Modding

[UesugiKenshin]

Typically there is a mechanism by which trade exists beyond just goods as your empire could offer services like:
1. Terraforming
2. Knowledge of other species
3. Map sales
4. Extortion "Give me so many credits or else we cannot be responsible as pirates are in the area and known to harm helpless minor races!"
5. Tech trading "We see that you lack basic tech in this, and we see you already have learned that. Trade us that for this."

Otherwise trade is waiting for a robust mining volume that actually is more profitable by other means. It makes the dialogue far more interesting. The player might learn factoid A from one minor race, and this new minor race knows factoid b. You help both minor races by acting as an information merchant.

6. Minor race 1 has goods and services but no transports. Minor race 2 does as well. Your transports then act as freighters and move their goods and services like teamsters did in history, which became trucking, railroads, barges on blue and ships (international and domestic on oceans)and barges on brown water (domestic river transportation). Then air shipping. The very same thing would be required between systems.

[UesugiKenshin]

We can mod the dialogue but not likely change the source code (unless you know Java and or C+). But we could add new tech that is labeled Map Sales, Information Merchants, Extortion, Shipping, etc. And each of these allow special buildings in systems. And those add income. So it's a way around the programming. The major race is doing many things to get new income streams.

You can have tech that allows goods and services domestically so weird imports and exports and quirky services or practical ones or entertainment. Those allow buildings that allow new income streams too.

Some races might hire out assasins to "rid yourselves of those pesky nosy neighbors and ex-spouses". It could be anything, " we remove your scrap metal and pay you a finder's fee". These are diversions for the players between long turns of doing the same identical actions on 20 colony systems.

Some major races might have very seedy services like the Heyoun. Some like the Khaoran might have illegal poaching of rare species by hiring out hunting expeditions. They love fighting and some species might be extremely dangerous predators. So it could be quitre lucrative.

[UesugiKenshin]

Storyline Suggestions from the German wiki.
http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... Vorschläge

This is very important for campiagn or scenario mods ie staying in the same mythos and especially doing an era ie a history span of time relating the major empires to each other with appropriate levels of tech, buildings, ships, and troops...likely as presets.

New major races could enter into the story during a set era and altering the balance of power through treaties.

[UesugiKenshin]

Bote's settings allow you to disable all victory goals ie the AI is not directed to do anything in particular. Winning a strategy game is a misnomer. What is winning? Winning is playing an enjoyable game and that can't be quantified. A human can win just by having a good time. The AI knows no pleasure, only seeks to accomplish a goal.

I hoped it would result in less foolish war tactics. Nope. The Heyoun are facing the Rotharians and Khaoran. It's dumb for them to wage an offensive war. They can raise far more credits than anyone, and so build an inpenetrable defensive network and keep making money and outspend anyone. They can't do sabotage very well, so that is removed from their tactics mostly, but can do espionage.

Well the Rotharians initiated a non-aggression pact, and they agreed. Then violated it in two turns. Not very trustworthy and quite stupid. They lost 10 destroyers and scouts and transports and...you get the idea. It's not fun to watch the AI screw itself so badly.

What is the definition of feeble-minded? To send in fleets who get destroyed and never bring transports to take a system. Err WTF! The AI was spinning its wheels in the mud to such a degree that it destroyed the transmission.

Since that test was over, I waged economic war by dumping mountains of mined materials. Basically it then was impossible for the AI to sell their's. I did lots of construction and had a Change:Upkeep ratio that ranged from 10:1 to 5:1 regardless. When you do that, then it's cheaper to just buy all mined materials than mine them. Fun, but pointless.

If you have a windows computer, then have a tablet allowing transfer of apks, then you could make edits of the appropriate data files, then recompile the apk, then play a very enjoyable modded game.

As is, the game is beautiful as a sandbox game. It is largely unplayable with other ai empires. You could try just one on one with you playing the Catare, Omega, or Rotharians, and then...probably beat a single AI every time based on the level of difficulty.

The problem is the buggy sabotage by turn #300 and the AI foolishly waging wars that are too expensive and pointless. Wars are to accomplish a goal, not just fight empty battles. That wastes mountains of cash, resources, soldiers, etc. It's what a moron does. And there is no honor in a war waged by cretins who have no justification.

