rich12545

I looked at it. And didn't like the looks of it. So I looked again at UFO. It was on sale at GG for $3 and with bmans mod I thought was a pretty good bargain. Looked at that too. The devs have a pretty good history. But again didn't like the looks of it. It's not had some patches and I'll look again in a couple of months. Never heard of the first two. I sort of recall I heard of Officers but don't remember where. I agree about EoS. That's why I'm so frustrated. So close yet so far. I even came up with a workaround for Brit and he seemed to like it. But when I asked him if would be able to implement it he shrugged. I think he should have said one of two things. Either he couldn't do it for one reason or another, maybe it was too much work or it wouldn't solve the problem. Or he should have said he would do it. But "shrug" makes it look like he doesn't give a sh!t.

Wow, I don't know where you buy your games but I can't think of a single one. Maybe I'm just more careful what games I buy since I'm a senior on a limited income. I don't know. I really can't think of any. What games, from indie devs, are like that? I'm not talking about large companies because I don't really trust them and always wait until a game is pretty finished before I buy. But I can't think of even one game I've bought from an indie that falls into the category you mentioned.

It wouldn't be stupid at all. There are a lot of indie publishers who have their own websites and are doing fairly well. It's a whole cottage industry. You need to get out more and look around. Some of my favorite games were bought that way. Gratuitous Space Battles Lux Delux Castle Vox Din's Curse If Brit would devote some time to finishing the game I think it would grow in popularity and could make him some money. He'll never get rich on it but would at least be able to recoup somewhat. Staying here and abandoning the game will get him nothing.

Since you asked..... EoS 2 will never happen for a couple of reasons: 1. EoS is still unfinished and a major flaw remains. Brit is ambivalent about whether or not he will ever correct it. This is common knowledge now and certainly would be brought up again if and when Brit ever introduces another game. 2. Brit lost his shirt developing this game. To repeat you'd have to be a true masochist. Imo his best bet would be to break away from BFC and offer the game on his own site for $15-20 while he continued to improve it in his spare time. Like a hobby. EoS is a great game that needs just a little bit more. To simply abandon an unfinished game and shrug when asked if a major flaw will ever be fixed shows a lack of class. That kind of attitude doesn't bode well for future business.

The AI already seems pretty good. Maybe the odd quirk still remains. But I don't see a need to "improve" it. The only thing that's needed imo is a simple way to limit the "all seeing" aspect. I proposed one way in the other thread. There may be others.

It's not just knowing the language. Imo the AI is the most difficult part of making a game. So someone would need the talent and have the time and the inclination to do it. Empire Enhanced made its AI.dll public a few years ago and nobody did anything with it. The dev hoped someone would pick it up and do something but it never happened. Maybe it will here but I'm not going to hold my breath. Unless you're an expert at improving an AI you'll just be pissing into the wind.

Fair enough. When you decide would you please respond in that thread what, if anything, you'll be able to do. Then I'll know how much play time, if any, I'll devote to EoS. In any case I think it's too bad circumstances didn't allow you to continue devoting more time to the game and I wish you the best.

So, you're deliberately trying to start another flame war? You and slaver. Very immature. For the record, we all know this game is a masterpiece. But also we all know, or should know, it still has a major flaw. Brit, since you're looking at making an AI.dll public, does this mean you're not going to be able to work on those changes we discussed in the other thread? Since you left it hanging I'm just wondering.

I think the next step is to wait and see what Brit thinks of my latest post. He seems to like these suggestions. If he feels they will work and is able to take the time to implement them, I think that will pretty much solve this problem.

Good riddance. You act like a 10 year old girl with your whining.

