The One thing that drives me mad

[Atrocities]

The one thing that drives me mad about SEIV, and yes, its an old complaint, is the fact that an empire is in a partnership with you, and all of a sudden, within one turn
http://www.angelfire.com/zine/cnchome/pic.html



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"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Patric Stewart as Captain Picard
UCP/TCO Ship Yards

[raynor]

I wonder...

If you built enough empty ships and bases, then gave them to a computer player, could it bump their score up high enough to make THEM be MEE?

Wouldn't that be pretty funny if you could?

Folks have already suggested giving crippling the AI's economy by giving him lots of high maintenance ships. It would be even funnier if you made him MEE...

[jimbob55]

Now if that isn't mega evil, I don't know what is....

[DirectorTsaarx]

It's not always the MEE that triggers the end of a partnership. Some races get angry very quickly when they finally get to see your star charts & learn how many planets you've colonized that they can't colonize. The relevant AI settings are:

Get Angry Over Allied Colonizable Planets := True
Get Angry Over Enemy Colonizable Planets := False
Percentage of Allied Planets to consider as Attack Locations for Anger := 10
Percentage of Enemy Planets to consider as Attack Locations for Anger := 5

(from the *_AI_Settings file)

Obviously, different races have different settings. But it's annoying when you accept a partnership treaty and then your ally gets all upset about being allied with such a robust empire. Maybe some of the AI's should get angry when they enter a partnership and realize their partner is smaller than expected...

[SunDevil]

I've changed this in my mod, I've made the races that are peaceful from their race description will not declare war on you when you get a partnership. Where as the aggressive races will. Pick it up in the mod section.

[raynor]

I'm curious about the strong feelings a lot of folks have about MEE. I am reminded of a game of Risk from long ago.

In this particular game of Risk, I very early allied myself with another player who guarded my back. By the end of the game, I controlled 39 out of 42 territories while my ally only controlled three. At any point, I could have utterly crushed him. But I was true to our alliance and never attacked him. We finished the game that way.

When folks talk about changing the race AI files so that your Partners don't break their treaties when you become MEE, is this what they are talking about? Could a situation like my Risk example actually happen where you maintain a Partnership with a tiny empire and kill everyone else without them ever breaking the treaty?

On one hand, I think it is pretty cool that you can setup the AI files to do this. My compliments to him who figured this out.

But, as for me, I wonder. Does this also make the game even easier to win? It seems like it would. Granted, the added realism is probably worth it. But doesn't it make the game much, much easier if you can do your best to Partner with the #2 race, kill all the rest and then come back and kill the race or races you had been partnering with?

I'm just curious. Thanks!

[Nyx]

Not too long ago I played an e-mail game of Emperor of the Fading Suns with 4 other humans and no AI players where one guy had 3 times as much power as the #2 player, and I was at the bottom but his ally. Everyone else turned on him purely because of his size (the MEE mindset working among human players) but I managed to score him the victory anyway giving myself an unofficial allied victory. It was a lot of fun. I think really weak players stand to gain so much by allying with a MEE that they really ought to be more likely to side with it, than oppose it.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

[geoschmo]

I think it would depend on the actions of the empire in question.

This is not a new thought, it is discussed in another thread somewhere, but ai anger should be more dependant on how your race interacts with others than how high your score is in relation.

If I was a tiny empire I would want to be friends with a gigantic empire that was not going around snapping up all the tiny empires like myself. But, if I see him at war with pretty much everybody, and attacking races he was in treties with a few turns before, that would make me very suspicious of him and not likely to be friendly.

Also, how he acted in a war would affect my judgement as well. If he conquered other planets with troops I would be more amenable to him than if he went around glassing planets and blowing up stars.

There should be penalties for genocidal behaviour. Not that it wouldn't be allowed by the game, it can be fun in role play, but it should affect how the ai races view you.

Also the victory conditions should be factored in. If it is a true Last man standing game, then the ai races should act as if they want to be the Last man standing. Only make treaties with you if it benifits them to get rid of a common enemy, or something like that.

As it is now I don't think the ai even has an awareness of the victory conditions.

All of these would add realism to the political side of the game, but I imagine they would require extensive code modification and may not be possible with the current game engine.

[Nitram Draw]

It would be nice if the AI had at least some memory. It should be able to remember if you broke a treaty or went to war with it and act accordingly.
I agree that there should be penalties for genocidal actions. Could actions be made to count really heavily toward evil empire status?