Okay. Just had to get a few things off my chest here.
Yes I know Master of Orion's random number generator (RNG) is supposed to introduce an element of unpredictability into games. But does it sometimes just seem like you're really fighting the RNG and not the computer races?
I've been trying to play a "beam-only" game suggested by Sullla in another thread. I've had two games now though where it gets screwed up and I can't really gauge how difficult it would really be or how my strategies should change, due to the random effects in those games.
In both games I decided to play as the Mrrshan to take advantage of the weapon bonus, on impossible difficulty.
Game 1:
This starts out pretty decent. I start out near some nebulae, and one of the stars inside one of them is a colonizable desert rich, just 4 parsecs away. So I expand and start researching range 4 upgrade as well.
In 2323, I encounter the Darloks. They declined to trade technologies, and they declined to make a trade agreement. But at the beginning of the very next turn, they declare war on me without provocation. Okay, fine. I let them colonize some of the planets around me, so that I can then invade those planets, to get Darloks to want peace, and so that I don't have to make colony ships for those stars. So for a while we're trading troops back and forth on those planets.
Now the colonies were strung out somewhat like an hourglass. The center of the hourglass is Antares, a size 30 planet, with the bulk of my colonies north of it, and the bulk of Darlok colonies south of it. In 2335, I captured Antares, so I started sending troops into Darlok territory from my other colonies. I had 32 troops remaining and captured 19 factories but didn't get any techs from it. Oh well.
But in 2343, I see:
The Darloks had just sent a large transport filled with 35 troops at my Antares. Because of the radiation, the planet's population size was reduced to 15. I got hand lasers quickly (in 2343 actually) to help my troops, and put some stuff on Antares (what's available in the area) to decrease their number of troops.
When their troops arrived in 2346, 33 of their 35 troops survived, and the battle ended up with:
Yes, their 3 remaining troops captured the same 19 factories but they get hand lasers out of it. True, my 15 troops killed 30 of theirs so my troops did better than average ("average" would have been killing 22 of their troops), but I had so few troops due to the radiation accident in the first place, and worse, because it's now a radiation planet, I was no longer able to send any troops to it. So their 3 troops could slowly build up the planet all they want without me being able capture them. I couldn't sent troops to any other Darlok colonies because they're all too far away; Antares was my opening to their other colonies. So the random event basically shut down the advance into the Darloks right there, specifically at the very turn that advantages the Darloks the most (i.e. right after they sent their troops, so their troops still get to arrive, but my colonists have died down to the max radiated population by the time their troops arrive).
During this time, in 2338, I encountered the Sakkra. Just like the Darlok, they declined trade agreement, and declared war on me the very next turn without any provocation.
In 2352, the first council was held. It was between me and the Sakkra. Most of the computers voted for the Sakkra (only the humans abstained), so the game ended with final war right there.
Game 2:
Just like the first game, this one started out pretty well. I was in the south part of the map. In 2319 GNN said the Silicoid already had 6 colonies so they seem to be the frontrunner. A while later, I found that they were to my east, and they happened to have an artifact planet as well as an inferno ultra rich planet. They declined trade agreement though. I had the Alkari relatively close to me to the north, but to my surprise, they never declared war on me even though they were restless with me ever since I encountered them. I tried to do a trade agreement with them every so often, but they rejected every time.
In 2355 we had the first council. It was between me and Meklar, but there were quite a few abstentions. The Alkari voted for the Meklar, so I voted for the Meklar too, to improve relations, but they still rejected my trade agreements afterward. Computer Alkari and Mrrshan seem to have no trouble allying with each other (they were allied in my Imperium 36 gentle game), but I guess it's just between the player or something that the Mrrshan and Alkari don't get along.
In 2373, there was a random event: a wealthy merchant! Unfortunately, the target of their largesse was the Silicoid, even though at this point they were the frontrunner. At the council the following turn, the Silicoid had 7 votes, I had 6, while the Alkari and Meklar had 5 each and the Psilon and Sakkra had 2 each. Because people abstained, I voted for the Silicoid, but even so, even though they were "relaxed" toward me, they still declined my trade agreement offerings.
