to own" weighted by usual modifiers and difficulty if it's the player, replacing he generic continent military power based one.

Some of these can get replaced by the AI first breaking the active treaty instead, others always cause a war.

20. Sources of diplomatic negative events :
Moo
-High council votes
-Spying
-Having too many planets
-Having too many ships near their territory
-Attacking other players
-Eliminating a player
-Using a biological weapon

MoM
-Casting a global enchantment
-Casting a town curse
-Having too many towns
-Having a larger army than theirs (displays "stop amassing troops near the border" like MoO but does not check for troop location at all.
-Eliminating or banishing a player
-Casting Spell of Mastery
-Unimplemented : Using a summon spell
-Begin too close to their towns during a Pact or Alliance, or at a very low chance during neutral relations.

CoM
-Casting a global enchantments (but only those that directly harm them somehow, casting Crusade for example has no penalty)
-Casting a town curse
-Having too many towns (limit increased by 1/land size)
-Eliminating or banishing an player who is allied with or has a pact with the wizard receiving the action
-Casting Spell of Mastery
-Begin too close to their towns during a Pact, or at a very low chance during neutral relations.


Overall, I'm quite sure MoM is intended to use MoO's diplomacy system, but it was a very poorly done implementation where values were simply copied over without regards to having different modifiers and variables.
Although not all, but most CoM changes actually seem to bring the game closer to that goal, even though I wasn't aware of this information earlier.

I found this on another site:

Quote:Fun fact about MOO3 - the designer of the game was a superfan recruited from some forums, who had no real game dev experience (IIRC) and was chosen because he loved MOO and wrote some huge design bible for MOO3.

What turn are raiders allowed to be generated? I thought they didn't arrive until turn 50. Yet it just happened that raiders appeared on the map in January 1401. Two klackon halberdiers six steps away from my capital...and I only have the starting swordsmen and spearmen. I'm going to lose the game and it hasn't even started.

Currently only in Caster, but in the future, most likely in Raid as well, you can receive a gold reward from an allied wizard, if you attack the units of an enemy of your ally. This is, most likely, an intended but unimplemented feature, which I successfully implemented.

At the moment this is set up to happen 100% of the time the conditions are met, for two reasons :
-Calls to random generators don't grow on trees, it will take extra time and effort to implement.
-100% chance is more suitable for testing purpose, and the priority was making the feature work first.

There seems to be more than enough space in the relocation tables to add a new call to the random generator if necessary, so I think it's time to start thinking about how frequent, and how rewarding this event should be, so this poll is for that purpose.

This is the IT and tech thread for Pitboss 30. The initial post for this thread will have all game setup information, and the rest of the thread is to be used for resolving technical issues when the game is running.

Please reserve this thread for technical issues.

Game Rules and Settings:

Server: pitboss.watto.no:2061

Game tracker: http://www.civstats.com/viewgame.php?gameid=2904

Claim your civ: (the password is sirian)

Game Host unified tech thread (for all Caledorn hosted games):
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...pid=494726

Host: Caledorn
Admin: ???
Map maker: Commodore
Starting date: Today!
Mod: None - BTS
Leaders/civs: Pick 'em

Map Settings:
Cylinder, Monarch, Standard Size

Rules:
- c. Events Off
- d. Huts Off
- e. Speed Normal
- f. Difficulty Monarch
- g. Barbs On
- h. See starts before picking Yes
- i. Version BTS
- j. Scout start Yes
- k. Banned: Nukes, War Elephants (except Khmer), Blockades, Diplo Victory, Great Lighthouse
- l. Not Banned: Corporations, SoZ
- m. Espionage on but no spies (if you get a Great Spy you use him for a Golden Age, Scotland Yard, or settle)
- n. AI diplo (Don't use city trades to signify stuff, no gold countdowns)
- o. No double-moving (don't be a jerk, aggressor gets to decide if they are first or second in turn order as long as it's not a double move, anyone who camps the end of the turn timer so their aggressor can't get the second half to be dogpiled)
- p. No unit trading
- q. No city gifts
- r. No tech trading

Difficulty has the following effects, unless otherwise noted, it applies both in Caster and the original game :

