Modding

[UesugiKenshin]

Solardate is totally irrelevant right now.

With scripting, then you can say on this solar date, display this date. Then you have seasons like quarters in a campaign where you are waging war. Or each time increment equals a week during a war. Or the month and date appear so the players are grounded in a sense of time, with a goal that at certain dates, they are scored, and then like a chess clock the time is ever a concern and so creates intensity of action.

Racing against the clock is always a factor in war.

Time passing and the player failing the objective might mean the human player must retreat and illustrate the effects of low supplies. Soldiers cannot just hang around infinitely, but there are practical limitations how long a mission can last. You could have missions that last longer that then negatively affect morale as they are rationing food and concerned. Some might mutiny.

A carrier strike group has maintenance schedules and parts replacements and if they don't get supplies, then parts don't get replaced, and equipment malfunctions, and then if engaged and equipment is damaged, they are not operating at 100% and morale goes go Hell. To the soldiers it's like, "What the heck is the captain doing to remedy our situation?"

Even a carrier strike group which is akin to a floating city, cannot stay at sea longer than 15-20 years due to nuclear power, but the crew of 6000 needs food every 70 days. There is a human limit to the mission length and without a supply chain maintaining their food reserves, they have to abandon the mission. Why do you think the USA has "bases" everywhere? They have to. BotE could say that a fleet while powerful then must visit a starbase to resupply every somany turns, so a clock starts ticking, and players build starbases to "project their power".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_projection

A fleet is a series of ships, tightly coordinated, with exacting schedules, and cannot break formation and relax. Individual ships could. So fleet operations could have a limitation to balance the game. "Hmmm. Do I genuinely need my soldiers in a fleet because then I have to deal with these supply chain issues, or would it be better to organize individual starships converging on the target sectors?"

BotE can do so much more. The idea of short, medium, and long range is a factor in BotE which illustrates this issue. Some ships can't go so far like a dreadnought. So then if you learn a technology, a new dreadnought class gets medium range...and it would be a big deal as that arguably is your flagship for your fleet.

[UesugiKenshin]

This limits human players, but not the AI and so the AI can keep fleets 24/7 and is significant from a military perspective.

The AI doesn't care about text and graphics displays and storytelling.

You would have new things to mod by scripting to challenge the human players and help the AI to cope.

[UesugiKenshin]

I've proved without a shadow of doubt that a human player can make millions/turn in BotE.

The pinchpoint to modding is lack of a multiplayer mode in which those saved games can then be player later by single players or multiplayers.

But if production could be rushed in more than one area of focus in a single turn, say a key combination or a "mode" for modding, then modders who manipulate the resource values could take amassed treasuries and all in a single turn... rush all buildings, troops, and starships...instead of doing one at a time.

So instead of hundreds of turns to make preset saved games, one could do it all up to the maximum contingent upon tech level.

If effect, it's not a "cheat" as this would only happen if very large treasuries exist, and the key combination or activation of "modding mode" would be necessary, and only then could fast infrastructure be built.

Essentially this would improve BotE as it would in effect be like a quasi-campaign editor, so any number of scenarios and campaigns could be created based on the whims and desires of players.

The goal of modding BotE should be to improve it and spread the word so even more people play it. It is almost ignored right now. Try to look up information on BotE. There are few links discussing it which then makes it stay unknown.

[UesugiKenshin]

A frequent 4x game issue is being able to directly modulate the morale within a city as the game begins the endgame turns. The largest and oldest sectors, that have advanced infrastructure, have completed all the available infrastructure that modules morale. And these tend to be heavily garrisoned.

One can module morale with defenses, but ultimately if there are insufficient tech levels that allow special buildings to modulate this localized "mood", then you can have drops in acceptance of local authority.

This is a problem in BotE for peaceful players as the only way to increase morale is successfully waging war. Even then in some empires, if war persists over many turns, there typically is a growing sense of "war weariness".

Otherwise taxation is reduced and luxuries are introduced and often as a function of trade items. There are no such provisions for this in BotE.

I cannot reduce taxes. I am making 7 million per turn now. I no longer require taxes and my upkeep is 106,000/turn. It's a shame that money is piling up. The more I spend, the more I make. My wealth is inexhaustable.

Players should be extremely unlikely of maxing out research, and so there always should be grand "wonder" projects that not only improve morale, but do so across the empire as a sense of immortality is created such that the descendants of the empire will always remember this "golden age" in which the galaxy came under the domination of the empire.

This should especially be a function of the length of peace as the citizens are not directly sacrificing as citizen-solders ie militia and the deaths of professional soldiers (the actual military) are miniscule. Thus the people are content.

Instead fanatical levels of morale (200) in turn 700 have dropped to 185.

It's like Saladin in the film, Kingdom of Heaven. The professional soldiers, the citizen-soldiers, and the people themselves want Jerusalem so badly that unless he delivers war and bloodshed, then he can have no peace. If he delivers war and bloodshed, then the people will complain that lives are lost.

[UesugiKenshin]

All other human desires pale against fame and victory.

The people will sacrifice everything to achieve fame, then having done so, realize it doesn't really matter. And it is fleeting.

