Well, this thread is evidence that humans are neither good, neutral or evil because basically everybody seems to have a different assessment of what "good" or "evil" really is (unless some of you are aliens )

At that time when the change did occur I was actually argueing against it but unfortunately my forum post got eaten, so I had to keep it small. My main thoughts back then do actually stem solely from a gameplay perspective.

First off, there once was a thread where Brad explained the diplomatic relations beneficial & degrading factors. From there you could easily see that the whole system revolves about a design which should give causes for conflict. One major factor is foreign influence, so if a race is stiffled in their expansion by their neighbours they will want to go to war against these anyway.

However, you could start a rare planets big clustered map where foreign influence doesn't matter much. But you still have the ethical separation which will cause wars.

However, such a game could see only 4 faction, all of belonging to the same ethical alignment. Very interestingly, the game still has diplomatic degrading factors even inside the same ethical sphere. The Yor for example, have a hidden penalty against all other factions which is reflecting their detest of biological life. The Thalans resent the Terrans because they believe the humans will destroy the cosmos in the future. No idea if there's a real diplo penalty working the background, but at least the Thalans inform you often enough about the danger of their (possible) ally.

Then there is the Altarian/Drath SuperAbility interrelation. Around midgame the Drath usually throw the whole galaxy into wars and they make a fortune out of it. That keeps all other military low. If the Drath ask someone else to wage war against the Altarians, then these will ask the Drath to help them out. Ie, the Altarians SuperAbility takes care that the Drath also have to fight their own wars. As it is now, they can stay too much in the shadows.

Further I've seen them exploit other diplomatic weaker races (such as Thalans) in a way that they usually buy their fleets with the enormous money surplus from war profiteering. On that it should be noted that the AI isn't restricted by a 8 turn limit - he can do that every turn, which is exacerbated by the Drath having even more diplomacy bonuses than originally and the evil races starting out with a diplomatic handicap.

@ Gaunathor

IIRC the Thalan racial saw an increase in their popgrowth penalty because of the increased bonuses to XenoBio & Medicine - as they start out with those 2 techs. If you decrease their bonuses it might be justifyable to balance the Thalan racial back.

However, the Thalans would be able to build Fert Clinics from turn1 on. TBH I like that because they don't even have a single spamable starting improvement - and esp. when they start to build their tier1 facs & labs they usually WRECK their own game if they build too many of them, that is, if they have less tiles available because of some Fert Clinics here & there it might help this (we never really were able to teach the Thalan AI how to properly deal with their industry, but we also didn't want to change it into a normal industry because in some way it's a Thalan feature to do things differently.... )

Would need some testing though, or perhaps making XenoMed for Thalans untradeably - so not everyone gets FCs right after 8 turns...?

I'm not sure about what specific changes you referring to? The things you'll read here in this thread are most likely becoming officially once SD comes back from holidays, so expect a final update to 2.20.

But yes, I'm currently working on a mod to turn the 8 Minor races into Stock Races, with their own techtree & balancing - so you can play against 17 real enemies. Actually, it will be 2 mods, both increasing the strength of Minors considerably. In the other, the Minors will not colonize but instead inhabitate a stronghold planet like eg. the Orion starsystem like in MoO2, and you'll have to wait & first build up your power to be able to deal with them (before that they might actually harrass YOU, and perhaps even invade planets militarily)

One thing I've just found it is that it's actually possible to "lock" specific parts of a techtree away - until it is opened up by another race. I'm planning to implement this in a way that the responsible keys are held by the Minor races - so it might be a good idea to befriend them and trade technology, which will then increase the amount of tech you can research for yourself. In a way it's like the Native Planets from BotF, just not with buildings but with techs (although these techs could hold unique buildings...)

Just wait a while 

Yes, that is another reason why they should stay Good.

Agreed. They already have a +30% racial bonus, get a +25% bonus from Invisible Hand, and have access to all diplomacy techs (thanks to the addition of the remaining Xeno Ethics techs into their tree). There really was no need to give them another +25% bonus (or a +20% Influence bonus, for that matter). Especially because Super Manipulator already makes it much easier to bribe other races to declare war.

No, that was done, because having the Thalan start out with Xeno Medicine in addition to Artificial Gravity halved their original Pop-Growth-penalty, making it actually less than that of the Drath (i.e., they went from a base value of -30% to -15%, whereas the Drath have -20%). It simply made no sense that a race foreign to this space/time would have an easier time to grow their population, than a native one. Giving Xeno Biology a Pop-Growth-bonus only exacerbated the issue, but that wasn't the initial trigger for the change.

