Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Command Nexus => Topic started by: Kirov on September 20, 2013, 03:09:06 PM

Title: IP games, Zen and You
Post by: Kirov on September 20, 2013, 03:09:06 PM

I'd like to start a thread to collect all your experience and/or theoretical knowledge you have with IP games. Tools, tips, recommended settings, just anything that comes to your head. I believe this type of game is underexplored and maybe shunned due to that. Last time with Kata we run into some issues and didn't start a serious game until after a couple of hours and I imagine many a player would give up way earlier than that.

Some things I have:

- I had a horrible, horrible lag, although I have quite a new computer and a decent connection (the test now says 16,5 Mbps on download and 1,6 on upload). Not only the game felt as if it was running on Apollo computer system, but every time I met AI, like I was passing by AI units, the game seemed to make an overseas phone call to make sure the other machine is ok with everything and we can proceed. This could take up to 5-10 secs on literally every move from tile to tile. I wasn't the host, will need to check that. We used Hamachi and some say it was a bad idea. Do you have any other ideas how to deal with it, apart from trying direct IP? Any knowledge of the game code which may be helpful here? It's definitely not the fault of bandwidth or CPU power.

- Is it possible to start a game without any AI? Close the slots or something like that? We couldn't find anything here.

- I'm going to check if it's possible to change game settings after you load a save. It would be a good idea to start with simultaneous moves, then upon contact save and load without it. But if you tried it already, please share.

- For best experience, use two machines, one for playing, another for communicating. You need to stay in touch in case something goes down, and using two monitors on one computer didn't work well for me, as the game can be crashy when alt-tabbing.

- There is this bug that AI can sell or buy the same tech twice in one diplomatic meeting. Possibly very annoying. Reported already in the Bugs section.

- On standard map, we ended up very close to each other. Larger are probably better.

- One very important thing - there is a slightly accelerated start (I'm not talking about that game setting right now). Your first base is 3-4pop with RecTanks and RecCommons, some factions get multiple techs. The standard issue is 2 CPs, 1 former, 1 scout, 1 rover, but some get another rover instead of the scout. I believe at least Aki is slightly unbalanced here, as she gets many techs, can run Planned from turn 1 and has 2 rovers. We can try to make a list (the details vary from faction to faction) if anyone is interested enough.

Any remarks from your experience?

Title: Re: IP games, Zen and You
Post by: Kataphraktoi on September 20, 2013, 04:56:57 PM

I got 10.51 download and 2.92 upload on a test i ran just now(ran the test 4 more times and got even high numbers sometimes), indeed unacceptable and inexcusable networking by game...however my ping is always over 800-850, due to being on satelite there is some delay of course. But this cant explain the lag really as non-real time games dont require twitch speed and i have even played games on Age of Empires 2 with such a ping.

I played yesterday a game with someone on gameranger via hamachi aswell (gameranger wouldnt work) now he said he didnt have unit\decision making lag(neither did i) and we played 20 turns quickly, but whenever the game began ''synchronizing leaders''' we had to wait over a minute for that to resolve, and it began happening every turn so we gave up. I suspect every AI interaction caused this to pop up, and since i found the unity crash site and knew all base locations, i know 3 AI were placed within 10-15 tiles of each other down south. Most likely they interacted nearly every turn at one point.

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- I'm going to check if it's possible to change game settings after you load a save. It would be a good idea to start with simultaneous moves, then upon contact save and load without it. But if you tried it already, please share.

To expand on this important point, we were completely unable to change critical game settings such as confirm battle results and disable automatic monolith exploration. Even though those settings displayed correctly on my settings screen, they still would not work. These are both pretty important for serious games(monoliths can disappear when overused and units can only get morale+ once) and maybe there is other settings that cannot be changed

Title: Re: IP games, Zen and You
Post by: t_ras on September 21, 2013, 06:34:10 AM

I would like to pin make the thread stiky if it developes properly. So please leep it on track and informative.