The people want victory,but hate the cost of it as it sacrifices the youth of their civilization. Thus victory is actually self-sabotage as the elderly then lose security as their adult children cannot care for them.

But every time when danger appears, no matter if it is genuine or not, declaring war makes the political leadership popular again. Because it might give the people fleeting fame and a sense of victory.

The Omega Alliance is in every sense a utopia right now in turn #709, but the people are murmuring instead of staying content. By every metric, they should be happy.

[UesugiKenshin]

BotE has no attributes that are adversely affected by sanitation and disease and clean water. Nor does it have any metric for education and literacy. Nor does it have any sense of economic strata within the populace to determine levels of private property and wealth. And these are the typical ways to modulate the "mood" of a sector.

You offer the plebians bread and circuses, and they have all been built.

[UesugiKenshin]

Every major race is governed by attributes versus the moral data files. That is why some major races like trade treaties with some minor races, and others do not.

So every empire has restrictions that make it tougher for a human player to play the major race the way they want to...even if those human choices are far wiser and lead to monumental rewards.

Example:
The Omega Alliance knows no war. It cannot be attacked directed in its sectors. It has a huge energy surplus. It has researched everything...even level 15 future tech. It has colossal mining reserves. It has about 22 million in the treasury with costs being 106,000 per turn. It has an enormous military of ground forces and highly customized starships that are magnificent and mighty. There is no hunger. Percentage wise, the proportion in the military are a tiny fractions of the trillions in the galatic empire that covers half the galaxy while 25% is being terraformed.

I scoff that the AI can achieve that.

What GalCiv 2 did was allow for custom races and the players had points they could allocate. Then races chose how to respond to moral quandries and so "alignment" shifted based on those decisions.

Almost always, the AI chooses evil and wrong over good and right...unless the major races do a costbenefit analysis and then choosing good and right gains them a power or ability or special starship or large economic bonuses.

You could create a good and noble Omega Alliance and an evil corrupt morally bankrupt Omega Alliance. That is how to escape the current quandry I am in where the people want war when it provokes incredulity why they would want this.

Such modding allows for galactic civil wars to take place.

[UesugiKenshin]

Even if you defeated every race with starships, and made them bend the knee, whatever morale bonus you got... would begin to drop. As the Emperor, you would be compelled to attack every minor race that had not declared themselves members, including your allies.

And then, the same issue would continue to happen if you kept playing. There has to be enough of a morale bonus due to having defeated the realistic enemies, or else fanatical level morale will decline.

I can foresee conquering the galaxy slowly up to turn #900 being an issue where some sectors would revolt because the speed of conquering wasn't fast enough.

Part of modding is anticipating such situations where you have done everything correctly and are penalized for it.

See it is smarter to gain the minor race fleets intact rather than attack and destroy them and then wastefully invade killing billions. From a practical military standpoint, that is absurd. That is not war but extermination.

[UesugiKenshin]

I made a plea here.
viewtopic.php?f=103&t=2592&p=43458#p43458

I think I could supply valuable changes to the buildings file so sabotage is reduced to zero as it doesn't make logical sense on giant galaxies that are packed with minor races species. Instead the intelligence buildings would benefit the empires by improving morale, trade routes, and deritium. They would in effect reduce opposition groups and improve efficiency.

Then on a giant map the major races would try to control their minor race neighbors ie the quadrant they are in, and only then start attacking into the quadrants of neighboring major races.

The best way to add the highest amounts of enjoyment would be to release advanced turn #700 for all the major races having built up fleets and invasion forces. It takes a solid month of play to get strong enough to do so. Many players have a weekend to battle galactic war, but not have a month or months to build up all the infrastructure, ships, and troops to wage war. That way within a few turns to assess the galactic map, then start a wargame rather than a largely economic scenario.

[UesugiKenshin]

BotE is a very well made game which would be probably quite easy to mod in the Windows version and fix many simple unbalanced aspects of the game. Then it would just be a little more work to add another ten levels of tech and appropriate infrastructure, ships, and troops. It sounds like fun to do so.

The problem is it's impossible to load a mod in a standard fashion within Google Play on the Android format. One clever workaround is what unciv is doing. Mods are loaded to the developer's site and the program is designed to be able to load mods by going to websites. The main issue with mods is lack of accountability as mod teams liberally borrow elements which is a big copyright issue that cannot be allowed to happen.

BotE has simple graphics so a mod team would have to have an artist make say 20-30 ships and troops at most and they need not be complex as you are not watching animations but simplified combat calculations.

An alternative is to load a mod as unciv is doing, but a practical solution would be hosted at moddb. That has been a repository for mods for years and years. This protects the developer.

[UesugiKenshin]

Because you would be eliminating sabotage or at least heavily modding it until at least double the current levels tech, not only do you have to mod the buildings file so sabotage is eliminated or greatly delayed so it happens way later in the game, but you have to reconfigure various major and minor races with some other benefits of playing them.

The greater the internal security granting stronger controls on dissent so higher morale, trade and resource routes, and deritium being far more routine, then should be balanced by hindering creativity and so slowing down technology gains. This makes sense as scientists would fear releasing findings that might perpetuate malevolent empires controling and subverting minor and major race species.

