Newbie with some questions

[Warsaw Baby]

I have a couple of questions concerning SEIV Gold. I have been fooling around with the demo and I am trying to decide which I should buy SEIV or Galatic Civ. It seems that SEIV is more 4x but the AI got good Ratings in GalCiv. FYI I always just play the computer, no multi player etc. (not enough time) So my questions.
1) Are there mods for the AI which make it more intellegent in its strategy and descision making? I am tired of the CIV type AI's which compensate for their stupidity with overwhelming force.
2)While playing the demo I noticed whenever I contacted a race and made an offer (such as a trade treaty) I would have to wait till the end of the turn for the answear. Does this mean that offers and counteroffers will take several turns?
3) How do you use the remote miners etc. which show up on your ship design screen. Do I add them to a ship and move them to the planet I want to mine? Does the mined material automatically get into resource pool or do I need to transport back to a planet with a spaceport? Is there anyway to automate the whole process?
Thank You in advance for your help.

[DavidG]

1) yes the TDM Mod

2) Diplomacy works in gold the same as in the demo I think so Yes.

3) Yea remote mining automaticall adds the minerals to your stockpile. So you just add the components to a ship and move it to the planet or asteroid to be mined and leave it there

[ April 11, 2003, 22:45: Message edited by: DavidG ]

[Gandalph]

Originally posted by Warsaw Baby:
1) Are there mods for the AI which make it more intellegent in its strategy and descision making? I am tired of the CIV type AI's which compensate for their stupidity with overwhelming force.

There are several mods that make better AI opponents for solo play, TDM being the most popular.

2)While playing the demo I noticed whenever I contacted a race and made an offer (such as a trade treaty) I would have to wait till the end of the turn for the answear. Does this mean that offers and counteroffers will take several turns?

SE IV is a turn based game so yeah, sometimes it takes several turns if you offer a counter to their traety proposal and then they offer a counter, etc.

3) How do you use the remote miners etc. which show up on your ship design screen. Do I add them to a ship and move them to the planet I want to mine? Does the mined material automatically get into resource pool or do I need to transport back to a planet with a spaceport? Is there anyway to automate the whole process?
Thank You in advance for your help.

Remote miner components are placed on a ship/base/satellite and sent, or built on in the case of a base, to an unoccupied planet or asteroid belt. The resources produced are automatically sent back to the empire. There is a good section on this in the newbie faq stickified at the top of the forum. Very good reading for the rest of the questions I am sure you will be asking.

[Cyrien]

1) Are there mods for the AI which make it more intellegent in its strategy and descision making? I am tired of the CIV type AI's which compensate for their stupidity with overwhelming force.

TDM modpack does nothing but improve the AI and add several new more intelligent races as well. The answer to this is thusly a big fat YES. Also the difficutly (smarts) of the computer and how much brute cheating force it can muster are distinct and different options. 1. Difficulty
2. AI Advantage or Bonus

2)While playing the demo I noticed whenever I contacted a race and made an offer (such as a trade treaty) I would have to wait till the end of the turn for the answear. Does this mean that offers and counteroffers will take several turns?

I won't beat around the bush. Diplomacy is probably the weakest link in the SE4 AI. You probably won't be doing counter offers back and forth across several turns. But to answer the question - Yes. Counter Offers would go back and forth and take several turns to complete, especially using Sim Turns.

3) How do you use the remote miners etc. which show up on your ship design screen. Do I add them to a ship and move them to the planet I want to mine? Does the mined material automatically get into resource pool or do I need to transport back to a planet with a spaceport? Is there anyway to automate the whole process?

You create satellites or ships or starbases with the component on it. I have always prefered starbases. Either way you then put what has it in orbit of the planet or asteroid field you want mined and it will automatically add to your resource pool any resources it removes. If it's a ship just put it on sentry and let it work. Don't even need to do that much for satellites or starbases once you have em. Get a remote builder ship and build the starbase in orbit of the asteroid field or unused planet. Or load the satellite up on a satellite carrier go out deploy the satellite in orbit and mine away.

