I've seen the AI use those ships to survey anomalies. Otherwise, I wouldn't have considered trying to do this. Still, it doesn't matter, because I can't manage to recreate what I did back then. I'm missing something, but I don't know what.

I added the base production, because the AI was often placing Power Plants and other production enhancers on bonus tiles. Otherwise, those tiles would be completely wasted. Plus, I wasn't just talking about manufacturing bonus tiles, but all of them. The AI, especially AIP 11, regularly places mismatched improvements on those tiles. Just look at this:

It's an old screenshot, from when I was working on Autumn Twilight. The farms where a bit stronger at that time. The stupidity, however, hasn't changed. At least AIP 7 and 8 are doing mostly okay.

Just because you wouldn't, doesn't mean that nobody else would. We have to take all players into account.

Please read again what I wrote, because that's not what I said.

Please don't make any assumptions about what matters to me, or not. You don't know me.

I usually play as the Yor, Iconians, or Thalan. So using Tidal Disruption isn't going to change much, because most of the improvements are already going to get destroyed. I don't use Mass Drivers and the like, however, even though I know how to circumvent the penalties. The AI, on the other hand, has no compunctions about using those tactics. The same is probably true for some players too.

I want the AI and player to play the same game. If one side can't use something due to a bug, then that is not acceptable to me. No matter how minor the problem may seem.

I couldn't care less about the speed bonus itself. It's the ability to make use of a unique Arcean improvement without having the necessary technology to build it, that I objected to in my example.

Super Warriors is worthless, if you can't initiate the combat. You need to be faster than the enemy to get good use out of it, so I don't consider it compensation.

I only removed the Arcean's racial speed penalty. The total amount of bonuses they get from their techs is unchanged. Only the way to unlock them, and the cost of some of the techs, are a bit different. Overall, that gives them a +1 to speed compared to the vanilla game.

The Arceans can already become one of the fastest race in the vanilla game (the Thalan can become even faster), so I'm not seeing why this is suddenly an issue. The only true way to prevent this is to prevent the Arceans from buying Propulsion techs, because making their own Propulsion techs freely tradeable again wouldn't change a thing. It would just revert everything to how it was before.

Making the Arceans faster would go against their design, but they needed some way to make better use of their SA. Slowing enemy ships down to their own speed seemed like the most fitting way to do this. However, the AI doesn't use these modules, so they are pretty much a player-only option. Also, those modules are worthless to the Yor, because their SA supersedes them.

I'm going to reduce the total econ bonus from the Efficiency Studies techs to 50%, and see if that is enough for them to run everything.

Why dose it say my current security setting stop me from downloading this? I think its my dropbox account.

Ok, I'm sorry, I didn't guess to that. But it's nice to know that it can happen, although I've also unsuccessfully tried it (by altering GC2Ships.xml) but maybe I should give it another try! 

This screenshot is perfectly ok with the logical routines that are part of the program . For a human player it doesn't make much "sense" but a computer doesn't associate like a human brain but instead works in logical routines.

I can give you a symbolic example:

1. If NextObjectInBuildQueue=Factory AND ProductionBonusTile=True then PlaceObject else go NextRoutine/Line -->

2. If BonusTile=UnTrue then PlaceObject else go NextRoutine/Line -->

3. PlaceObject

4. Return

This subroutine will do the following:

It places a factory on a factory-bonus tile. If no such bonus-tile is present it will place the factory on an empty tile (to not clock up other bonustiles). And lastly, it will force the object to be placed no matter how the condition is, in the case where no non-bonustiles are free (for example, only one last tile free and there is an unrelated bonus on it)

With these 3 easy logical combinations it is possible to describe what did happen in your screenshot.

The planetary governor of the AI worked down it's queue:

1. Starport

2. Central Mine

3. Recruiting Center

everything that follows now is already irrelevant no matter how you sort it, though it did include

- Temple of Memoires

- Farm

- Bank

Let's treat the above logical combinations as a subroutine which is feeded with our queue, (although everytime the game gets a new object in his queue it will first check whether this brings any bonuses to the table which could be associated with bonustiles [the game does this, it's easily recheckable using the planetary governor], and further, let line 1 not only work with factories but with all sorts of bonuses [this is doable by using the logical element "OR" right within the line or create just another line below 1.])

