After Action Report - Cardassians

[Warp Core Breach]

Ok, I understand better why the Cards never fare well as an AI player. Cardassia is seriously disadvantaged right now!

I played through about 400 turns, conquering Feds and Doms, and bringing a small but worshipful Romulan enclave into a full alliance. After a sneak attack took away 3 major Klingon worlds, my population finally topped the Klingons. Seems to me that while victory is still many turns away, I'm pretty sure of victory (especially after I stranded a stack of 80(!) Klingon ships). Here are my observations and suggestions:

1. Cardassian special buildings are not very useful right now. I had to conquer Sol to get any buildings that boost research beyond a single +50% Bio building. Some of that is due to a dearth of minors in my game, but I can totally see how that would hamper a Cardassian AI. Cardassia's best building is the Reeducation Center. +2 Morale means that I can keep subjugated worlds at 100 morale (and an already happy Sol system at 140 morale!). At least until intelligence activity gets implemented, AI Cards need some sort of boost. Maybe a blanket 1.5x on all ship shields? A 1.1x bonus on research?

2. Cardassian ships do not stack up well against Klingons. For example, I had a stack of 6 Cruiser III against a stack of 5 Klingon Destroyer I/II and a single Strike Cruser IV (5 of 6 were cloaked). My ships out-shielded and out-hulled the Klingons by a significant amount (even the Strike IV). Result: 6 dead Cardassian Ccruiser III's, and I never penetrated shields on *any* of the Klingon ships. I don't think it was just the cloaking. I should have had enough shields to withstand the initial barrage. Or so I thought. My sense is that Cardassians always lose unless they have overwhelming superiority. Again, some ship bonuses while intelligence is in development would help.

3. Klingon ground combat bonuses really chew up Cardassian troops. I needed to get the ratio up around 1.6 or 1.7 before it would be green. I lost a ground battle at 1.45 (red). My surprise invasion totally stalled after the initial strike as I had to rebuild and position more troops. If the AI doesn't know to take Klingon bonuses into account, I don't think other AIs will ever be able to take Klingon worlds, contributing to the Klingon advantages I am perceiving.

4. The morale hit your subjugated worlds take when you conquer their last free system is brutal. I ended up choosing to leave a small garrison to intimidate the last minor Fed system instead of invading it, so I could avoid this penalty. I totally get the thought process behind this, but if I end up doing something non-sensical, like leaving a small system deep in my space unconquered, it sort of breaks the game in a small way. At least to me. I'd recommend reducing/eliminating this penalty.

5. The AI stack got too big. Klingons came charging into Cardassian space with a single 80-ship fleet - and no transports. I sent a bunch of 4-ship fleets in behind them, playing whack-a-mole with Klingon shipyards and stranded that fleet. There was no way I could ever attack that stack, but fortunately, I never had too. Cost me a nice system, but totally worth it! I was running close to 0 net income with far fewer ships, so that fleet size, managed by a human would have steamrolled me - especially if it swapped about 20 DDs for Troops so it could establish new shipyards quickly. Come to think of it, I did the same thing to the Dominion. This was way earlier in the game, but they had a stack that was too big to attack (10ish ships at that time) that I was able to strand, as well. I'd suggest putting some logic to avoid super stacks. Perhaps the stack limit could be governed by the turn, or total fleet size. A 10-ship stack is too many on Turn 90 or for a 12-ship fleet, but just fine on Turn 300 as part of an 80-ship fleet. AI should build more troop transports, perhaps i proportion to total fleet size, so that it'll invade more.

6. Klingons were too peaceful. Through no action on my side, I ended up in an Alliance with them and 1000/1000 regard/trust. After I broke the treaty and ambushed them, their regard dropped to almost 0, but trust stayed at 1000. Perhaps AI trust should wane when a player gets more powerful.

... more to come. Gotta run right now.

As always - thanks for all the work you do to make this game fun!

[Iceman]

1. Cardassian special buildings are not very useful right now. I had to conquer Sol to get any buildings that boost research beyond a single +50% Bio building. Some of that is due to a dearth of minors in my game, but I can totally see how that would hamper a Cardassian AI. Cardassia's best building is the Reeducation Center. +2 Morale means that I can keep subjugated worlds at 100 morale (and an already happy Sol system at 140 morale!). At least until intelligence activity gets implemented, AI Cards need some sort of boost. Maybe a blanket 1.5x on all ship shields? A 1.1x bonus on research?

