Well, since tech trades were suggested, figured I'd put together a little selection of what's on offer from each of our opponents:
Meklonar: They'll give us fusion bombs or ii8 for BC3, or improved space scanner for sublights.
Birbs: No spying info so can't do anything lol
Brains: Inertial stabiliser for range 6
Rocks: Any of Ion Rifle/ Planetary V shield/improved space scanner/range 7 for sublights
Humans: Nothing!
Bugs: Autorepair or improved scanners for scatter pack Vs.
Initial thoughts: Trading away scatter Vs to the bugs feels entirely fine since we're not attacking them and they're meh offensive weapons, obviously grab scanners in that case. No point doing the brain trade since we're about to get the tech ourselves. Giving tech to the meklonar given we're about to attack them doesn't feel great, but it is our only shot at fusion bombs (assuming the birds can't give us them) and BC3 is good but not amazing given that they already have BC2, so tempted to go for that, II8 is kinda meh. I'd love either ion rifles or planetary shields from the rocks (getting an advantage on invasions sounds fun), but I really don't want to trade away sublights to them, so undecided. I think if the birds came up with similar trades we might want to say yes? They seem to be a bit larger than the bots based on currently available trade deals (side note, looking at trade have we seriously never upped the brains from the initial 125BC offer? I tend to increase all trade as often as possible as a matter of course, so given that they're currently capable of 10x that value, it feels wrong not to be doing it already lol. Is there a reason not to constantly increase trade treaties, does the profit rate reset every time? I think this one should be updated no matter what, unsure about others).
And on the topic of techs, annoyed at myself for not bringing it up earlier, but since we doubled back in propulsion we can see the way ahead afterwards already, fusion drives/range 8/warp dissipator. I assume we're all basically agreed on grabbing the better engines next?
We just met the birds, so no spying info (or trades) on them yet. Once that is going, hopefully they might have something useful to trade.
Faster engines for next Propulsion tech sounds good. We have enough range to be in contact with most of the AIs, and with the rocks being so large I doubt there are many unclaimed planets in the rest of the galaxy.
Other trade ideas sound good, assuming we avoid stuff we have in percentages. Ion rifles could be useful for planned future ground assaults.
On trade deals, in MOO upping the amount did reset (partially, I think) the profitability of the existing trade. So there was a cost to doing so in lost revenue for a while. I do not know if that is still true in RotP. I tend to only make large increases in deals, and avoid small increases because of that. (Unless I am playing as the humans.) I missed that there was a chance for a much bigger deal with the brains.
Good turns, Haphazard! I like the choice to go back for better terraforming (and it sounds like we're close to finishing it already!) and saving Advanced Eco for next. Especially with all our hostile worlds (and one UR!) and the extra space on every world will help a huge amount. (And our lizards' rapid breeding doesn't help us if they have no room to grow!) Nice job picking up Vorlianth (poor or not, it's a good source of population!) and trying for Talurth. It was worth a try, and maybe Dp101 will be able to claim it after all! Of course our missile cruisers were showing their age decades ago, and I think we've mostly been keeping them around just as cardboard cut-outs so our opponents will think we have military when looking at the graphs, since no one's been eager to build another temporarily-up-to-date, soon-to-be-mothballed fleet before we have an actual use and plan for it. That was my reasoning during my set anyway!
Assuming the High Council meets every 25 years like in MoO (though unlike MoO, not necessarily on turns that are multiples of 25) it should arrive on T145 (halfway through Dp101's set) since Brian reported the first one happening on T120 (Brian's last interturn).
On techs, I agree with Dp101 on basically everything, though I'd be reluctant to trade away Sublight Drives to the game leaders, strategic speed being of vital importance to everything. And yes, even though the dissipator can be nice, Fusion Drives + Stabilizer = Doom Drives, which look to me like they may be even more powerful in Remnants than in MoO! (Plus, repeat of previous comment about strategic speed!)