Then the result would be this:

1. Places Starport on empty tile (not bonus related)

2. Places Central Mine on production bonus tile

3. Forces Recruiting Center on random tile, in this case it's the food tile.

4. Forces all other improvements on random bonustiles.

You can use the planetary governor to verify that the logical placement of improvements is exactly like this.

We can further deduce from this what the game is unable to do, for example it will NOT EXAMINE what kind of bonustiles are available on planet (on colonization) and then design his social queue in order to get the most out of it; or, in other words, THE AI DOESNT SPECIALIZE PLANETS. You yourself acknowledged that multiple times here in this forum, and even in this thread - so why do you now expect him to do otherwise? Every novice player knows this instinctively from what he sees within his game .

The AI doesn't think like this "Oh, a lot of research bonus tiles, let's make a superresearch planet out of here. Hmmm, we have pretty less space available, so let's just put the TechCap, a RCC & ORC on it, fill the rest up with labs and let's even go so far to NOT build a starport or the other 1pp stuff, to really get the most out of it." That's human player thinking, the AI isn't doing that (although it could be done using logical routines, no problem here in the first place, although it would seriously incapacitate him in the following stuff:)

The AI doesn't even put up such a long build queue, he only enqueues a few improvements which reflect his GLOBAL NEEDS. This is actually a necessary programing to ensure that the AI doesn't get entrapped with specializing. For example, if an AI needs more money he can still enqueue banks EVEN IF he is in the situation of having alot of other-related bonustiles at his planets.

Yesterday I've written that I'm going to take the Drath in my game because they seem to be paralysed by a non-functioning economy + no farms. Well, gues what happened. He researched both - and by placing Stock Markets & farms at his planets he recovered. He's now leading in MMR & economically . That was only possible because his global needs were reflected in his research plans + planetary queue plans. Re-checking his planets here and then I can see he didn't optimally specialize his planets, but still globally it does make sense altogether. The game is still challenging, and that's the important factor, the essential function of the AI .

Gaunathor, your question of how many times I've seen the AI placing a Power Plant on a production bonus tile let me lay awake tonight. I cannot remember such a single incident although I've played nearly 100 games (!) in the last 2 months (you can see it in my MV profile or the AltMeta) using the UNMOODED game.

The funny thing is that right now testplaying this mod here it did change dramatically, (for example the Drath do have some of such planets [also with the RCC]), but in order to verifiy that I made some tests: conclusive.

See for yourself. Take the Drengin and control-N as long as you have 2 production-related bonustiles at your homeplanet, then use CTRL+SHIFT+R give yourself all technologies. The Drengin do have 2 production enhancing improvements (Devils Forge & Death Furnace), make a planetary governor:

1. Starport

2. Devils Forge

3. Death Furnace

4. Slave Canyon

5. Slave Canyon

Put this governor on your planet and check the results:

USING THIS MOD:

- Starport isn't placed because it's already there

- Devils Forge placed on bonus tile (bad)

- Death Furnace placed on bonus tile (bad)

- both Slave Canyons placed on free tile, because no bonus tiles were available anymore (bad)

USING VANILLA:

- Starport isn't placed because it's already there

- Devil's Forge placed on non-bonus tile (good)

- Death Furnace placed on non-bonus tile (good)

- both Slave Canyons placed on bonus-tiles (good)

The vanilla game does handle itself correctly, at least, in the described dimensions. As you see, there is a reason why many/most enhancing improvements do ONLY hold a percentage bonus and NO BASE - so the game can handle the placement correctly. At least, in his standard manor.

The balancing of the improvements did incorporate the devs knowledge of the hardcoded routines, something we can only guess at, or deduce from what we see in our games, although ultimately, things might still be way more complicated as it may appear in the first place 

If I now use the governor to design either a research-only planet, or a production-only planet, and if there is a related bonus-tile on such planet then I will have to manually correct the queue all the time - although it did work out fine in the unmodded game. 

Are you ok with introducing new nuissances? Esp. when I have reasons to believe that the AI uses the same logical routines and that it's not possible for the AI to "manually correct" himself....

I agree, but you asked me "if I would do that"  so I answered accordingly...

