Long Time no See... and Traitors

[beer]

Hi guys,

 

after lots o years im back at playing SW Rebellion. I played that game for hours and hours, but noticed it being too easy back then (against the AI at least). So i descided to make things more difficult for me.

 

Playing Empire i descided to first Completely turn the core Systems and build capable Defenses In each System before i allow me to expand to the Rim. It was pretty tough getting the upper hand, and i lost some Fleets and Planets, but nothing too devastating (at least in my opinion).

 

i had my Characters split up into to Fleets, so i can sabotage more spread out. And then something strange happened vader (after finding some jedi candidates) found LOTS of traitors. i Mean i had retired by day 1200 about 5 -7 Characters because they were Traitors! I read that chars become traitors when the faction does badly, but i didnt feel that way. My question now is how i sthe traitor chance calculated?

 

Even after conqoring all the core systems and ripping Rebel fleets apart, vader ( and some other chars as well) STILL uncover Traitors on a regular basis. all the Traitor Command capability Chars are already in some Command, and the others get retired... im kinda running out of Characters and that sucks. Is there a way to prevent that?

 

thx and cheers

[alexbond45]

That is an odd thing to happen in your game....are you sure you haven't had any major political events?

 

"Badly" doesn't mean losing sectors or battles, "Badly" means the destruction of a Death Star (maybe SSD), capture of your Capital (Coruscant), or capture of Palpatine and Vader (probably...not sure but it makes sense).

 

You could lose 100 battles and never have a traitor, but losing major targets screw you over!

 

Is this the case or are you doing a near-perfect game?

[alexbond45]

That is an odd thing to happen in your game....are you sure you haven't had any major political events?

 

"Badly" doesn't mean losing sectors or battles, "Badly" means the destruction of a Death Star (maybe SSD), capture of your Capital (Coruscant), or capture of Palpatine and Vader (probably...not sure but it makes sense).

 

You could lose 100 battles and never have a traitor, but losing major targets screw you over!

 

Is this the case or are you doing a near-perfect game?

[addict-ant]

I've never heard of that!

 

That's a record if ever there was! - Didn't even think it could happen.

 

Couple of questions:

 

1. Have they been left on planets with more enemy popular support than your own?

 

2. What system specs are you running it on? (just wondering if a 64bit system might possibly mess it up?)

[beer]

I did loose coruscant for a pretty while actually, but traitors still where happening after i retook it.

 

im running win7 64 bit, but played as rebel just before and not a single traitor. I took my time capturing the core systems, which are not that much, outter rim systems are much more numerous. maybe the count of enemy systems adds to the traitor chance?

[budious]

BEER... did PA die or something? LOL

 

Traitor chances go up as the game progresses, mainly after day 1000 and increases with frequency I think as it drags on... if you need more than 2000 you're doing it wrong.

[beer]

ah that explains it ima t day 1900 or so. Thing is i wanted to drag the game longer, because its way to easy against the ki otherwise. My plan was to let the rebels habe all the outter rim systems and i only have the core. i figured the game gets harder that way... it did as it threq loads of traitors my way ^^. I cant think of another way to make the game harder but not impossible.. well thx for the input

[Master_Xan]

Huh. Never had a traitor before. Budious' explanation makes sense- my games rarely reach day 750. (That isn't because I'm a super awesome player- rather, I edited a bunch of stuff to make the games faster.)

 

If you want to make the game harder, use Rebed. You can make the opposing team's units cost less, make them start with more stuff (sadly, not capital ships, but you can stock their capital with extra fighters, troops, or facilities). You can reduce the research requirements for their units. You could even improve the units themselves, though that gets pretty tricky to do without breaking the game balance.

 

My suggestion is to half the maintenance and refined mineral requirements for enemy units. All of them. That means their units will build twice as fast as before, and they can have twice as many as before. Should make the game more difficult without stretching it to 2000 days. But it doesn't fix the AI's other problems, so it isn't impossible to win.

 

OR, you can use Rebed to view the characters, where there is a checkbox that controls whether they can be traitors. Edit that and they won't ever turn against you.

[RogueIce]

If you want to make the game harder, use Rebed. You can make the opposing team's units cost less, make them start with more stuff (sadly, not capital ships, but you can stock their capital with extra fighters, troops, or facilities).

That is not entirely accurate...

 

 

This is an Empire game I started up by down rating all of their maintenance costs to 1 (or 0 in the case of the TIE fighters). The screenshot function being terrible I had to label it, but yeah...have fun with that if you're playing the Rebels.

 

Obviously this is a bit of an extreme example, but if you made their maintenance costs say, 3/4 or even 1/2 of normal that might get interesting. Plus they can field a bigger fleet, though you'd have to play with the refined material costs to make them build it faster.