I fixed this in AT by having the Thalan no longer start out with Xeno Biology and Xeno Medicine, and changing the internal name of Xeno Colonization and Alien Soil Studies to Xeno Biology and Xeno Medicine respectively. This way the Thalan start with a Pop-Growth-penalty of -25%, and aren't able to immediately start selling the Bio-techs. They end with a max Pop-Growth-bonus of +5% (because I still have the tech Extreme Colonization in AT, which grants a +10% bonus to Pop-Growth), which is the same as the vanilla value. If we make this change in the CU too, the Thalan would end with a max value of -5%, if we also give them their base of -30% back again. We could either keep it that way, or change the values a little to end with +5%.

No, they wouldn't. Fertility Clinics require Fertility Acceleration, which the Thalan don't have in their tech tree.

Fixed, thanks.

By the way, would you be okay with my changes to the Thalan and switching the alignments of the Drath and Terrans back? I would like to know, if there would be an outcry, if I did that along with my proposed changes to the Bio-techs.

Sure -at least for me- that's fine.  

I originally had this problem with galactic civilization lore to my interpretation there were five good, five bad, and two neutral. I agree with mabuses umteen posts ago. That there should be four each. The iconians are afraid, and that makes them neutral. The korx are super entraperneurers and that makes them neutral. But there now need to two more neutrals. So your saying humans are neutral. I actually would make krynn neutral. OK if draft are good which good guy is neutral that would either be arcean, altarian, torian, or krynn to keep this balanced. I must want to point out that this makes a neutral a bad huy the thalans.

Myself this is how I would make them. Goodhumans, arceans, torians, and altarians. Neutral iconians, more, krynn, and thalans. The evil are korath, drengin, for, and death. I agree with the original reason to keep this balanced. Maybe make the krynn evil, and make the death neutral. Just can't see super instigators as being good.

Willy, about these 2 espionage buildings - the problem with too many espionage bonuses is that it breaks the AI game. He can't adjust the sliders intelligently, ie. he will pump enourmous amounts of money into espionage but when his economy crumbles he can't !he's unable to! reduce the espionage slider to 0. All he can do is decrease it by a tiny step. However, he's able to decrease the general production slider instantly to 20%, then saving money, and this enables him to even keep the espionage sliders high - which then continously keeps his overal production & research low. It's really broken and during tests, whne I reduced espionage to -75% or even -100% the AI will have a so much stronger game - esp. since he mostly collects spies defensively, anyway.

So the idea behind this change was that instead they gain foreign technology which the spies secretly deliver. The descriptions in those improvements already hinted at that, just the researchbonuses were only planetary, not civwide.

As such, these 2 buildings now compensate for the -15 research penalty that the Krynn did receive, the main problem here is that the Krynn AI isn't really eager to research his specialtree at all

AFAIK the AIValue on techs is used by the AI to determine its value when techtrading, although ironically there's a second tag (WillingnessToTrade) which plays right into this, as well. His researchbehaviour is mostly influenced by his AIP in relevance to his global needs. You can trick him into doing specific things by mis-labelling categories. Although that bears also the danger of sometimes doing more harm than good "confusing" him...

Now back to the Krynn.. their specific unique tree is categorized as Entertainment, which bears quite some reason because 

- these techs hold moral bonuses

- the buildings give moral as well

- the Krynn lack the standard generic moral tree

However, the Krynn start out with a racial +50% moral bonus. It could be that, because of that, the AI doesn't encounter (greater) moral problems and therefore, considers other matter more important. Perhaps it could be an option to label those categories (partially) as Culture - because these buildings give Influence as well. But I would need to test that beforeahead. I also think that it might be ok to give him more information to diversify this tree logically, ie. those techs that give him starbase-modules could see the cat. Starbase (but I'm going to try that first and see if it works...)

***

Gaunathor, I've noticed in Techtree.xml:

The Thalan TechVictory branch beginning with <!--Research Thalan-->

<Computing ID="4DPhasing"> up to <Computing ID="DimensionalWeaponry">

is mislabelled as <Category>Pure Research</Category>

so the AI will think this are labs.

IDK if this is wanted (considering these techs hold strong weapon bonuses) but, so far, all other TechVictrees are only "Reasearch".

Also, these techs (all part of TechVic branch) should get the tagline <CanUseCreativeAbility>0</CanUseCreativeAbility>

added (for obvious reasons):

  <Computing ID="TormentingRealizations">

  <Computing ID="VisionsOfAgony">

  <Computing ID="TechnologyThresholds">

  <Computing ID="4DPhasing">

  <Computing ID="DimensionalExploitation">

  <Computing ID="DimensionalWeaponry">

  <Computing ID="NearOmnipotence">

<Computing ID="StellarCartography"><Category>Pure Research</Category> should be "Sensor" so the human AI won't research it (the AI doesn't need it)

That's not entirely correct. AIValue does determine the value of techs when techtrading, true. However, it also adjusts the research-behaviour of the AI. The higher the AIValue, the higher the likelihood of the AI going for it (with some exceptions). Some AIPs don't value certain tech branches (or branch/category combinations) very highly. Setting the AIValue to a higher value helps the AI to go for those techs anyway. Though that doesn't always work. The WillingsnessToTrade tag was added in TotA to further adjust the tradevalue of techs.

