Advanced Save Game Six Empires Huge Map and Minor Races

[UesugiKenshin]

This is micromanagement hell, but an exploit you can use is transports can relocate resources as freighters. Now realize there is a capacity of 125,000 in most raw materials and 100 for deritium. So it would be a pain in the butt, but one could make lots of Beth Extremum transports as the Omega and siphon off the resources and dump them in the next sector's cache. This is very useful for sectors lacking raw materials like deritium especially when they have everything else. Routing 50 to 100 freighters is not very much fun, but you could filling up all the mining caches this way. The problem is this interferes with how I manipulate commodity prices as the buying and selling generates profits.

You can even do this in empty sectors, but if doing that, I recommend you put an outpost there so you remember where you stashed a cache.

It would be so tedious, but you could have organized freighter runs this way and technically maybe even avoid mining. It's a weird strategy in my opinion.
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The Paqlan transports are a bust as they have such minimal capacity that I can only put a single level 6 combat troop in one, so they are utterly useless for troop transports. Maybe they would be minor freighters as they are slow and can protect themselves? You can out 6 level 6 troops in a Beth Extremum. If I had to make six Paqlan to do the work of one Beth Extremum, that would make pull my hair out.

All the transports are loaded now.

Being an enlightened warrior and using diplomacy instead if just doing ground invasions is adding a lot of turns to this game and making it anticlimactic. Sometimes you just want to crush the enemy quickly. I have a long list of stuff I want to try, so this isdelaying all that.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpUYjpKg9KY
Limp Bizkit "Break Stuff"

[UesugiKenshin]

Many Omega starships end up inflating raw material prices thus create profit potential, but transports do not and rushing Beth Extremum is expensive. The main way ordinarily is you want to rush everything as this generate profit potential and time is money in BotE. If you build things at their natural construction rate, it makes the game crawl. For a game to be enjoyable, there has to be a thrill due to a threat on some activity is going on. But the first 400 turns is most building which is not exciting at all. It takes a tremendous time for compelling war to take place, and the AI is bewildered by a smart experienced wargamer and easily outclassed.

BotE will rock when a scenario is organized by a modder, but otherwise is not an action packed game. This is a historic issue for military commanders as unless something major is going on like a crusade or world war, then most military commanders did not actually fight many major battles. They averaged one or up to three in their entire lifetimes. This is why jousting and tournaments were invented so knights could let off some steam.

[UesugiKenshin]

Soldiers always want to fight, but in history, many died and many were maimed, thus they were lucky to fight a single battle and live and really fortunate to survive three battles. Decades might pass before another battle. So considering that, you can see why some Roman would enlist to fight on a regular basis, or a Viking raider, or a samurai. They hoped to fight more.

Computer wargames are unnatural in this way with far higher than plausible military engagements.

In history to expend such large amounts to have a professional standing army and feed and house them and take care of their medical needs and transport them...cost fortunes. And it had to pay off, and if it did not, diplomacy was how it was settled. You cannot have a professional military without actual engagements as the soldiers they are untested and have unrealistic expectations.

Plunder was vital as the soldiers expected battle would pay off for them as well for risking their lives and the risk of permanent disability by being maimed.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare
Now I'll play Devil's Advocate. Manueuver warfare is blitzing as rapidly as possible to attack key command centers, regions with a higher mustering ability, strategic points, rich sectors, in order to cripple the enemy (enemies) and sow confusion and stymie their ability to respond. So blitzing has a role and why so many play in that style as all effective postmodern warfare utilizes it. It is extremely rough on morale as the soldiers are pushed to exhaustion and therefore they themselves are confused and make far more errors.

Blitzing means dictating the tempo, and if you can't and hesitate, then the rapidly coping clever enemy takes over and you are playing catch up.

Rather than develop a massive strike to do simultaneous ground invasions, and minimize civilian casualties, I could have blitzed all across the galaxy.

Do what entertains you and don't be afraid to try lots of different strategies. In my opinion, blitzing while effective in war in actuality, so devastated the AI, that it never catches up. If you blitz and win even five back-to-back engagements, the entire ability for an AI to cope may be totally eroded.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JCc67pn98Q8
Arousing the ire of Julius Caesar, who has been in Gaul for seven years in an illegal war, he is furious when Marc Anthony is attacked outside the Senate. He flees to Caesar's camp, and Caesar sends his legions across the Rubicon. That is where the expression comes from. And sending a small amount with barbarian mercenaries from Gaul, they speed along so fast by blitzing, that now old Pompey Magnus is dazed by their tremendous speed.

