Starbases make the game too easy

You gotta take a look at the 'Starbase Suggestions' thread....

it has a huge amount of posts for improvements to SBs

Now I haven't played at the higher intellegence levels, but I've only seen AI starbases at resources. They might have one or two additional modules, but that's it. I, on the other hand, crank out constructors as my military default, and I'll put several modules on each base, plus additional bases that aren't based on resources.



~SDC~

I agree that currently Starbases swing the balance of the game to the human's favor. Most of us set our default military production to constructors while the AI seems to build a mix of colony ships, defensive warships and troop transports along with constructors.

I would like to see some sort of maintenance cost for Starbases - perhaps only for the +production and +military modules, or perhaps only for each starbase after 1 in a sector.

On the flipside, why, if you think that it's too easy to abuse SBs with current rules/AI, do *you* do it? It's really not all that hard to not build more than 1 SB per sector - no one is forcing you to spam the galaxy with culture bombs or whatever your favorite cheese tactic. One of the things that I have seen with just about every strat game in the past decade is some vocal group whining about how the game designer is responsible for stopping their mouse hand from acting of its volition...

the AI cheats so why make the AI even stronger???

"the AI cheats so why make the AI even stronger??? "

Oh for a killfile on this board.

The AI not only does not cheat, until you set it to Intelligent, the game "cheats" in *your* favor, and it's not until Genius that it finally receives its first bonus above and beyond what you get.

If you're having problems with the AI, I suggest you study what it's doing. I've learned a lot from puzzling out what the AI is doing _fully_ within the same rules that I play by.

It doesn't cheat at Intelligent, higher than that.

~SDC~

"It doesn't cheat at Intelligent, higher than that. "

That's what I said

Okay, just played at Sub-Normal (I'm working my way up the intellengence ladder ), and the AI does build bases where there aren't any resources. They don't seem to upgrade them, so I'm guessing it's strictly for influence purposes (they seem to be in sectors adjacent to ones they own).

I, too, set my military to Constructors as default, which is why I'm always playing catchup when somebody declares war on me (fortunately, I've researched warships, I just don't build 'em 'till I need 'em... darn maintenance).


~SDC~

This just in from GNN.

The extreme electromagnetic fluxes caused by similar Starbases in the same sector has been determined to be the cause of the high uncurable cancers in those sectors.

The United Planets has declared that multiple Starbases by the same race in a sector will not be tolerated. Our scientists have determind that due to technology differences between the races there is no dangerous electromagnetic interaction between Starbases of different races.

Henceforth each sector will be allowed to have one Starbase from each race and all others must be dismantled.

It is also declared that if the need arises such as the discovery of a new resource or destruction of a Starbase causing a new resource to be available each race will be allowed to dismantle an existing Starbase in that sector and recieve in payment in constructors 1/2 of the original cost in constructors.

This news blurb had been brought to you by "InterStellar Cola", the drink with the "Stellar" taste at a planetary price.

That's just wacky.

~SDC~

lol

I believe you should only be able to build starbases on resources IMHO.

> I believe you should only be able to build starbases
> on resources IMHO.

And where did this gem of wisdom come from? It is entirely possible that it would literally be impossible to complete some games on gigantic maps because without free building SBs you could never extend your ship ranges to reach the other guy.

SBs were designed to be built anywhere, it's merely a question of what needs to be done with the stacking issues and tweaking the AI at this point to smooth the gap between humans that like to micromanage more than a computer AI and computer AIs that don't develop their SBs effectively.

I think this has an easy solution. Allow 2 things.

1. Starbases can be dismantled with you receiving a monetary compensation (for the orginal, plus for each module). Just a fraction of the original cost mind you, but something to compensate for your time and labor.

2. At set limits for each different map size, make a cutoff point where you will start to have to pay maintenance fees for starbases over that set amount. Only charge for the additional starbases. At another set point.. this starts to go up X bc per turn for all those starbases built after that first cutoff point. So eventually, they will start costing a pretty penny to keep running.

On the larger maps, you would be allowed more, but you may still have to destroy some inner placed starbases to place starbases further afield.. which also would make for some fun strategy.

Or perhaps at least make this an option at game start. Starbase maintence on or off.

um.. stupid idea? LOL

fleabitfox

oops.. I see that a bajillion posts along the same lines were made in the appropriate Brad's Starbases thread. So I added my 2 cents there.


fleabitfox

CodeMonkey wrote:
>On the flipside, why, if you think that it's too easy >to abuse SBs with current rules/AI, do *you* do it? >It's really not all that hard to not build more than 1 >SB per sector - no one is forcing you to spam the >galaxy with culture bombs or whatever your favorite >cheese tactic. One of the things that I have seen with >just about every strat game in the past decade is some >vocal group whining about how the game designer is >responsible for stopping their mouse hand from acting >of its volition...

One of yhe main premises of GC is that multi-player is not needed because AI plays like a good human opponent.
I'd certainly expect my opponent to use cumulative starbases in multi-player espcially since its not a cheesy bug/side-effect like transport byuing from AIs but seems to have been put into the game on purpose.

I stand by my right to critisize AI for uterly failing to utilise a legitimate tactic.

slash, if it's so easy, then where are your metaverse scores?

Even with starbases it's pretty darn hard to win at levels beyond bright unless you use the sell tech to aliens tactic. It's not starbses making the game easy, it's selling of techs.

Remember guys this is not a multiplayer game. If you don't like the star base spamming technique just don't use it. The AI won't use it on you, and if you don't use it, then problem solved without any code change

Code Monkey wrote "...One of the things that I have seen with just about every strat game in the past decade is some vocal group whining about how the game designer is responsible for stopping their mouse hand from acting of its volition..."

Except we're competing for score on Metaverse.

"Except we're competing for score on Metaverse"

Oh my! However did I miss such a thing? LOL

Let's see, the Metaverse scoring means what exactly? Chicks? Fame? Money? Fancy cars? Maybe it's bragging rights with your buddies?

One, it's not even very much of an objective scoring system. Two, who cares? I play to see my metaverse score increase but that's the end of it. If I wind up pushed out of the top 250 because there's a thousand game masturbators who have the infinite patience to manage a couple of thousand of constructors on a Gigantic map with abundant planets, more power to them.