You can fix the sabotage as previously discussed with six techs across the board being required to have very very very high tech requiremnts, so it's an end game tactic instead. Even 300 years past STTNG, I seriously doubt such sabotage could happen.

But just as importantly, look at the cost of the security buildings. Intelligence agencies are never cheap but hideously expensive with largely black budgets or citizens would be outraged. Why? The intelligence gain (intelligence here seems like an oxymoron) is often biased and incorrect. The follow through of recruiting foreign turncoat agents usually just gets us stuck in empty pointless wars. Spying does not work as a war tactic as it causes war because you are running an undeclared illegal war!

You see the AI looks at the cost of waging sabotage and since the buildings are cheap and it can destroy vessels, this seems effective, but it's not. It causes an endless war without resolution.

So make the security buildings appropriately horrendously expensive. In 2019, the total security budget of the USA, not even including the classified black budget aspects, is
1.25 TRILLION. It might in all honesty be double that! It's not cheap as it is in the game, and it's not cost-effective, and doesn't work.

The stupidity of Afghanistan with the USSR invading and so the USA teaching demolitions and insurgency to the Taliban, then subsequently the Soviets pulling out, and the same people we taught now wage war against the USA. It's mind numbing stupidity that cost 975 billion in our longest running war. And Afganistan is no better off regardless. There is no honor is such a war.

Nope...not cheap.

By all means mod this if you can. Save the AI from pointless sabotage. Even if both sides have massively accumulated internal security points, then what a colossal boondoggle to build something that then is neutralized.

[UesugiKenshin]

A beautifully waged war undertaken to accomplish a noble goal like saving an occupied people so they then have self-determination...well that is war worth fighting. How often does that happen? WW2 perhaps. Does anyone appreciate the monumental sacrifice by Russia and USA? NOPE. The ones who care then die. Young folks forget.

War used to be to plunder resources or take territory you can hold. And if history has any lessons, neither work. Every empire fails.

So mod appropriately so at least thematically the folly of war is revealed and yet some soldiers are patriots and enlist regardless. Others are silly immature folks who are just mercenaries.

It's glory and mindless carnage and bravery and cruelty, and if history has any lessons, likely absurd and fatuous.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=35lVnB-F-js
BotE can be so much more. True victory is either historically based and total disgusting conquest and a horror show. Or it's facilitating autonomy as free will is in core of every soul.

[UesugiKenshin]

Here is the central simplistic aspect that is maddening. We can easily change the datafiles, but then the recompiled apk will not load on many Android tablets. But if you have a windows computer and send that recompiled apk to your android, it might load.

It's very frustrating to know what needs to be fixed, but then be unable to run the apk to see if it worked.

The only plausible way would be to submit changed datafiles as mods, and the developer allows these apks to be on the Google Play store. Then anyone could run the modded apk.

I hope that makes sense. Once the modded apk is on Google Play, then anyone could play it as it would be a workaround this security issue.

I suggest you consider the Android version that runs on Windows. That is supposed to be newer and a windows version has no security issues. But there is supposed to be a bug in the pathfinding regarding wormholes.

You could download that here.
https://blotunga.itch.io/birth-of-the-empires

[UesugiKenshin]

I'm playing sandbox to assess the Terrans. They are supposed to be super-researchers, but it doesn't seem that way. They obviously have godlike diplomacy, and so they gain all those minor race ships, and probably are the easiest to play.

I noticed that some of the minor races are set up very well as when you do get them as members, their economy is doing fine in general and honestly with large fleets and a booming economy where they can turn out buildings every turn, why bother joining the Terrans as 7 minor races have declared war??? The only reason they have declared war is you run into their system without hailing them first.

Anyways, some are starving like the Templars. So if modding, you should look at all the starting systems of the minor races and adjust them accordingly. They shouldn't be pushovers.

In at least one game, the Xiben had their fleet outside their homesystem, but wasn't attacking. It could be that when the "aliens" ie the anomalous entities are enabled, that they leave to attack some of them as sometimes there could be 12 on the map and quite a threat.

That created a problem as in testing I took their home system, yet the Xibren were still alive as their fleet was intact. It was peculiar like Battlestar Galactica.

