BtS unofficial patch

[tsubame]

The Stack of Doom thing is something I'd like to see changed somehow. However, the way the game is designed, it's a very effective tactic. Not really the scope of this though. The other changes I agree with.

The hopefullies are likely in there because they haven't been tested yet fully- and since this is a beta unofficial patch, it's "as is" This is also why you save your core file.

[Carch]

Thanks for the reply, Blake. And thanks again for putting the work into this patch. Given what the first 2 "official" US patches did, I imagine it'd be hard for your "unofficial" changes to be worse!

[=DrJambo=]

It's not AI spending commerce on EPs that is the real crux of the problem. It's the fact the AI only uses its EPs for rather trivial spy missions. Poisoning water or fomenting unhappiness at 8 turns is not going to cause the majority of cities any real grief (8 turns is laughable at Epic speed). Nor is destroying the odd mine or farm. Destroying cottage improvements is good however, and it's good to see the AI will now do this.

I'd like to the see the AI use it's EPs to steal tech, and to a lesser degree enforce civic or religion changes sometimes, as they're much more likely to hurt the human player. Steal tech in particular should be used since it's arguably the best use of EPs in the first place. However, for all the AI's spending in espionage, I've yet to have a single tech stolen. With all it's trivial use of its EPs (which has now been reduced), it's hard to imagine they'd ever have enough EPs saved to perform the steal tech mission...

[LordGek]

Originally posted by =DrJambo=
It's not AI spending commerce on EPs that is the real crux of the problem. It's the fact the AI only uses its EPs for rather trivial spy missions. Poisoning water or fomenting unhappiness at 8 turns is not going to cause the majority of cities any real grief (8 turns is laughable at Epic speed). Nor is destroying the odd mine or farm. Destroying cottage improvements is good however, and it's good to see the AI will now do this.

I'd like to the see the AI use it's EPs to steal tech, and to a lesser degree enforce civic or religion changes sometimes, as they're much more likely to hurt the human player. Steal tech in particular should be used since it's arguably the best use of EPs in the first place. However, for all the AI's spending in espionage, I've yet to have a single tech stolen. With all it's trivial use of its EPs (which has now been reduced), it's hard to imagine they'd ever have enough EPs saved to perform the steal tech mission...

Kinda curious about this myself but think this may be more of a major design choice than "fixing something broken". As it stands now I don't think I've ever seen the AI steal tech BUT, at the HUGE EP expense its at currently, I think the AI is right in avoiding it. Perhaps this needs to be looked into, i.e. how much could the cost be lowered for everybody to still make this a pretty rare event but still possible w/o forcing the AI/player to put all of its commerce into EPs (and, no, please don't make this some AI discount only)?

[Solver]

You see, Carch, in the end, a small group of people decides/influences what goes into the patch. So we change AI espionage spending here. You could debate forever whether it's a good or bad thing, but it's Blake's call. Blake and I have to make this sort of decisions here - because someone has.

And indeed, the changes that may seem experimental aren't going to make your game worse at any rate. For example, "Increased likelihood of the AI stealing techs - hopefully it will do so now" - I wrote that. I say "hopefully" because I can't be 100% sure the AI will steal techs without a week in playtesting, but I believe that it will do so. Worst case scenario, nothing changes.

Finally, just look at this as a chance to have your input on the official patch. If Blake or I made a horrible change that everybody here hated, it probably wouldn't go into the official patch - granted, I do not think either of us made such horrible changes.

[driftinj]

I believe this is a Solver Patch related "bug" since the AI was not very good at espionage previously.

The enemy AI was able to sabotage a spaceship component of mine in a captured city on another continent. To clarify: I built the component in a city on my main continent (Goth) but the AI was able to destroy it via espionage in a recently captured city on a 2nd continent (Thebes).

[Solver]

I believe it doesn't matter where you build it, they can be destroyed anywhere.

[driftinj]

That's pretty ridiculous. Just because I captured some 100 year behind village on the other side of the world, that gives the enemy easier access to destroy my spaceship components? Makes no sense at all.

[Solver]

Projects aren't really "located" anywhere. Hence they don't need a specific city to be destroyed. You can raze cities with wonders such as the UN, you can never get rid of the Manhattan Project or the Internet because they're projects - you just get their benefits, but they are in no specific place. Ditto spaceship components.

[driftinj]

I can see that - but in reality, a spaceship component isn't really a project or a concept - it's a physical object, that in reality, would be located somewhere on my home continent (or even in one of my cities).

I just find it highly questionable that an enemy would suddenly have access to that physical object via a recently captured city half a world away.

[Solver]

Well, I agree from that perspective. It's even stranger that your spaceship can be destroyed by taking your capital after the spaceship is already en route, but not while it's on the launch pad!

[driftinj]

At least that's justifiable in that one could say, once launched, Mission Control is located at the capital.

[Solver]

Blatantly unrealistic. A ship headed for another star system would pretty much need to be self-sufficient in every way, including mission control - after some time, communications lag and other concerns would make it impossible to rely on Earth. While the loss of communications with mission control on Earth would hurt, it should not cause the spaceship to fail. Then again, that's my inner space geek

[driftinj]

And a good point.

[Solver]

Updated

* Fixed independence-loving colonies
* AI will prefer to run Foment Unhappiness in cities that have been hit with Poison Water and vice-versa