Thank You in advance for your help.

You are very much welcome.

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by Cyrien:
I won't beat around the bush. Diplomacy is probably the weakest link in the SE4 AI. You probably won't be doing counter offers back and forth across several turns. But to answer the question - Yes. Counter Offers would go back and forth and take several turns to complete, especially using Sim Turns.

However, diplomacy is one of the game's strong points in multiplayer - since diplomacy Messages are practically unlimited in length, you can really get into the roleplaying aspect, and since you can trade just about anything, you can set up some interesting deals - I'll give you my planet and Ice Colony tech for six of those battleships and a diplomatic contact with the Xiati, for instance. It's not unheard of for one player to act as an "armsdealer", selling technology and weapons to the other races in the hopes of winning the game through cunning trades instead of brute force! It's just that the AI isn't very responsive to these kinds of deals - it completely ignores the text of your Messages, and will only accept or reject a trade, instead of making a counteroffer.

BTW, Cyrien, you don't happen by any chance to be Cyriun Kairus from the Mobius Forum, do you? I kind of doubt it seeing as he's from Ohio and you're from Texas, but he did just go off to college... It's just that the name is kind of unusual...

[Cyrien]

Nope. That isn't me. I've never even been to Ohio and in a month or two I won't be a student anymore either.

As for the name Cyrien. I don't know where someone else might have gotten it. A few web searches turn up a Saint Cyrien...

Myself... I was just playing with letters trying to come up with a name for an RP MUD (around 1998) and Cyrien was one of the ones I came up with among several others. I liked Cyrien the best however and have used it whenever possible ever since. In fact if you see a Cyrien odds are it might be since I have seen only 1 or 2 other people that have ever used it. I have also never seen a Cyrien2 or Cyrien3439 etc...

As for the strength of the diplomacy. You are correct. In MP games it is great and it is only against the computer AI in which it is lacking. However he stated that he would play SP over MP excusively and that being the case...

[raynor]

Originally posted by Warsaw Baby:
I have a couple of questions concerning SEIV Gold. I have been fooling around with the demo and I am trying to decide which I should buy SEIV or Galatic Civ. It seems that SEIV is more 4x but the AI got good Ratings in GalCiv. FYI I always just play the computer, no multi player etc. (not enough time) So my questions.
1) Are there mods for the AI which make it more intellegent in its strategy and descision making? I am tired of the CIV type AI's which compensate for their stupidity with overwhelming force.

If you are only going to play single player and challenging gameplay is your primary concern, then Gal Civ is the game to buy.

On the other hand, I will say that while SEIV Gold's AI has essentially no decision making capabilities or strategies, it is still adequate enough that the single player game is quite a bit of fun to play. But SEIV Gold is primarily a multiplayer game.

I have both and enjoy both. I'm still playing at just the 3rd out of 7th level of difficulty in Gal Civ for my 4th game and finding the game quite challenging.

But I miss tons and tons of things from SEIV Gold. For example, you can't design your ships in Gal Civ, and you don't get to watch them fight it out with different graphical effects and sounds for each weapon. I really, really miss that!

In Gal Civ, you can only play as one race. I miss playing as other races.

The diplomacy in Gal Civ is awesome. I really like that.

But I miss building fighters and satellites and mines and drones in SEIV.

Like you, I don't really feel I have the time to play multiplayer. But SEIV Gold is such an amazing game that I'm just about ready to finally give it a try. Gal Civ is challenging. But it just isn't as satisfying to play as SEIV. Gal Civ is great, and the AI is rock solid. By comparison, SEIV has essentially no AI. Gal Civ has great diplomacy and has a rich morale vs. tax vs. income model. That's a lot of fun. But still... the ships are so bland in comparison to the flexibility of designing ships in SEIV Gold.

I really would buy both games if I were you.