Sword of the Stars II (Or another 4X space game I will probably buy)

tylertoo · 2012-12-08T15:23:23.000Z

Dan_Theman:

Best/easiest way to start (imo):
[ul]
[li]Tarka as your race (tough ships, good armor, heavy ballistics - make sure you get armor piercing, btw)[/li][li]give yourself some bonuses (done from where you select your race, colors, badge, etc.)[/li][li]flat maps (2D or disc)[/li][/ul]
Here’s the excellent wiki
Here’s a nifty map of the tech tree

Excellent, just what I was looking for. I’ll precede all this with the in-game tutorial and the built-in videos by Rorshach, and then follow your suggestions. Thanks.

ShivaX · 2012-12-08T23:56:08.000Z

I’ve been trying this out, but man are some things just arcane at times.

I have a Diplomatic Station, and am at war with some other race, but it tells me I need to encounter another race before I can make a habitat. I’m pretty sure we’ve met the dudes we’ve been at war with, but apparently… not?

Stations in general are kinda confusing. Like the docks that the manual says I can see if they’re in use… that I can’t really see anywhere.

MikeJ · 2012-12-09T06:47:01.000Z

ShivaX:

Stations in general are kinda confusing. Like the docks that the manual says I can see if they’re in use… that I can’t really see anywhere.

The manual is probably talking about docks in civilian stations, which are only visible in trade view. I generally don’t use diplomatic station, so it’s possible there is a bug, or perhaps races that you are at war with aren’t keen to set up an embassy.

ShivaX · 2012-12-09T21:38:10.000Z

MikeJ:

The manual is probably talking about docks in civilian stations, which are only visible in trade view. I generally don’t use diplomatic station, so it’s possible there is a bug, or perhaps races that you are at war with aren’t keen to set up an embassy.

Ah, must be the trade view that I have yet to discover.

And I started over and this time had no real issue with the Diplomatic Stations for some reason.

Rorschach · 2012-12-10T04:06:16.000Z

It took me almost 40 mins to cover empire management. But I did get through sconomics, trade, mining, colony development, morale, and governments.

MikeJ · 2012-12-10T04:23:51.000Z

ShivaX:

Ah, must be the trade view that I have yet to discover.

Yeah their UI is not going to win any awards, but Rorschach has those videos. It’s also helpful to hit the on-screen “?” button when you see a new screen.

Scotten · 2012-12-10T09:33:50.000Z

I would probably get perma-banned on the official forms by bringing this up, but the AI appears to cheap pretty badly. I’ve been at war with an AI player for 75+ turns (his declaration, not mine) and in the interest of learning, I’ll swap into his slot to see what he’s doing. I have noticed he builds many ships every turn and his treasury should plummet deep into the red, but it does not. And he can be colonizing 6-10 planets with very high development costs while doing so!

I do not truly expect the AI to play by the same rules I do, but this is pretty excessive. I am still hoping they will continue to work on AI refinement and remove the heavy cheating.

MikeJ · 2012-12-10T09:57:43.000Z

Scotten:

I’ve been at war with an AI player for 75+ turns (his declaration, not mine) and in the interest of learning, I’ll swap into his slot to see what he’s doing. I have noticed he builds many ships every turn and his treasury should plummet deep into the red, but it does not. And he can be colonizing 6-10 planets with very high development costs while doing so!

Are you playing against a hard AI? It gets a significant financial bonus at that level ( I think +25% or possibly +50%). When you load into the AI’s slot, you don’t get that extra income, so their finances seem worse than they are.

Mostly what I’ve seen loading as the AI is that they are crippling themselves financially building too much stuff and colonizing planets that are too expensive. I haven’t tried to correlate how much it ended up building from turn to turn and if the numbers add up with a reasonable bonus income. Frankly, I wish the bonus for hard AI was higher.

Scotten · 2012-12-10T10:16:40.000Z

MikeJ:

Are you playing against a hard AI? It gets a significant financial bonus at that level ( I think +25% or possibly +50%). When you load into the AI’s slot, you don’t get that extra income, so their finances seem worse than they are.

Mostly what I’ve seen loading as the AI is that they are crippling themselves financially building too much stuff and colonizing planets that are too expensive. I haven’t tried to correlate how much it ended up building from turn to turn and if the numbers add up with a reasonable bonus income. Frankly, I wish the bonus for hard AI was higher.

I’m pretty sure I set it at Medium (not Hard). They seem to be crippling their economy. But if I look at their turns in succession, their treasury never dips down the -1,000,000 that it should show.

That said, the AI does manage to pull some tactics that make me say “awesome”… just today, they seemed to feint with their command ship and when I took the bait, the rest of their fleet rushed towards my planet. Or maybe this was accidental behavior :-)

KevinC · 2012-12-10T11:33:02.000Z

Scotten:

I would probably get perma-banned on the official forms by bringing this up, but the AI appears to cheap pretty badly. I’ve been at war with an AI player for 75+ turns (his declaration, not mine) and in the interest of learning, I’ll swap into his slot to see what he’s doing. I have noticed he builds many ships every turn and his treasury should plummet deep into the red, but it does not. And he can be colonizing 6-10 planets with very high development costs while doing so!

