For god sake everyone needs to stop calling fast ships "cheese". IF the game was correctly balanced, those fast ships wouldn't match up well against whatever ships the AI is using that don't have all those engines.

What would you call exploiting a weakness in the AI? Call it what you will but alot of us will label it 'cheese'. I too would prefer an AI that was capable of dealing with/using faster ships, but appearently that just aint gonna happen.

I'm a believer that the simplest method is most often the best. We dont really need confusing/complex algorithms to calculate hullsize/speed/weight ratios, deminishing returns, or galaxy scaling... Limit the number of engines and be done with it.

So sayeth the ruler of Bathos!

What would you call exploiting a weakness in the AI?

I'm not sure about others, but until Brad's explaination of how the AI works I had no idea high speed wasn't the "designed" way to play. I learned, as probably a lot of people did, a lot about playing this game from these forums. A lot of top players' technique seemed to involve speed, so I made use of it. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'll adapt and I'm sure others will too, so it's no big deal anymore to me. I'm currently in a game where, I'm already limiting my speed to 15. In my first war the change is noticable, but it's a lot of fun  . Instead of being able to rundown anything in sight, I'm having to use a coverage network with my ships and push outward keeping tight enough to catch anything incoming. I'll be ready for the change.  

I guess there should be a style guide on how to properly play GC2. Don't build too many stock exchanges, don't build the mind control center, don't use more than 3 engines, don't tech trade, don't wipe out minors, don't use a weapon no one else is, don't use correct defense, don't use eco-starbases .......

Seriously what else can you put on your troop ships ? 1 advanced troop module is usually good enough, all the rest is engines. The way range works, you generally don't need life support, and even if you do, it doesn't take much room.

I'm happy Brad has explained why the AI doesn't use speed, but I don't understand why it's taking so long to deal with the way the game plays out. It's a fundamental aspect of the game, and right now it's way out of balance.

Anyway back to the op, I think the Yor ability is solid. The only problem I can imagine are players as the Yor locking things up early (like building barriers with influence starbases.)

Anyway back to the op, I think the Yor ability is solid. The only problem I can imagine are players as the Yor locking things up early (like building barriers with influence starbases.)

Early on as the Yor you can simply colonize planets in a straight line that form a barrier that others won't be able to get their colony ships through. This gives the human player as the Yor a tremendous advantage and can easily out colonize everyone. This makes the rest of the game a simple mop up exercise. Maybe colony ships should be exempt from the speed limitation. Perhaps constructors as well.

I guess there should be a style guide on how to properly play GC2. Don't build too many stock exchanges, don't build the mind control center, don't use more than 3 engines, don't tech trade, don't wipe out minors, don't use a weapon no one else is, don't use correct defense, don't use eco-starbases .......

This is the crux of the matter. Variations in play style seem to be in serious decline. People *have* left the game because of it. It's unfortunate.

We should be careful of "protecting" the AI from those nasty Human players   

The game is there to be enjoyed - if the AI becomes too hard to defeat, you loose many many players who are in the middle ground of abilities/time they can spend on this. The overwhelming number of key factors in this all revolve around the practicalities and realities of programming the Beast. We dont know those limitations.

Brad has the Ultimate skin in the game - the game's future, and I very much doubt he is about to let it become a niche specialist toy. I am sure he is well aware that the game needs to have broad popular appeal in order to retain his dreamed of very long term longevity. Whatever "balance" he finally decides on, it will upset someone, inevitable when most individual player's motivation for any solution is, in the main, primarily not the long term game life, but a particular style of play.

Brad is in a 'doomed if he does, doomed if he doesnt' scenario. As a player I trust him to come up with a playable enjoyable solution - he has in the past, no reason he will not in the future.

Regards
Zy

I, frankly, think anyone using a part of the game as it is designed is NOT engaged in true cheese. So building fast ships, Eyes of the Universe, Spin Control, and lots of Stock Exchanges are not cheese. They may make the game easy, and you may want to forgo using them, but that is different. I can think of a number of small changes that would make the game much harder for the human player and no different for the AI...And I am surprised that some of them haven't hit a patch to date, as I suspect I am far from alone in spotting some of these weak spots that can be used to beat the AI over the head.

True cheese, to me, is doing things outside of the designed context of the game. For instance, play out most of a game and then reload a turn 1 game. That is cheese, since you now know where everything is at.

The problem with ships with 40 or more moves per turn is that they might as well just set the difficulty down lower because that is what they've effectively done.

and

Ships moving at 20+ moves per turn is not how it was designed to be played.

I have an issue with this. I'm not sure whether to call that issue Large, Huge, or Gigantic, but those are the map sizes it involves. I have seen more than a few posts now that suggest that this game was really only designed to be played on Medium or smaller galaxies, and that Medium is about the largest size that is ever used in testing.