Most of the time starting fleets by minor races stay inside their home systems.

[UesugiKenshin]

It seldom makes sense for the minor races to declare war. What they should do is defend themselves.

The minor races are not at war with each other. They might need protection if they lack a fleet. If I have seven enemies at war with me, and literally no offensive ships, then why would you want to join my empire??? It follows that joining me poses a danger to your survival so each race at war with me would seriously detract from allowing a minor race to join, and when at war with a major race, then it is nonsensical.

So you have a formula issue in the decision tree to join an empire. You have a lack of a hailing procedure that then incites nonsensical wars declared by minor races who lack the teeth to wage war...only defend. These are programming issues and I think minor ones.

[UesugiKenshin]

Budo is the study of all the various arts of war like archery, fencing, horsemanship, etc. When -do is added to the end, that means the journey or the way. Budo is the journey or the way of war, and it's not a negative or a positive but the honing of the student to remove all superfluous ideas that they brought to the journey, and instead to deeply comprehend what is being taught and to what purpose.

The bushi were one name for the samurai class and bushido is their journey when honorable. We can't be revisionists and try to force samurai to have the mentality of postmodern people. They existed within a time frame of 900-1700 AD (mostly).

Few were honorable as there is no such thing as a good person. We think we are good people when we are fooling oursleves. But one in a thousand tries to be and knows what is right and attempts to do it in the real world.

All soldiers go through that process and even if realists and not idealists, then try to live by a code.

BotE could respect that by making cultural victories ie the accomplishment of noble goals, just as worthy as the others. Either war serves a noble purpose or it's just a lie to get soldiers to sacrifice themseves. They do so every single hour they serve. They get wounded and never truly can recover but bear scars of their experiences in a multitude of ways.

BotE could do so much more and then even be a teaching tool to adolescents and teenagers, just as the Civilization games were and all their emulators.

I will be so bold to say that due to the story and the ability the programming has to communicate a narrative, that it could exceed what Civilization did.

If there were a way to induce events to occur based on the acquired attribute modifiers of the empires, then BotE would be amazing. If the Terrans cross this threshold in attribute X, then fire an event. Then a whole story would unfold. And it would not be linear as no two players are alike.

Empires are not entirely selfish, but requires selflessness as a routine aspect of being a soldier, therefore that humanity in those soldiers allows missions and rebuilding efforts and restoration to all in war.

You may conquer a system, but it should be for a noble purpose to raise them up. And if you fail, then there should be a plausible rebellion, not just of the people, but the military units at that system.

Then those players ignoring that do so to merely exploit the people, to create a bigger war machine, and would then fail.

[UesugiKenshin]

The glory and prosperity of my life was as good as a single cup of sake.
My life of forty-nine years is passed like a dream.
I know not what life is; nor death.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind.
I stand in the moonlit dawn; free from clouds of attachment.
Uesugi Kenshin
1578 AD

This is the poetry of war and soldiers. They are not just faceless troops and empty vessels.

[UesugiKenshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1DFReW8KMuA
A wise fearless lieutenant explains to a scared soldier what his duty means and how doing that will make him a better soldier.

The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one's aim is to die a dog's death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one's aim.

We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
Hagakure
1716 AD
https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yamamoto_Tsunetomo

It is a quintessential distillation of Budo and Bushido and unless you understand that, then modding BotE is useless. Then it would be just a pointless game and not an accurate and exceptional military simulation.

That character in the clip is based upon Scottish immigrant Lt. Colonel Ronald Speirs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Speirs

[UesugiKenshin]

I'm playing a sandbox game as the Terrans, and boy are they easy to play. They snap up juicy systems and often are well constructed too. The problem is their practice of diplomatically absorbing minor race fleets then gives them very high upkeep, so it's more difficult to get their economy as hot. I'm at turn #191 and it's slow and steady and thus monotonous.

"Need colony ships, destroyers, cruisers, heavy cruisers? Just take our fleets!" Literally I am making no ships at all for a hundred turns...because the Terrans absorb them. All it costs is some upkeep.

The Heyoun have good espionage but poor sabotage. That's a second realistic way to use security buildings.

Every time a system is visited: colonized, terraformed, a ship arrival, etc, then that should trigger an event of some sort in my opinion.