I agree again. But if you are really so adamant about this self-imposed standard you will have no other choice as to throw Terror Stars out of the game. The AI cannot use them. He does neither build them nor use them to destroy something, and if he gets one it will turn the game in an endless loop which ultimately will mean that you have to abort your game if you don't find a way to destroy this Terror Star in the previous turn.

It has always be this way, and it still is even... in your mod...

You are arbitrarily imposing rules (your rules, not the community ones) while disregarding them without explanations in other cases. For example, right now I have several Torian Central Mines under my control (as Yor) although I cannot trade for this technology. In the case of their Harvesters, they do now get destroyed. Why?

And this arbitrarily thinking doesn't halt from other regions of the game as well. For example, why do Yor or Iconians now get access to the governmental forms as well? These 2 races are right now well over the top, Yor don't need additional economy bonuses, and thematically it doesn't fit that robots go voting a government when the Lore tells us otherwise.

You are always very fast to use the Lore as an indisposable basis for your argumentation, while totally disregarding its "logics" in other cases.

Ever thought about it that "Efficiency Studies"  is their replacement for the missing government?

Their +100% loyalty is their replacement for the missing influence branch?

Their Stalks are the replacement of the missing morale branch?

And so on and so forth.

This is the main essence of Twilight versus Dark Avatar - different races play out differently because of different techtrees. And that there are races who cannot do everything, and this imposes a challenge for the human player who will have to find other means to be successfull. 

You've tried to reverse that by homogenizing alot of trees that were totally differently than other trees...

And I'm not the only one here noting this, there was someone here in this thread who gave an equal message, for example, that Yor and Iconian shouldn't have governments: HE WAS IGNORED.

PS: these are only two isolated examples. As the current state of the game is, there are well over dozens of changes made that both contradict your "rules", the Lore, or what TotA has introduced as new.

Yes, and it was actually a well-built planet (though a bit low on approval), if you ignore all the bonus tiles.

However, I've seen enough examples where the logic just doesn't add up, in my opinion. For example, a Market Center on a research tile, even though there are five or more empty tiles available, a planet with a Factory on an approval tile and a Entertainment Network on a manufacturing tile, the Tech Capital on a Precursor Mine, and so on. Some things make sense when you think about them and look at the big picture. Other things, however, just make you scratch your head, and wonder what the AI was thinking.

The AI doesn't make Econ worlds. However, it does use the other two specialisations. Though not to the same extent as a human player would. For example, AIP 11, as I mentioned before, turns its low-PQ planets into manufacturing worlds. All it builds on them is the Starport, factories, production enhancers, and the occasional wonder.

Well, at least I'm not the only one who can't sleep. Though in my case it's my neighbours.  

Okay, I'm going to remove the production and research from the enhancers, and see if the AI still places them on bonus tiles. It's possible that I'm mistaken. Lack of sleep, combined with depression, isn't exactly good for the memory.

No, that's the last thing I want.

By the way, I've removed the PQ-bonus from the Extreme Colonization tech, and added a +10% Pop. Growth bonus instead. The PQ-bonus was a bit too much, after all.

Also, any opinions on the new racial abilities, or the new buildcosts shown in the spreadsheet? I'd really like to get some feedback on those.

It might not be the same kind of specializing as when a player is setting up a manufacturing world. Now this is only a very wild guess on my side but in a way it's logical:

PQ2 is the first class the AI is colonizing, I assume because planets without a starport don't make much sense to the devs. 

From PQ3-6 there are free tiles available, the question is, what is best to do with these?

Moral, farms & economic structure make no sense because these planets cannot grow high population.

So it's either labs or factories. But because the starport is also there factories make more sense because it becomes more efficient the more factories you put "behind" it. Also, a few military & tactical rationales might come into play her (because research is globally distributed)

So, for lowPQ worlds starport & facs are actually the best thing to do.

What I now assume (without knowing it) is that the game doesn't alter its information once a planet gets terraformed into high PQ - maybe because this part of the code was written back in Dread Lords were alot of these low PQ planets stayed low PQ.

I've taken them into the game and currently play around with it.

From my current game I've noticed something when I want to buy stalks.

A Basic Stalk is 192 bcs, a Charging Stalk is 294 bcs, and an Advanced is 390 bcs.

