Advanced Save Game Six Empires Huge Map and Minor Races

[UesugiKenshin]

There is no logical reason for poverty in BotE. You just become a colonist elsewhere. There is no reason for ghettos in a vast galaxy.

Today people aggregate in a densely populated urban center for economic opportunity that largely is a lie and a scam due to real estate prices and the cost of education. In BotE, you would just move to the frontier. Who is going to hassle someone of a minority class in a remote wilderness? This is total freedom. Freedom ends up being the opposite of what people think now living in cities.

[UesugiKenshin]

I stole 18 Heyoun ships this turn, and in response they weakly tried bribing the Callenec. There are 46 ships in the Emperor group in one sector that are all Heyoun or member minor race ships like Chewark.

When offering gifts, think about deritium as you have tons of it and I have made a grand total of 3 colony ships in the last 18 turns and it doesn't accumulate past 100. So any extra is just wasted.

Technically I could make SuperTax buildings, but you take a negative morale hit, and I already have infinite money. It's a bad deal too as you lose some raw materials, but I've maxed out so any gains just are wasted regardless. So all it would do is boost my treasury and slowly increment as now it is stable around 25.5 million. The final push to wage war against the Heyoun will be expensive.

[UesugiKenshin]

Why make any colony ships? In some cases when colonizing, no spacedock can be made without a second colony ship. It is a rare bug, and my colony ships are mostly far to the north, so to save time, sometimes it's faster to make a colony ship nearby and then recolonizes that buggy sector. It typically has to do with O class planet types.

The Omega know 119 minor races, but only 36 are members, and many by subjugation. They have about 536 colonized sectors plus members. The Rotharians only have 7 sectors left, but have more minor race members, so soon they will disintegrate as a major race.

What is slowing me down is the Heyoun's treaties with minor races prevents me attacking them...just yet. There really is no rush as they are supplying me with stolen ships each turn! They are making me stronger.

[UesugiKenshin]

In chess, when a player uses the least moves and causes a checkmate, then it is considered masterful as the player demonstrates economy of motion and finesse to overwhelmingly humble the opponent.

In wargaming, you rush only when there is a reason to do so. It may be that your economy is floundering, or your people are warweary,or your soldiers have suffered terrible attrition. Rushing is foolish unless there is a possibility the enemy can gain fresh troops or an ally can arrive and save the day. This honestly happened in the strangest circumstances in the American Revolutionary War as formerly the French had waged a guerilla war using some Native American tribes against the British troops and American colonies (the French and and Indian War), then ended up wanting to humble the British, so lent us aid with the French navy. Ever wonder why the Americans helped the French in WW2? That is largely why. We owed them a serious debt. If not for the French, given how many American colonists were Tories (loyalists to get British crown), we might have become like Canada. Then the Louisiana purchase doubled American claims.
https://www.history.com/topics/native-a ... indian-war
https://www.monticello.org/thomas-jeffe ... -purchase/

It might easily have gone the opposite way and the USA would be half the size it is today.

Right now, I could defeat the Heyouns, but doing so is foolish and would require immense strategy. I have a tremendous terraforming and colonizing program resulting in 4-10 colonies per turn. Why risk the Heyoun just devasting helpless colony ships? Why dispatch scores of patrols to protect them? It would mean a LOT of micromanaging just to guard them PLUS a massive offensive and coordinated ground invasions. If you are interested in trying that, by all means, load one of the save games. It would be very complex.
...
The Rotharians are down to a single inhabited sector plus eight member minor races. If they were smart, they would ask the Heyoun to sponsor them, then the Omega would have to change tactics.

It is inevitable the Heyoun will lose though. Next turn, that single Rotharian inhabited sector will fall, so the 10% spent on espionage and 10% spent on sabotage will then be 20% I can place against military sabotage of Heyoun ships (putting military sabotage to 78%!). They still have fleets, not strong ones, but nonetheless can harass with them.

[UesugiKenshin]

At the conclusion of WW2, Truman was not very popular as he was a nobody who had actually been tainted by KuKluxKlan involvement and who had inherited an expensive debacle and the American people were warweary. Nobody really liked Truman and it was only years later that people appreciated him. They say when he found out FDR was dead, you looked gravely shaken as he was so unimportant that he knew almost nothing about war preparations. Likely that is why he used the two nuclear bombs to bolster his political strength, as the most important military figures were largely against using the bombs. Japan was on its knees so it was unnecessary and so propaganda was used to claim it saved a million lives. That is absurd given the token resistance that followed.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/famous-kkk-members/4

Acting in a military capacity without genuine need is foolish. You do not risk the lives of veteran exhausted soldiers unless you got to.

The result was the formation of the military industrial complex as defense heads and armament makers then orchestrated military policy and that alarmed Eisenhower so much he warned Americans. Too bad most didn't and don't listen.

[UesugiKenshin]

Those three save games are intentionally made very open ended so players can experiment and try many tactics. That took months of planning and was not random. Even though one sided due to immense strength, the point is to use the advanced save games to try things as you can't mess them up and can easily recover, or simply reload.

