Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

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o01eg
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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#61 Post by o01eg »

wobbly wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 2:34 pm Check out the guns on these bad boys.

Screenshot 2020-10-03 001213.png

Need to wait till next round to see whether they actually fire.
Effect processing is disabled for eliminated empires, so I suppose they won't fire.
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Magnate
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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#62 Post by Magnate »

Lol - that's a bug in the new concede mechanic.

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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#63 Post by Magnate »

wobbly wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 9:23 pm Sorry Magnate. At least as sorry as I can be under the circumstances. My internet is playing up, so I'll have to post the screenshot later, but I managed to sneak down the side just out of sight of your scout and plant an outpost for leap frogging. With an outpost at Gladiolus I could launch heavy ships right to your capital. Your scout was an inch away from seeing it happen. You don't get Egassem against Gyschae on a small map that often, I couldn't resist trying for a blitzkrieg. This is what they do best.
Don't be sorry at all, it was a faultless win. I would be proud to have done the same (and indeed did, last time I drew Egassem!). I was a little unlucky with the layout in not being able to see you coming, but I simply should have built more scouts. I dislike building scouts as it feels wasteful of precious early PPs, but here it could have saved me - I could have protected the colony ship you blew up and built another warship instead of the replacement col. But as you say, Egassem vs Gysache early game is asking for a zergling rush. What amazes me is you researching lasers so early - I wouldn't have thought of that, given RP are so scarce for Egassem. Did you find natives or just forego everything else?

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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#64 Post by Magnate »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 11:21 amWhat I can't remember is what sizes are medium and large for you.
For me, around 15 systems per player is small, 25 is medium and 40 is large.
For me 30-40 is small, 50-70 is medium and 80-100 is large. Under 30 is insane, like I meet people on turn six or seven (this game it was turn 9 or 10 I think). I like games where I don't see anyone else's scouts for 25-30 turns. By then everyone has managed to find something - a decent Good planet, a special or two, some decent natives - and has space to develop them before war breaks out. Then the war really is about who optimises best and has best tactics/strategy. Of course luck can still play a part - arguably a big one if early luck is allowed to snowball (though you have done v well at stopping snowballing) - but in general I find it less unbalanced.
I think the problem wasn't about starting luck or optimization errors but about tactical errors: you weren't prepared for a blitzkrieg and didn't see it coming due to bad scouting. Wobbly production and research is probably lowest of the three remaining empires and I guess it was lower than yours.
You are correct that I made tactical errors by not building enough scouts and putting them in the right places. I had a very awkward gap between my homeworld and other habitable worlds, which should have made me much more cautious and defensive - but I don't really play cautious and defensive, I tend to lose very quickly if I lose. My PP/RP was something like 21/18 by turn 35 which I expect was similar PP to wobbly and better RP - I was very lucky to find a Huge Good planet as my initial colony. But I spent a lot of PP building two colony ships for Oleg (wobbly blew up the first one), which was a salutary lesson - I was too focused on getting his average pilots!
Bigger galaxies allows for no-brainer growth early game: no body can attack you, so pump out outpost ships and colony buildings while focusing on ind., res. and pop. boosts until a thread gers close to you. That doesn't necessarily helps evening out bad/good luck at start, if you got bad planets and the other has good ones you are screwed unless you play better.

Smaller galaxies might help with that since luckier empires can't focus blindly on growth.
Yes, swings and roundabouts. Someone who exploits good luck optimally will be hard to beat in any game, but is easier to beat in a smaller galaxy if you can blitzkrieg them (but you somehow have to know that their luck is better than yours to impel you to do so!). But in general the law of averages (or the Markov chain or whatever it is) means that luck will even out if you have more systems to explore before conflict, so there should be less variation - that's certainly my experience with larger galaxies, though of course you can still get completely screwed.

The thing I think is worth discussing in this context - though I'm sure you can point me to numerous other threads! - is broad/narrow tolerance. Broad tolerance makes bad starts much less bad, and narrow tolerance makes them much much worse. My feedback on race design is that these two characteristics should both be valued at about twice what they are valued at at the moment. A good example is that Chato have been properly nerfed - they now have broad tolerance and great research (and phototropic), but bad pilots, bad troops of both types, and bad pop. That's much better balanced than it was before. Abbadoni have broad tolerance (and Sub Hab, which basically makes them the Zerg), but bugger all else (bad research - they probably need another malus). IMO the narrow tolerance races need a boost (excluding Trith).

o01eg
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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#65 Post by o01eg »

Magnate wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 2:52 pm Lol - that's a bug in the new concede mechanic.
It isn't a bug. It's a how elimination works with leftover empire assets. Maybe we need to have a separate auto-turn option so you couldn't participate in the game with assert and effect processing works, but it possible such empire will win the game.
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wobbly
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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#66 Post by wobbly »

Screenshot 2020-10-03 011246.png
Screenshot 2020-10-03 011246.png (86.84 KiB) Viewed 1547 times
I just forewent anything else. You can see Organic Hulls is as fast as possible without skipping Physical Brain or being a good research race. So turn 12 + another 8 turns for the incubator, and during the 4 turns left before Zortrium, I was building the outpost ship and troop ships.