Otherwise no matter how unique the extraterrestrials are, this aspect loses its luster as it only affects building,troops, and vessels. It should cause mytharcs and adventures.

What GalCiv 2 did was cause ethical quandries and you could gain powerful artifacts, but cause suffering or exploitation. Thus this caused an alignment shift across your species. And that then affected diplomacy. I think that is wisdom rather than the good Terrans versus the bad Omegas.

This ethical quandry meant things got offered that were so powerful and so facilitate success that you were tempted as power corrupts as we excuse our behavior as small aberations that led to a greater good...that ever truly materializes.

The most valuable quality as you age is innocence, and what makes older folks wish they could do a do over, is they realize how such choices ruined relationships. And this is ubiquitous in the human experience. It costs you financially, morally, ethically, physically, security-wise to take the ethical choice.

Malevolent people can easily win. The AI would likely make the choices that most benefited it. Why not as altruism penalizes?

The manner in which the empire (the players whether human or AI) participates in the galaxy is how they truly are. If there are good and bad players, that is just human bias which is peculiar in a game about extraterrestrials. It's also an exploit which helps some who play one species and penalizes others, thus is inherently unbalanced.

[UesugiKenshin]

The only way to get an AI chose, in a balanced way, is make altruism beneficial and exploitation too. Then the AI has to weigh what modifiers it currently needs. But I bet it makes the AI always malevolent.

A vessel leaves orbit and enters a system, this fires an event, like a distress signal. Helping hurts the vessel or causes a delay, but has a benefit with a minor race's acceptance. Or ignoring the hapless victim's plight helps the evil player who then gains some bonus. Say they are being chased by pirates, and so you get a cut of the booty to look the other way.

"Hey, they were asking for it for traveling without an escort. Look the other way, and you gain 500 credits."

Do you want easier acceptance of this minor race, or ready cash now and and a morale check against your people?

[UesugiKenshin]

So you would create a rather large event file with maybe a 1,000 types.

"One of the major staff of your crew is seriously ill and the ship's physician says that a slight diversion to a nearby planet will allow them to create the medicine they require. It breaks mission protocol though. If you choose to divert the mission, your caring for the crew gains their respect and so they gain experience,but costs you a morale check with the brass. But if you insist the physician use a lesser treatment, your focus on the mission improves acceptance of a certain minor race as you put their needs first, but irritates the crew."

Sometimes you pick either choice because the situation calls for it.

[UesugiKenshin]

When modding you do three main things.
1. Make puzzles that are logical and experiencial because that is a very human thing we do when giving others gifts at Christmas time. Think about it. Guys often get something to puzzle out as part of their hobby and the same is true for ladies.

Which means they should be logical and experiencial by design and not pointless.

2. You entertain the player with a compelling story.

3. You challenge the player as a life devoid of risk versus reward is not not satisfying. Endless pleasure induces yawning as it's peculiar when you don't have to work for pleasure. The best cherry pie served on the fifth day is not as delicious.

Some elements don't make sense in the building tree. Sometimes systems don't grow. Sometimes prices of buildings versus what they do are out of balance. There is no guide on optimal infrastructure to be most efficacious. Making more factories when there aren't enough citizens. Is more than 12 a waste of time for 80 billion people if they are consistently improved?

Populations max out and there is no mechanism to deal with it. Say in GalCiv2, you then created a colony ship and send some elsewhere, and this subtracted from the population. It was a pressure relief valve and logical.

In systems, you can have a stuation where an insufficient workforce exists to care for the aged, like in Japan, and so the working citizens are taxed, and longevity increases but productivity stalls and declines.

A simulation often states that growth becomes zero as deaths and new births are in balance. But realistically that is a country model, not a planetary paradigm. Strangely enough while the population is increasing, all of western civilization has a decline in the birth rate, yet we are getting older. So the fate of Japan is what Germany faces and the USA too.

A planet with a flat population yet able to send billions to colonize other whole systems? It doesn't follow.

What Medieval 2 Total War did was create squalor. The cities there were overcrowded and that always leads to pollution, disease, fires, criminality, etc.

In a space game, likely better technology would lead to progressively higher growth rates, barring mandatory euthenasia.