He and the Senate to flee Rome as they only have a small number among 3 legions and what they do have are men likely loyal to Caesar, so he can't count on their loyalty. He has a fraction of 1 legion he can count on. He risked being trapped by Caesar's legions within the city before Caesar even arrives.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BASVRPfYFKo

Pompey had 7 legions, but 5 in the north and 2 in Spain, thus it takes too long to get them in place to oppose Caesar, and he cannot let himself and the Senate be captured and neutralized. So he is utterly humiliated and has to flee.
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If you blitz any AI, I would say as long as you have built up a steady stream of recruits and keep sending streams of them to the front, then the AI will cave as they are poor at such logistics. It is not a particularly impressive way to win.

[UesugiKenshin]

Have you ever been in a fight and been shocked how fast some opponents cave as most of their seeming power is just bluff and bluster? Maybe nobody ever challenged them before in actuality and they don't have the resolve and discipline and stomach for war. You rapidly defeating them in a few battles takes all the warrior spirit out of them.

The AI is almost always like that. It may be powerful, but cannot redeploy its troops to its advantage. Each smart invasion then erodes its power base. You attack the AI's income and places where most of its forces are generated. The AI is stumped how to cope.

[UesugiKenshin]

Want to see someone lose their temper and focus? Play chess and put them in check 5 times in a row. They just lose their composure as they thought they were good players. Then...they make one error after another as they cannot calm their mind and think logically. They never saw it coming.

One can easily do that to the AI and they unravel.

War is not about who is the strongest or most intelligent but who can demoralize the enemy and who can use terrain and weather and be sneaky. Intelligence makes no difference without wisdom and pragmatism. Intelligent commanders get humiliated all the time as they are often smug, aloof, and impractical.

[UesugiKenshin]

If you have intense loyalty and morale by competent professional soldiers, you can defeat everyone. An excellent military commander inspires loyalty and lends strength even when the soldiers don't feel powerful. Belief is a powerful illusion and gifts the soldiers with immense self-confidence, thus their fear fades. Those are very dangerous soldiers then.

This is the big issue with crusaders or jihadists as if they do not fear death, then you end up with banzai charges. Those soldiers can overrun anyone.

[UesugiKenshin]

Blitzing or maneuver warfare is about winning games, but not about winning wars. Blitzing was extensively used in the war in Iraq and does anyone think those wars were won? Don't be absurd.

Not only that, it is not a satisfying win. You can actually make the AI strong and the AI will do stupid crap like abandon all protection of a fortified position and go attack a new territory without even a nominal garrison in the first, so it loses the first.

This is a primary reason for scripted AI defenders.

[UesugiKenshin]

Imagine if BotE had a map editor and certain major and minor races had adapted to live on certain planet classes. Some might be quite protected as others couldn't think of attacking them on those worlds. Some could learn technology to adapt to those planet classes but always be poor attackers under those conditions. You would effectively have terrain as an influence just like I think gravity wells would affect space battles.

Then BotE would have some realistic military strategy. Some major or minor races couldn't be displaced from those areas as maybe bombardment would totally ineffective against an ocean world or some planet where the people live deep underground.

Imagine one needed research levels to even cope on those worlds and they unlock defensive bunkers or tactics there.

Or every starship and unit had captains who were named and based on the technology, then had attributes that would help or hinder them in combat. They probably were born with traits that are random and give them personality. You don't have generic starships and units. They trained use certain conditions and survived through certain stellar types and anomalies, thus are experienced in star classes and nebula. You would select certain starship captains and captains of invasion troops because those captains are experienced in those conditions.

Captains who had trained under many conditions gain abilities and unique formation types. Maybe major races have different formations and can study to learn their opponent races' formation types.

BotE has all this untapped potential, and why not take what was leaned and start a whole new game and apply these kinds of ideas to that newer game? Likely at least 100,000 people would pay $20 to play that game. I would in a heartbeat. The mythology is rich but warfare is limited in BotE.