As for trade deals, in MoO these start by costing your empire a quarter of their value each turn (or a quarter of the difference when upgrading from a lower to higher value deal) and gradually start costing less and less until they break even and then start making a profit of (eventually) the amount shown in the deal. For this reason, when dealing with Erratic leaders (like the Mentarans' here) who could declare for no reason at any moment, I only ever establish trade for the minimum possible amount, mostly just to keep relations from tanking. (I.e. to reduce the chances of getting declared on prior to the erratic die roll coming up snake-eyes....) The exceptions are the Humans, for whom all trade deals start profiting more or less immediately. I don't know if any of this holds true in Remnants though; I haven't looked at the trade deal behaviors closely.
Regardless, good luck with the set, Dp101! I'm looking forward to seeing what the game looks like in ten turns!
Quote:or a quarter of the difference when upgrading from a lower to higher value deal
This was the main bit about trade deals I was wondering, good to hear it spelled-out. So it seems like upgrading trade deals doesn't reset the progress on the entire thing, it's basically just like starting a new trade agreement on top of the existing one. I will say that I feel like I've seen erratic leaders be a tad less erratic in RotP so personally I'd have upped the trade deal, but I do also tend to play optimistically lol.
I agree that I don't really want to trade away sublights to the rocks, but the prizes offered are quite tempting. My hope is that the birds will turn out to have one or both those techs and will lack something that's considerably less valuable, but who knows. In general, my philosophy around tech trading is that the AI will steal whatever you have eventually somehow (maybe via stealing from a trade partner you feel safe interacting with, for example, or maybe invading said partner, or just plain spying on you done by anyone and then the results passed around), so you might as well get something in return before you lose the opportunity to do so. There's some limits to this (I won't hand over super advanced things, colonisation tech, or engines most of the time) but in general I'll take most trades offered unless it's truly awful. All that to say that I'm probably still not going to take any trades for sublights since they're just too important rn lol, but wanted to give some context as to why I didn't immediately chuck the ideas out the window.
So current list of trades to do is probably just limited to scatter packs to bugs for scanners, BC3 to bots for bombs, nothing else. Probably going to play my set in a few hours, maybe longer? Thinking about it, I probably do play too quickly for many suggestions from others to get in on time, might hold back for once.
(May 12th, 2024, 00:34)Dp101 Wrote: So it seems like upgrading trade deals doesn't reset the progress on the entire thing, it's basically just like starting a new trade agreement on top of the existing on.
Yes, exactly - at least, that's how it works in MoO!
Your point about tech trading whenever possible since everyone will eventually get everything via some version of theft anyway is a good one though, and I won't object to any deal you want to make ... though I'll note three devil's advocate points on the proposed Meklar deal:
1) If we end up fielding max-maneuverability small ships with stabilizers, for instance, then the scatter packs from BC3 bases will hit them twice as often as BC2 bases (20% vs 10%) unless we cram on ECM2+ somehow and make our ships more expensive but cut everything down to 5% to hit. (Except ... it's possible Remnants has different rules for this....) One level of BC tech can actually make a big difference (much less so when we use larger ships though....)
2) If we're really going to be attacking them soon, might we not expect to get fusion bombs and whatever else we want from them in invasions? (Of course if they tech Planetary V and get shields up at all their worlds before we reverse-engineer those bombs, this objection to the trade will look very silly.)
3) This is a small and silly difference, but increasing a rival's computer tech level does improve their spying against us and worsen ours against them (both only slightly since this won't be their state of the art).
Devil's-Advocating over though, I'll be happy with whatever you choose!
Quote:Thinking about it, I probably do play too quickly for many suggestions from others to get in on time, might hold back for once.