Edited August 25, 2013 by RogueIce

[Master_Xan]

Wow. That is good info, RogueIce. I didn't know that Rebellion bases capital ship generation at the game's start off of maintenance costs.

 

I haven't played a game in awhile, but that could be fun. Just think: a game where the Empire really has ten times more fleet than the Rebels! I mean, I've gotten the Empire to build up to that, but never had them start with it.

 

As for refined minerals, I usually lower them by the same amount I lower maintenance. So if I lover maintenance by 1/2, I do the same for refined minerals. Maybe lowering maintenance by more than that would mean NOT lowering refined minerals to the same amount though. If I get time, I'll play around with it.

[RogueIce]

I haven't played a game in awhile, but that could be fun. Just think: a game where the Empire really has ten times more fleet than the Rebels! I mean, I've gotten the Empire to build up to that, but never had them start with it.

Interesting thing is that the game (sort of) tries to do that, mainly considering the capital ships it starts you off with. The Rebels have a rather poor starting selection, and don't even spawn Dreadnaughts, so it would seem biased in the Empire's favor. I just think it falls apart because of the relatively high maintenance costs of the VSDs and especially ISDs, meaning you get a bare handful of either with the default values. And of course until you can get more planets and your manufacturing up to speed, it takes forever before you can begin adding more Star Destroyers to bolster your numbers, while the Rebels can of course spam X-wings fairly easily.

 

Here's a Rebel example under the same conditions as the Empire:

 

 

Even with no limits, you still don't get any Dreadnaughts and even those Bulk Cruisers kind of suck. Though you could probably Zerg rush a default starting Imperial fleet with those Corvettes by themselves.

 

It's also interesting to note that even with 0 maintenance, the Empire still gets about twice as many TIEs as the Rebels will have combined X- and Y-wings. So again, the game tries to give the proper starting biases, which is nice.

 

Still, side by side:

 

 

And the Empire definitely had the upper hand in the capital ship department. It'd be interesting to see what happens if you threw all those ships into one epic space battle; I suspect it'll come down to the Rebel fighters, and how well your Carracks can handle them. Sure you have lots of TIEs but I suspect 70-some Corvettes would go through those like a hot knife through butter. Might be a case of how well you micromanage, because you'll almost certainly have four groups of fighters per side so you can at least give them different orders.

 

Of course this varies. I did quite a few tests, and getting the extremes I listed weren't all that common. Quite a few times I had, for instance, only 50 VSDs and about 13 or so ISDs, and similar variances on the Rebel side. And I wonder why the game seems to favor VSDs and CRVs so much, because they always seemed to be the most ships either side would receive, regardless of the relative numbers. I suppose those more capable in those areas could run some tests and see what happens.

[Master_Xan]

It would probably end up being a massive swarm of units all concentrated in one spot. The Y-Wings all attacking ISDs with the bulk cruisers, the VSDs trying to support the ISDs, the TIEs trying to take out Y-Wings, the X-Wings trying to take down the TIEs with support from the Corvettes, while the Carracks try and defend the TIEs and the dreads try and take down corvettes, all in one central area of the battlefield. Talk about a mess. If you can take out enough Corvettes to keep the TIEs alive long enough to kill Y-Wings, then you have a chance. If the Y-Wings survive, the Empire is toast. But without them, the Empire should have enough anti-fighter capability to hose the X-Wings. It would be an interesting battle. My guess is the AI would lose to a human player, but two humans going at it... not sure what would happen.

 

If I were to guess, I would suspect the preponderance of VSDs and Corvettes were game decisions. They are both older ships, so it makes sense there would be a bunch of them around, and both ships kind of represent their factions. It would be hugely one-sided if the Empire had tons of ISDs instead. Though why the Alliance doesn't get any dreads, I don't know.

 

EDIT:

After doing a few quick tests, I think it is important to know that how many units you start with does NOT appear to correlate, at all, with the size of the galaxy. So... smaller galaxies offer not only better chances of finding an opponent, but large galaxies do not give more units. Not even when maintenance is reduced to 1/4 of standard.

[Monophonic]

I have certainly started as Rebels with a single DN straight off the bat, as I lucidly remember starting a new game over and over again until I got it. It's quite possibly dependent on the exact game version, or even the exact Windows version as back then I was using 98 Cursed! *spits over his shoulder*. It was the version off my CD as well, I didn't have home internet access back then either and barely knew what a patch was.

[Master_Xan]

See, I was sure I had remembered having a dread, too. But I don't think I ever remember having more than one, to start with.

[RogueIce]

It may be a version thing. It's been so long since I last played on a Win95 machine with version 1.0 I honestly can't remember. Either that or it's very rare and all my attempts just didn't do it. The Empire also never seems to get Escort Carriers.