In 2380, the Alkari finally declared war on me, having been restless with me all this time. When they launched their fleet at one of my colonies though, my 1 missile base was able to take care of it, because their fleet was still using lasers and heavy lasers.
In 2393, my spies on Alkari finally succeeded. I had the choice of tech categories available to me, and chose propulsion, hoping for their warp dissipator, but got range 7 instead. In retrospect, this was a big mistake; I knew their construction would have been duralloy, and getting duralloy for sure would have been much, much better than the chance of getting warp dissipator, because it would've increased my bases' hp by 50% and strengthened my transport ships and ground troops. Oh well.
On my first invasion on an Alkari colony, they survived it with 2 troops remaining. So I really should've chosen duralloy when I had the chance. Silicoid also took the opportunity to declare war on me, although they were off-and-on allied with the Alkari, and I'm not sure if they were allied with the Alkari at this point.
Anyway, at my next invasion in 2404, I ended up having 97 troops remaining, and captured 76 factories, but got no techs at all. Not a single one, even though the Alkari had more techs than me in every single tech field:
The capture meant I was in contact with the Meklar. They accepted my trade agreement. In the meantime, the Silicoid fleet arrived at one of my colonies. Their huge ships had something like 8 hp left when they destroyed my bases. Sigh.
A few turns later, in 2406, the Meklar declared war on me without provocation. It certainly wasn't because of my dealings with the Alkari, because they were at war with the Alkari too. Anyway, I start my invasion of Alkari's Xendalla.
Except in 2411, I notice that Xendalla was now Meklar's. Hopefully this means that there won't be many bases/ships in the way, since I was sending in troops unescorted.
In 2412, the Meklar fleet destroyed my bases just before I destroyed one of their ships. Sigh. The difference is that if their fleet is sufficiently weakened, then the bases that I make, even if destroyed, will gradually weaken their fleet. But if they have too many ships (i.e. too much firepower), then the 1 base I build every few turns won't destroy any ships before it's destroyed. So yeah not having duralloy is really hurting, although it's just bad luck that I'm having multiple battles where they're down to a few hp when my stuff gets destroyed. I do finally steal duralloy from the Alkari soon after, but it's already a bit too late.
Also in 2412, the Silicoid capture one of my colonies. Although they capture the colony's 72 factories with only 23 troops, they nevertheless made off with 3 of my technologies. Also, even though I had multiple colonies being besieged by the frontrunner Silicoid, a comet decides to go for one of my colonies:
Moro is (was) one of my "safe" colonies in the back that sends troops to the front lines when needed and does research when not. It was fully developed (had maxed factories). At this point, I don't have much of a fleet to speak of, and no way am I going to get one to Moro in time with the Silicoid fleets still on my bases. So the colony is effectively lost.
Hopefully things will get better though. In 2413, the Alkari sued for peace. I rejected to capture more of their planets (their planets were relatively weak), but they counteroffered with 1025 BC so I decided to take it and use that on my colonies. And in 2414, my troops arrived at the now-Meklar Xendalla.
Originally I had expected to land my troops unescorted through several Alkari bases, so I had sent a total of 263 troops to Xendalla. But since the Meklar had taken care of them, 250 of my troops got through the Meklar ships to land on Xendalla. 205 of those remained to take over Xendalla's factories. Hopefully I get something good with all those troops!
I ended up getting: battle computer 2.
A turn later, the Meklar captured my Dolz, which I had taken from Alkari and was still fortifying. My 97 troops captured 76 factories on it but didn't find anything; the 14 surviving Meklars captured 13 factories and managed to take inferno, one of my highest techs.
I manage to recapture Silicoid's Willow, with 15 surviving troops and 72 factories. This time I did get something: class 5 shields, which is a good boost. However, I found on subsequent turns that my missile bases were still using class 2 shields, not class 5 shields; I have no idea why. I was building bases (i.e. not pre-existing ones, but new ones), and was putting research into force fields.
I retake Dolz from Meklar, with 28 surviving troops taking 23 factories. I get...absolutely nothing from it. Meanwhile, the Silicoids recapture Willow, with 27 troops and 72 factories, and got my ion rifle, my most recent tech.