I enjoy Medium galaxy games, but sometimes I want something a bit more epic in scale. Playing at those sizes with ships that max out at 8 or 18 movement points would be overwhelmingly tedious. There has to be a better way to cope with fast ships.

For starters, why not allow the AI to develop ships that have the same high speeds? Since the game was released, I have wondered if the AI was aritficially limited to developing slow ships so that new players wouldn't get frustrated by attack fleets blitzing them from out of the FOW. What about adding an option below the "AI uses intensive algorithms" to allow the AI to design fast ships?

A better solution, IMHO, though probably almost impossible to implement, would be to allow "reaction moves" by non-moving players during the moving player's move: Ships that have not moved yet that turn or have movement remaining could "intercept" other vessels that get within a predefined "reaction range" of that faction's ships and planets. This, especially coupled with faster AI ships, would be a much cleaner solution than slowing everybody way down.

It's like a highway and ships just get off on "exits" at the sector they are attacking. Then hop back on when needing to go any distance.

Wait: so Yor Space is actually... New Jersey?!

Playing big maps,,my main reason for speed isn't to 'cheeze' the AI but simply cut down the time waiting for ships getting in place.
Generally,,it has little bearing on the combat itself,,as I take extreme care constructing the ships/fleets against the particular opponent,,preferably by outmost abusing whatever tech advantage I have.
Generally,,I'll be quite disappointed if I lose more than half my HP in a single engagement.

That means most of my warships travel in the 17-25 intervall once the Hyperwarp is researched,,while troop transports (who won't enter the combat until the planets and surrounding space are cleared of the enemy anyway),,trade ships and constructors travel at 40-80 since they are one shot deals anyway and thus not worth micromanaging in detail. Aim,,fire and forget

High speed ships also means fewer ships that has to move each turn,,so more time playing and less time waiting for ships to move one square at a time.

I noticed this reduced movement in one of my games and thought it was a great idea. But I also thought at first that it was common to all races, anytime you spent more than one turn inside enemy controled space, your speed drops.

As the ability of one race, it might be a little unbalancing. But if it were some common affect, it would change some of how the game is played in my mind at least.

If it could be setup that maybe when you are in the territory of a race you are at war with (or maybe even go as far as not Allied with), you loose the speed modifier that comes from engine research. So it would reduce your speed by up to 5 pc a turn or so.

The Yor could still have their super ability, just more powerful, like 2 or 3 times that amount, to a minimum number. So that 60 move ship gets cut to 45, making it slower, but not completely crippled.

The Yor could still have their super ability, just more powerful, like 2 or 3 times that amount, to a minimum number. So that 60 move ship gets cut to 45, making it slower, but not completely crippled.

If this were the case, I wouldn't call that a super ability. Maybe a mediocre ability. If you have a ship that moves 80 parsecs, I am thinking 5 parsecs won't mean all that much, 15 might mean a little bit more than that, but still ignorable.

if it were some common affect,

If it were a common effect, that all races had, it would be worthless as a super ability to the Yor.

I constantly see posts saying this needs to be balanced and that needs to be nerfed. While a few requests are legit, most requests strike at the very heart of the game and the posters seem to miss the entire point.

Not everything is going to be balanced, it is not supposed to be. Every race is supposed to have an advantage over others and have weaknesses others can exploit. That is the point. It varies the game play and makes things interesting. Super abilities are supposed to be just that... Super. A distinct, game altering, advantage. That is the way I see things anyway.

Is speed cheese? I do not think so. If you can give the AI a 200% advantage in economy and so forth by increasing the level of play, I think any tactic to beat the AI should be able to be used if the game allows it. Brad wants to change the way we use speed. Fine by me, I very rarely have a ship faster than 20 parsecs per turn.

So, the next time you travel into Yor space, take off your shoes and stay awhile. Stop by one of our exotic planets and smell the pffffftttt flowers. Kick up your feet, pull out your data flexxie, brew yourself a nice hot cup of Joe Joe Juice, and just relax....... We'll leave the lights on for ya.   

The Yor throwing a social party ? That would be a Super Ability a bit out of wack   

Regards
Zy

We will just have to use the speed while we can. My 80 knot transports just got Ultradrive. Man I love that event.

I wonder if they're going to make the engine changes in vanilla GCII, or is it just DA being adjusted?

How about adding a new technology to compensate for the travel time issue on Large and greater size maps....

Wormhole Generators.

Such a device could open a wormhole in a distant sector. You could have several levels of the technology - each one giving greater range, precision placement of the exit 'hole', the ability to piggyback other ships or fleets through the hole, etc.

Just limit placement of exit holes to be at least 20 parsecs or whatever you choose away from a star sytem.

That way ships would still have to travel a few turns to attack after exiting the hole...

Of coarse, this idea is simple to propose, but probably harder to code for the AI...oh well, maybe in CG3....

ON EDIT: Or add permanent Wormhloes ala Starflight games (space game form the early 90's.) In that one you could use wormgholes to get around quickly, or travel very slowly through regular space.