No, AIP 8 simply doesn't much care for Entertainment and Culture techs. It may go for the first tech eventually, but could take a while. I've set the Category for those Krynn techs to Pure Research, and the AI does go reliably for them.

The bonuses are very good, so keeping the techs on Category Pure Research increases the chance of the Thalan going for them. However, I haven't seen the AI do it that often in my games. Changing the techs to Category Research would reduce the chance of the AI researching them even more.

Near Omnipotence definitely. However, I can see the previous techs to be their own branch (Weapon-boost, leading up the TechVictory branch).

I consider this tech still part of the lab techs. Based on the original description, it was apparently intended to unlock another research-boosting improvement.

The AI does research techs with Category Sensor. It's just less likely to do so. So, changing the Category wouldn't accomplish much. Still, Stellar Cartography has only a Cost of 25. By the time I usually see the AI research it, it takes at best 1 turn to do so. I don't consider it that much of an issue.

The Korath prefer Biology techs over Manufacturing. Keeping them on Biology increases the chance of the AI researching them.

That's a leftover from one of Mabus' workarounds. Setting the AIValue to -10 seems to make the AI extremely likely to go for the tech, regardless of the AIs research-preferences. I've set it to 20. That has worked in my games, so far. Changing the Category to Entertainment would be detrimental for the AI, because AIP 8 doesn't care for Entertainment techs. This would significantly reduce the chance of the AI researching this tech.

Where exactly? I'm unable to find any.

It's to prevent the Iconians and Yor from getting them. The AI has a habit of building foreign farming improvements on its planets, even if there are already several of its own types of farms (e.g., 3 Advanced Charging Stalks, followed by a Xeno Farm or two). I'm not entirely sure, but it's possible that changing the farming production to a percentage-bonus may be the cause. It's certainly the reason why the Yor are much more likely to build Charging Stalks. They consider them to be morale improvements, instead of farms. With the regular farming production that isn't the case.

I meant which techs. I've already searched through TechTree.xml, but couldn't find any instances.

here they are

<Industry ID="MerchantTradeComplexes">
<DisplayName>Merchant Trade Complexes</DisplayName>
<Description>Build vast trade sectors on your planets.</Description>
<Details>Merchant Trade Complexes are a wonder to behold. They are, effectively, entire cities dedicated to the buying and selling of goods and services. Once constructed, significant amounts of revenue can be generated from them which improves the economic output of the entire planet.</Details>
<Category>Economics</Category>
<Cost>1100</Cost>
<Group>None</Group>
<AIValue>35</AIValue>
<Model>stock30</Model>
<Requires>MerchantEmporiums</Requires>
<EconomicsAbility>5</EconomicsAbility>
<CanBeTraded>0</CanBeTraded>
<CanBeStolen>1</CanBeStolen>
<WillingnessToTrade>0</WillingnessToTrade>
</Industry>

<Biology ID="Xeno Farm Construction">
<DisplayName>Xeno Farm Construction</DisplayName>
<Description>Allows us to build Xeno Farms.</Description>
<Details>Adapting the soil of these alien worlds has been a difficult challenge. It is always a question of whether to attempt to domesticate native plants and animals or whether to adapt our existing food stocks to the requirements of each world.||Xeno Farm Construction is the first step in finding the right balance for growing our own food on these worlds.</Details>
<Category>Biology</Category>
<Cost>100</Cost>
<Group>None</Group>
<AIValue>10</AIValue>
<Model>event80</Model>
<Requires>PlanetaryImprovements</Requires>
<CanBeTraded>0</CanBeTraded>
<CanBeStolen>1</CanBeStolen>
<WillingnessToTrade>0</WillingnessToTrade>
</Biology>

<Biology ID="Xeno Farm Construction II">
<DisplayName>Xeno Farm Construction II</DisplayName>
<Description>Allows us to build more advanced farms on alien worlds.</Description>
<Details>More food means more people, which means more people to tax.</Details>
<Category>Farming</Category>
<Cost>1000</Cost>
<Group>None</Group>
<AIValue>5</AIValue>
<Model>event50</Model>
<Requires>Xeno Farm Construction</Requires>
<CanBeTraded>0</CanBeTraded>
<CanBeStolen>1</CanBeStolen>
<WillingnessToTrade>0</WillingnessToTrade>
</Biology>

hope this helps^^

edit:

thinking this are remnants from a time we were discussing if perhaps a few unique techs could be made stealable in order to spice up the game a bit. seems like the project then got forgotten because that can't be complete....

