Some Suggestions about Nations, armies & AI balance issue
Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2022 5:03 pm
I am now playing 0.3.35 amd tied some early-mid play through. Just some thoughs:
1. miltech
miltech growth is just too slow, and not balanced between countries, I've watch Perun's Academy playthough on youtube. Current setting will force player to go for US or other western country if they want build some armys to fight the alien.
In my experience, I have used China in several games, get control in around 2024, put 20% IP into miltech, miltech still 3.9 until 2030.
disband amy has little help. With two 3.8 tech army cannot even take Taiwan unless with help from US.
I should complain the initial setting is not so real life. (In real life, Taiwan military gear all stall after 2000, while China is advanced in rockets and hyper sonic missle, drones, GPS, and stealth fighters. According to many simulation by RAND Corporation or others, China can compete with US in many fields. the simulation outcome makes great difference between 2000, 2010, 2020)
I have saw some people in reddit say the trick is put all IP into miltech in specified country and have a rival to trigger missle test event, at the cost of orbital debris and global opinon.
According to https://hoodedhorse.com/wiki/Terra_Invi ... ns#Miltech
It saids The current miltech grow is affected by gov level.
I think it makes no sence. Because in real life most 3rd world country rely on weapon trade (just like direct invest concep in the game ), while some country achieve miltech growth relevant to GDP growth (most of the part is Industrialization, electonic tech and information tech, think about Soviet Union in 1940s-1970s, and China in 2000-2020. It has nothing to do with whether the gov is democratic or not)
In the game, research like Terrestrial Military Science only increase the miltech upper bound, cannot boost current miltech grow (I don't even know where the current upper bound is if I don't research that tech)
Besides miltech, I think army performance should have some country based modifier, (refer to HOI4). China force the UN to peace talk in Korean war. And North Vietnam (backed by Soviet Union and China) win the South Vietman (backed by the US)
2. Large nations and AI balance
The current game is Alien + Servant + Protectorate vs Resistent + Human First. Exodus just try to leave (like BeiHai.Zhang in The 3-body Problem), Academy wants middle ground (like Picard in StarTrek), Initiate wants profits and control (like Jules-Pierre.Mao in The Expanse story). There's much un-balance between the two since Servant/Protectorate has Alien aid. Unless we want the AI to stay dummy. If Alien flip some CP for Servant in some major countries, there's no turning back (I have tried 3-4 High level consulers to do public campaign in the flipped nation, public opion always fall if it pass above 50% (I don't know want defence mechanism is that), unless I do some assacination or Hostile take over to the Servant and hope they abandon the CP)
The game is somehow chaos between the AIs. The example 8 factions game, human first is tend to fight with resistence over European countries even if there ideolgy is simular. No one gets the upper hand, I cannot tell my ally faction what to do (not like the alien does). At first I think the problem is the number is too high while the cake is not large enough, so I tried 7 factions game and 6 factions game.
When I get into china, some AI still fighting over the surrounding small countries or african countries just ignoring the fact that Servant (attacked by me) is abandoning many large strong countries. When they are fighting over CP in the same country, I sometimes have to do the cracking mission for them to let someone win over.
So from my perspective it's my duty or burden to make sure all the best major countries under my control, I have to play map painting even I don't want to. If some random event to make Servant too strong, I just reload the game.
3. Difficulty
The current game Servant normal difficulty may equal to cinematic mode to other faction. There's nothing in-between (no easy mode).
I think Servant/Protectorate should have some pentalty modifier, because In human nauture there's xenophobic, people tend to have issue when rule by other ethic group, let alone it's alien. you know everyone is going to be slave after the Alien enthrolled the elite, at least there should be underground movement or the mass population should have a modifier to resist their propaganda.
4. Tech tree
I think tech tree should be trim down if the game want to be more acceptable by average player. Most social research is not relavent (there's no where I can know CP cap relative research, not by the name). When I research independance movement for 25 CP, I don't really want to know about the independance option (nor do I know where those regions on earth are)
I play with proton on Linux, the game freeze many times when I tried to view the full tree. Sometimes the game got OOM killed, sometimes I have to plug the power to reboot. I just have to find online tech tree website to know what's what.