[UesugiKenshin]

The only kind of sabotage that makes sense, given the vast size of a giant maxed out fully populated galaxy, is diplomatic sabotage ie damaging the relationships of minor and major species with each other.

I think given the distance and warp speed limitations, sabotage does not make any sense though.

A talented modder could recode the java programming and make nine planets routine as it's not a solar system, but the nine most significant planets in a sector. It would be icing on the cake and unnecessary, but more activation of some currently uncolonizable planet types would be interesting with unique infrastructure only available on those worlds. They would get unlocked by extremely high tech with all the resources as a pay back for so much investment. Maybe some ultimate ships or troops can be created there too.

More planets mean contested territory and so more major alien races could fight at the hardest levels too. Otherwise you are all fighting over scraps.

This is why a feature allowing a map editor and loading as unciv does would then make the game GENUINELY work as a random map simply isn't as interesting as a human created galactic map. A real mapper is a serious asset to a mod team. Then there is a rationale for conquering in a certain logic way due to strategic planning based on major alien races being located to minor alien races and inches forward so major alien race's quadrants touch.

Think to colonial wars and world wars and why they occurred. It was due to inadequate resources and insufficient land mass to support empires.

[UesugiKenshin]

I'm playing a test game of the Terrans versus Khaoran where the map is 40x40 minimal anomalies, no events, no minor alien races. It's a big wide open galaxy and I'm thinking how the minor alien races actually unbalance the game. Certain minor alien races are more likely to ally with and be subverted by various major alien races. This gives the Terrans a big unfair advantage.

It might actually be better to instead have technology turn on various minor alien buildings and ships. I was thinking how the minor alien ships are just okay for the most part at the upper levels of tech, but this then allows special configurations of your own ships. It's a shame that minor alien races don't have special troops you could recruit on those worlds. So considering that the minor alien races might actually be "toggled off" in a campaign, it would be better for higher tech to turn on various weaponry or cloaking rather than it being a function of subverting/conquering minor races.

Because terrain is not a factor but simplified, I'd like a mod with twice as many types of invading forces. In some games when you significantly alter the attack and defense values of units, the AI builds forces that take so much time that it ends up being their undoing.

[UesugiKenshin]

The biggest unbalancing aspect of minor alien races is any of the races that has significant infrastructure and ships simply would not ally with a far weaker major alien race regardless of their diplomatic ability. Acquiring their fleet then adds a major chaotic injection of power that is undeserved. And it's odd as they are stuck in their own system when instead they would branch out.

This is why a map editor and a campaign editor is needed as instead a modder would build the map, set the state of the major races and minor races proportionally so spheres of influence would happen. Then conflict would naturally happen to the closest minor alien races due to proximity with a major alien race. That forms quadrants of spheres of influence that then shows the extent of their power. Then based on threat of invasion and the success of that invasion, some minor alien races would succumb to major alien races. You would see genuine hegemony.

It's a shame to not have minor alien races as their diversity shows remarkable creativity, but I think unless you could turn off their spaceships or make it so their chance to be subverted by diplomatic overtures is nil, then it's better not to use them.

It's better to have a giant map of systems fully maxed out with no minor aliens and a mechanism so their technology, infrastructure, and ships becomes an aspect to be gained over time, investment, and effort.

Some of the minor aliens could be merged into a few great ones largely due to the attributes of their ships.

It's like the random events. It they were scripted to happen after turn 700, then whatever alien species are strong enough to handle them. Happening earlier can be disasterous.

Campaign editors can have essentially an AI expansion flavor. It's not smart to aggressively expand as that leads to premature conflict and a sharply reduced ability to defend fragile borders. That can essentially be balanced by a mod team mapper as they control what territory each "nation" or empire has so this range is limited.

If we could hexedit values in saved games, and if there were a mechanism for playing all the major races and toned down the minor alien race fleets, then by brute force a realistic galactic map would be the result.

It's peculiar as the minor alien races, although they have dangerous fleets, they are stuck in their systems and so pose no threat to major alien races, right? I presume this is why the major alien race is pugnacious even on the easiest level after turn 300 and attacks major alien races. When what they should do is attack their nearest minor alien races and expand their empire.

Instead the major alien race AI tries to build rapidly until it is forming a stretched thin empire to seem strong across more territory than it actually can defend.

Consider the former Soviet Union post WW2. They built buffers by findlandization or capitulation or invasion and created an empire. The Soviet Union would have been terribly weak if they rapidly expanded into say Luxembourg and Cuba in 1946. It's nonsensical and creates a logistical nightmare to do resource routing and terraforming and defend these.

Empires grow by proximity by attacking the weakest nations, not pick a fight with another empire.

[UesugiKenshin]

For months I've trying to think of a simple way to do the following.
1. Unpack the BotE apk.
2. Make minor text edits.
3. Repack the BotE apk.
4. Then make it simple to download and be available to anyone who wants to play an Android BotE mod.

It ain't simple to do step #4 without a personal computer and then only would be available for a very small subset of players. The best method is a mechanism of submitting mods so there is accountability and through the GooglePlay store app.