For what it's worth, even if I sometimes have missed opportunities to respond, I doubt if anyone objects to playing and posting turns fast! On the contrary, I suspect I play too slowly most of the time! I love it when everybody's engaged in the game with lots of discussion, but a quick turn-around on a well-reported set of turns can be at least as good for that as a slow wait for someone like me to get a set finished at all, even with interesting questions to raise in between! That's my take, anyway....
(May 12th, 2024, 00:34)Dp101 Wrote: So it seems like upgrading trade deals doesn't reset the progress on the entire thing, it's basically just like starting a new trade agreement on top of the existing on.
Yes, exactly - at least, that's how it works in MoO!
Your point about tech trading whenever possible since everyone will eventually get everything via some version of theft anyway is a good one though, and I won't object to any deal you want to make ... though I'll note three devil's advocate points on the proposed Meklar deal:
1) If we end up fielding max-maneuverability small ships with stabilizers, for instance, then the scatter packs from BC3 bases will hit them twice as often as BC2 bases (20% vs 10%) unless we cram on ECM2+ somehow and make our ships more expensive but cut everything down to 5% to hit. (Except ... it's possible Remnants has different rules for this....) One level of BC tech can actually make a big difference (much less so when we use larger ships though....)
2) If we're really going to be attacking them soon, might we not expect to get fusion bombs and whatever else we want from them in invasions? (Of course if they tech Planetary V and get shields up at all their worlds before we reverse-engineer those bombs, this objection to the trade will look very silly.)
3) This is a small and silly difference, but increasing a rival's computer tech level does improve their spying against us and worsen ours against them (both only slightly since this won't be their state of the art).
Devil's-Advocating over though, I'll be happy with whatever you choose!
Quote:Thinking about it, I probably do play too quickly for many suggestions from others to get in on time, might hold back for once.
For what it's worth, even if I sometimes have missed opportunities to respond, I doubt if anyone objects to playing and posting turns fast! On the contrary, I suspect I play too slowly most of the time! I love it when everybody's engaged in the game with lots of discussion, but a quick turn-around on a well-reported set of turns can be at least as good for that as a slow wait for someone like me to get a set finished at all, even with interesting questions to raise in between! That's my take, anyway....
Fair points on the tech trade, I definitely underrate accuracy/dodge because the stat is somewhat invisible, compared to shields where the effect is dramatic, though unless the source I have is incorrect, BC3 vs manoeuvre 5 (sublight 3 + stabiliser 2) should be 30% to hit, with BC2 being 20%, since there's a 2-point difference in the first case and 3 points in the second, so it's only 50% more damage rather than 100% more. And getting bombs from invasions is fair, nukes will probably be enough to get one world, and one world should get enough techs to keep going. The spying point I do want to push back on a tad though (though I acknowledge you already labelled it as silly, but this is a different angle), just because if we *are* going to move to a hot war, we'll be much more likely to acquire techs through the aforementioned invasions rather than spying, so there's less of a need to care about that aspect as much as we'd need to otherwise.
Anyways, will probably play in an hour or so then, I know myself I enjoy it when turns go fast, but at the same time, I'm not everyone so I can't just go off of what I think I'd personally enjoy lol.
Ok, inherited turn. Dial up spy spending on the birds to get a picture of their tech situation before I make any trades, and take a quick look around, throwing some reserve spending into Avantador due it being unaffected by the poor penalty (such a useful bit of info, transformative when it comes to setting up these planets) and staring at Apophis with a vague sense of bewilderment, not understanding how come waste has dropped it down to 6 maximum population. I also increase trade with everyone we're not planning on fighting, which'll hurt a little but hopefully not too much.