I'm considering a Khaoran vs Cartare multiplayer game entirely without security buildings with everything built up otherwise. It would take place on a 10*10 galactic map and would be an experiment. If players would join as members and communicate, I could make whatever they want. The first multiplayer should be a 1 on 1 situation where you could play either side as single player or play against a friend, and likely at turn #300 and #400.

Next I want to experiment changing the difficulty level and turning on anomalous aliens (space monsters) to see if that is possible by changing the settings.ini file.

The most useful multiplayer games will likely be small so that they can be played over a weekend. Ultimately, I want to make a giant galatic war scenario.

Someone could try using brute force hex editing and really HELP the community by seeing if they can figure out the settings.ini as perhaps they could figure out changing the difficulty level and using space monsters and use that in combination with these Omega save games at turn #300. That would be wonderful. I do not think it is hard, but is looking at setting changes to the setting.ini ile, then trying to hex edit it, so it actually alters the parameters of a save game.

What is required is someone with dogged determination combined with logic who writes down their findings, then proves it is a repeatable process. It might only be a week or less of work. Likely these are 2 memory addresses so making new save games with these settings and watching that these particular addresses change in a consistent way.

[UesugiKenshin]

Here is a little bit of trivia for German BotE players. Some of the most feared professional soldiers in the American Revolutionary War was were the 30,000 Hessians who were mercenaries hired by the British. They came from Hesse-Cassel.
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/dig ... %20America.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/hessians

Great Britain hired 34,000 German soldiers, of which more than half, 18,000, were from the Principality of Hesse-Kassel, which resulted in all German soldiers being generalized as “Hessians.” The remaining soldiers were from states such as Anhalt-Zerbst, Anspach-Beyreuth, Brunswick, Hannover, Hesse-Hanau, and Waldeck.

The use of the term "mercenary" is actually problematic as what actually happened was the British paid the political leadership of Hesse-Cassel, thus their soldiers were "lent" to the British continental forces. 10% stayed and got married to American wives. These are consummate veteran professionals (of the most exemplary character) which is why they scared most as many fighting were ragtag militia and did not have steely resolve and discipline on the American side.

[UesugiKenshin]

As a new player, I was stumped about reading all the German wiki...until I realized how simple it is to use the translate function within Google Chrome (and later realizing it exists in Opera as well). There is your manual, and while it seems lengthy, without reading it thoroughly, I doubt you truly understand how to play.

Back then, straight away I noticed the bug about stardocks. So back then, I tried doing multiple colonizations on the same turn. Not only do you get the annoying bug to go away, but realize in each sector, the resources are spread across multiple planets. This means that while crystals may be available, when the bug happens, it thinks you did not terraform that planet so you have access for the colonists to mine it.

But what happens if you use that multiple colonization within the same turn, is since each colony ship can bring 8 billion people, doing multiples may create too large a population density all at once, so induces a famine. Be careful.

The proper optimized way in testing is to throughly terraform all planets (and under rare circumstances there can be 9, but some percentage will be gas giants so actually less). Then pick a lesser experienced colony ship (for as they continuously do terraforming, they get better at it), to actually colonize. Then send the group to a nearby sector that is available to terraform. Colonization will shift the power in that sector and affect nearby sectors and push the opponent major race's sphere of influence.

This creates very effective terraforming and incrementally takes new territory and opposes the enemies encroaching sphere of influence, and maximizes the speed of terraforming. Immediately, then look if spacedocks are available based on raw materials being present. If not, then you need to colonize again. What I do is use the interstellar storage to add to that newly inhabited sector so they have some raw materials to start with. It's like that first week as newlyweds when you go to the grocery and stock up on food and supplies, as it may be months before gardening provides any produce.

[UesugiKenshin]

Never colonize with an experienced level 2 colony ship or you just wasted their experience. Let them keep getting better at it and so totally terraforming in less turns. This becomes a significant advantage when a large group of colony ships is very busy and all working together. Then every new colony has the MAXIMUM starting infrastructure saving time and money. Failing to be at the utmost efficiency then makes you slower and is expensive. From turn#1-500, I have been continuously colonizing every single turn. BotE is mostly an economic simulation based on colonization. Very little conquest is worth it until then #480 in this present game. Conquest is expensive.

The galaxy is maxed out and so things are calmer and if modded well, should provide a stronger AI. You want to fight a strong enemy, right? The most boring sports game is when two very unevenly matched opponents are in the same game. The victory is lopsided and humiliating for the other side. You feel pity for them.

[UesugiKenshin]

The Cartare player might send patrols with ground invasion troops in a transport and then attack that new colony. The Terrans sure would not do that, nor the Khaoran as there is no honor in soldiers attacking colonists. I don't think the Rotharians would feel bad as they would justify it. The Heyoun would find it distasteful as they want profit not wasteful war.

Why attack a colony ship? Let them do the work for you.