Now if I first buy/build the Basic Stalk and afterwards overbuild it with a Charging Stalk then mysteriously the additonal costs of the Charging Stalk aren't taken into full account, because it's only 60 bcs to pay. Even on the full prize there is a "refund".

The same happens in slightly reduced manner if you overbuild the Basic Stalk with an Advanced one, the cost are only 146 bcs.

Paradoxically, if I build the Charging Stalk and tried to overbuild it with an Advanced Stalk then the cost would be 294 bcs.

So, in the first example 338bcs vs 546bcs (!), and these costs do as well reflect in the SP requirements of the Social Queue.

There's something bugged, which is related when improvements of different tiers are too close to each other in its costs, but maybe you know something about it?

***

Another thing is about stealing techs. The Drath have researched both Industrial Centers & also Stock Markets, but they currently build Barter Stations & Slave Pits at their planets. I'm playing without techtrade/broker so these techs must have been stolen. Now I don't know how you see it but to me, and for the AI, I think this is a bummer.... Esp. that he cannot upgrade this structures..... If anything, stealing techs should result in something positively....

Looking at the build queues of his planets it seems that he doesn't sort/prioritize these different factories/banks in accordance to their strength, it's basically a 50/50 thing.

The only thing that's ok is that Bartering brings +5% economics, SlavePits do nothing....

I dont know. Twilight introduced a number of alternative branches (like Evil-labs, Torian-labs, Korath-banks etc pp) that somehow seemed weaker than the generic one. I can only surmise that this has been done in order to stiffle these races in specific places, maybe it would be good idea to disable the trade or stealing of these techs? 

The AI's inability to use Terror Stars isn't due to a bug though. It just hasn't been coded to use them. Though if we go that route, I'd also need to remove the Atlas modules, and the RepairSB, RepairAssist (again), SlowEnemies, and Sensor SB modules too. Probably a couple more things I'm not thinking of at the moment. However, I'm not going to remove major features of the game. Not that Stardock would let me do that anyhow.

How am I supposed to use the community rules, when those never got established in the first place?

The Central Mine was always indestructible, and it makes some sense, if you think about it. Why would a huge hole in the mantle of the planet simply disappear, just because nobody "can make use of it"? Plus, it's hard to believe that only the Torians could use of it. A mine is as simple and low-tech as it gets in GalCiv. Well, that's my "lore" reason for it. As for the "gameplay" reason, I couldn't find any objective reasons for changing it. I only change things, if they don't make sense to me, if they are too unbalancing, or if they are bugged. None of that applied to the Central Mine. Well, except for the cost.

The Harvester didn't make sense to me as an indestructible improvement. I also couldn't see it working for the Yor. They don't eat biological food (at least, not anymore). Most importantly though, the AI doesn't take foreign farming improvements into account when building its own. So it could end up with an Harvester and up to four farms on a planet, leading to massive overpopulation. This is also the main reason for why the Farming techs can longer be traded/stolen.

I already answered this back in reply #48.

Yes, I did. Though it's more of a combination between the Governments and Econ techs. The total value of the Econ bonus is 45%, which is the equivalent of the Econ bonus from the standard Econ techs (15%) and the supposed bonus of the Star Federation (30%). However, Star Federation actually provides a 40% bonus, so it's 10% short.

Well, they already had that loyalty bonus back in DL and DA, where they still had access to the culture branch. So it's not really a "replacement", in my opinion. However, if you look at TotA on its own, then yes, you could interpret it this way. It's also pretty logical. What culture would a bunch of robots, trying to exterminate all biological live, have that would interest biological lifeforms? Would those robots even care about this supposed "culture", let alone one created by the meatbags?

They're both that and the farms. However, the vanilla versions aren't doing a very good job as replacement for the morale techs. The Yor are the one race that needs high population the most, but they are also the one races least capable of sustaining that population.

That's not my intention. I wanted to:

1. make the tech trees a bit easier for the AI to handle by removing some of the early choices (i.e. moving some of the tech branches up the tree)

2. strengthen everybody's economy

3. make the non-factory using races independent of the SB modules of the factory-users

4. give everyone access to the Capitals and Governments

5. reduce the amount of techs the minor races lose access to in their tech tree, depending on which major is on the map

I din't ignore Trims2u. We discussed this, and I even shared his concern that the governments as they are don't fit those races. I even brought up the idea to give those techs different details and bonuses, in order to make them fit a bit better. However, I never got any feedback about this.

