Advanced Save Game Six Empires Huge Map and Minor Races

[UesugiKenshin]

BotE has lots of unique beam weapons as major and minor race have alternate paths just as they do with torpedo launchers and types of torpedoes.

GalCiv2 has missiles instead of torpedoes, but has a way to interdict them with "point defenses". It also has a separate category of mass drivers which are analogous to a type of machine gun shooting streams of projectiles. Neither shown up in BotE.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-defence

However BotE has ablative and regenerative armor and some pretty fancy torpedo types.

Regardless of the game, watching RTS elements animate a battle causes a massive increase in computing power, special graphics boards, and intense programming, yet the vast majority will not actually watch these or play them out. Why? Some human beings have a knack for spatial relationships. These are essential skills to architects, machinists, fighter pilots, and surgeons. Every submarine office has to possess a high degree of imagining the positions of various submarines and torpedoes or they could never function in their jobs.

Most people have no ability or training in tactics. Showing these in computer and tablet games ends up being eye candy only. It limits sales due to price and hardware requirements.

What are useful are tactical formations and alternative weaponry and countermeasures.

A tiny subset have any real ability in these areas of spatial relationships and tactics.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS
Here is an example of the US Navy's Phalanx system in action for point defense.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V5DU-uoLwj4

To the casual viewer, it looks like a mass driver, but it throws out a barrage of projectiles so a missile homing in strikes that burst and so does not blow up the vessel.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DnHYz1FizjQ
A-10:Warthogs are essentially shooting mass drivers to penetrate the armor of tanks. So some cruiser class starship might have a mass driver to shoot streams of projectiles at darting agile fighters. A torpedo would have to get a torpedo lock. A beam weapon might simply be absorbed by shields and armor and hull integrity.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun
A railgun is a type of mass driver.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=30ZINwOSE0A

[UesugiKenshin]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
Rods from god are a type of mass driver technically called kinetic bombardment and can be a satellite based weapon hurling tungsten projectiles from orbit.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XGeyYpAxFU4

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=29s1_x8PAaM
Shield lasers are scheduled to be placed on fighter planes in the near future.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D-H6RaBuGVo
Chaff is the oldest point defense system to prevent an accurate missile lock.

[UesugiKenshin]

With scripting, even though the AI is weak, the script then can evaluate the strength of the human player attacking and "spawn" an appropriately strong defensive force to repel the human p!ayer's invading major race, and with scripting you can also spawn based on difficulty level. In this way, the AI has a fighting chance and it covers deficits in the ability of the AI to determine how many defenders it needs. AIs are notorious about leaving garrisons undefended or improperly defended.

BotE lacks a discernable scripting mechanism, but might exist. If so, then if then statements can be written to conditionally do alternative actions based on what the single human or multiplayer(s) do. Say two human multiplayers team up and attack every AI player weakening them all. That would be likely unfair, so a script would spawn based on such an action occurring.

Scripting then makes the AI seem smarter or more able to cope, yet is not actually stronger, as such spawning can then eliminate those spawned defenders within the same turn or else it wrecks the AI's economies as perhaps they lack sufficient funding to maintain the upkeep.

A script can empower the AI with special boosts to attributes to cope. The various mods of Medieval 2 Kingdoms like the Third Age mods extensively use scripts.

I believe this is commonly done in Civ 4 mods too.

[UesugiKenshin]

If the script is then among the data files, then such a script could easily be modded versus hardcored in the main programming modules.

Typically a program has a way to load a scenario or a total conversion mod, thus everything can be changed like a map, or have entirely new major and minor races, buildings, units, starships, and a script. Then a player could do the following.
1. Just play BotE ordinarily
2. Load an advanced save game
3. Load a starting map
4. Load a scenario
5. Load a total conversion mod

Mods then pump new life into older games so even today there are people modding Civ 2. And those modders mix and match created art, text, buildings, units, scripts from other modders as resources so you don't need a mod team, but a single modder can cobble all those elements into a new mod.

The way the Android version is written is totally resistant to modding so seems peculiar and not as progressive as games written more than 20 years ago, and not in keeping with BotE's history too.

[UesugiKenshin]

Deritium is capped at 100 and then accumulates no more despite having the best deritium system in place.

So I just made colony ships in 61 inhabited sectors and that used up 5 deritium and that colony ship subsequently after terraforming deposits 8 billion colonists on that sector seemingly from thin air as they are not subtracted from the workforce where they came from. The growth rate of an inhabited sector then increments to a maximum, and then it is as if it reaches a plateau and nobody is having babies or the birth and death rate reaches equilibrium.

I have plenty of troops of 20 + units just waiting around, but most lack enough deritium as it requires 12 to make a single transport for 6 units, but only 8 deritium is present. This is the bottleneck created by a peculiar cap of 100. There is no reason that it isn't a 1000 except to artificially limit even in a wartime economy with vast raw material races and almost 27 million in the treasury. It is odd.

Now a single transport can handle 6 level 6 combat troops. I estimate that each single unit is 6 million troops based on their ability for a single combat unit to suppress and subjugate one billion civilians. That means if 6 units can board a single transport, that transport has 36 million soldiers.