Gaunathor, I like all the changes, with the exception of the Minor-stuff. They're potentially weaker now than before, in a game Yor vs Terrans they can't build a single improvement in turn1. I understand that the underlaying bug influencing this is huge and that there is neither an elegant nor easy solution, nor did the previous method fix it (as it were, the Minor tree was still able to be cut back tremendously & you could trade techs to them which then vanished)

But we might be able to, at least, let them have starting improvements without creating improvements holding the same internal name.

There are actually 2 ways:

1. Duplicate the generic starting improvements but give them an own name, then attribute them to the MinorHistory tech. Integrate a second upgradetargetline into the generic tier2 improvements so that these will upgrade the Minors starting buildings.

2. Integrate all the Minors starting technology (except their history) into any StockRace techtree - but ONLY IF the specific tech is NOT already present. Then cancel these (newly integrated) techs out using

<Requires>ImpossibleTech</Requires><Cost>205</Cost><Group>None</Group>

***

On the Pirates:

Don't you think they could use more logistics as well? Because, as of now, when an empire surrenders and a part of their remaining fleets become pirates, then their fleets usually break apart, and it's so easy to pick on them one by one (it's also sometimes annoying if they have +100 ships). I think if the fleets could stay together as they were that would make them more of a threat. As of now, they mostly shoot down asteroids or commit suicide when attacking regular fleets.

I'm also wondering why:

<AIAbilities>100</AIAbilities>
<Aggression>100</Aggression>
<FinancialResources>100</FinancialResources>
<CPUUsage>0</CPUUsage>

is like it is? Guess Financial Resources are set by the diff. level, but CPUUsage could be made as high as with the other races. Then what exactly is the difference between AIAbilities 50 to 100? Seeing that the ingame editor allows a set to 100 when making a new opponent - wouldn't that be a good setting for practically all other races as well?

***

The detail of

<Propulsion ID="StellarFolding">
<DisplayName>Stellar Folding</DisplayName>
<Description>An ultra advanced propulsion system.</Description>
<Details>Stellar Folding takes the concept of folding space and brings it to a scary place. Stellar Folding actually injects tremendous energy into higher order dimensions in order to fold space to a much greater degree.||To use an analogy, Hyper Drive and everything that came after it essentially warps space by sending a high stream of energy into the next dimension and folding space. If one were to think of space as a napkin on a table, hyper drive essentially grabs an area in front of the napkin and pulls it toward the ship reducing the absolute distance the ship has to travel.||Subsequent advances in hyper drive technology (Impulse, Warp Drive, etc.) are essentially marketing names for being able to send this high stream of energy further ahead.||But Stellar Folding works on a somewhat different principle. It essentially lifts the napkin up and begins to fold the entire napkin. The actual distance of the destination becomes irrelevant because it can begin folding at any point in the universe because the folding is occurring outside of space/time. The only limiting factor is energy. With infinite energy, one could use Stellar Folding to travel to any point in the galaxy instantaneously. The repercussions of this are quite disconcerting as it would mean that eventually someone would be able to essentially teleport themselves or their fleets to any point in the universe (not just within a galaxy but in the entire 14 billion light-year diameter of the universe).||Fortunately or unfortunately for us, our energy capacity is quite finite but it does allow us to travel faster than ever before.</Details>

contains a somewhat naive but common double-error; by falsely assuming that the BigBang was a conventional explosion emanating at maximum velocity c, and then even mistaking its radius for the diameter.

I'd change it to

(not just within a galaxy but in the entire 91 billion light-year diameter of the observable universe)

That's how it was in the vanilla game too. But yes, it is a concern.

Actually, why don't we use the tier 0 improvements as UpgradeTargets? If the minors have access to Industrial Revolution then they're going to use the regular Traditional Factory and Entertainment Network. Otherwise, they use their own versions. It's similar to what I did with the Entertainment Network and the Traditional Temple/Minor Hatchling Mound. I still need to test it, but I see no reason why that wouldn't work.

Yes, they could. I'll look into it.

You would have to ask the devs. Those are the vanilla settings for the Pirates.

I don't know what effect (if any) this would have on them. It might make the Pirates behave a bit smarter, but whether that is a good thing remains to be seen.

If I recall correctly, AIAbilities determines what algorithms the AI uses, and what handicaps it gets. A value of 50 is the AI on "Intelligent", and a value of 100 is the AI on "Ultimate".

Sure, if you want the standard difficulty to be "Suicidal".  Granted, you would still need to increase FinancialResources to 170 to actually be on Suicidal, but it's not that far off.

I'll have to defer to your expertise on this. Changing it now.