I do not truly expect the AI to play by the same rules I do, but this is pretty excessive. I am still hoping they will continue to work on AI refinement and remove the heavy cheating.

Are you sure it’s actually building those ships? That is, when you go back to the AI a couple turns later, are those fleets actually constructed? The way the AI processes things is quite different than a player and it’s led to confusion in the past based on people doing similar things, although it was with prototypes. Players said the AI creating hundreds of “bad” prototypes which they assumed was crippling the AI but it turns out it’s just how the AI processes them. It creates hundreds but ends up discarding the vast majority of them without ever actually following through with any of it. I’m just wondering if the same thing is going on here, where the AI is loading up various combinations of invoices but then winnows them down to what it needs before actually constructing the ships, something that would be done at end of turn processing. Invoice costs are not paid up front, they are paid at construction.

Scotten · 2012-12-10T12:45:57.000Z

KevinC:

Are you sure it’s actually building those ships? That is, when you go back to the AI a couple turns later, are those fleets actually constructed? The way the AI processes things is quite different than a player and it’s led to confusion in the past based on people doing similar things, although it was with prototypes. Players said the AI creating hundreds of “bad” prototypes which they assumed was crippling the AI but it turns out it’s just how the AI processes them. It creates hundreds but ends up discarding the vast majority of them without ever actually following through with any of it. I’m just wondering if the same thing is going on here, where the AI is loading up various combinations of invoices but then winnows them down to what it needs before actually constructing the ships, something that would be done at end of turn processing. Invoice costs are not paid up front, they are paid at construction.

Good question. But I do know they colonize almost every planet in spite of the hazard ratings and terraforming costs. I think I’m going to dig deeper into the AI economics with my test game, since I’m locked in a neverending war that really isn’t fun.

Janster · 2012-12-10T12:50:47.000Z

AI needs all the help it can get… I can still woop it good on hard

I mean I can woop 5 of them teamed against me on hard…

Morberis · 2012-12-10T19:02:22.000Z

Rorschach:

It took me almost 40 mins to cover empire management. But I did get through sconomics, trade, mining, colony development, morale, and governments.

I just want to reinforce how useful these have been, thank you.

Scotten · 2012-12-11T14:26:22.000Z

KevinC:

I might get a better response on the KB forums, but this is my enemy’s economy. Unless I’m reading this wrong, I don’t see any way he can do any research, but he’s better off than I am. He has ~ 30 more cruisers than I do, even though I’m destroyed dozens of his.

I guess I don’t mind cheating but when it’s so blatant and over the top that the human can’t get a fair shake, then I get annoyed.

Dan_Theman · 2012-12-11T14:42:54.000Z

I would certainly ask on their forums. None of us here can answer definitively, afaik. That is a rather weird looking screen, regardless (eg - no security, yet where are the corruption costs?). I suspect it’s less likely to be massive cheating than a procedural glitch that occurs when taking over an AI, as perhaps certain things are apportioned after “end turn” is hit. Besides, keep in mind that deficit spending is allowed.

MikeJ · 2012-12-11T14:54:00.000Z

Dan_Theman:

That is a rather weird looking screen, regardless (eg - no security, yet where are the corruption costs?).

The opponent might be Loa. They don’t get corruption.

I did see a post in tech support from a player who said the AI seems to be getting cash infusions. It’s logistics are so bad though that it really needs it. It’s very good at some things, so I hope the rest can get fixed.

Morberis · 2012-12-12T00:09:59.000Z

Something is up with the last patch… as soon as I installed it I started getting horrible horrible lag in tactical battles. Basically I now load 5 frames for the entire battle. And suddenly it crashes it my sound drivers, or at least all sound cuts out and I need to restart to get it back.

And yet I can run Dishonored without any problems, or Borderlands 2.

Janster · 2012-12-12T01:23:39.000Z

ambient occlusion since every new patch resets the settings on display… My pc runs the game well, except with that setting on…it turns it into a 5 fps thing.

Also focal blur sucks imho…

Morberis · 2012-12-12T02:21:12.000Z

Nah I turned that off, even double checked that my laptop was still set to run it on my nvidia card and not the intel card. It’s weird because with my non-intel card I could, and had, been running it with all the bells and whistles- including ambient occlusion. This is different. But I did try putting everything down to minimum and I still get it.

Scotten · 2012-12-12T06:24:33.000Z

MikeJ:

The opponent might be Loa. They don’t get corruption.

I did see a post in tech support from a player who said the AI seems to be getting cash infusions. It’s logistics are so bad though that it really needs it. It’s very good at some things, so I hope the rest can get fixed.

No, this is Solforce, who declared war on me - Solforce also - a few turns after our meeting. I rolled my eyes at their immediate war on their brothers, then later decided it could make sense (former overlords vs. slaves or whatnot).

I haven’t played against the Loa yet… way too alien & I’m still learning the system.

On edit: I considered posting this image on the Kerberos forums, but lately people ignore any apparent bugs I’ve spotted. I caught the AI running a fleet of 6 Cruisers with NO command ship (which is impossible as a human - you cannot form a fleet without a commend ship and if your command ship is destroyed - the fleet dissolves). I posted this on the Tech forum with a savegame and no one replied…