Is it just me or do my troops seem to have trouble finding techs, while the computers races have no problem getting techs from me? I don't think I've ever played a game where I capture so many planets and yet get so little, while the computers are able to take my best techs with ease. And this is on impossible difficulty, where the computer usually out-techs the player and so a few techs from computer races can really help out the player (and a computer race will usually have many techs to take). In fact, Meklar's techs the turn after I got battle computer 2 from them (with 205 troops on 16 factories) was:
I don't really know how the tech capturing works (other than "more surviving troops" and "more factories" increase chances/quantity of techs), nor how random events work (other than that it's supposed to help the underdog), but these are games where the player really didn't get much from tech-swapping in ground invasions while the computer races get a lot, and the random events favor the computer races even when they're leading already. Not to mention how the computer AI declares war randomly.
It's difficult to really get the flavor of variant rules (such as beam-only) when random stuff seems to outweigh the player's strategies sometimes -- in effect, playing a sophisticated version of roulette rather than a game whose outcome depends on the player's strategies. I'm guessing this is why a good deal of Imperium games restrict random events to be after year XXXX, or perhaps no random events at all, although this wouldn't affect how the computer vs player gets techs from invasions or how the computer races decide to declare war.
Anyone have some insight on how this stuff works, in terms of how the code rolls for the different random stuff in the game? I'd be interested to see if the code really does purposely screw the player on higher difficulties more often with respect to random events and techs from ground invasions, or if I'm just getting a bad streak. I'm using Kyrub's patch to generate new games and playing them unmodified.
Recap of the ground invasions:
Yes I know Master of Orion's random number generator (RNG) is supposed to introduce an element of unpredictability into games. But does it sometimes just seem like you're really fighting the RNG and not the computer races?
I've been trying to play a "beam-only" game suggested by Sullla in another thread. I've had two games now though where it gets screwed up and I can't really gauge how difficult it would really be or how my strategies should change, due to the random effects in those games.
In both games I decided to play as the Mrrshan to take advantage of the weapon bonus, on impossible difficulty.
Game 1:
This starts out pretty decent. I start out near some nebulae, and one of the stars inside one of them is a colonizable desert rich, just 4 parsecs away. So I expand and start researching range 4 upgrade as well.
In 2323, I encounter the Darloks. They declined to trade technologies, and they declined to make a trade agreement. But at the beginning of the very next turn, they declare war on me without provocation. Okay, fine. I let them colonize some of the planets around me, so that I can then invade those planets, to get Darloks to want peace, and so that I don't have to make colony ships for those stars. So for a while we're trading troops back and forth on those planets.
Now the colonies were strung out somewhat like an hourglass. The center of the hourglass is Antares, a size 30 planet, with the bulk of my colonies north of it, and the bulk of Darlok colonies south of it. In 2335, I captured Antares, so I started sending troops into Darlok territory from my other colonies. I had 32 troops remaining and captured 19 factories but didn't get any techs from it. Oh well.
But in 2343, I see:
The Darloks had just sent a large transport filled with 35 troops at my Antares. Because of the radiation, the planet's population size was reduced to 15. I got hand lasers quickly (in 2343 actually) to help my troops, and put some stuff on Antares (what's available in the area) to decrease their number of troops.
When their troops arrived in 2346, 33 of their 35 troops survived, and the battle ended up with:
Yes, their 3 remaining troops captured the same 19 factories but they get hand lasers out of it. True, my 15 troops killed 30 of theirs so my troops did better than average ("average" would have been killing 22 of their troops), but I had so few troops due to the radiation accident in the first place, and worse, because it's now a radiation planet, I was no longer able to send any troops to it. So their 3 troops could slowly build up the planet all they want without me being able capture them. I couldn't sent troops to any other Darlok colonies because they're all too far away; Antares was my opening to their other colonies. So the random event basically shut down the advance into the Darloks right there, specifically at the very turn that advantages the Darloks the most (i.e. right after they sent their troops, so their troops still get to arrive, but my colonists have died down to the max radiated population by the time their troops arrive).
During this time, in 2338, I encountered the Sakkra. Just like the Darlok, they declined trade agreement, and declared war on me the very next turn without any provocation.