I guess the big thing is delaying N.A.I? I think it's easy to convince yourself that this is a must get if you don't want to be behind the ballpark. You have it 16 turns before me & assuming 3 colonies thats 48 RP lost. It's a lot but if you look at it a bit closer there's nothing you can buy in the early game for that much that'll really make you exponential & by late game the lost 48 is nothing. It's really nice to have, but you can actually skip it if you have other priorities.

The other one is Robotic Production which I used to automatically pick up if I was going for production, but then I did the sums and it's not actually that much boost early game & Egassem have bad pop.

Anyway you can definitely jump straight to a full tier 2 ship though whether its best depends. Mass driver 4 would of been cheaper and more effective but this way I could upgrade if I saw you building defensive ships.

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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#67 Post by wobbly »

Magnate wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 2:57 pm I dislike building scouts as it feels wasteful of precious early PPs, but here it could have saved me - I could have protected the colony ship you blew up and built another warship instead of the replacement col.
What actually surprised me here is you did actually see that corvette, you either missed it in a sit rep or dismissed it as not dangerous, but it was in sight of your colony just before you decided to ram it.

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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#68 Post by Magnate »

It was with a scout, wasn't it? I think I did the turn too quickly and assumed they were both scouts.

EDIT: I also made an incorrect assumption about which way it went when I escaped it the first time ..

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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#69 Post by Magnate »

On tech, yes I see the advantage of eschewing NAI and Roboprod - organic hulls take so long to get compared with robotics that it's a really counter-intuitive strategy to see them as blitzkrieg material - nicely done.

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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#70 Post by o01eg »

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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#71 Post by wobbly »

Magnate wrote: Fri Oct 02, 2020 2:57 pm I dislike building scouts as it feels wasteful of precious early PPs,
Hmm... what do you build turn 1 instead? An outpost? A destroyer? From memory I only built 1 scout and the corvette. I would of built more scouts but corvettes don't come cheap. They are really nice but you do pay through the teeth. My comment would be more about where then how many, if we look:

Screenshot 2020-10-02 060515.png
Screenshot 2020-10-02 060515.png (1.11 MiB) Viewed 1489 times

If we compare our scouts watching each other, mine can see your invasion fleet before it even leaves supply. Yours can see mine 2 turns before it hits.
If we look at your destroyer SW of Gladiolus, it guards the entry to your territory, but it could do that from Gladiolus and still have the fuel to get back into supply.

I noticed this last game too. I suspect you have a habit of guarding your territory, when it might be better to guard just beyond your territory.

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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#72 Post by Magnate »

Interesting - thank you. I tend to place my scouts less to do with supply and more to do with being one turn from where they might go next. Gladiolus was two turns away, so a four turn round trip. I tend to get anxiety about ships being committed for that long. So yes I tend to fail to optimise in maps where the right place to watch from is more than one turn from my supply.

On your other question, I always start by building troop ships, because I never ever have enough queued or ready when I find natives. Of course, if I do this, it guarantees that I don't find natives, but hey ho. In most games the three initial scouts are easily enough, but if I ever play small galaxies again I'll invest in more!

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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#73 Post by Oberlus »

I think I share Magnate's habit, armed ships in supply and some scouts forward. Good point, wobbly.

About starting builds, I usually do frig. (thinking of corvettes now) in crowded galaxies, 2 scouts in sparse galaxies if I can't see anything to colonize from start or if there are many starlanes to explore, 1 scout and 1 outpost in most cases. If I get early the history analyzer (which is most of the time), outpost ship or frig. are delayed until I get the +5 RP.

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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#74 Post by Oberlus »

Magnate wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:42 amI always start by building troop ships, because I never ever have enough queued or ready when I find natives. Of course, if I do this, it guarantees that I don't find natives
I guess you didn't check out galaxy settings for this last game: no natives :lol:

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Re: Twelfth game on the multiplayer slow game server

#75 Post by Magnate »

Oberlus wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:47 am
Magnate wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:42 amI always start by building troop ships, because I never ever have enough queued or ready when I find natives. Of course, if I do this, it guarantees that I don't find natives
I guess you didn't check out galaxy settings for this last game: no natives :lol:
Doh! Tbh I wasn't paying much attention at all, RL was pretty busy for that last game - but I hadn't spotted that - thanks

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