End turn, and see a fight start at Tanzan, a rock colony apparently. I've definitely failed to keep up with things since I have no idea why we have ships there at this point. And then the humans immediately validate not trading for scanners immediately:
This is so much better it's not even funny. I wonder why the humans weren't allowing us to offer this trade ourselves? The AI seems to have different thresholds for what it'll let us propose vs what it's willing to propose itself. Autorepair pops, along with class IV deflectors, only construction option available is ii6, though I'm not complaining given that ii9 is still our state of the art. I opt to pursue it rather than doubling back for reduced waste 60%, it's not that much more expensive (11k vs 7.2k) and we may very well have RW40% at the next tier. Shields is repulsors vs class V shields, I take the latter even though we just got class IV because repulsors are a bit more of a gimmick than I want to indulge. The birds have basically the same tech as everyone else:
But they won't give us any of it, alas. And in fact now only the meklonar and mentaran will trade techs with us, strange. Inertial stabilisers pop the turn after, fusion drives next as expected, and the humans show up asking for a NAP. Sure? With that out of the way, I slap together a basic bomber, can fit 1 nuclear bomb along with a BC1 on a small, so that's what I go with. I also scrap and replace the Debugger design with one that focuses purely on ion cannons, I'd be able to fit 26 with no other changes other than dropping manoeuvrability, or 21 while also swapping out Duralloy for class IV shields (down to 19 if I keep the armour too). Into a mirror of our current weapons (ion cannons and hyper-Vs, which is what the meklonar have available to them) the new deflectors will cut the missile damage to a third and average ion damage to an average of 2.5 for damaging shotss, except 1/3rd of shots will deal no damage at all so 5/3 average taking that into account, and... eh, that's probably enough defences, but losing <10% of firepower for 50% more HP is probably worth it, so I put the armour back on. The new design:
The old design was titled the debugger, but I figure we should be making meklonar lives more miserable rather than less, so I name this one the Glitcher, and set 2 of our larger planets to build it while a third starts spitting out Sweeper bombers.
The following turn (T143) the Meklonar call us up wanting BCIII, but offering an alternative to fusion bombs, personal deflector shields. I.... could really go either way on this one, but we've got much better pop-growing capabilities than they do between racial advantages and soil enrichment, so I figure it's probably better to be cautious and secure space superiority better and simply send more waves if the lack of ground combat tech burns us. Terraforming +30 also pops, of course it's right as I started to make ships... anyways, as it turns out the Meklonar are determined to trade *something* for their bombs or shields, somehow deciding range 6 is a prize that would be worth it, so I take the personal shields in exchange. At this point I get to learn that it'll only take 2 turns to remax factories on the shipbuilding planets after spending a fraction of their production last turn on the terraforming, so I figure it's probably not too much of a delay.
Council vote comes around, and we've made it!
Candidacy, the first step on the road to victory... I abstain to keep the rocks happy-ish, we then pick up 30 votes, so with ours counted towards us we'd have needed 14 more to win outright, with the rocks only hitting 23 themselves. The brains liked us for whatever reason and voted for us, the bugs are at war with the rocks, and the bots... well, I just feel bad for them at this point, they like us enough to vote for us and we're going to horribly murder them. They immediately ask for a NAP next, and... I really want to be nice to them, but there's just no one else who it makes sense for us to attack! Only meklonar territory flows into ours well, at least in terms of factions we can beat. It's really a shame. Anyways, turns out the birds now do want to allow trade proposals, giving us either RW60% or range 7 for auto-repair, I grab the former since I do not believe in the AI's ability to use autorepair well.
By turn 149 we've largely remaxed on +30, and every previously-developed world has managed it by T150. Some brief notes:
Yes, I am running growth at a hostile world at DalBinth, with reserve spending's efficiency unaffected by its hostile nature it's just fine and it has to max somehow, pls don't touch (or at least talk before touching, lol).
I upped maximum base count in our nebula worlds (ok, not at Vorlianth since it's not finished building and it's poor so idk how many it can make practically) to try to deter invasions, once that's over Bevurth can probably go to shipbuilding for now, medium term reserve duty, long-term back to ships - the nebula makes moving stuff in any direction other than offensively against worlds to the west of it (and 17 Aquila counts enough there) way too painful, so it's suited to build ships for this conflict, but after that it can fund the reserve just fine regardless of nebula, and then when (if) we eventually get star gates it can go back to building ships now that they'll be able to get out at a decent pace.