I will often totally terraform a claimed sector, then place a outpost and starbase nearby, then it flips ownership, and then colonize it. The colony ship will sit on it during that process, and this blocks the AI. They can colonize it, but are intimidated by your active presence.

[UesugiKenshin]

On a giant map, 500 turns might take 400 hours. Most players simply don't have that much time to invest in a single scenario. This is why BotE needs modders so badly to configure these so they are "turnkey empires" with troops and starships and high treasuries and infrastructure and advanced research. But totally lacking security buildings.

That produces a balanced galactic map. Then single or multiplayers can invest 20 hours and wage war. That is what most wargamers desire...the thrill of a quickening pulse because danger is present and war is coming. If a player spends two hours playing a day, then it would take 200 days for a real battle to begin on a giant map. That is too long for even the most hardcore wargamers.

Late start games but lacking security buildings translates to more war and less espionage and sabotage, but still the latter is plausible. This satisfies everyone and it then is correctly proportional. Then an opponent lacking those abilities has to conquer aggressively to cope.

Essentially the Omega have stolen all the armadas of the Cartare, Terrans, Khaorans, Rotharians, and are doing it now against the Heyoun. That is a farce and impossible.

It is like all the galactic powers are fighting the Q Continuum.

[UesugiKenshin]

Start of turn#500
The Rotharians fell so all of their eight member races are up for grabs. That means military sabotage can go to 88%! It is insane now as the Emperor group is up to 78 ships plus ten ships whose hulls are so fragile, they must be venting atmosphere. I picked up 20 Heyoun plus other member race ships. Most of the Heyoun ships and fleets have been severely damaged for the last few turns. They would not last seconds in battle and their captains would be forced into kamikaze attacks by ramming their ships into the enemy instead after expending all their weapons and torpedoes one last time.

The important thing, though largely useless probably fact, is the Palan starships have been redesigned. The Palan are a strange looking minor race as they are afflicted with something akin to the human disease Progeria, thus age at a highly accelerated and irregular rate.

They can make two useful ships:a scout and (finally) an armed lethal robust military grade transport, which now is the Holy Grail for BotE, it is just almost too late to be useful. And the AI would not be able to use it this way, which is why subclasses are so essential.

The Paqlan optimized has beam weaponry of 1020, torpedoes of 11,250, type 10 shields and an iridium double hull so a hull integrity of 1200+300. The Omega have been lusting for this since turn#1. You badly need a specialized transport for the finale battles.

You need at least 20 of those and to be very caution coupled with a Saijin or better assault ship just in case that can break off the assault if necessary when it is overkill as mostly bombardment is counterproductive.

[UesugiKenshin]

Like many races, the best way to be a patron of a minor race who has medical issues would be if a special project cured them, likely at extreme expense, but the proper ethical action regardless. That seems fitting and far more interesting than mere conquering. Imagine how such benevolence would ripple through the empire. When it really mattered, a major race did not hesitate to care for their members so greatly enhancing the future of younger generations of that minor race.

Trekkers would love that, and especially if such meddling had unexpected consequences. Maybe it is helpful, but causes severe discrimination of the ones who cannot be treated and so they commit suicide. Maybe it places them in a handicapped role, when their entire lives they lived without such stigma as they were pillars of their society. Nothing is ever simple.

When there began to be implants to restore hearing for the deaf, this was controversial and made some of the most educated American deaf intelligentsia to be quite angry. That has changed but took decades.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LsOo3jzkhYA
Congenital deaf woman hears for the first time.

Similarly in bioethics, plastic surgery for those with Down's Syndrome is still controversial today. Should someone have their appearance then affect how people perceive them, even if functioning well enough to live in a group home, thus having a measure of independence. Then insurance companies claim this is not medically necessary. Bioethics is always complex.

[UesugiKenshin]

In Japan after the nuclear bombs, the victims would hide the fact they were afflicted with radioactivity and injuries as it then caused a phenomena where no one would marry them. You can treat their medical issues, but can do nothing for any stigma they suffer socially and culturally. Radioactivity had caused burns and sterility and likely long term chromosomal damage meaning high birth defects, thus it took a special loving person to disregard these facts.

Should another species do so, if it is within their ability? If so, then how many other member species will be upset that they don't have some similar life changing benefit? What about prioritization of disease and infections? Should you cure another species when your own people actually cause a parasitic infection?

Say your wife and you were both afflicted Palan, but she cannot be cured. Is it wrong to be cured and will she then feel she has to let you go so you won't feel "stuck" with her?

That manner of game is so superior that it is worth striving for it and likely would be played by many who otherwise would never play a sci-fi wargame. That kind of game challenges our assertions and makes us introspective.

[UesugiKenshin]

The Omega create utopias throughout 75% of the galaxy and unparalleled wealth, but the cost is trillions dead because they resisted. And these are not trillions of soldiers, but civilians.

What do you think would ultimately happen? The survivors likely orchestrate a galaxy wide uprising and would entirely
be unrestrained by any ethics to gain back their autonomy. Anything goes as long as Omegas die.

They likely fail, but maybe a trillion more die.