[Why? The average inhabited sector is 10.0 billion minimum. Thus requires 3 to 6 units of combat troops to subjugate them and highly dependent on enemy combat units being present plus bunkers and other defenses on the ground.]

It is not logical that a colony ship can be built to house 8 billion and require 5 deritium
VS
A single transport can can deploy 36 million and require 12 deritium.

See the problems?

It gets worse the more you look at how many deritium are needed for a heavy cruiser which is small at 19 deritium versus a mammoth amount for a battleship at 48 deritium. The deritium system capacity and how much is generated and what is required for starships is not balanced.

[UesugiKenshin]

To play BotE well, one has to plan hundreds of turns prior so you have effective fleets to deploy to enemy orbits in case the enemy has fleets in orbit and sector defenses, and also have sufficient transports to send an effective ground invasion. Technically you only need to send 3 level 6 troops in an advanced save game past turn #500+, but there might be bunkers and soldiers or extra defenses so you might need 6 level 6 troops, so a whole transport is needed and plausibly an assault ship as an escort (or for bombardment) or that transport is extremely vulnerable to attack.

This is no arcade game or time waster. If you didn't plan, then you would have serious delays in how long it takes to get sufficient deritium in that sector just to construct a transport which might be as long as 19 turns. Or as the galaxy is huge in this advanced save game, you might have to dispatch a transport in the wrong direction to collect those troops, then travel as much as 20 turns even though you can travel 4.2 sectors a turn.

It takes tremendous planning to wage galactic level war.

[UesugiKenshin]

Multiply all of those delays times how many inhabited enemy sectors you are waging war in.

This means you are constantly assessing your military strength versus multiple enemies up to 6 major races plus minor races plus anomalous entities (alien monsters if turned on). There is a lot going on in a maxed out galaxy after turn #500.

You have this slow build up of weak ships and weak troops, which would cause immense economic issues due to upkeep, or you could be conservative and smart as the enemy is likely too far away, so delay building ships and units when they are stronger and more likely to be required.

But there is a gap from turn #1-300, and likely minimal conflict if adequately prepared with sector defenses from turns #301-400, so finally from #401-500+ that is when galactic wars begin. This is unlike any Android games.

Refer back to players spending less than 40 minutes gaming per day. This is why the number of BotE players is small as the amount of strategy and tactics to eventually wage war on the largest maps is immense versus most tablet games.

To get popular, BotE absolutely requires modders to construct empires so players don't have to spend 400 hours just to start waging war. Otherwise a BotE player is likely to be an extremely patient brilliant wargamer hard science fiction fan. Your average gamer likely could not play this game.

[UesugiKenshin]

It is risky but useful to leave transports in orbit after subjugation. You might use them to make outposts and starbases to extend your sphere of influence, but this is largely wasteful as likely these are experienced transports. They may be defenseless though. But if they are in orbit, then maybe 40 turns later they are shuttling the same occupying combat troops to their next ground invasion.

Really this is risky unless you have some escort likely a frigate or better. In a properly modded game, the AI would be many times stronger with a late standing military of diverse starships and troops, and might certainly attack defenseless transports. I would as that neutralized the ability to project power. Those soldiers then are trapped in the sector.

[UesugiKenshin]

If you don't leave escorted transports in orbit, those units on the ground cannot leave until a new transport is made or one is dispatched and the dispatch time may be so large, that it is wiser just to make a new transport.

The more you do that though means much higher military upkeep. The is not an issue with my commodity manipulation systems as you have millions in treasury. Being cautious and maintaining a strong military presence to be a rapid deployment force is far more important.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_deployment_force

A real planner would link up transports with escorts at a starbase acting as a deployment hub. I talked about this earlier. Then whenever there is a threat is in a subsection of the galaxy (each in 1/9 of the galaxy), you can redeploy vessels and troops much faster. You have bases deployed within each main 1/9 subsection. Then you likely have ships within a radius of six sectors. That time for reinforcements is smaller then.

You want the fastest time response possible. The enemy is unpredictable without always creating the best isolinear scanning, and so you may have 3 or 4 patrols trying to interdict some raiders. A single large raiding fleet can split up into several smaller ones, and you end chasing your tail trying to interdict them all.

It is better to be the harasser doing this than being the defender trying to interdict. Then you are reacting all the time. People who react in chess...LOSE. Nice Guys finish last.

[UesugiKenshin]

Each 1/9 subsection of a maximum galaxy looks like this, a matrix that is 13 by 13 or thereabouts (for a 39x39 galaxy).

01 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
02 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
03 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
04 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
05 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
06 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
07 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
08 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
09 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
10 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
11 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
12 OOOOOOOOOOOOO
13 OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Likely in row 07 there is a main deployment hub, and two smaller forces in staggered rows so an equidistant military base from which to draw down units and starships so you can rapidly move to interdict.

Otherwise some military forces from an adjacent distant separate subsection matrix, very far away is trying to send troops and starships. Your inhabited sectors are too far away and are poorly defended.