Then why didn't you say anything sooner? I'm not perfect. Mistakes are bound to happen. Especially when I have to do all the changes myself most of the time (though I'm glad that Mabus is helping now). That's why I'm constantly asking for feedback.

Absolutely. I'll make some screenshots when I see it again.

Makes sense.

There is definitely something wrong with it, but I still haven't figured out what exactly. Not that we could do anything about it though.

Yep. They can also be traded once more.

In general, I agree. However, by that logic, we'd need to make the standard factory, lab, morale, and econ techs also untradable/stealable, because not everyone can upgrade those either. I really wish we could set those tags per race.

I did that originally. And then Mabus convinced me to do otherwise. Damned, if you do... Just like home.

@Gaunathor

I checked out the spreadsheet. The building costs look good to me. I like how you've synced the first and in some cases 2nd tier of technology in costs and how the cost tapers off when you hit the more advanced tech.

I don't see how the AI could be faster than vanilla in this setup at the start of the game.

Did everyone drop from the face of the earth? 

Nope.  Just thinking, in my case.

If I may offer my own insight, I wasn't too thrilled about ditching the 1pp improvement chains that I created for my own mod. However, I realised that if I couldn't (re)build a particular improvement because of the bug, it could be a bit frustrating.  So for example, I turned a couple of Iconian improvement upgrades into Super Projects instead.

One of the downsides of making improvements indestructible is that you can't remove them to make way for your own plans.  In the case of the Central Mine, I don't mind so much, because with time, practically any race can meet or exceed the per-tile production, but early on it can be useful.

If there are too many indestructible 1pp improvements, though, there's little incentive to obtain or steal technology (if those are in play) when you can capture unique racial buildings intact.  Not olaying with tech trading or stealing on?  Then you won't be able to have particular buildings.

The reason for that is quite simple - if you're playing a no tech trade, no tech steal game, you're looking to play to your race's advantages and use your own buildings, not MacGyver together a bunch of different alien buildings.  If you're playing with trading or stealing on, then anything is fair game, and if you want to capture buildings intact (which you can build) you should pick an invasion tactic which reduces or eliminates the chance of collateral damage.

I've uploaded a new version. Here is the link.

The Drengin and Yor are back on AIP 7, and the Iconians are now on AIP 11.

The Civ Capital improvement now provides a 15% bonus to morale, and a 50% bonus to economy.

The Initial Colony improvement now provides a 15% bonus to morale.

The buildcosts of all improvements have been updated to the new values shown in the spreadsheet.

The production enhancers (Anti-Matter Power Plant, Research Coordinator, etc.) no longer provide base production. I was certain, that the AI builds them on bonus tiles, but it didn't happen in any of my tests. So I must have been either remembering it wrong, or it must be extremely rare. I suspect the latter.
There are some exceptions to this change, however. Namely the Doomsday Generator, the Neutrality Learning Center, the Precursor Library, and the Omega Research Center. The first three already provided base production in the vanilla game, while the ORC could use it to differentiate it more from the Tech Capital.

The (Advanced) Charging Stalks are now using the new icons provided by Maiden666.

The Dark Energy Lab now provides +20% to manufacturing and economy (instead of +20% to manufacturing, and +10% to economy). It felt a bit weak, because it no longer provided to 10% bonus to Weapons (and just lost the 6mp base production).

The Galactic Resort now provides +35% to morale and influence. The current +50% to morale were too much (and occasionally caused issues for the AI), while the original +25% were too low. Also, all of the standard morale improvements are more powerful and have no build-limit, so what was the point of the SP? Based on its description, it's a vacation spot. So it's reasonable to assume, that tourists would go there for their holidays, too, not just the citizens of the planet. I therefore added the influence bonus.

The Protection Fields SB module now requires the Defense Stations module (as I originally intended and wrote in the changelog).

I removed the Protection Racket SB module again (sorry, Mabus), and added a 10% Econ bonus to the Fortified Freighters tech. This made it possible to make Super Trade Starbases stealable again.

