Modding

[UesugiKenshin]

As a general, Montecuccoli shared with Turenne and Condé the first place among European soldiers of his time. For his success in halting the Turkish advance he had been hailed the savior of Europe. He was also influential as a military theorist, with perhaps his most famous quote being "For war you need three things: 1. Money. 2. Money. 3. Money." [5] His Memorie della guerra profoundly influenced the age which followed his own.[1] "Unequalled as a master of 17th-century warfare, Montecuccoli excelled in the art of fortification and siege, march and countermarch, and cutting his enemy’s lines of communications. In advocating standing armies, he clearly foresaw future trends in the military field".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raimondo_Montecuccoli

[UesugiKenshin]

Wars are not battles. Battles are won by tacticians often beloved by dedicated soldiers, but wars are won by brilliant strategists who have financial resources through allies or supportive government officials.

In modding, the commanders get modifiers to demonstrate this financial maxim.

[UesugiKenshin]

Here is the origin for the ancient Roman term "rich as Croesus". In a way, the Ferengi are a mockery of this concept with gold pressed latinum as Croesus created gold pressed electrum coins.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croesus

Moreover, the first coins were quite crude and made of electrum, a naturally occurring pale yellow alloy of gold and silver. The composition of these first coins was similar to alluvial deposits found in the silt of the Pactolus river (made famous by Midas), which ran through the Lydian capital, Sardis. Later coins, including some in the British Museum, were made from gold purified by heating with common salt to remove the silver.[15]

In Greek and Persian cultures the name of Croesus became a synonym for a wealthy man. He inherited great wealth from his father who had become associated with the Midas mythology because Lydian precious metals came from the river Pactolus in which King Midas supposedly washed away his ability to turn all he touched into gold.[16] Aylettes’ tax revenue may be the real ‘Midas touch’ financing his and Croesus conquests. Croesus' wealth remained proverbial beyond classical antiquity: in English, expressions such as "rich as Croesus" or "richer than Croesus" are used to indicate great wealth to this day. The earliest known such usage in English was John Gower's in Confessio amantis (1390):

[UesugiKenshin]

viewtopic.php?p=42040#p42040
See the TabulaRasa major race that would go in slot #8 and be an alternative major race for players especially as they wouldn't get penalized by minor race expectations as all other major race's do. Their honeyed words could be true or totally false depending how players want to portray them.

BotE, like all space strategy 4x games needs a choice so players can have better diplomacy and a warrior race,but that will be balanced by some other mechanism. Likely the minor races like them, but all the major races fear them. Perhaps they can't raise troops until far later with higher tech requirements. Thus they can't invade for awhile.

Diplomacy and defensive tactics are their initial weapon and they manipulate economies.

[UesugiKenshin]

See the tactics topic. I just discovered you can scrap structures in the structure tab. If there are many structures layered on a slot, like farms obviously, you might double tap them for awhile until it increments all the scrapping.

Now it needs to be modded to produce money. Then we have reinvented Dark Age Viking Raiding and Pillaging. Nausicans would likely do that.

No matter what it screws the system for some other major who wants it.

You don't have to hold systems. See blitzkrieg.

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... or_Android
There are little hints in the wiki and forum that at least at one time,you could hex edit the save games. Modders truly need this as on the Android, we lack even editors.

It may be possible to change the map, credits per player, amounts of natural resources per empire, etc. It would make for some exciting scenarios.

At one time,you could either alter the png image or the save game (try exporting your save games and you will see what I mean), and change gas giants into class M planets. If there are nine planets in every sector, it doesn't matter if 3 are gas giants.

And by every indication in the techtree at the highest levels, you can terraform these. The issues is maybe all the battles have taken place by then and so terraforming is irrelevant. Then it's a sandbox game post level 14.

On one map playing as the Rotharians, I had 3 usable systems out of about 20. That stinks. And you don't know this until 50 turns later by exploring.

That is why map designer modders need map cheats as you have to be able to see and alter what exists by random assortment.

So it would be meticulous work, but maybe then alter the map so it has way more habitable planets.

You want lots of minor races and lots of planets. But at 100% stars and 50% minor races with six empires, most good systems are taken, yet that is a great way to play.

Really this could easily be changed by altering the formula for map generation.

Regardless, you can make one sided games where the Cartare are the main threat as you could edit a save game and triple their treasury versus all others.

Edit read this link
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... re_Dateien

Files whose content is contained in the savegames
BotE saves some files in the saved games (savegames) such as Shiplist.data. The files only contain the basic values ​​(shields etc. or experience values ​​change for troops in the game).


In order for changes (edits) in these files to take effect in the game , a new game (i.e. from round 1) must be started!
Shiplist.data

I wsh we knew what specifc hex addesses did what so we could modify save games. There is a huge potential here. It's not supposed to be encrypted. Changing it is approved in the wiki. It's not to cheat but for modding usage.