In 2352, the first council was held. It was between me and the Sakkra. Most of the computers voted for the Sakkra (only the humans abstained), so the game ended with final war right there.
Game 2:
Just like the first game, this one started out pretty well. I was in the south part of the map. In 2319 GNN said the Silicoid already had 6 colonies so they seem to be the frontrunner. A while later, I found that they were to my east, and they happened to have an artifact planet as well as an inferno ultra rich planet. They declined trade agreement though. I had the Alkari relatively close to me to the north, but to my surprise, they never declared war on me even though they were restless with me ever since I encountered them. I tried to do a trade agreement with them every so often, but they rejected every time.
In 2355 we had the first council. It was between me and Meklar, but there were quite a few abstentions. The Alkari voted for the Meklar, so I voted for the Meklar too, to improve relations, but they still rejected my trade agreements afterward. Computer Alkari and Mrrshan seem to have no trouble allying with each other (they were allied in my Imperium 36 gentle game), but I guess it's just between the player or something that the Mrrshan and Alkari don't get along.
In 2373, there was a random event: a wealthy merchant! Unfortunately, the target of their largesse was the Silicoid, even though at this point they were the frontrunner. At the council the following turn, the Silicoid had 7 votes, I had 6, while the Alkari and Meklar had 5 each and the Psilon and Sakkra had 2 each. Because people abstained, I voted for the Silicoid, but even so, even though they were "relaxed" toward me, they still declined my trade agreement offerings.
In 2380, the Alkari finally declared war on me, having been restless with me all this time. When they launched their fleet at one of my colonies though, my 1 missile base was able to take care of it, because their fleet was still using lasers and heavy lasers.
In 2393, my spies on Alkari finally succeeded. I had the choice of tech categories available to me, and chose propulsion, hoping for their warp dissipator, but got range 7 instead. In retrospect, this was a big mistake; I knew their construction would have been duralloy, and getting duralloy for sure would have been much, much better than the chance of getting warp dissipator, because it would've increased my bases' hp by 50% and strengthened my transport ships and ground troops. Oh well.
On my first invasion on an Alkari colony, they survived it with 2 troops remaining. So I really should've chosen duralloy when I had the chance. Silicoid also took the opportunity to declare war on me, although they were off-and-on allied with the Alkari, and I'm not sure if they were allied with the Alkari at this point.
Anyway, at my next invasion in 2404, I ended up having 97 troops remaining, and captured 76 factories, but got no techs at all. Not a single one, even though the Alkari had more techs than me in every single tech field:
The capture meant I was in contact with the Meklar. They accepted my trade agreement. In the meantime, the Silicoid fleet arrived at one of my colonies. Their huge ships had something like 8 hp left when they destroyed my bases. Sigh.
A few turns later, in 2406, the Meklar declared war on me without provocation. It certainly wasn't because of my dealings with the Alkari, because they were at war with the Alkari too. Anyway, I start my invasion of Alkari's Xendalla.
Except in 2411, I notice that Xendalla was now Meklar's. Hopefully this means that there won't be many bases/ships in the way, since I was sending in troops unescorted.
In 2412, the Meklar fleet destroyed my bases just before I destroyed one of their ships. Sigh. The difference is that if their fleet is sufficiently weakened, then the bases that I make, even if destroyed, will gradually weaken their fleet. But if they have too many ships (i.e. too much firepower), then the 1 base I build every few turns won't destroy any ships before it's destroyed. So yeah not having duralloy is really hurting, although it's just bad luck that I'm having multiple battles where they're down to a few hp when my stuff gets destroyed. I do finally steal duralloy from the Alkari soon after, but it's already a bit too late.
Also in 2412, the Silicoid capture one of my colonies. Although they capture the colony's 72 factories with only 23 troops, they nevertheless made off with 3 of my technologies. Also, even though I had multiple colonies being besieged by the frontrunner Silicoid, a comet decides to go for one of my colonies:
Moro is (was) one of my "safe" colonies in the back that sends troops to the front lines when needed and does research when not. It was fully developed (had maxed factories). At this point, I don't have much of a fleet to speak of, and no way am I going to get one to Moro in time with the Silicoid fleets still on my bases. So the colony is effectively lost.
