We NEED equidistant spawns as a History Class

[Clux]

Right now its almost impossible to roll a planet (doesn't matter the size or amount of minors/majors) of 4 players on a difficult that isn't beginner with some distance between each player.

Therefore we (Mp community) HAVE TO play on beginner to make sure that every player has some distance between each other, so they can grow naturally and then declare war on each other, the catch its that the AI on beginner its pretty bad, but if you change it to normal/hard/extreme you're almost guarantee to spawn besides ANOTHER player, not an AI major, but a player.

If there is a rule behind "beginner" difficulty that makes sure that players have some distance between each other, would be really that difficult to have a History Class option that also makes sure that players have somewhat a equidistant spawn between each other? (doesn't matter that much to spawn besides an AI major).

[mrhuggles]

+1 Now creature attributes are linked to difficulty, yet a balanced 4 player mp game is essentially impossible unless on beginner.

[Luckspeare]

Oh wow, I thought I just had some really bad luck. I really don't want to start right next door to my nemesis plus two other majors!

[pauls2271]

Yeah, some tweaking of start positions is needed.

My last start had 3 Majors south of me all starting withing 3 hexes of each other:

o
o o


Thought it was a crazy setup.

[Daza99]

Perhaps this thread needs to be moved to suggestions thread so Vic might see this? I hope this gets addressed, multiplayer is one of the key features imo.

[Clux]

ORIGINAL: Daza99

Perhaps this thread needs to be moved to suggestions thread so Vic might see this? I hope this gets addressed, multiplayer is one of the key features imo.

We have posted it several times on the suggestion forum and Vic only tell us to "just play on beginner". Also, he hasn't seen or answered said sub-forum in a while

[kubakas]

It would really improve the game if it had the standard startup options from any Civilization-style game or 4x. At least Shadow Empire is an improvement over Advanced Tactics Gold, so maybe there's hope.

[Arralen]

We surely are fine with clumped up starts at higher difficulty.
/sarcasm

Results like this on turn 9 do make the game uninteresting, the time played to that point "wasted" and at least me as a player look at other games, instead of re-playing SE ...

[whollaborg]

I second the proposal warmly for mentioned reason!

[mahaniok]

ORIGINAL: Arralen

We surely are fine with clumped up starts at higher difficulty.
/sarcasm

Results like this on turn 9 do make the game uninteresting, the time played to that point "wasted" and at least me as a player look at other games, instead of re-playing SE ...

Can you clarify what's bad in your screenshot?

[Arralen]

ORIGINAL: mahaniok
Can you clarify what's bad in your screenshot?

On turn 9 I conquered the nearest major AI 8 hexes to my right. Now I have doubled my production capacity.
During the last 7 turns I did not care at all about resupply, production, decisions. Just speedkilled the troops to my right.

In the coming turns, I will proceed to roll over the next major AI 10 hexes to the upper right.
(or rather, won't, as I lost interest)

=> in less then 20 turns I effectivly would have conquered "half of the map" (i.e. 3 of 6 starting positions).
=> if I hadn't, chances are some AI would have done the same.
=> if I (or some AI) did not go hyper-aggressive (or failed), 3 majors would have been stuck in a stalemate struggle for area and ressources, while (presumably) on some other part of the map some major AI can expand completely unmolested.

"But this is brilliant design - keeps the player on his toes all the time, because there's always a hard, uphill fight against a superior foe at hand! First with his neighbours, than with those grown empires!"

No.
It's bad, lazy game design that I have seen in so many (bad, lazily produced) games during my 25 years of computer gaming. (Yes. It's been that long. *sigh*). Let me tell you why:

It promotes early rushes. Early rushes rely on the basic starting troops and the production capacity the player starts with, so all the fancy research, troop types, prodction thingies etc. do not come in effect and are useless. (This is exceptionally favourable for game devs who eff-ed up their design even for the early stages of those. E.g. games that give you starting troops that you can't build yourself for the next 50 turns ...)

If the first rush works, the player has doubled his capacity. If he has another victim nearby (like it is the case here), he will triple his capacity in a very short time. No amount of steady growth of a far away player can match that, unless it's an AI that uses a ****-ton of cheats and bonuses. So the "always interesting uphill battles at hand" is rather unlikely to come true, because that would require a very fine tuning of that growth to match the players conquests. (Works fine with even more AI cheats, though )

If the first rush doesn't work, the human player can basically give up (even if he's not killed off), b/c he's even further behind in production etc. vs. the evercheating AI.

