rich12545 Posted January 3, 2010 Share Posted January 3, 2010 I recently got win7 and so I'm trying out the game again to see if it will play without errors. So far so good but I want to give it a very good trial. In the meantime a few observations. The AI still doesn't seem to expand well even on elite. It plays well though. Mixed feelings on the new border thing. Best probably would be to stop the notification emails. The intent was to eliminate surprise attacks. It's not necessary to tell the other party that it invaded space it already knows. And mixed feelings about eliminating surprise attacks. These borders serve as blanket sentries and that's not all that good an idea. All those AI requests for peace can get annoying. Maybe a way to turn them off or turn off diplomacy entirely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 I recently got win7 and so I'm trying out the game again to see if it will play without errors. So far so good but I want to give it a very good trial. In the meantime a few observations. The AI still doesn't seem to expand well even on elite. It plays well though. Mixed feelings on the new border thing. Best probably would be to stop the notification emails. The intent was to eliminate surprise attacks. It's not necessary to tell the other party that it invaded space it already knows. And mixed feelings about eliminating surprise attacks. These borders serve as blanket sentries and that's not all that good an idea. Hey. Welcome back. It's true that the AI knows when you violate his borders (human players don't know), but it doesn't actually serve much of a sentry function, since he doesn't scramble to intercept you. It will lower his feelings towards you, which might trigger him to declare war, but you can still launch a sneak attack in the meantime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drrowley Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 I don't think much of this border stuff either. imho, you've gone from one ridiculous situation (I.e. stacking units right outside enemy cities and it doing nothing about it), to another ridiculous situation (blind detection of any unit crossing some created boarder line). first time I ran into this, the green dots in front of a cruiser, I almost report a graphics error, because it was in unexplored area. it finally dawned on me what was going on and so proceed in testing the boarder. when I got the several warning, I pulled the cruiser out and of course the warning stopped. at this point, I had no idea what was defining this border (resource? city?) because I couldn't see anything and was irritated as to how the ai 'knew' I was there. so I brought down a sub and it too set off a warning when it crossed as well; now I'm really irritated. how the hell does the ai know my units are there? will I know when my boarder is violated? .... so a bell goes off saying, 'xyz' has violated your boarder,,, "don't know where" (according to the above statement), but 'xyz' has violated it (and how do I know it was 'xyz'). this kind boarder detection strangles any kind of hidden tactics. the way I thought this was going to work; if enemy units were in the sights of a city, resource, airbase, (eventually) forts or military unit, that would generated a warning and -tic on the relations meter. at some point, with a low relations meter count, the ai would move units to the affect area and eventually declare war. if you want a larger zone of control area (to create a boarder line), ok, but still, the units need to be sighted. however, the other thing that bothered me, was the huge control zones around resources; ridiculously large. I have a continent that I have taken, own the whole thing and this ai's sea resource's control zone takes a small bite out of the continent (of course, on the other hand, disputed boundaries have start several brush wars), it just looks weird. I'm taking another continent to the south of the resources and the control zone is so large, it will impede my movement between continents air and sea. I don't expect to run into this ai on any local land, because current ai likes to take a sea unit and do some long range resource grabbing. imho, the warnings should only occur for units that are 'spotted'. if wanting zones of control to define boarders, resource zones should be smaller than cities, airbases, forts and military units (which should also have a zone of control, raising the flag over captured land/sea). if one has an approach to an unobserved area, you post a guard. I did recon over flights of this area and because of this I started sending resource tributes to keep the relation meter in the positive area (no problem with this, it's diplomatic appeasement). the ai was accepting the 'bribes' and the relation meter was kept positive. I decide I would set up a by turn contract for awhile, boost the meter just in case I did run into him, but was surprised when he refused the contract (huh?). we'll this be in the ruleset, so that it can be modified? like, a flag the say's 'warning only when sighted' and the size of the zone of control? (if so, then my complaint is all mute). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott_WAR Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 Consider the border a range of detection by people living in your nation,....maybe sentries set up to alert you when they see something using binoculars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadmeat1471 Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 I think scott is correct. The borders aren't arbitrary lines of 'blind' sight, they are areas of influence of the populous and military below the scope of the game (PT boats for example). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich12545 Posted January 4, 2010 Author Share Posted January 4, 2010 If the borders are drawn not far from cities, units and resources, ok. I think the criteria is how far. Brit, I haven't seen some of my suggestions hit the light of day and was wondering if you're still considering them. lol, looks like you've been spending most of your time squashing bugs. But things like larger map sizes, zero resource options, reinforcements, terrain sets...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 Brit, I haven't seen some of my suggestions hit the light of day and was wondering if you're still considering them. lol, looks like you've been spending most of your time squashing bugs. But things like larger map sizes, zero resource options, reinforcements, terrain sets...? I hadn't forgotten, and I wasn't dismissing your suggestions. I actually keep a file on my computer where I copy and paste every single suggestion that people make via email or the forums. Right now, it's a pretty big list. I try to tackle things that people suggest more frequently, and some of the stuff gets delayed. As far as larger map sizes: I wasn't sure how many people wanted that, so it was pushed lower on the stack of things to do. There are some existing issues with the current largest map (the game uses too much memory, the AI takes too long to plan its turn). I plan to track down and fix this stuff before I enlarge the maps. The other issue with map sizes is that I can't enlarge the map sizes any larger without causing a memory allocation error. (The computer has a maximum sized block that programs can allocate in one chunk.) This means that enlarging the map means breaking some things up into several pieces. It's doable, and I'm already doing that in other places, but it's one more task that has to be done before larger maps can be created. Zero resource options: I did implement a game-setup change that allows players to increase the amount of resources in the game. That's not the same as a zero-resource option, but if the game-resources are increased, it makes resources less important. terrain sets: I think the best way to handle this is to simply integrate new terrains into the game, rather than the more complicated solution of 'terrain sets'. I just haven't gotten around to adding them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich12545 Posted January 5, 2010 Author Share Posted January 5, 2010 I can see the problems with larger maps. Not immediately necessary of course but would be nice in the future if possible. Yes if the game resources are increased they aren't as important. I think this would be simple to implement, just move the slider a little more to the left for 0 instead of rare. I agree with the terrain. Add about five or six more and it's done. Much easier and simpler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadmeat1471 Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 'Zero resource options: I did implement a game-setup change that allows players to increase the amount of resources in the game. That's not the same as a zero-resource option, but if the game-resources are increased, it makes resources less important.' Someone made a mod for this, so its not a problem me thinks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drrowley Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 each city and resource as a visual range, that i attribute to civilians/worker, local patrols , the grape vine, ect... so someone with binos' spots a sub out in the middle of the sea? a pt boat gets lucky and finds sub. get real, all boarders in the world are leaky. you want to find boarder violations, it's called recon. now, with longer range aircraft, there No boarders for long range aircraft. Renders spy aircraft useless. renders radar useless. What about satellites'? now i'm informed that units in transports are counted, how would they know. Hell, why not the aircraft in a carrier. can i notify ai of boarder violations? how does this apply to multiplayer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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