We've got 7 total glitches and 228 total sweepers, most currently in transit. I think 10 glitches + however many sweepers we wind up with at that point in time should be enough to secure a good offensive into meklonar worlds, but I'm not gonna say no to a hastier attack, I just want to make sure. I'm thinking 6 Pisces will be the easiest first target, but it'll require invasions starting from pretty far out given how hostile/few/small our planets in the local area are, so the latency is going to be annoying. 53 Aquila may well be better on account of that.
I didn't do anything with autorepair because I feel like this is too awkward a point in military tech for designs to have enough longevity to make autorepair huges worth it, and it's also rough to do so with no Zortrium. With fusion drives and better bombs I could see it though.
The bugs will give planetary shields for RW60%, I have absolutely no idea whether it's worth it or not, no other noteworthy trades.
I suggest keeping reserve spending up at Vorlianth to help it get its factories up despite the poor penalty.
An overview:
Overall, feeling good, right on the cusp of excitement... but it seems that I only got to be around for long enough to architect the fleet, not to realise its potential. Guess that'll be up to RefSteel now.
With the additional pop from Terraforming+30 we should be very close to matching the rocks now. It is a shame that the Meklonar actually like us, but they are the obvious target for our initial conquest. I wonder where in the galaxy the Nazlok and Ursinathi are? They must be very limited in world count to have so few votes.
The nebula effect really makes movement S_L_O_W. I usually play with them turned off, because it just makes things so tedious. Moving inasion forces around is going to take forever. And finding pop to send from smaller hostile worlds will also make things difficult.
Some very nice turnsets haphazard1 and Dp101. On tech trading, I agree with RefSteel that trading engines is probably the least preferred type of trade. Speed kills after all.
Looks like that by the time the game comes back to me (set after next) we'll be either at war or coming out of one.
In that vein Ref's UP!
Travelling on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
Quickly, before I have a chance to look at the save:
- Looks like great turns! Thanks for setting mine up for some excitement! Let's see if I can manage an invasion in RotP!
- I should have specified in describing the value of a +1 battle computer in our circumstances: All missile bases come with the Battle Scanner special, which adds an additional +1 to attack level in addition to scanning enemy ship stats and adding a +3 additional bonus (on top of the attack level boost) to initiative. So BC3 bases get attack level 4, not 1 (and I'd definitely have put a battle computer on our new cruisers, but they'll be strong as-is).
Quote:Yes, I am running growth at a hostile world at DalBinth, with reserve spending's efficiency unaffected by its hostile nature it's just fine and it has to max somehow, pls don't touch (or at least talk before touching, lol).
- I intend to cancel any and all growth spending on every world unless and until they start sending transports off en masse. We can discuss the micro advantages and disadvantages of force-growing to max, but on the macro level, we're about to start a war, and I'll want everything I've got to support that effort immediately!
- For similar reasons, I probably won't take the deal for Planetary Vs, though I might revisit that if I think stationary defenses will be more important than I'm hoping they will be in the immediate future. They obviously will be important, but right now I think I'm going to want those BCs going into other things (especially since some of our key worlds appear to be in the nebula and therefore unable to benefit from the shields).
I'll post an actual goti-it and inherited turn report when I have a chance to check the save; in the meantime, any thoughts or suggestions would be very welcome! I know how the MoO AI defends and counter-attacks, but nothing at all about how the Modnar AI responds to war!
It is a shame that the Meklonar actually like us, but they are the obvious target for our initial conquest. I wonder where in the galaxy the Nazlok and Ursinathi are? They must be very limited in world count to have so few votes.
I usually play with them turned off, because it just makes things so tedious. Moving inasion forces around is going to take forever. And finding pop to send from smaller hostile worlds will also make things difficult.