 

I don't know, though. If you look at the side by side image I posted, the columns are perfectly lined up. And those numbers came from the game's Galaxy Overview, I just blacked out the screenshot garbage, cropped them and added labels. So it seems like the game is giving an equal number of "combat ships" to both sides, with the Rebel X-wings in place of Imperial Dreadnaughts because the Empire only starts with the one fighter type. If there was an Alliance Dreadnaught spawned it would ruin the symmetry the game seems to be going for. So maybe it was a "bug" that got patched out or something.

 

It seems the game starts you off with a mix of all but two of your starting ships and fighters: Bulk Transports and Alliance Dreadnaughts vs the Death Star and Imperial Escort Carriers. The BTs and DS is out for obvious reasons, I suppose; The Alliance has the MTs so adding BTs would be a little unbalanced (since the Galleons could never compare) and the Death Star is, well, the Death Star.

[Master_Xan]

Actually, now that I think about it, I may have had Alliance dreadnoughts on some starts because I messed with card positions...

 

But yes, the Empire never gets carriers. Usually, those are the first capital ships I build, right after assembling a horde of fighters to go in them.

[Mitth_raw_nuruodo]

I usually build the cap ships first, strictly so I know exactly how many fighters I need for a given fleet. It helps that my AI opponent usually can't do anything to stop me after day ~5.

[Master_Xan]

I'm trying out RogueIce's suggestion: lowered maintenance for my opponent by a large margin. Coupled with some other things I've done to help the AI, the Empire is actually providing a bit of challenge. Not tactically or strategically, but there are just so many of them.

 

I don't have firm numbers, but I counted over a dozen ISDs in the first ~15 days. And dozens of VSDs. This may be the only time the Empire has matched me fighter for fighter in every one of their fleets. Around day 150, no less than four fleets showed up all at once, each blockading important worlds, and each fleet was big enough to give my one largest fleet a run for its money in combat. Couldn't attack a second fleet after losing two Mon Cals and having most of the rest disabled in the first fleet engagement; had to wait them out under cover of shields.

[RogueIce]

I'm trying out RogueIce's suggestion: lowered maintenance for my opponent by a large margin. Coupled with some other things I've done to help the AI, the Empire is actually providing a bit of challenge. Not tactically or strategically, but there are just so many of them.

When quality fails, go with quantity.

 

I don't have firm numbers, but I counted over a dozen ISDs in the first ~15 days. And dozens of VSDs. This may be the only time the Empire has matched me fighter for fighter in every one of their fleets. Around day 150, no less than four fleets showed up all at once, each blockading important worlds, and each fleet was big enough to give my one largest fleet a run for its money in combat. Couldn't attack a second fleet after losing two Mon Cals and having most of the rest disabled in the first fleet engagement; had to wait them out under cover of shields.

That sounds like a pretty tough game, there. I don't think I could manage, personally. The AI would kick my butt if they had those kind of numbers by that point.

 

I'd love to know how it all turns out. Your description sounds exactly like what you'd expect from an overmatched Rebellion going up against the might of the Galactic Empire.

[Mitth_raw_nuruodo]

I'll have to try that in my next game.

[RogueIce]

So yeah, if you do this, don't start an Expert Game on a Huge Galaxy as the Alliance with the Imp maintenance costs reduced to 1/1.

 

Because around Duros alone I found Fleet 8. Composed of 36 ships, which included...Imperial Star Destroyer 87 and Victory Destroyer 256

 

Yeah I don't think I could ever win this game.

 

EDIT: It got worse. Around Berchest I found Imperial Star Destroyer 108.

[Mitth_raw_nuruodo]

I have already done almost what you said not to do. I went with intermediate. Details here.

[Master_Xan]

That sounds like a pretty tough game, there. I don't think I could manage, personally. The AI would kick my butt if they had those kind of numbers by that point.

 

I'd love to know how it all turns out. Your description sounds exactly like what you'd expect from an overmatched Rebellion going up against the might of the Galactic Empire.

 

I also lowered the travel time for all units (ships as well as everything else), so the AI is performing better than usual, as they are not as hampered by their tendency to rearrange units across the galaxy. I'm playing on HQ victory, hard, small galaxy. All sectors colonized at start.

 

I've already lost 2-3 operatives. As in dead, whilest trying to sabotage Imperial ships. Han and Luke were both captured at one point, but the fleet they were on showed up and I managed to take it down, allowing them to escape. Doing so cost me every capital ship I had in my main sector (either to destruction or disablement). It has been a long road to recovery...

 

I've been forced to pull fleet assets out of almost every sector, along with everything else. Only three sectors are actively under conflict; I lack the resources to do anything in the rest.

 

More details as the are available, but I'm moving, so... not much free time.