[UesugiKenshin]

Not only that, the way save games were designed, a player might be the Omega and playing versus the Terrans and Khaoran, then saves the game. Now according to that link, you could then pick up as the Omega OR play as the Terrans and Khaoran.

See in chess, a rudimentary tactic is turning the board around as players get tunnel vision. They fail to see what their opponent is up against and what their motivations are. So being able to play as any empire in that save game is a great feature.

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... ing_Editor
I was very excited by the possibility that you could use a dirty tactic and scrap buildings and so get cash. I don't see an attribute for that.

But I was planning a mod where you get credits for building a space dock or higher as that brings in regular trade as it facilitates merchants visiting. So once modded, it seriously hurts the system as you lose not just buildings but the extra cash that it would have generated.

.Line 69: credits production

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... ShipEditor
It's not readily apparent, but when a vessel even a starbase is scrapped, it results in credits and ore being released. So there has to be an attribute that determines this. Likely it is partially this:

Lines 13 to 19 construction costs
Construction costs indicate which resources must be available for construction and are also used during construction.
The costs for a ship are specified in the BotE delivery standard. In the game, the costs are variable, since you can change the ship classes in-game via ship design. If you design stronger torpedoes, for example, the ship will be more expensive. A double titanium case also needs more titanium.
13th line: Industry
14th line: Titan construction costs ( Titan )
15th line: Deuterium construction costs ( Deuterium )
Line 16: Duranium construction costs ( Duranium )
17th line: crystal construction costs ( crystal )
18th line: Iridium construction costs ( Iridium )
19th line: Deritium construction costs ( Deritium )

So maybe the program calculates the scrap value based on line 13? In testing, I trashed all the buildings in Omega Alpha (a considerable number) and saw no release of credits and materials.

[UesugiKenshin]

See it would be clever if you were surveying and happened on abandoned wrecks and then could scrap them ie a salvage job. That was one idea I had. What they did in GalCiv 2 was random surveying found anomalies and indicated them on the map, and you would send out a vessel to take a peek and see what what going on. And so things like scrapping a derelict ship was possible.

It would be amusing if you had a kind of ship with a demolition crew that could invade a system and dismantle starbases. It would be just one new tactic after very high technology that could unlock a special demolition ship. And try not to trigger the perimeter alarms so the starbase doesn't fry your butt.

It would be like the military bomb squads seen in The Hurt Locker
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nuNQY06FEOc
or the US Air Force has EOD technicians (Explosive Ordinance Demolition).
https://www.airforce.com/careers/detail ... sposal-eod

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... e=BotE.log
The BotE.log is a log file and modders look at that to see where things hung up after making a modding change. But Android folks don't have access to it.

Most issues show up with beta testing, but the main programmer tries to catch these errors before the beta testers ever see the mod.

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... le=Credits
This explains the programmers' paradigm concerning credit generation. But then, I bet most people play as the Omega and immediately scrap the starbase. Or they send out transports, make outposts, then scrap them.

Instead, a mod can alter the buildings so higher cashflow exists. You don't want scrapping to be an exploit, but for many outposts and starbases to exist and play a constant function.

You could maybe have a merchants' guild as a goal to generate great profits in that system as trade is organized. Some minor races have similar buildings.

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... -Erfahrung
One of the most useful ways to vastly improve your vessels is level up their experience at certain systems with buildings. And so you create fleets and rotate their deployment.

You issue move orders and leave them at the destination then move other fleets to the target system, and redeploy them experienced vessel crews back to watch that other vessel crews system.

Suddenly your green soldiers are battle trained veterans. This makes a big difference in combat calculations.

The more we understand what kinds of experience thecrews gain, then you could run fleets through a gamut of training so when the war starts, they are ready, not fresh troops fumbling under pressure.

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... n_Imperium
The Kharoans have a Tactical college for this purpose to gain experience. It's supposed to naturally happen in successful battle engagements too.

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... ga_Allianz
The Omega have an Internment camp building and troops stationed there get experience.

And they have a Combat training center for vessels too.

Clever modders could have all kinds of these where yeah, you get experience but negative modifiers too.

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... griffspakt
The Non-Aggression Pact prohibits entry into their territory, but other treaties like alliances allow this. So I bet I made the Terrans angry earlier as I might have broached contested sphere of influence territory in borderlands.

Whereas the Terrans were extremely peaceful in other games and allowed me to explore some parts of their territory near my own borders as it was contested territory (lots of colonization and outposts/starbases).

The non-aggression pact is a diplomatic offer that can only be made to other empires . The offer can be supported by adding credits and / or by limiting the duration of the contract.

It is agreed:

armistice
Non-entry into the opposing territory, including the termination of existing trade contracts (no official entry cannot result from the non-entry)

tip
If your own system is attacked, a non-aggression pact is one way to stop the attack. This option can be tried every round and if necessary. be supported by gifts .