We've gotten past the possibility of a great non-cheating AI that plays by the same rules. It's not going to happen. So what I'm looking at, is it good enough? Now, I understand about Jeep saying overpowered and that's not really a problem. Plus on Elite the AI might be getting too many bonuses. Maybe Veteran would be better for general play. I don't know exactly what bonuses the different levels give but it would be nice if Brit would post an explanation. Looking at Jeep's percentages, I think it's pretty good. Maybe a bit too high in some cases but it can be managed in a couple of different ways. Imo SS should be closer to 300%, DD maybe 300-350 and TR 400. But that's just opinion. I think SS aren't necessary but can be helpful. Apparently even if a TR or BB "sees" a SS 2-3 turns away it will continue because it doesn't respond well and, again according to Brit, units don't flee very well. So if a TR sees a SS a few turns away it won't turn around and go the other way. Therefore having some SS would be fine. If the AI could see all and respond well they would be worthless but that's not the case. I was giving the AI more credit than it deserved. I just assumed if a TR saw a SS two turns away it would turn around and go the other way. Or if a BB saw a TR 2-3 turns away it would go after it. But it generally doesn't happen that way. And in spite of my explaining this a few times, nobody corrected it. Not Brit or anyone. That's really too bad, it could have saved a lot of hassle and hard feelings.

One thing that gave me more hope for this game was Brit's answers to my questions in the other thread. According to him, the AI doesn't go after units that are a couple of turns away. It just isn't good enough to respond to units that way partially because although it knows where the unit is, it doesn't know what direction it's moving. Assuming this is true, and Brit should know, then negates to a large degree any problems to tactical situations caused by lack of FOW. Yet according to Jeep's post he has seen it. And other things. So for Jeep. 1. Are you sure this is happening consistently? That the AI units go after enemy units 2-3 turns away? Because Brit said it couldn't be. Have you studied this? 2. You have talked about the AI's overwhelming force. Are you sure the AI is getting a huge production bonus? Have you actually studied this or is it ad hoc? 3. Re the AI's production choices, have you studied this or does it just seem there are too many of some rather than others ad hoc? For Brit. You made a good point re my op. I countered with a possible workaround to that point. Do you think it would work without causing other problems? Would it be too difficult or too time consuming to implement? One problem putting all units outside sight range on ignore is it might affect general expansion and movement and slow it down. Would it? One great thing about EoS is the ruleset. A lot can be done with it.

You just made another personal attack against me in this post. Seems that's all you're capable of. In the other thread we're discussing how to make the game better. I noticed you didn't join that conversation. You don't care about making the game better. All you care about is whining about my posts and making personal attacks against me. Slaver you need to get a life.

You're running into what was one problem with the AI when Empire Enhanced first came out. It included a lot of different units. The AI could produce them and use them but not well. For example, the engineer. The AI.dll would have it build roads but it did so randomly so it was pretty useless and was an expensive unit that the AI would produce. What I figured out was in order to get the AI to work properly you simply needed to eliminate those units from play. After experimentation the first few years I settled on the same units that Empire Deluxe uses. The AI.dll uses them very well. In order to get a better game you might have to do the same with EoS. Simply don't put any units the AI doesn't use well into the game. The last few months I've been thinking about making another mod for Empire Enhanced with 3-4 additional ground units. This would improve the land aspects of the game. Probably will need to make one or two of them new. But they would have to be in line with the games AI.dll to work well. The two games are similar that way. The nice thing about Empire Enhanced though is more of the AI is easily available in the script like production choices. And some in the config like production handicaps. In EoS it's all hard coded.

According to Brit answering a couple of questions I asked in another thread, the AI doesn't have the capability to do 2 & 3. But according to your experience it does. This is what I've been talking about the last week or so. Escorts have been discussed at length but never implemented. In the Empire Enhanced I was able to set escorts for everything. If the AI has those units available, it will use them. I didn't know the AI had a huge production bonus. I don't mind a small one, maybe 5-10%, but the game is not fun is you're overwhelmed all the time. In Empire Enhanced you can set the combat or production bonuses from zero all the way up for each AI separately. Apparently the AI still doesn't produce ships in a good percentage. Last year I reported that it was producing almost all battleships. Looks like it's too far going the other way. One nice thing about Empire Enhanced is that this can be adjusted in the script. But it's the most difficult thing there was at least for me. And it was the last thing I was able to get right. Well, the AI won't be changed. Only small bugs will be fixed in the future. I'd been thinking about this hoping I could come up with something to improve the game enough to play and have fun. EoS is a great game with a lot of very nice features. All I could think of is explained above. It looks like it's not going to happen, I'm going to give it up and stick with Empire Enhanced. The AI gives an excellent game without cheating. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles EoS has but it's a lot of fun.