... now, add in the GR units human and AI players can find on the map in SE ...


=> How often do you (want to) restart/replay a game that makes you use always the same troops and same strategy for the first 20-40 turns, always struggling to avoid a sudden death and trying to inflict it on your neighbours?

I wouldn't want to more than ... 2 times, maybe?


.

[Jorgas]

ORIGINAL: Arralen

ORIGINAL: mahaniok
Can you clarify what's bad in your screenshot?

On turn 9 I conquered the nearest major AI 8 hexes to my right. Now I have doubled my production capacity.
During the last 7 turns I did not care at all about resupply, production, decisions. Just speedkilled the troops to my right.

In the coming turns, I will proceed to roll over the next major AI 10 hexes to the upper right.
(or rather, won't, as I lost interest)

=> in less then 20 turns I effectivly would have conquered "half of the map" (i.e. 3 of 6 starting positions).
=> if I hadn't, chances are some AI would have done the same.
=> if I (or some AI) did not go hyper-aggressive (or failed), 3 majors would have been stuck in a stalemate struggle for area and ressources, while (presumably) on some other part of the map some major AI can expand completely unmolested.

"But this is brilliant design - keeps the player on his toes all the time, because there's always a hard, uphill fight against a superior foe at hand! First with his neighbours, than with those grown empires!"

No.
It's bad, lazy game design that I have seen in so many (bad, lazily produced) games during my 25 years of computer gaming. (Yes. It's been that long. *sigh*). Let me tell you why:

It promotes early rushes. Early rushes rely on the basic starting troops and the production capacity the player starts with, so all the fancy research, troop types, prodction thingies etc. do not come in effect and are useless. (This is exceptionally favourable for game devs who eff-ed up their design even for the early stages of those. E.g. games that give you starting troops that you can't build yourself for the next 50 turns ...)

If the first rush works, the player has doubled his capacity. If he has another victim nearby (like it is the case here), he will triple his capacity in a very short time. No amount of steady growth of a far away player can match that, unless it's an AI that uses a ****-ton of cheats and bonuses. So the "always interesting uphill battles at hand" is rather unlikely to come true, because that would require a very fine tuning of that growth to match the players conquests. (Works fine with even more AI cheats, though )

If the first rush doesn't work, the human player can basically give up (even if he's not killed off), b/c he's even further behind in production etc. vs. the evercheating AI.

... now, add in the GR units human and AI players can find on the map in SE ...


=> How often do you (want to) restart/replay a game that makes you use always the same troops and same strategy for the first 20-40 turns, always struggling to avoid a sudden death and trying to inflict it on your neighbours?

I wouldn't want to more than ... 2 times, maybe?


.

I pointed your points out, in my own thread a few months old people seemed to like to have a early AI to steamroll even on extreme difficulty and made up various reasons for not "fixing" it or inventing reasons why I could do it. Just as the guy that posted above you, "Can you clarify what's bad in your screenshot?" - People like having that easy cap in the start, and don't understand what your screenshot was about with your attached turn 9 comment.

In my last game I steamrolled 2 raider AI's and 2 Majors on extreme by turn 53 the game was won, the nemesis did not even stand a chance.

In the game before it I had 3 majors next to me and it was pretty much same thing.

And game before same thing, and the one before that.

It's one of the main reason why I press the X and play something else now, cause I can't raise the difficulty anymore then extreme, and I can't play intentionally bad, game is pretty much no challenge anymore when you have a start AI next too you cause it's got no chance on any small/normal/huge map to develop before their all dead, or player that have bothered to learn the full combat system.

unless there is a content update, I don't see myself playing the game anytime soon again, I just don't see any point cause I'd only rush close again and play to my full potential and have 2-3 extra cities by turn ~40-50, and then the rest of the game is a cakewalk, even on extreme.

(The only exception I've had is having a super huge map, with ~60+ minutes turn timers, which I can't be bothered with anymore, after hitting over an hour/per turn)

TLDR;
+1 for minimum starting distance toggle between -any- type of players

[zgrssd]

Just as the guy that posted above you, "Can you clarify what's bad in your screenshot?"

Have you consider that he genuinely could not understand the point, given that he is not telepathic and does not know the players normal settings?