[UesugiKenshin]

You train your captains and they all act differently. Soldiers are not the same at all. They train so they they have a base of skills and based on the solar date, they age, and eventually they die, either in combat, or are so injured they have to retire, or retire due to being too old. Then the players know those names and it matters when you have to risk them to do missions. You send the right captain for the mission as some would never succeed. Some by circumstances during redeployment then are forced to fight under less than ideal circumstances, and so gain useful experience or perish.

You can have the best ship, but under terrible leadership, then lose battles.

Maybe that captain fights terribly under certain star types or a captain of a ground invasion is superior under icy conditions or lousy on desert worlds. Maybe that captain has learned to be a better defender versus the Rotharians as she has done so three separate occasions and has been decorated.

[UesugiKenshin]

Since I am looking at everything that I can possibly mod in BotE, I was looking at food and how races acquire or generate it. In history, when civilizations were hunter-gathers, this severely limited population size. As the herds moved to cope with winter and as the animals of large enough mass and strength coped with human interaction, they evaded humans. To take down large prey required using atl-atl ranged weapons, plus of course fire for cooking, and stone knives by creating edges by percussion and flaking.

The animals are not dumb, and neither were humans as harsh winter killed the youngest and oldest (human and largely mammals) and populations struggled to remain stable on top of disease and exposure from winter. Hunting was insufficient, and humans started raising animals for domestication, but realized that meant they needed grasslands to feed those herds. In colder regions where fish had calorie rich oils, and in tropical regions longer stable growing seasons allowed larger masses of certain fish species. But these are seasonal based on the normal lifespan and "fishing runs" then exist where the fish are in high enough abudance to largely be netted.

They also started growing crops, and realized that whoever did not eat certain foods would get weak or sickened. They even began to chemically treat certain grains like maize with ashes as this release B vitamins as those who ate those chemically treated grains did not get nutritional diseases.

So this organized agriculture allow larger and larger populations. But to continue to get increasing yields meant chemically treating what they were depleting from the soil. Not only that, but the same was true for fodder and feeding livestock. Then there is an upper limit to how many animals can coexist in a small area before Malthusian forces will take over. Then animal populations decline.

The more grasslands exist, the lower woodland exist, and so it becomes an issue if sufficient lumber and treecrops like acorns and fruits and medicines versus enough fodder for the herds. Then cultures adapted by burning manure just as some cultures with peat bogs adapted to burn peat.

So all civilizations will ultimately find better ways to produce more food in a smaller area just to allow for more housing for people. And chemical runoff from fertilizers and pesticides taints the ground water and causes immense issues with creating potable pure safe water supplies.

Food efficiency has to improve, and obviously this is so on various planet classes where the soil has not had sufficient time to produce the humus layer that is not just nutrient rich, but full of nitrogen fixing bacteria. That soil needs worms to aerate the clay underneath and fresh water and proper soil pH.

Obviously food replicators would happen.

[UesugiKenshin]

The Xiborg actually are an artificial life form but use hunting regions. Now an interesting aspect of autonamous military robots is engineers are proposing bioreactors where those would digest the dead in order to create energy. See, it makes sense in a macabre way.
https://www.wired.com/2009/07/military- ... ng-robots/

One also can make a methane bioreactor in largely tropical and some subtropical zones, and a slurry of biowaste from feces and scrap vegetation that is finely chopped, then can using bacteria produce methane which then can be burned, and so generate electricity. To achieve sufficient bacterial "digestion" in the bioreactor, the efficiency goes way up based on ambient temperature.

[UesugiKenshin]

Terraforming a planet is quite a miraculous feat as it isn't just to have a planet within the narrow range required for a sentient species to survive, but the complex interactions between bacteria, protists, flora and fauna, so that biomass is developed so useful food and everything we get from the environment is available. Mass acceleration of millions of species in a balance so that some portion can be utilized for up to 90 billion across many planets in a sector.

[UesugiKenshin]

Good writing fills in the gaps with "technobabble" such that the reality of BotE's galaxy then makes sense.

Saying, "It's a game, Dude, don't worry about it...", is quite at odds with a scientifically accurate space wargame. BotE is not a fantasy game about magick.