1. Events are more frequent on higher difficulty.
2. It affects the amount of diplomatic penalty for overextension. The number of towns you are allowed to have is the same, but if you exceed it, more diplomatic points are lost.
3. After Turn 200, AI to AI diplomacy negative events are reduced, by a divisor of 2 on hard or extreme, and 3 on impossible. Positive events are doubled on all difficulty after turn 200.
4. AI will run the "AI to AI" diplomacy routine more frequently. This includes both the positive and negative actions. Note that this process had a huge amount of severe bugs in the original game, like AI trading spells during war, or forming alliances before pacts, etc.
5. Chaotic wizards have a difficulty level/300 chance of declaring war at random on anyone (why not just the player?)
6. On Normal and above, wizards with a relation of -30 or worse have a random chance to declare war if total number of wizards at war with the player is below the difficulty level. (wow, bug, why would the AI do this to other AI, this should only happen to the player?)
7. On easy difficulty if the AI wants to break a treaty to open the way to a future declaration of war, it is unable to do so.
8. On easy and normal, fleeing is always successful. Caster changed it to easy only.
9. AI power, gold, research income, population growth, and maintenance is adjusted by difficulty
10. The AI will be less observant of player towns with low amount of defenders on Easy and Normal. (although this only applies to units standing near the town so it's a minor effect)
11. Affects rampaging monsters and raiders
12. Militarist and Expansionist wizards receive an extra +10/level for the "expansion war needed" checks on Caster only. Starting from 0.87 this modifier only applies towards the player. Original had a completely different roll for this.
13. Everyone receives an extra +20/level for the "generic war needed" checks on Caster only. Starting from 0.87 this modifier only applies towards the player. Original had a completely different roll for this.


I think most of these are fine, but maybe "3." could happen earlier?
Also need to fix the bug with "6."

In my current Darlok game that I'm winning, I've set myself a challenge to incentivize going to the end of the tech tree for once:

Beat the Guardian using only a single huge dreadnought ship (tricked out with all of the best gadgets, necessarily).

I'm thinking it could be done with a ship like this:

*Neutronium Armor (2400 hp)
*Max engines (warp 9)
*Max maneuver
*Class XV shields (nullifying Guardian's scatterpacks)
*Max battle computer
Specials:
*Inertial nullifier
*Advanced Damage Control
*Neutron stream projector
+ some good weapons.

Would it be possible?

It would have a missile and beam evade of 12 (9 from engines, -1 for huge hull, +4 for inertial nullifier). Going against the Guardian with an attack rating of 10, that would mean only 30% of the Guardian's attacks would get through.

For weapons, the Guardian on impossible has:
85 Scatterpack Xs (irrelevant with Class XV shields)
45 stellar converters - 10-35 damage each (---> 0-20 damage after shields). Let's say 10 on average. Plus, each stellar converter gets 4 attacks. So 40 damage on average.
18 plasma torpedoes - 150 damage each - 15 for each space traveled. Let's assume that they will be traveling 3 spaces on average. So, 105 damage. -15 = 90 damage each after shields.
1 death ray - 200-1000 damage (185-985 damage after shields). Let's say 590 on average.

45*40 = 1800 damage each round from stellar converters.
18*90 = 1620 damage every other round = 810 damage each round on average.
1*590 = 590 damage each round.

So we're looking at 3200 damage each round. Now we factor in evade...
3200*0.3 = 960 damage each round, on average. The rounds where the plasma torpedoes and the death ray hit will do more like 2000 damage, to be compensated (hopefully) by rounds where the torpedoes are not firing and where the death ray doesn't hit.

Unfortunately, our cruisers can't repel firepower of that magnitude with advanced damage control. (2400*0.3 = 720 recovered each round).

However, could we ditch the neutron stream project and equip both an automated repair AND advanced damage control? Would it heal the ship 45% each round? If so, then that would mean 1080 in healing each round, which would outpace the damage.

And if we happen to be the Alkari? Then we would have a beam and missile evade defense of 15, meaning that only 5% of the Guardian's weapons would hit.

3200*0.05 = 160 damage each round.

So, with a little bit of luck, it should definitely be possible to outlast the Guardian, even if we are not the Alkari (but especially if we are the Alkari).

Then it would also be a question of whether a single dreadnought could do enough damage ( >3000 / round) to kill the guardian.

I also wonder if plasma torpedoes would be the way to go. 60-ish plasma torpedoes fired at point-blank range every other round might be enough. (A missile could be equipped on the dreadnought, allowing it to fire at point-blank range and then scurry away so that the Guardian's own plasma torpedoes wouldn't wreck it so bad).

When breaking a treaty, you receive a diplomatic penalty for all future rolls with that wizard, however, the original game also gave you a penalty against everyone else, which I removed in a previous version.

However, as it is now, there is nothing to stop you from accepting an offer from someone much weaker than you, then break the treaty and walk away with the gold/spell they offered without a penalty after defeating them anyway. At the time I removed the penalty, the AI was not yet able to offer the treaty himself, nor pay money for it.

I'm not sure if this change is for the better or the worse. In case of a Peace treaty, you could do this unpunished anyway, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from declaring war next turn and there are no penalties for it. You can even threaten the target for free gold and spells, without risking any penalties, besides the targeted wizard hating you as expected.

I think it's perfectly fine and reasonable to be able to extort stuff from weaker wizards in any of the above ways considering the game is all about becoming the most powerful, and it's fine if the penalty stays removed.

What does everyone think?

Looks like they might be trying to rebuild the Colossus at Rhodes.

This forum is a valuable resource for me, and I would appreciate any feedback on this post: http://www.java-moo.com/?p=530

In particular, are there any I missed?