Balance of Power Review

Post by **The_Nighthawk** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:27 pm

Jaif wrote:I'm curious, have any of you played this mod in MP yet? Any thoughts on racial balance? For that matter, is the AI better at any one race over the others?

Gowron wrote:BoP has been optimized for MP mode. A lot of things that had been causing balance issues in vanilla BotF (and there were plenty) have been changed.

As for AI being better with any given race, not especially, but you may get surprised by the size of the Ferengi empire when you meet them for the first time.

Post by **Martok** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:43 pm

While I've not played BOP in multiplayer, I can tell you that the AI still generally does best as the Ferengi (just like in vanilla BOTF). Their economic bonuses continue to make it relatively easy for the AI to buy a fairly powerful fleet. Despite this, however, Gowron has managed to close the gap somewhat between the Ferengi and the other four powers.

All empires tend to expand at a more even rate now, even the Ferengi -- I haven't seen very many situations where one AI empire was much larger than all the rest. And despite the Fergs' ability to acquire a large fleet early on, the other empires generally seem to be able to keep up (in terms of military strength) fairly well. In addition, the other four powers seem to better compete with the Alliance's ability to gobble up minor races (although the Feds & Ferengi still definitely have the advantage in this area).

Post by **mickar** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:56 am

I've played twice now t5 fed. Found it way too easy to make ships. With 6 systems, u can make 6 ships per turn, assuming u get the dill. Too many ships I find. Plus, the t5 upgrades r easy to get. Kind of takes reaearch outta the game.

Just my initial thoughts. Will continue playing other techs and races.

Post by **jaif** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:21 am

Thanks all.

I read what Gowron said. I understand his intent, and I laud it. But there's a world of difference between intent and experience, so I'm curious if people have actually played in MP. I know there are those with a lot more time than I have (I might get an hour a day if I'm lucky), so I'm hoping people try it out.

On the main topic, I love the idea behind this mod. Trimming the fleets down is beautiful. I don't like games with tons of units - I'd rather each unit have purpose.

-Jeff

Post by **mickar** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 12:07 pm

With Card turn 13 I had 16 battle 11 cruisers 4 tt. Thats with only 1 demand from Fed. I didn't even meet the other major yet. Way too easy to make ships. I didn't bother making all the extras, just the 2 morale things then right to ships. Large fleets means crash. Doubleful in MP a battle could finish.

I tried t1 as well. Too easy to research.

I will uninstall this mod.

Post by **sean_west** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 4:40 am

If you are new to MP, it would be best to start with vanilla, and then move onto the mods. I say this, because one of the aims of the mods are to make the game harder.

Post by **Grifman** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 6:26 pm

Martok wrote:However, by "slimming down" the shiplist(s), it essentially forces the AI to construct their best vessels -- you no longer see the other empires fielding fleets consisting of only destroyers and light cruisers. I'll happily admit that for me at least, that's worth sacrificing the more varied ship rosters of vanilla BOTF.

Damn, is this true? This was one of my biggest complaints about BOTF, the fact that I'd build a fleet of Defiants, Galaxy X, and Sovereigns and the AI would just get crushed because it never built any second level ships. If this has been fixed, then I'm going to have to break BOTF out again!

Great mod, if this is indeed true!

Post by **ketteringdave** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 7:32 pm

Ship sorting: CLICK ME

With the Ultimate Editor, you can "fix" the AI shipbuilding without a mod, as long as you look out for Utopia ship slots.

Recently, I've been playing around with UDM3, since that's getting the most updates. But I can't wait for whatever update Gowron has in store for BoP - while the new ships in other mods are great, the gameplay changes in BoP really do improve the whole experience.

Post by **stardust** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 6:14 am

It's more than true, Grifman, there's several mods that have got the AI building decent ships.

happy hunting

Post by **Grifman** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:52 pm

BoP is a great mod, but I am noticing one thing that seems a bit strange. In vanilla it seemed to me that the AI's were pretty good at conquering the minor races. But so far in my game as the Feds, I'm finding minor races all over the place that are still independent. In some cases they are totally surrounded by another race, but the AI doesn't seem to care.

Anyone else seen this/

Post by **Badbru** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 12:41 am

Yeah, I've noticed this too. I could've sworn the AI co-opted or concured the minors much more frequently in vanilla than BoP. I've been actually finding it rare for them to even have one minor race. In my current Klingon Empire game no-one else has a minor. In my current Cardassian Union game my Allies the Federation have one and I think the Ferengi might have one. In a previous Federation game the Ferengi had the Vulcans, the Katarians, and the Edo all within five sectors of their homeworld, yet the only minor they co-opted were the Bajorans who were down some ways on our border. Even in UDM3 though the AI seems slower to gain minors so I'm wondering if it's some mod thing?

Post by **Grifman** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:13 am

Hmm, I didn't find it to be true in UDM. I just played a session today and all the empires had several minor races under their control. But there defnitely seems to be an issue with BoP.

Post by **Grifman** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:18 am

Hmm, I'll also add that now that the ship building problem has been fixed, I'm free to focus on other problems with the game

The diplomatic AI is horrible. The game seems programmed for all the AI's to eventually declare war on you no matter what. They break treaties at random, even if you do nothing to piss them off. Worst is when your own allies demand thousands of credits from you and get ticked off when you tell the to go jump.

Before the ship fix, it didn't matter because even if there were 4 AI's against me, their ships were do pathetic it didn't matter. But now they are much more aggressive. It makes the game harder but I'm not certain if it's more fun in the end.

Post by **Jral** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:21 am

I just played a game with the Klingons from tech 1, hard, no randoms, large spiral galaxy..... took me 796 turns to complete. I accepted dominance to end 3rd on the Hall of Fame.

Oh, how does that Hall of Fame do its scoring anyhow........?

I found this BoP much harder than UDM3 but had better balance.
I do luv the new ships in UDM3 but i have found BoP to give you a much tougher gaming experience.

Luv that subspace resonator !

I did find many minors in this latest game of mine had not been co-opted and had huge ground defences and loads of orbitals. In my opinion thats the way it would be in a galaxy at war unless you believe the Feds apple pie propaganda.

I`m off to play the Cardies now on impossible from tech 1 its gonna be a long one.

Post by **Grifman** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 7:25 pm

Jral wrote:I did find many minors in this latest game of mine had not been co-opted and had huge ground defences and loads of orbitals. In my opinion thats the way it would be in a galaxy at war unless you believe the Feds apple pie propaganda.

Nope, most of these minors would have been conquered or have joined the Federation in an attempt to maintain some sort of autonomy.