Hopefully things will get better though. In 2413, the Alkari sued for peace. I rejected to capture more of their planets (their planets were relatively weak), but they counteroffered with 1025 BC so I decided to take it and use that on my colonies. And in 2414, my troops arrived at the now-Meklar Xendalla.
Originally I had expected to land my troops unescorted through several Alkari bases, so I had sent a total of 263 troops to Xendalla. But since the Meklar had taken care of them, 250 of my troops got through the Meklar ships to land on Xendalla. 205 of those remained to take over Xendalla's factories. Hopefully I get something good with all those troops!
I ended up getting: battle computer 2.
A turn later, the Meklar captured my Dolz, which I had taken from Alkari and was still fortifying. My 97 troops captured 76 factories on it but didn't find anything; the 14 surviving Meklars captured 13 factories and managed to take inferno, one of my highest techs.
I manage to recapture Silicoid's Willow, with 15 surviving troops and 72 factories. This time I did get something: class 5 shields, which is a good boost. However, I found on subsequent turns that my missile bases were still using class 2 shields, not class 5 shields; I have no idea why. I was building bases (i.e. not pre-existing ones, but new ones), and was putting research into force fields.
I retake Dolz from Meklar, with 28 surviving troops taking 23 factories. I get...absolutely nothing from it. Meanwhile, the Silicoids recapture Willow, with 27 troops and 72 factories, and got my ion rifle, my most recent tech.
Is it just me or do my troops seem to have trouble finding techs, while the computers races have no problem getting techs from me? I don't think I've ever played a game where I capture so many planets and yet get so little, while the computers are able to take my best techs with ease. And this is on impossible difficulty, where the computer usually out-techs the player and so a few techs from computer races can really help out the player (and a computer race will usually have many techs to take). In fact, Meklar's techs the turn after I got battle computer 2 from them (with 205 troops on 16 factories) was:
I don't really know how the tech capturing works (other than "more surviving troops" and "more factories" increase chances/quantity of techs), nor how random events work (other than that it's supposed to help the underdog), but these are games where the player really didn't get much from tech-swapping in ground invasions while the computer races get a lot, and the random events favor the computer races even when they're leading already. Not to mention how the computer AI declares war randomly.
It's difficult to really get the flavor of variant rules (such as beam-only) when random stuff seems to outweigh the player's strategies sometimes -- in effect, playing a sophisticated version of roulette rather than a game whose outcome depends on the player's strategies. I'm guessing this is why a good deal of Imperium games restrict random events to be after year XXXX, or perhaps no random events at all, although this wouldn't affect how the computer vs player gets techs from invasions or how the computer races decide to declare war.
Anyone have some insight on how this stuff works, in terms of how the code rolls for the different random stuff in the game? I'd be interested to see if the code really does purposely screw the player on higher difficulties more often with respect to random events and techs from ground invasions, or if I'm just getting a bad streak. I'm using Kyrub's patch to generate new games and playing them unmodified.
Recap of the ground invasions:
Code:
User Race Year Colony Troops Factories Techs taken
Player Mrrshan 2332 Stalaz 11 1 (none)
Player Mrrshan 2335 Antares 32 19 (none)
Comp Darlok 2336 Stalaz 18 1 (none)
Player Mrrshan 2338 Stalaz 4 2 hyper-v
Comp Darlok 2346 Antares 3 19 hand lasers
Player Mrrshan 2404 Dolz 97 76 (none)
Comp Silicoid 2412 Willow 23 72 hyper-v, personal deflector shield, range 7
Player Mrrshan 2414 Xendalla 205 16 battle 2
Comp Meklar 2415 Dolz 14 13 inferno
Player Mrrshan 2415 Willow 15 72 class 5 shields
Player Mrrshan 2417 Dolz 28 23 (none)
Comp Silicoid 2417 Willow 27 72 ion rifleCode:
User Troops Factories Techs taken
Player 392 209 hyper-v, battle 2, class 5 shields
Comp 85 177 hand lasers, hyper-v, personal deflector shield, range 7, inferno, ion rifle