Title: Re: IP games, Zen and You
Post by: Kataphraktoi on September 21, 2013, 06:46:33 PM

All factions start with 1-2 colony pods, 1 unity rover, 1 scout patrol, and 1 terraformer. Your first
colony pod creates a base with Recreation Commons, Recycling Tanks, and is size 3. Starting
energy credit reserves are 100 EC. When your starting techs include Doc Mobility you have two unity
rovers and no scout patrol. Exceptions to this standard are listed. The number of free techs never
changes.

Gaians;Base is always pop4
Techs;Social Psych, [Ethical Calculus] OR [Biogenetics] OR [Doctrine Mobility]
Reloaded many times here, began noticing trend of tech types maching faction.

University;Base is always pop2
Techs;Two random techs of D1\D2\C1

Cybernetic Conciousness
Techs;Two Random techs of D1\D2\B1\E1
The chances of Cycon being able to make rovers on turn1 is very low. I couldnt get Doc Mob again no matter how many times i reloaded. Its very difficult to continue collection information in this manner of loading up IP games, a few reloads each for the rest. The results in total are;

2+ tech factions;Gaians, University,Cycon
1+ tech factions;Hive, Morgan(250ECs), Peacekeepers, Pirates, Data Angels, Caretakers
No additional Techs; Believers, Spartans, Free Drones, Usurpers


I suspect the choices of which tech you get to be 100% random and governed by your factions inclination towards build, discover, conquer, etc as noted in faction files or other places. Therefore there is little point in collected further detail by reloading games and comparing techs, unless the sample size for each faction was in the hundreds.

Title: Re: IP games, Zen and You
Post by: Kirov on September 24, 2013, 05:17:02 PM

I seriously think the CyCon is OP at the beginning.

They always start with AP and IN. They either start with or can research D:M and the same goes for PlanNet (so there is only 25% that they have neither). They can also start doing NLM.

Drop your HQ and look what techs you have. If you have PN, switch to Planned, set production to 2-1-1, you can even disband your former towards it. Research D:M. In 2104-2105 you have 2-1-1, prototyped A2 and M2 (remember that PN gives you the rover prototype for free) and you can use 30 EC to upgrade your scout rover. By 2110 you can have 3x2-1-2 and 1x2-1-1 at +1 Industry, enough to overwhelm literally any neighbour, including the Progs.

If you have D:M not PN, simply adjust the above. If you're super unlucky, you might even need to research both techs, which takes an abysmal time of 6-8 turns. Even in the worst case scenario, you have a handful of Laser Rovers + Planned + NLM researched in like 2112. The enemy needs 3 Battle Ogres to counter that, but of course with this army you will pop more pods, anyway.

Title: Re: IP games, Zen and You
Post by: Kirov on September 24, 2013, 05:20:58 PM

Quote from: Kataphraktoi on September 20, 2013, 04:56:57 PM

To expand on this important point, we were completely unable to change critical game settings such as confirm battle results and disable automatic monolith exploration. Even though those settings displayed correctly on my settings screen, they still would not work. These are both pretty important for serious games(monoliths can disappear when overused and units can only get morale+ once) and maybe there is other settings that cannot be changed

It is true that we couldn't modify the settings you set while playing, ie. from the menu. There were no combat odds (it really hurts if you're used to "just checking the odds"), automatic monolith investigation was always on. However, we can freely modify the game settings you select at the load screen, i.e. spoils of war, difficulty level for players, and so on.

In fact, I just checked that with a test game. You can start a game with simultaneous moves, play it and load with the moves off. Everything seems to work as it should.

Title: Re: IP games, Zen and You
Post by: Kirov on September 30, 2013, 08:17:36 PM

There is not much about TCP/IP games at 'poly, but I found this comment:

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TCP/IP seems to use pre-set options with the goal of making the game faster. (http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/150337-Revised-bug-list)

And read also that people complain a lot about autodesigning and autopruning units (http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/130368-AutoDesign-units-in-Multiplayer) a lot, which cannot be turned off and every now and then you actually need to spend some time cancelling those designs.

I alt-tabbed during an IP game and there are no changes to alpha.ini in the 'preferences' line. Is it possible to find and modify such settings in the exe? Confirming battle odds, autoinvestigating monoliths, autodesign and autoprune seem to be the most annoying offenders. Any computer whiz willing to take a look at it and say?