The Arcean propulsion techs can also be stolen once more.

The Drengin/Korath manufacturing techs, Torian lab techs, Iconian and Korath econ techs, and Altarian/Drath morale techs, can no longer be traded or stolen.

The Efficiency Studies techs now provide a total Econ bonus of 50% (instead of 90%).

All in all, the AI is doing pretty well now. It can still be improved though. However, you will need to do that yourself. I'm done.

The CU is now good enough to be sent in to Stardock, as far as I'm concerned. More importantly, however, the work on it has become more and more stressful. This, combined with my worsening depression, gives me only one choice: quit before I have another breakdown.

So, good luck with your continued work.

I still hope Frogboy will give his blessing to let me change the defeault AIs, if not that this is great work.

I am very sorry to hear about your depression and I sincerely hope you recover from it. Thank you for all your work and your commitment to this project.

Regards,

A.

Gauanthor, thanks for the herculean effort.  I'm not sure I could have done as well in your place.  I'm sorry that the project has stressed you out.  For what it's worth, if at some point you ever start a new project that needs people, I'll happily volunteer.

I've amended the top post somewhat to reflect the finishing stage we're at.  If you guys want to play test version 4 and offer further suggestions, then that's something that we can look at, but like Gaunathor said, the AI is doing pretty well already.

Just find something to live for, I ended my depression that way only a few years ago. Just getting your shit together and realizing everything you think you know and want is dumb and redo everything. Sovereign Fate ;- )

Hey guys.  Mabus and I had a chat on Skype earlier tonight and there are some things that we want to try out, including but not limited to a neat workaround for the AIP 7 colonisation problem.

Alas, I haven't had a chance tonight to play the test version that Mabus whipped up, but I think it'll play well.  You can expect a live stream on Twitch at some point tomorrow.

Okay. One last addendum, because I need to get it out of my system.

Maiden666 complained that the Charging Stalks and Distributed Energy Matrix are OP. I agree, but wasn't quite sure how to change that. Until now.

Charging Stalks:

In the vanilla game, you needed two Advanced Charging Stalks to get the equivalent output of a Intensive Farming and a Virtual Reality Center. In the CU, you currently only need one. The reason for this is that the output of the regular farms has been greatly reduced, and the morale bonus of the Stalks greatly increased.

I've run some tests, and the current AI value of the farms makes it possible to increase the output a little. A max value of 4mt works okay. So the farms now have a food bonus of 25%, 40%, and 50%. The Harvester also provides 50% food.

The Yor have a lot more racial bonuses to Morale, which makes them capable of handling a lower morale bonus from the Stalks. I therefore changed those back to 10%, 20%, and 30%.

All in all, the Advanced Charging Stalk now provides three quarter of the output of a Enhanced Xeno Farm and a Virtual Reality Center. Not perfect, but better than before.

Distributed Energy Matrix:

The Yor are supposed to be the best manufacturers. The DEM, however, not only ensures this, it also makes it impossible for any other race to come even close to the Yor's manufacturing output. Reducing the manufacturing bonus of the DEM, or increasing the maintenance, are two ways to solve this. However, I thought of a different way.

The Manufacturing Vortex now provides a manufacturing bonus of 30% (instead of 20%).

The Distributed Energy Matrix is now a GA, costs 500 again, has no maintenance, provides a 100% manufacturing bonus, 13mp, and a 10% Military Production bonus. In other words, it's now the manufacturing equivalent of the Iconian Precursor Library. The DEM tech also provides a 10% bonus to Social Production.

All in all, the Yor are still the best at production, but no longer quite as OP.

I originally intended to provide those changes in a separate download, so you can choose yourself, if you want to use them. However, I accidentally used the same name as the last version, and overwrote that one, before I knew what I was doing. <facepalm> So, same link as the last one.

I'm really sorry about this fuck-up, and hope, that this didn't screw anything up for you guys.

In any case, that's it from me.

Hey there. No it's doesn't and I'm glad you updated the Yor. Currently we are testing out some ideas how to get AIP7 to colonize better. Right now I've got the capital and colony base set at 200 prestige. AIP7 still scores lower but it does okey. The great thing about this method is that influence cancels out influence.