But the Klingons have a very similar research setup, so by this rationale, they should also not fare well; but that's not the case...
In fact, the Reeducation Center should help the Cards be better than the Klings.
Then again, it might be that the Reeducation Center might be taking up pop for energy that could go into labs.

2. Cardassian ships do not stack up well against Klingons. For example, I had a stack of 6 Cruiser III against a stack of 5 Klingon Destroyer I/II and a single Strike Cruser IV (5 of 6 were cloaked). My ships out-shielded and out-hulled the Klingons by a significant amount (even the Strike IV). Result: 6 dead Cardassian Ccruiser III's, and I never penetrated shields on *any* of the Klingon ships. I don't think it was just the cloaking. I should have had enough shields to withstand the initial barrage. Or so I thought. My sense is that Cardassians always lose unless they have overwhelming superiority. Again, some ship bonuses while intelligence is in development would help.

What is your AIMode setting? Did you check the Klingon ships' experience? AI ships start with higher XP levels on AIModes Hard and Impossible.

3. Klingon ground combat bonuses really chew up Cardassian troops. I needed to get the ratio up around 1.6 or 1.7 before it would be green. I lost a ground battle at 1.45 (red). My surprise invasion totally stalled after the initial strike as I had to rebuild and position more troops. If the AI doesn't know to take Klingon bonuses into account, I don't think other AIs will ever be able to take Klingon worlds, contributing to the Klingon advantages I am perceiving.

If the colony has a Bunker Network (or other Ground Defense bonuses), the ratio should be higher (around 1.7, yes).
Re Ground Attack bonuses, I'll check the code.

4. The morale hit your subjugated worlds take when you conquer their last free system is brutal. I ended up choosing to leave a small garrison to intimidate the last minor Fed system instead of invading it, so I could avoid this penalty. I totally get the thought process behind this, but if I end up doing something non-sensical, like leaving a small system deep in my space unconquered, it sort of breaks the game in a small way. At least to me. I'd recommend reducing/eliminating this penalty.

Blame Spocks-cuddly-tribble for that
That's how BotF has it, but for the past few weeks I've been thinking of removing it - precisely because of what you said.
Should I remove it, or lower it? If the latter, do you have a suggestion? I think it curretly is -60?

... more to come. Gotta run right now.

As always - thanks for all the work you do to make this game fun!

I'll reply to the other points later, but thanks for your feedback! And keep it coming.
I'll check the code for these points you raised.

[Warp Core Breach]

Hi Iceman!

Blame Spocks-cuddly-tribble for that
That's how BotF has it, but for the past few weeks I've been thinking of removing it - precisely because of what you said.
Should I remove it, or lower it? If the latter, do you have a suggestion? I think it curretly is -60?

-60!?! Wow, this is even bigger than I had thought. Does making peace provide a similar morale improvement? Like I said, anything that makes it advantageous to behave irrationally is probably not a good thing. My vote is to make this 0 (could this be a setup option?). Maybe I'm too skewed towards conquest? I still think that subjugated minors should be able to build their racial buildings. I never subjugate minors right now, which feels similarly wrong.

A couple of other thoughts (that may not belong in this thread...)

- Bombardment feels like it takes a long time. Is the program really taking that much time to resolve combat, or could this be reduced? Just call me impatient

- I'd like the option to "liberate" minors owned by another major power (i.e. grant them independence upon being conquered), so that I could get them to member status in my empire. Liberation should give a major boost to diplomatic status to help that along. I would argue that this shouldn't be an option for the Feds, they'd have to liberate the minor and not have the option to subjugating it, perhaps the Cardassians always subjugate and never liberate, Klingons, Roms and Dominion have the option either way.


Thanks!

[Iceman]

Hi Iceman!

Hi WCB! Sorry to not have replied sooner, but I was away for the weekend, and only returned last night. It was kind of late and I only had the time to reply to part of your post, and I was kind of telegraphic. I was too tired from the trip.

-60!?! Wow, this is even bigger than I had thought.

Yep, as long as it is a native system. You could leave a non-native system for last, or simply glass it, but it's kind of a workaround (I don't want to call it an exploit).

Code: Select all

-20 local (in conquered foreign)
-60 local (in conquered last native system held)

Does making peace provide a similar morale improvement?