I pointed your points out, in my own thread a few months old people seemed to like to have a early AI to steamroll even on extreme difficulty and made up various reasons for not "fixing" it or inventing reasons why I could do it.

My experience is that in 90% of all cases where someone blames others for "defending the status quo":
- the other persons with no word "defended the status quo"
- they realy just disagree with the priority you give it
- they might even be somewhat annoyed that you keep going on and on about it! Even in discussions that are 1 AU from the thematic.

[GazBot]

dude - all the best games I have ever played (and every game for that matter) never has challenging AI that holds my attention.

The only exception Ive ever heard of is Alpha GO which is a dedicated machine learning algorithm which I understand was applied to Star Craft or some similar named RTS.

Its just unrealistic to expect a 1 man band to develop a competent AI when even big publishers cant in my opinion.

The solution is MP and pit yourself against other human brains.

There is a discord server with loads of MP games running and Im on my second with a group that got together on this forum. - just an idea.....

Note: Its already been said before but I think the 4 player cap needs to be lifted from MP - likely would cause loads of issues if you have more than 4 players in a complex turn based game like this - but thats for the players to sort out - be easy to remove the cap Im guessing.....

In terms of getting good spacing for players - cant you just keep re-rolling until you get a good planet that includes good spacing of Majors??? I might have a play with this - I can see in two current games - starting locations have had a big impact - but I still think a lot comes down to player choices as well.....theirs a great term used in the military - "Asymmetry"...This game I think lets you explore that concept quite well....

[zgrssd]

The only exception Ive ever heard of is Alpha GO which is a dedicated machine learning algorithm which I understand was applied to Star Craft or some similar named RTS.

It still will have the same abuseable behavior bugs as the regular Starcraft AI.
It is just that those are different abuseable behaviors then the regular AI, so people have not yet figured them out.

You need some serious data to train one too. Like having every single game be recored. And since technically every MP game is played via the Servers, they had that kind of data.

Harder AI really just becomes a exercise in "who can abuse the AI's faults the hardest?"

Note: Its already been said before but I think the 4 player cap needs to be lifted from MP - likely would cause loads of issues if you have more than 4 players in a complex turn based game like this - but thats for the players to sort out - be easy to remove the cap Im guessing.....

If I would have to venture a guess on why that limit exists, it is because the planet creation can only guarantee "start positions" for 4 Majors.
That, or just wanting to keep the turn times low.

[GazBot]

Im not sure about the specifics - but I actually hear the Alpha GO AI is actually pretty innovative and you get very adaptable human like behavior....maybe it not so easy to game???

In terms of turn times I think the more human players, the shorter processing time. More of the processing will be done during the player turns and as the humans gobble up the planet youll have less AI time to process the diminshing AI regimes and turns....

[Luckspeare]

I appreciate that it is theoretically a solution, but "keep on rerolling" is actually a pretty discouraging one. Worldgen in this game is pretty intensely time-consuming and tedious once the novelty of the cleverness of it wears off -- beautiful and amazing in one sense, but in practice a really arduous way to come up with a map to play a long-term game on if one isn't totally open to whatever the RNG produces.

I think it's probably fair to say that the mildly incendiary/accusative language used a bit here is just guaranteed to cause irritation and hostility, and is probably not called for. But it's also fair to say that there's a legitimate issue here, the discussion of which shouldn't get derailed.

There's only a narrow set of games in this genre in which majors starting next to each other is in the slightest sense appropriate, best exemplified by Imperialism and Imperialism II -- and that's only because the entire structure of the game is constructed with that in mind.

[AKicebear]

I also find it frustrating to have to roll a few maps before finding one where I'm surrounded by non-aligned an minors - more often than not one is tucked in between a couple majors, and sometimes limited to only 7 hexes inside of a major's territory! Good luck (I'll pass!)...

[KarisFraMauro]

I haven't been playing for too long but I'm definitely starting to notice the emphasis on rush with higher difficulties. Thinking about it, this can indeed get a bit tedious over time.

[GazBot]

Ive got one had to reroll about 5 times - is a large planet. From what I can tell city / Major Placement is based on the apocalypse roll which is a nause as this cant be re-rolled....so you have to reroll the whole planet generation not just the final phase - but it is doable....I can send you the first turn if youd like - Large SIWA world, about 4 million pop, set for 4 Human players, NO AI Majors, about 50 Zones, I think about 4 million pop - lots of ruined big cities, approx 30% Mountain and Seas....