5. Co-op Ideas
Because there will be not enough CP for one player to control earth enirely, it will be fun to add some co-op function ( just like HOI4 in which player can join faction to fight together and split territory after the war ). The current ideology spectrum is left-middle-right, some of the factions are compatible, they are just believe in different means to achieve the goal. It may be simplify as the following:
a). Fight the alien
The people think they must take a fight to drive alien away from earth. Earth belong to human control, our fate is in our own hand.
Which including Human first and Resistence, they are both fighting the alien, just argumenting whether or not destroy the alien once for all.
They can be ally since they are just different factions like the various group inside communist party (In real world there are indead so many groups you cannot tell them from there names)
b). Co-exist
The proportion of people is neither xenophobic, nor xenophie. They ok to co-exist with the alien. The initiate are the bad guys just ploting behind their mask. They will not tell the people what they truly want, they just prepresent some elite people's deep hidden plan (otherwise the mass will know their true nature and abandon them) The Academy are the good guys. But they can choose to ally with each other (since the Academy story line have some overlaps for the Initiative)
c). Surrender
The proportion of people believe there's no chance to win over the alien.
The Servant's goal is to actively help alien control the world. Protectorate think they are reluctant to surrender but they are playing passive in order to preserve humanity, chances are better to stay on Earth. The exodus also does not care who own the world, they just want to delay the time for their plan, chances are better in the stars.
Since Servant already Ally with the Alien. Exodus may ally with Protectorate.
After the simplification of ideology, allow allied groups to do public campaign in the same country for mutual benefit. Under the same ideology public support, whoever contribute to propaganda most are more easy to control that CP. They are allowed to negothiate to exchange nation CP for unification purpose. After abandoning some country for a reason, simular ideology faction can easily pick it up, since they are compatible ideology (not need to do public campaign). During the end game, whoever strongest faction get to execute the ending they want. This will enable human player to play together and human player can co-op with AI player.
1. miltech
miltech growth is just too slow, and not balanced between countries, I've watch Perun's Academy playthough on youtube. Current setting will force player to go for US or other western country if they want build some armys to fight the alien.
In my experience, I have used China in several games, get control in around 2024, put 20% IP into miltech, miltech still 3.9 until 2030.
disband amy has little help. With two 3.8 tech army cannot even take Taiwan unless with help from US.
I should complain the initial setting is not so real life. (In real life, Taiwan military gear all stall after 2000, while China is advanced in rockets and hyper sonic missle, drones, GPS, and stealth fighters. According to many simulation by RAND Corporation or others, China can compete with US in many fields. the simulation outcome makes great difference between 2000, 2010, 2020)
I have saw some people in reddit say the trick is put all IP into miltech in specified country and have a rival to trigger missle test event, at the cost of orbital debris and global opinon.
According to https://hoodedhorse.com/wiki/Terra_Invi ... ns#Miltech
It saids The current miltech grow is affected by gov level.
I think it makes no sence. Because in real life most 3rd world country rely on weapon trade (just like direct invest concep in the game ), while some country achieve miltech growth relevant to GDP growth (most of the part is Industrialization, electonic tech and information tech, think about Soviet Union in 1940s-1970s, and China in 2000-2020. It has nothing to do with whether the gov is democratic or not)
In the game, research like Terrestrial Military Science only increase the miltech upper bound, cannot boost current miltech grow (I don't even know where the current upper bound is if I don't research that tech)
Besides miltech, I think army performance should have some country based modifier, (refer to HOI4). China force the UN to peace talk in Korean war. And North Vietnam (backed by Soviet Union and China) win the South Vietman (backed by the US)
2. Large nations and AI balance
The current game is Alien + Servant + Protectorate vs Resistent + Human First. Exodus just try to leave (like BeiHai.Zhang in The 3-body Problem), Academy wants middle ground (like Picard in StarTrek), Initiate wants profits and control (like Jules-Pierre.Mao in The Expanse story). There's much un-balance between the two since Servant/Protectorate has Alien aid. Unless we want the AI to stay dummy. If Alien flip some CP for Servant in some major countries, there's no turning back (I have tried 3-4 High level consulers to do public campaign in the flipped nation, public opion always fall if it pass above 50% (I don't know want defence mechanism is that), unless I do some assacination or Hostile take over to the Servant and hope they abandon the CP)
The game is somehow chaos between the AIs. The example 8 factions game, human first is tend to fight with resistence over European countries even if there ideolgy is simular. No one gets the upper hand, I cannot tell my ally faction what to do (not like the alien does). At first I think the problem is the number is too high while the cake is not large enough, so I tried 7 factions game and 6 factions game.