200 vs 200 is still zero so any structures you build still give you an equal advantage. Influence starbases can push out over 300 influence when fully upgraded so it's still possible to flip a planet just not as easy as before. I'm okey with that, imo influence is an easy way to win the game and investing a little more into it will go a long way into making it more challenging.

Regards,

A.

I've made an interesting discovery. AIP7 CAN colonize outside of it's territory it fails to LAUNCH it's colony ships unless there's a plent in it's territory. I know this might seem like a small difference but if we can trick the AI into launching it's ships THEN it will send them to a planet in or out of it's sphere of influence.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Some feedback on CU v4,  from a noobish player's perspective:

Huge,6 players,Tough AI,occasional planets,loose clusters.   I played Arcaen against Thalan, Terran, Torian, Drath, and Korx.   I started mid-map,  which can be a double edged sword but worked out in my favor as the speedier Arcaen are far better suited to it.   A key point is that I had tech trading turned off,  because I find it both a tedious chore and easily exploited.

Took me around 180 turns to sew up the game;  I went on the offensive early and hard,  taking two Econ resources from the Thalan before they could weaponize their mining bases,  then stomping their HW,  which was a production  powerhouse.   Kind of snowballed from there,  and despite the remaining AI banding together they didn't have a chance.

Things I really like about the mod:

* condensing of starbase upgrades.   I know this was done to help the AI,  and it shows,  but I like it too. 

* AI having mostly sensible planets,  with decent morale,  not overpopulating to the point where I always had *billions* of extra troops from Information Warfare.

* all the AIs I played against were pretty good on the colony rush despite the "occasional" setting.

* homeworlds having only 8b pop is easier on the AI for sure,  but also easier on the player!  

* I don't mind the lack of food tiles or +food buildings;  hardly ever used the tiles anyway because god forbid you missed cancelling an upgrade and suddenly you had 24b pop from *one* farm.

* I paid close attention to the AI's economy / morale / research and I have to say it seemed to be playing light-years better than vanilla.   I don't recall seeing a single AI planet and going "WTFOMGBBQ!",  which happened frequently with vanilla.

Things I'm not quite sure of:

* I went beams,  the AI all (conveniently) went mass drivers.  I never - ever - saw an AI ship that had any defenses.  Maybe the game didn't go long enough,  or have we decided that defenses are useless?

* the AI never seemed to research any speed techs.  All their fighters had 2 speed.   I ran circles around them,  which felt really odd as the Arcaen.

* because of the minor race tech tree changes (I think),  taking over a minor race capitol pretty much clears it out.  I think I actually like this,  because early on if you had one of those class 15s near you and grabbed it it was a pretty big advantage since the AI had already built it up.

Things I'd like to change:

* I don't recall seeing any discussion of this,  but can we make !@(#* Econ / Mfr / Tech capitols destructible?   I hate nothing more than prepping one of my planets for mass cash / production / research,  then taking a planet that has one of these things on it,  and I can't get rid of it!    That grinds my gears something terrible.   Does anyone know if I'll break anything by making them destructible?

TL;DR - this mod is fantastic;  I've never had as much fun playing GalCiv2.

wait, this isn't over yet?

Good to know and thanks for your feed back.

Of the AI players you picked the Torians and Korx were most likely to research defenses but they don't always choose to do so. Unfortunately there's little we can do in this regard. The AI had to decide for itself it wants defenses and sometimes it simply doesn't.

Interesting. I'll have a look.

Yes, the minors were given their own techtree with their own tech to intentionally cause this.

We can't. The capitals are Super Projects (1 per civ). Super Projects are always indistructable and there's nothing we can do to change this.

Hey, great work Mabus...and Gaunathor if your listening, your work paid off and it plays nice. Honestly, be proud.

I think its time to send it to SD or inform them, there will always be a tiny thing that needs fixing and we can't, the game has to much interconnectivity.

No. I am still waiting for Frogboy to get back to me about AIP changes in the EXE file. If he gives his blessing this will have a major (positive) impact on the mod. If the answer is no then we're about done.

I sort of thought we were done too, but an hour chatting to Mabus on Tuesday night convinced me otherwise.

Incidentally, Mabus, do you think we should let them download and take a look at v4B?  Or are we up to 4C already?