Poll regarding the new IGNOREPREREQ faction ability

[Yitzi]

One of the requests for this patch was to allow a way to make faction-specific units.  I decided to take it somewhat further, and make an ability by which predesigned units, facilities (including stockpile energy, satellites, and projects) become available without the prerequisite tech.  (Other things such as techs, weapons/armor/chassis/special abilities, etc. could be included as part of a future patch.  If a unit or facility has the prerequisite tech "Disable" and a faction has this ability for that unit/facility, it will then be faction-specific.)

There is a rule on low difficulty (citizen and specialist) that AI players cannot start a project until at least one human player has the necessary tech.  The question is: If a faction has the faction ability allowing them to build a particular project without the prerequisite tech, should that allow the AI to do it too, or should the AI only be able to build projects for which a human player has the actual tech?

Taking discussions from our modders, and opening a poll.

[gwillybj]

I'm leaning toward allowing the AI to start the project at any time. Wouldn't that be the point of giving them the ability?

[Yitzi]

I'm leaning toward allowing the AI to start the project at any time. Wouldn't that be the point of giving them the ability?

You misunderstand.  My case is as follows:

Someone is playing, on citizen (single player), a custom faction that allows them to build the Longevity Vaccine even without Bioengineering (its prerequisite tech).  He does not know Bioengineering.

  is played by the AI, and knows Bioengineering.  However, on citizen or specialist,  cannot build the Longevity Vaccine until the human player also knows Bioengineering.

The question then becomes: Should  be able to build the Longevity Vaccine because the human player is able to (even without the tech), or should have to wait until the human player actually has the tech?

[Mart]

I voted for AI not to build it, giving a human player more advantage.
My reasoning is, that since it is on the lowest difficulty levels, players who start such a game expect to have an easy game.

[gwillybj]

Yes, I did get it wrong; so the vote is 2-0 against, since it should keep the game easy for the beginner.

[Buster's Uncle]

I believe you can change your vote.

[Yitzi]

I believe you can change your vote.

I think that depends on how the poll was set at first, and I think I forgot to turn it on...and that's one of the few aspects of the poll that can't be edited after-the-fact...

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay - I was able to enable the allow users to change vote option.  Maybe that's an 'only with mod powers' thing, since we're not in Bug/Patch.

[Geo]

The poll question doesn't make it clear to me which option to choose. The wording is practically meaningless to me.

What I'd like is the AI being able to built a project even if a human player doesn't have the necessary technology. Whatever the difficulty level.

[Yitzi]

The poll question doesn't make it clear to me which option to choose. The wording is practically meaningless to me.

What I'd like is the AI being able to built a project even if a human player doesn't have the necessary technology. Whatever the difficulty level.

That would be "yes".  Unless you mean that even on the lowest difficulties the AI should be able to build a project even if the human player doesn't have the necessary technology or the ability making it unnecessary, in which case that's not even on the table (as it would change how things currently work).

[Yitzi]

Ok, the majority vote seems to be that the player should have to actually have the tech to allow the AI to build the project on the lowest difficulty level, so that's how it'll work.

[Geo]

 

[Yitzi]

If you want, you could request another optional feature that changes the matter, when I start taking nominations again...but I'm certainly not making a non-optional change to the rule that on low difficulties the AI can't build a project without a human player being able to build it, and most people want them to actually need to have the tech.

[Geo]

Yitzi, half the time when you try to explain something I don't understand what you want to convey. Just like this poll, and your attempt to clarify the poll to me. You got me until the "unless" part.

[Yitzi]

Yitzi, half the time when you try to explain something I don't understand what you want to convey. Just like this poll, and your attempt to clarify the poll to me. You got me until the "unless" part.

Sorry.  Let's see if I can make things clearer:

Let's take the case of the Human Genome Project (HGP).  Without my mod, you can only build a project if you have the tech, so say we've got a single-player game as   .  If    doesn't know Biogenetics, he can't build the HGP.  Simple enough.

But what about  ?  He's an AI, who starts with Biogenetics, so can he build the HGP?

Well, it depends on the difficulty level.  On Citizen and Specialist, he can't build the HGP until  (the human player) knows Biogenetics; this is to prevent the AI from grabbing projects while the newbie player is still stuck behind on tech and can't make a go for them, or perhaps to give the human player an advantage on the lowest difficulty levels.

On Talent and above, the human player does not get this advantage, and  can build the HGP as soon as he wants.

All of the above is part of the original game, and not subject to being changed by default.  If you want it to be changeable via alphax.txt, that is a possible future project.

In the upcoming patch, however, someone can mod  to be able to build the HGP even without biogenetics (or, more likely, make a new faction that can do that).  If so, the question is whether that should that allow  to build the HGP as soon as he wants (since  has a chance at it too), or not (so that  gets the maximal advantage on the lowest difficulty levels.)  Most people seem to favor "not", so that's what I'm doing.