Advanced Save Game Six Empires Huge Map and Minor Races

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8JScwyYxGsw
Dogfighters from Midway (2019) scout and enter a sortie against Japanese Zeros.

Truly what would happen in space is a fighter would have very limited range so they can pack weaponry, and they would launch from some sort of carrier, and so "sally out" to protect the citadel (carrier). A carrier supported by battleships (today cruisers) and destroyers and cruisers would be a carrier task force or carrier strike group (CSG).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_strike_group

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway
This lists the types of fighter planes that engaged during the Battle of Midway in three days of June in 1942.

[UesugiKenshin]

Birth of the Empires is rather like an excellent updated representation of tabletop military wargames made prior to computers where one had to use one's imagination , and combat was calculated based on dice rolls and based on terrain on maps hexes. It is an homage to say Avalon Hill games. The first serious computer wargames were made by SSI and it feels like one of their games too.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_Hill
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Simulations

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KSTP04Tr__w
Stellar Conquest (1984) by Avalon Hill

Notice some similarities?

[UesugiKenshin]

The strongest and most numerous military forces may win battles more often, but just as important are the morale, experience, the authority and ability of the commanders at all levels...especially the ability of non-commissioned officers within infantry. Never underestimate sergeants as frequently they have immense battlefield experience. (Do you want Apone or Gorman actually leading the soldiers) Not only that but terrain, weather, time of day based on shifts of a starship, exhaustion or the lack thereof, and on and on.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Koxkg7C216c

In BotE as the depiction is in 2D, this ignores angle of attack, gravity wells, solar flares, and probably lots of other effects only an astrophysicist could imagine.

The simplistic ways to improve space combat in BotE would be formations, attributes of commanders, and map the terrain based on the type of star and planet masses and so in effect give the galactic map terrain factors. These would be welcome and impressive new additions. In some cases, such things could assist a less powerful or less numerous force fighting a fleet.

I wrote a lengthy post discussing gravity wells and one on how easily a single scout could slip right through 20 light years of space as that pilot might travel along the z axis at unusual heights in either directions, and so to fully patrol all of those would be daunting.

And analogy would be destroyers trying to find a submarine with depth charges, except imagine that submarine could fly as well. By the time you spot the submarine, they may evade your surveillance net and slip into a new sector.

The presumption that two separate military in 20 light years just stumble into each other is not realistic. And even should they detect each other, plotting an intercept course would be extremely difficult unless right on top of each other. What if the small force splits into five direction or is just faster? What if the pursuers encounter gravity wells which reduces their velocity?

[UesugiKenshin]

The mass of stars greatly vary and so affect gravity as gas giants would too, and all of that would create invisible mountains and valleys across spacetime. And these would have the most effect on smaller craft as their propulsion may get the crew their quickly under ideal circumstances with no gravity wells, but would make navigation arduous when present...particular black holes. Their efficiency of following a plotted course would be adversely affected.

A large vessel has superior propulsion, but steering this behemoth is another matter entirely. Ain't no rapid agile movements on such a beast. She turns when she can. Which steers better, a huge truck carrying a ton of material as the load or a little sports car? Which has a more powerful and stronger engine? The truck every time especially with no load. Wàtch an unloaded truck race sometime.

Now imagine a fully loaded truck climbing a mountain versus a sports car. And imagine fuel tank capacity between the two. All of these are factors in a space battle.

[UesugiKenshin]

If you ever want to see something crazy, watch a runaway truck flying down a mountain into a valley. All that mass from the load in space would be hurling toward gravity pulling it. At least a trucker has brakes and still in America there are runaway truck lanes. There are no brakes in space.

The velocity of a heavy cruiser or dreadnought would greatly increase based on such valleys caused by gravity wells regardless of how much propulsion is firing.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_attack
There is no up or down in space. There also is no issue about "stall speed" as there is no lift and no atmosphere in space. However the angle of attack might come from blindspots so could have a significant effect or using the cover of planets, stars, moons, or stellar phenomena to mask sensor detection and so ambush another captain.

The angle at which a starship enters into the atmosphere is significant as the whole reason the space shuttle has ceramic thermal panels to insulate is it effectively is on fire due to striking the atmosphere and the vessel could bounce off like a rock skips across the surface tension of a body of water.

The point is without 3D depiction, while BotE is 2D in this current incarnation, there are lots of additional factors influencing space combat. BotE already has a complex space combat formula, but it does not seem that way as this is mostly transparent to wargamers unless they have extensively read the German BotE wiki.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/s ... sep_zigzag
Solar flares tend to push comic rays away from astronauts, but we now know that they can not only cause waves in space, but these can change direction and so could cause all kinds of turbulence on a space vessel that would alter the vessel's course.

https://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/view_chapt ... 0or%20Mars.

[UesugiKenshin]

Start of turn #502.
The Omega only picked up 3 ships from the Heyoun this turn. I think enough military damage has so ruined their spacedocks and military shipyards that most of their existing ships including capital ships and their capacity to create new starships has been neutralized.

The statistics in the evaluation of empires seems to be delayed by a turn or two, thus I lack enough details to know what the Heyoun's actual military capacity is at this time.
...
The Omega have 552 inhabited sectors plus 40 memberships. (Two accepted membership and two perhaps three will eventually accept membership. That means no carnage to five minor races.)

The Heyoun have 70 inhabited sectors plus 38 memberships.

