Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: vmxa

Larry is up? Last one I found was by Das, so guess should be up. Did I miss one?

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ORIGINAL: Tophat1812


Not a problem Larry,the last few years have built up some tension.MA did a pretty good job but built some more of those dominatrix class capital ships. Don't think he realized they are just planetary bombardment vessels. When next you are up can you run through some of the design specs on your warships?

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ORIGINAL: vmxa

"Yes you did...Marcus Aurilius did year 26 in 2 parts. Good episodes actually."

Been looking and never saw it. Glad Larry slapped up the links.

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ORIGINAL: Tophat1812
I search for "Distant worlds universe collaborative"...usually get several hundred choices to scroll through but the majority of the time latest episodes are in top 150.

Larry i don't think al your warship designs have been refitted to include point defense yet. MA did order up more LONGD jeep-carrier ships and they have been useful.It will be interesting to see what you have left to work with.

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ORIGINAL: Tophat1812


Larry,good call on updating those ships the way you did. You need that next ship size increase to make any major changes.

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ORIGINAL: Icemania

It would be great to see the team play Extreme with the AI Improvement Mod ... and get slaughtered!

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ORIGINAL: Cauldyth

One of the great advantages of these sorts of Let's Plays, apart from their sheer entertainment value, is that they can help show us poorer players how we can play better. The use of mods that alter the actual balance, like the AI Improvement mod does, means the lessons learned aren't applicable to those of us who prefer to play the vanilla game.

I'm not counting the Extended mod, as that doesn't alter any actual mechanics.

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ORIGINAL: StarLab

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ORIGINAL: Cauldyth
One of the great advantages of these sorts of Let's Plays, apart from their sheer entertainment value, is that they can help show us poorer players how we can play better. The use of mods that alter the actual balance, like the AI Improvement mod does, means the lessons learned aren't applicable to those of us who prefer to play the vanilla game.

My channel gets a lot of new players to the game. I try not to go too nuts on mods as most of the new people are trying to get a grasp on the core game itself. The Extended Mod is perfect because, as you said, it doesn't alter any of the core mechanics - any tips or techniques translate perfectly from this mod to vanilla games.

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ORIGINAL: Icemania

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ORIGINAL: StarLab

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ORIGINAL: Cauldyth
One of the great advantages of these sorts of Let's Plays, apart from their sheer entertainment value, is that they can help show us poorer players how we can play better. The use of mods that alter the actual balance, like the AI Improvement mod does, means the lessons learned aren't applicable to those of us who prefer to play the vanilla game.

My channel gets a lot of new players to the game. I try not to go too nuts on mods as most of the new people are trying to get a grasp on the core game itself. The Extended Mod is perfect because, as you said, it doesn't alter any of the core mechanics - any tips or techniques translate perfectly from this mod to vanilla games.

Fair enough. One clarification though, the AI Improvement Mod does little to change the mechanics for a human player (unless you count a few small changes to the Tech Tree). What it does is improve the AI. More powerful ships. More focused researched. Better exploration etc. So it may require a human player to adjust their strategy. For example it's far more difficult to use mass Wonders because the AI actually targets them. But should mass Wonders have been possible in the first place?

The best pitch I can provide is that you'll have cooler battles with the Improved AI in the videos. The screenshots at the bottom of this post all have aspects you will never see with Vanilla.

Anyway, the videos are great, cheers.

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ORIGINAL: Cauldyth
...
A "pure" AI mod that just optimizes the AI within the existing framework would be very welcome, but I suspect there aren't a lot of people that agree with me.

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ORIGINAL: Cauldyth

Not to derail this thread too much, but I actually prefer the somewhat unbalanced tech tree of the vanilla game. I like that some weapon paths are suboptimal, and that some races are hardwired to follow those paths anyway. I like that, as a result, certain races will often end up being easy prey for certain other races. It adds some nice asymmetry to the game.

Increasing the difficulty can then be a simple matter of playing one of those disadvantaged races (and committing to following their tech preferences), or allying with one of them and trying to keep them afloat, etc. Paradox games have convinced me of the merits of unbalanced games.

A "pure" AI mod that just optimizes the AI within the existing framework would be very welcome, but I suspect there aren't a lot of people that agree with me.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cauldyth
Not to derail this thread too much, but I actually prefer the somewhat unbalanced tech tree of the vanilla game. I like that some weapon paths are suboptimal, and that some races are hardwired to follow those paths anyway. I like that, as a result, certain races will often end up being easy prey for certain other races. It adds some nice asymmetry to the game.

Increasing the difficulty can then be a simple matter of playing one of those disadvantaged races (and committing to following their tech preferences), or allying with one of them and trying to keep them afloat, etc. Paradox games have convinced me of the merits of unbalanced games.

A "pure" AI mod that just optimizes the AI within the existing framework would be very welcome, but I suspect there aren't a lot of people that agree with me.