Accepting and rejecting a peace treaty are global modifiers, listed in the morale tables. Each empire has its own modifier.

Like I said, anything that makes it advantageous to behave irrationally is probably not a good thing. My vote is to make this 0 (could this be a setup option?). Maybe I'm too skewed towards conquest?

Done.

I still think that subjugated minors should be able to build their racial buildings. I never subjugate minors right now, which feels similarly wrong.

They should now, but in the game I'm playing, it seems to not be the case... Just found out a few days ago. Will need to check why it got changed back.

- Bombardment feels like it takes a long time. Is the program really taking that much time to resolve combat, or could this be reduced? Just call me impatient

Did you disable invasion animations? It's the first thing I do when I start with a fresh build.
In the main menu, go to Settings, and look for the system assault animations toggle. If it is on, all the soundfx will always play to the end, even though the calculations have already been done. It's kind of annoying, yes. There's a ToDo out to make clicking anywhere on the screen stop the animations.
Or you can simply edit the ClientSettings.xaml file and change

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EnableAssaultAnimations="True"

to False.

- I'd like the option to "liberate" minors owned by another major power (i.e. grant them independence upon being conquered), so that I could get them to member status in my empire. Liberation should give a major boost to diplomatic status to help that along. I would argue that this shouldn't be an option for the Feds, they'd have to liberate the minor and not have the option to subjugating it, perhaps the Cardassians always subjugate and never liberate, Klingons, Roms and Dominion have the option either way.

That's in the ToDo list too. The AI behaves like that already BTW.
We just need to implement the UI for it, for the human players.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[Iceman]

4. The morale hit your subjugated worlds take when you conquer their last free system is brutal. I ended up choosing to leave a small garrison to intimidate the last minor Fed system instead of invading it, so I could avoid this penalty. I totally get the thought process behind this, but if I end up doing something non-sensical, like leaving a small system deep in my space unconquered, it sort of breaks the game in a small way. At least to me. I'd recommend reducing/eliminating this penalty.

Upon re-reading this,I think I misunderstood this yesterday - I was too tired, sorry.
The -60 modifier I mentioned is only for the last colony being subjugated! That's the one I removed.
But the one you were talking about was the morale hit that all native colonies of the subjugated civ (regardless of new owner) get, correct? That's only -30. Should this be lowered ?

5. The AI stack got too big. Klingons came charging into Cardassian space with a single 80-ship fleet - and no transports.

Yes, we need to put a limit on those fleets. Transport fleets do have a limit though.
But the AI doesn't handle this too well yet.

I'd suggest putting some logic to avoid super stacks. Perhaps the stack limit could be governed by the turn, or total fleet size. A 10-ship stack is too many on Turn 90 or for a 12-ship fleet, but just fine on Turn 300 as part of an 80-ship fleet. AI should build more troop transports, perhaps i proportion to total fleet size, so that it'll invade more.

The AI does build TTs in proportion to total fleet size. You can mod those too, in the Tables folder, TraitTables file, TransportConstructionRatio table. Each empire has its own value (for TT per warship count). The code needs to be improved though.

6. Klingons were too peaceful. Through no action on my side, I ended up in an Alliance with them and 1000/1000 regard/trust. After I broke the treaty and ambushed them, their regard dropped to almost 0, but trust stayed at 1000. Perhaps AI trust should wane when a player gets more powerful.

Both points are good, will add to the list

[Iceman]

The -60 modifier I mentioned is only for the last colony being subjugated! That's the one I removed.
But the one you were talking about was the morale hit that all native colonies of the subjugated civ (regardless of new owner) get, correct? That's only -30. Should this be lowered ?

The problem is that in Supremacy non-native colonies don't get the +50 morale bonus (or any other global morale modifier) for eliminating the empire - which partly compensated the -30 penalty.

[Warp Core Breach]

Hi Iceman!

Yes, the penalty I was referring to is the one that hits *all* subjugated colonies from a major power when the last one is subjugated. 30 points x 10-12 systems is a huge penalty! That's the one I think should be 0. Totally makes sense that each subjugated world takes a morale hit when conquered. Might also make sense to set a max value. Sol was the 2nd or 3rd Fed system I took, so they were still in good spirits. After taking over, they were at 140 morale. Just conquered and already Loyal... they are worse than Antedeans!

Did you disable invasion animations?

Lol - didn't know about that! I have now. Thank you!!