I switched gears and began appeasing many unaffiated minor races with gifts and accepted their low tier treaties as the only other options was killing half their population to subjugate them. Right now in this last turn, the Omega made 4.7 million and actually gained a million in the treasury. If that becomes a trend, they can be magnanimous and continue playing nice to protect those minor races.

It would be moronic to accept Heyoun membership as the Heyoun have no capacity to protect themselves, much less some minor races with Omega fleets and full transports in orbit. What I am actually doing is another test of the AI. It really is illogical for all of them not to make diplomatic gestures to curry favor from the Omega, right?

This is why I am a strong proponent for vassalage of the major races as there is simply no way the Heyoun can survive by resisting.

Should the AI resist so the player can destroy them? That seems weird. The intelligent diplomatic play would be en masse abandonment of Heyoun member minor races and join the Omega.

It is nonsensical to ever be a minor race joining the AI major races. There is ZERO BENEFIT. They take their minor race fleets and do a pitiful job improving those minor races' sectors.

[UesugiKenshin]

The gains this turn were all by colonization which has a high profitability. Subjugation can be a real messy ordeal where they lack anything close to what they should have in terms of mining capacity and cache versus infrastructure. Then everything has to be adjusted . So probably the next few turns will be a steady stream of new colonies and so highly profitable and the treasury should grow versus minimal gifts to minors as a tiny percentage of profits. It costs so little versus subjugation and population losses, that it is smarter to play this way. War is expensive.

[UesugiKenshin]

Now I am just experimenting as it is certain the Heyoun are entirely lacking in starships, but might have some actual sector defenses...as yet not sabotaged.

Meanwhile the economy is slightly growing, so I'm trying gifting to gain membership, then gifting to get affiliated Heyoun members to get to the devoted stage, then bribe and try membership.

Why would I do this? The total known minor races are 122 and 41 are members by choice or subjugation to the Omega. That leaves 81 potential member minor races. If six billion are killed if I invade, then that is 486 billion slain. I'm trying to avoid that. I estimate at most I will gain 10 members based on experience, so likely if the Omega spend 20,000 to persuade them and coax them into membership x 81 minor races equals 1.68 million. Not only that, but I'm taking lots of negative morale subtractions that I can do merely because I have an unusually high 200 morale across 90% of my 560 inhabited sectors. Every single treaty damages the Omega leadership, but also means the leadership does not gains 4+ by invading minimally without bombarding. And with a likely 10% return rate.

The Bretarians joined. I think 3 joined since the Rotharians fell apart.

In the central eastern subsection of the galaxy under Heyoun control, there are six sectors not explored, so I'm sending scouts there, but it will take 11-14 turns for them to arrive. Likely they are just Heyoun sectors, not member minor races.

[UesugiKenshin]

The Heyoun have 69 inhabited sectors so I wish there was a mechanism where individual sectors could surrender or even the major race could surrender as that times six billion killed in the ground invasion is 414 billion killed. And it makes no sense as they are likely defenseless by the time I invade. Why not save lives if possible?

[UesugiKenshin]

The Omega have no chance of winning a diplomatic victory as that is based on how many minor races join at a certain threshold. In Civ 2 and Civ 3 , it is based on popularity and a function of voting by the different groups.

It doesn't matter than the Omega are far more humane and beneficent. The only reason to try these things is to see what is possible and plausible in BotE. What I am doing is not logical and these actions are not justifiable actions for the Omega.
...
It is ironic that the one plant species has a low ability to produce food, is it not?

There are many elements like that I hope to correct through special advanced buildings.

[UesugiKenshin]

As a parent in real life, you act as a patron for your children, but slowly give them responsibilities so they mature by the process of struggling, thus build character so they assert independence, and move out to develop likely a married life and owning property. Then all their criticism of you is muted as they in turn are married and parents, and reality sets in. It ain't so easy.

I also am an isolationist, and it seems to me that foreign policy is quite at odds with common sense parenting. Some foreign policy by former colonial powers is based on guilt, yet this is unhealthy as descendants cannot be guilty of the crimes of their parents. If so, then there would be zero justice and an infinite number of descendants then are punished or act to rectify based on a finite number of ancestors. Even more problematic is the naive guilty descendants are trying to remedy the situation of the descendants of those whose ancestors were "wronged". How is that justice?

Within BotE, is it actually wise to meddle in the affairs of the minor or major races? I doubt it. You do it selfishly to gain special attributes to modify military sabotage or research, thus you are doing it to gain a benefit. It seems dubious to me.

If that is logical, then the Rotharians as soloists (isolationists) are wise.

[UesugiKenshin]

If one is an isolationist, then you should have zero members. The Rotharians did have members, so this is bizarre.

If you are entering into a membership as a patron, that is a huge responsibility, yet the genocidal bloodthirsty maniacs that the Omega are portrayed as being is a source of irony as they actually are kindest major race as well in this save game.

Is it ethically reprehensible to kill trillions to stabilize a galaxy with utopias? The answer is not simple.

If non-interference is preferable, then do not help them even if starving. Be consistent.

If half measures are taken, nothing is solved and likely you are being dubious. Are you trying to gain something, or just acting to feel better? If it is the later, is it illogical guilt to actions you are not responsible for? How can you feel guilty when you did nothing to cause the suffering and the suffering ancestors do not exist, but the remedy helped the children of those who suffered?

[UesugiKenshin]

Playing BotE provokes philosophical questions and it is pragmatic too.