I suggested that a long time ago. And that a unit has a minimum number of hit points left before it seeks a city for repairs.

Good point. Suppose, in addition to the op, we added something like this: If [enemy unit] was sighted normally then AI would remain aware of sighted unit for x number of turns, perhaps two or three. Also, if all those enemy units were ignored by the AI, would that hamper general AI movement or would the AI move, expand, etc in the same way? I think if something that didn't take much time could be implemented, it would make the game better. Another tactical consideration that I've considered is that the AI from maybe 2-3 turns away would spot a transport and would easily be able to intercept it and that this would make sending transports very dangerous probably necessitating escorts every time. However, based on your answers in the other thread it seems I've been overestimating AI capability. That made the all-seeing AI much worse in theory than it is in practice.

Yep, your agenda is obvious. Just making personal attacks. That's it. What a bitter way to live.

You just can't stand it, can you? I think you want to keep this feud going. I've been trying to end it but you are intent on keeping it up. I have not complained about the AI since making the initial post in this thread. But you continue to post your vitriol just to keep up the animosity. It's none of your business what I post in other forums about this game or any other game. I would tell the truth. Then it's up to others to decide. Discussion of other games in forums is very common. You need to get out more. You'd find that out. You want to stop me from posting here? Stop replying. It's that simple.

I believe I might have found a solution to the problem. Suppose a change was made to the AI ROE. Something like this. If [enemy unit] is more than [sight radius (or maybe 1.1-1.2 x)] then ignore AI sighting of cities would not be affected. This would eliminate the bulk of the problems associated with the all-seeing AI. It looks like it wouldn't be very time consuming to implement. Not perfect of course, but good enough. It would make the game playable so far as I'm concerned.

Before you close this thread, I asked a couple of questions about AI play several posts earlier and I guess you missed them with all the replies. It would be nice if you would answer them. I'm not trying to bait you and I won't reply to whichever way you answer. 1. Suppose I spot a battleship with a search plane. I send a sub, which is 2-3 turns away, after it. Would the BB recognize the threat and send destroyers if it has them handy, or have the BB flee if it doesn't? Or would the BB not react very much? 2. If an AI controls an island and I send an invasion force from the other side, would the AI react by sending its force to intercept before it "sees me"? In other words, how well does the AI react to threats it sees that are two or more turns away?

Thanks for your nice words. They are few and far between here. Everybody has things that are game breakers. For a lot of people it's DRM. They wouldn't buy EoS because of eLicense. And they're very adamant about it. It's a game breaker for them. For me I don't care one way or the other. But I respect those who do care. For me it's the AI. Since I never play multi a poor AI is a game breaker. For other people maybe that's not so important. In the other thread I inquired if the see-all AI would be fixed. I simply inquired. No more. Then all kinds of sh!t hit the fan. Two, three, four people poured it on. For no reason other than I inquired. So I retaliated and it all got out of hand. It's too bad. EoS is a very good game. Except for one thing. If you're one of those people where the AI isn't so important, then it's still a very good game. I still say, when others stop writing to or about me, I'll be out of this forum. So for all of you who say good riddance, don't reply.

Your problem is you don't pay attention. Over and over again. I only lash out at people when they lash out at me first. I won't defame the game on other forums, just tell the truth, that the AI doesn't use FOW. Then people could make up their own minds. You continue to get things wrong. Like they're twisted in your head.

Good grief Charley Brown. You too? Sheesh. Another one. I didn't say I was leaving. I've been on this forum for 11+ years. I just said I was done talking about the AI. If you all will quit making posts to or about me I'll quit the EoS forum entirely.