[Iceman]

Yes, the penalty I was referring to is the one that hits *all* subjugated colonies from a major power when the last one is subjugated.

Lowered it to -10 in the current patch (since non-native colonies do not get the +50 for eliminating the empire - but then again, other empires with subjugated colonies of that civ wouldn't either anyway).

30 points x 10-12 systems is a huge penalty! That's the one I think should be 0.

It's -30 to each colony, not -30x12. Not sure what you mean here.

Totally makes sense that each subjugated world takes a morale hit when conquered.

Yes, they do. -20 IIRC.

Might also make sense to set a max value. Sol was the 2nd or 3rd Fed system I took, so they were still in good spirits. After taking over, they were at 140 morale. Just conquered and already Loyal... they are worse than Antedeans!

You mean that after all modifiers, it shouldn't still be higher than say 100 (at least)?

[Iceman]

Yes, the penalty I was referring to is the one that hits *all* subjugated colonies from a major power when the last one is subjugated. 30 points x 10-12 systems is a huge penalty! That's the one I think should be 0. Totally makes sense that each subjugated world takes a morale hit when conquered. Might also make sense to set a max value. Sol was the 2nd or 3rd Fed system I took, so they were still in good spirits. After taking over, they were at 140 morale. Just conquered and already Loyal... they are worse than Antedeans!

Just made it so that when subjugated, a colony's morale is first reset to base level (if higher than 100) and then the -20 penalty is applied. What do you think
Also made the Cards not build the Reeducation Centre in smaller systems.
(not released yet)


The current patch should have fixed some other stuff you mentioned:
- TTs should now merge into fleets, and attack colonies of other civs
- declaring war on civs you have a treaty with, causes Trust to plummet
- you can build subjugated minor civs' unique buildings


Thanks for the feedback, looking forward for more!

[Warp Core Breach]

Just made it so that when subjugated, a colony's morale is first reset to base level (if higher than 100) and then the -20 penalty is applied. What do you think
Also made the Cards not build the Reeducation Centre in smaller systems.
(not released yet)

The current patch should have fixed some other stuff you mentioned:
- TTs should now merge into fleets, and attack colonies of other civs
- declaring war on civs you have a treaty with, causes Trust to plummet
- you can build subjugated minor civs' unique buildings

This is *very* cool!
Thank you! I'm totally on board with all of these changes.


I completed a quick game as the Borg. I thought it went well! Support increased enough to keep me from feeling handcuffed, but did leave me vulnerable as I couldn't defend all fronts fully. Spent over 120 turns battling back and forth over a set of systems with the Klingons, until eventually was able to dedicate enough forces to strand him. Ships were able to dominate small/medium fleets, which was crucial to expansion. As a playable race, I think the Borg are good. Although, if it ever gets too hard to strand fleets, the Borg are doomed.

As an AI player, the Borg may be a bit nerfed? Playing Feds right now, and the Borg are pretty much nowhere. Careful what I wish for, right? Will keep an eye out on them, 1 game is not much of a sample size. With subjugating minors still yielding specials, I'm tempted to go back and replay the Cards!

[Iceman]

I completed a quick game as the Borg. I thought it went well! Support increased enough to keep me from feeling handcuffed, but did leave me vulnerable as I couldn't defend all fronts fully. Spent over 120 turns battling back and forth over a set of systems with the Klingons, until eventually was able to dedicate enough forces to strand him. Ships were able to dominate small/medium fleets, which was crucial to expansion. As a playable race, I think the Borg are good. Although, if it ever gets too hard to strand fleets, the Borg are doomed.

If you think that we should increase support a bit more, LMK!
I'll try to prioritize the AI defending their shipyards; and the super-stacks issue.

As an AI player, the Borg may be a bit nerfed? Playing Feds right now, and the Borg are pretty much nowhere. Careful what I wish for, right? Will keep an eye out on them, 1 game is not much of a sample size.

Hehe.
It may have something to do with the fact that the Borg AI is in cryo-sleep in the beginning of the game, up to a turn defined by galaxy size and starting level (or some civ stumbles upon them).
The formula might need to be reviewed. If you're playing a Medium galaxy @ Early, release turn should be ~225.

With subjugating minors still yielding specials, I'm tempted to go back and replay the Cards!

That would be great, yes. And keep an eye on the Klingons, to see if they're still dominating.
Thanks!