When I get into china, some AI still fighting over the surrounding small countries or african countries just ignoring the fact that Servant (attacked by me) is abandoning many large strong countries. When they are fighting over CP in the same country, I sometimes have to do the cracking mission for them to let someone win over.
So from my perspective it's my duty or burden to make sure all the best major countries under my control, I have to play map painting even I don't want to. If some random event to make Servant too strong, I just reload the game.
3. Difficulty
The current game Servant normal difficulty may equal to cinematic mode to other faction. There's nothing in-between (no easy mode).
I think Servant/Protectorate should have some pentalty modifier, because In human nauture there's xenophobic, people tend to have issue when rule by other ethic group, let alone it's alien. you know everyone is going to be slave after the Alien enthrolled the elite, at least there should be underground movement or the mass population should have a modifier to resist their propaganda.
4. Tech tree
I think tech tree should be trim down if the game want to be more acceptable by average player. Most social research is not relavent (there's no where I can know CP cap relative research, not by the name). When I research independance movement for 25 CP, I don't really want to know about the independance option (nor do I know where those regions on earth are)
I play with proton on Linux, the game freeze many times when I tried to view the full tree. Sometimes the game got OOM killed, sometimes I have to plug the power to reboot. I just have to find online tech tree website to know what's what.
5. Co-op Ideas
Because there will be not enough CP for one player to control earth enirely, it will be fun to add some co-op function ( just like HOI4 in which player can join faction to fight together and split territory after the war ). The current ideology spectrum is left-middle-right, some of the factions are compatible, they are just believe in different means to achieve the goal. It may be simplify as the following:
a). Fight the alien
The people think they must take a fight to drive alien away from earth. Earth belong to human control, our fate is in our own hand.
Which including Human first and Resistence, they are both fighting the alien, just argumenting whether or not destroy the alien once for all.
They can be ally since they are just different factions like the various group inside communist party (In real world there are indead so many groups you cannot tell them from there names)
b). Co-exist
The proportion of people is neither xenophobic, nor xenophie. They ok to co-exist with the alien. The initiate are the bad guys just ploting behind their mask. They will not tell the people what they truly want, they just prepresent some elite people's deep hidden plan (otherwise the mass will know their true nature and abandon them) The Academy are the good guys. But they can choose to ally with each other (since the Academy story line have some overlaps for the Initiative)
c). Surrender
The proportion of people believe there's no chance to win over the alien.
The Servant's goal is to actively help alien control the world. Protectorate think they are reluctant to surrender but they are playing passive in order to preserve humanity, chances are better to stay on Earth. The exodus also does not care who own the world, they just want to delay the time for their plan, chances are better in the stars.
Since Servant already Ally with the Alien. Exodus may ally with Protectorate.
After the simplification of ideology, allow allied groups to do public campaign in the same country for mutual benefit. Under the same ideology public support, whoever contribute to propaganda most are more easy to control that CP. They are allowed to negothiate to exchange nation CP for unification purpose. After abandoning some country for a reason, simular ideology faction can easily pick it up, since they are compatible ideology (not need to do public campaign). During the end game, whoever strongest faction get to execute the ending they want. This will enable human player to play together and human player can co-op with AI player.