Ironclad Games and Stardock Entertainment are pleased to present the change log for Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity/Diplomacy version 1.3! This is a major gameplay update for Sins that practically rewrites much of the original design and balance for the game.
NOTE: THIS UPDATE WILL BREAK SAVE GAMES AND REPLAYS
[ Gameplay ]
[ Graphics ]
[ Interface ]
[ AI ]
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Where's my drooling smiley ? oooh there :
I really love this new patch, it was worth the wait and I'm in a hurry to test it !!!! Stardock / Ironclad RULEZZZ !!!!
Ouch! Don't activate adaptive shield now either
The AI will not ally itself up automatically. The system it uses is largely out of the players' hands, though we did make it take relations into some account. During playtesting, AI players would typically only ally with 1 or 2 other AI players.
Adaptive forcefield is fine...it is not a game engine error, it is entirely a text issue...the "ChanceToIgnoreShieldsAsDamageTarget" modifier for the pact simply should be a negative, not a positive number...
Yarlen, please tell me you guys will hotfix this (and, well, fixing the typos would be nice too)...
We're looking at it, thanks for the feedback all. Keep it coming!
Edit- checking to make sure nothing wonky happened on my side.
Epic, just got on today and saw the update.
Adaptive Forcefield is fine, but the Infocard info wasn't displaying as intended.
Rodger.
Don't know if this was spotted but I found that TEC envoys cast Worthy Cause on your own planets.
The FFA relations system went through a stage where the AI would all team up against the player fairly quickly, to the Diplomacy stage where they would never ally and now we have this update where to me it seems that the surviving AI will ally together after some time depending on the difficulty. This seems preferable to the first two, but it is scarcely sophisticated enough to justify an entire expansion.
I doubt that the player has the ability to split the AI once allied. The modifer for combat actions is too small, even if the AI will accept missions against their own allies. Also, once the AI achieve ceasefire you get to a take-off point where they add in envoys and trade, and if I am right it would be impossible for the combat modifier to shift this back below cease fire level. Further, one of the genuine improvements that has been made in this patch is that the AI seems far quicker to get to the general research upgrades, from the limited testing I have done. This is also a factor in their eventual and inevitable alliance, the research bonuses are just so much more significant than any combat events.
With the research and AI bonuses the AI are far more competitive in the Diplomatic Victory stakes, which just makes it rather more evident how empty the entire Diplomatic Victory condition is. You get points from factions that hate you, and if they hate you less than your rivals, you can end up winning on that basis. No other game will ever use this system. It is silly, it should be ditched.
What you would need to split up the AI might be sufficient weight attached to combat and diplomatic actions, and also to adjacency. There should also be penalties for the fleet and economic #1 and #2 spots. What the update seems to have done is to minimise these factors so that they don't get in the way of the first cease fires, which are achieved with sufficient research and AI bonus. However, once minimised they cannot then affect the game as it progresses. It might be an idea to scale these factors along with the AI bonus, that might help considerably.
If the relations system takes game events like adjacency, strength and combat as its most significant elements, then it will be more sensitive. If it relies more on the progression of research and the additions to the AI bonus then it will be more a matter of time than actions.
I haven't tested this update enough to be able to come to final conclusions, these are my impressions. However I doubt that the small update team have had much opportunity to playtest either. I know what I saw on the playtest I ran, the factions being eliminated were giving positive points to everyone in terms of Diplomatic Victory and the determining factor in their survival was going to be whether research and AI bonus factors became large enough before they were defeated. To make it clear, even though these factions were on the brink of being eliminated, military actions were not a significant element in their diplomatic relations. That is just wrong.
One major problem is that there have been few indications of how the relations system is supposed to function, so it is difficult to help to debug. I'd particularly like more detail on adjacency and combat. For example, how is adjacency measured, is it updated during the game? Also which of the relations modifiers degrade over time? I know that the effect of credit donations degrades, but do any others? Is this 'HUMAN' feature on the relations details screen meant to be there- wouldn't 'DEFEATED' serve the purpose better? HUMAN made me wonder if it was referring to the Humane Society...
I don't think that you can have a better relationship with yourself...
-10 is too small a modifier? Considering the AI bonus is capped at +5 I don't think that it can completely negate its effects. Also did you try a game with a limited number of victors? If there is no limit technically the best thing for everyone to do is too ally up.
Thank you for the update. We enjoy it by the multi play every week. Thank you for the great game.http://ja.justin.tv/folillust/b/290498150
There is a proposal about the pact system. Relationship using a huge resource, pact research is done by using a huge resource,the pact bonus will be obtained.It proposes the change in the method of the pact system.
As a result, technical co-operation is enabled in doing relationship increasing from the start.And the cease-fire agreement from the start to a powerful enemy(difficulty level AI) areenabled for a little while.
Afterwards, the envoy cruisers is sent and the research that lowers a relationship necessaryfor the agreement is done to prevent the agreement being released by the relationship penaltyby the military power difference and thegame elapsed time.It comes to be able to choose not only the army power but also diplomacy to prevent aneighboring country and a powerful country by this change, and it comes to be able toplan diplomatic victory.
I wanted you to hear this proposal though it might be an idea that had already beenconsidered on the developer side. The idea was not able to be told well because it was not good at English.
Thank you for reading.
@DesConnor:
Have to agree on most of the relationship stuff. Disagree, however, on top econ spots getting a penalty; the AI is just so poor at managing it's economy that the player will almost always be in the top spots. I've achieved double the income of an unfair AI (Which gets double income cheat) with my empire at half the AI's size... and not a single trade port structure for me.
IMO, Diplomatic Victory in it's current condition just needs to be scrapped and redone.
Yes! front weapon bank gets 64 for illuminator!
shouldn't tec also hate vasari for attacking them
Have a problem, I updated through Impulse but when I try to log in to ICO it says I have an old version but in the bottom right of my sins menu says v1.3 so I know I have the right version, what do I do?
They didn't say they reduced the side banks and beams don't miss hitting targets like missiles do. Its more or less balanced.
Yarlen,
Does this patch adress any of the lag or pausing that occurs in later games after several hours?
they're ostensibly in the process of making a hotfix to the ico server
Same for me.
Shouldn't everybody just hate everybody?
Oh, you mean in the game...
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