That would be awesome. So, if I understand correctly, after downloading from steam GC2 updated with the CU, I should just get your RaceConfig.xml and replace the CU one.

Thanks a lot  

I wish you a merry Christmas.

will this make the Minors being able to colonize?

I played only a couple of times with AT, but I recall the minors were able to colonize, even if at a slow rate. I liked that; even if they are minors, they shouldn't be stupid; if they have the technology to colonize, they should do it, at least in their own star system.

So I don't want to bother you, but if you can easily make another version that allow minors to colonize, well ... thank you.

Thanks for the info, Gaunathor - didn't knew you had to quicksave/reload to make it work.

One thing, as far as I recall all Minors get a 100% bonus to economics, wouldn't that make them basically stronger than the standard stock races?

Though I realize while writting these sentences that the stock races have additional distribution points allocated to random stats, and they possess a super ability, a better homeworld and some starting ships...

My overall intent would be - to design the Minors in a way that they come as close to being stock races as possible - if I start a gigantic all abundant map against maximum opponents. Which may be 9 stock races + 8 Minors. Now if the Minors behave like stock races that would make a total of 17 "strong" opponents to play against...

That would just be incredible! Any ideas how to design that? For example would it be possible to give each Minor anotjer techtree - eg DarkYor could use the Yor one etc... or perhaps a tree on their own which could be slightly advanced form of the Yor tree that, perhaps, could remedy some sort of weaknesses which couldn't be sorted out (eg if Minors can't have SuperAbilities then that could be "simulated" by non-tradeable techbonuses...)

BTW if I look at the stats of Minor Races under Foreign Policy screen it seems like the stats are falsely shown... Any idea how to figure out what's what? Or if Minors do even get distribution points spent?

Ok, deleting that line allowed me to build a quasi complete replica of the starting flagship. "Only" problem is that the AI won't recognize as such - or not even as a Scout. Maybe because of the medium hull it "thinks" it must be a frigate, a simply puts into orbit of some planet. If I design an own Surveyor, even using a Cargo hull, at least the game uses it as Scout and sends it to uninhabitant planets... 

Yes, thanks I've been busy in the meanwhile, doing some playtesting and observing how their strength will develop over time.

How do you do this? I've tried this unsuccessfully...

I've just completed a test on colonization strength, and it seems like they have roundabout -50% less planets after 48 turns than StockRaces. Some of the reasons you mentioned above are responsible for that. Also they start with only 800 bcs.

But I'm reluctant to simply further increase the racial stats, because such bonuses apply to every planet and sometimes some Minor can aquire the same amount of planets than the best stockraces. In that case that Minor would simply run away from all others. For example, they also have a hardcoded bonus of +50% economics, together with the racial +100% & +20% from political party that makes +170% (!).

I think this is ment to stabilize them economically when they can only have a single planet, and the diplomacy bonus is there to protect their money from being drained too fast away through bullying/extorting.

Instead, I'm thinking of giving them some strong starting improvement so that they can try to get even in terms of colony ships, population on homeworld etc. The benefit of balance is that it doesn't apply to all worlds.

I think that they have no sphere of influence is a major negative handicap:

- no tourism income. on smaller maps this is +50bcs up to +125 bcs per turn right from the start (though this must be buged...)

- haven't tested but I think the AI does refuse from sending space truckers to asteroids if in foreign ZOI.

- alot of technologies & improvements give influence or loyalty stats which do nothing for them yet they may even build such improvements on planets that consume space for nothing.

I'm currently working on extra techtrees on this. But that's quite some work because alot of techs & improvements have to be redone so that they always appear regardless of which stockraces play in game. But I'll get to it^^

Could you observe if the Snathi used Sporeships? Because I somehow believe w/o a SuperAbility they won't. So for now I'm giving them the Drengintree, esp. since it's hard to observe in testgames which tend to get stuck on a planetary invasion....

I had no luck. But an easy solution is simply to set anomalies to "rare", at least, when playing testgames to test minor strengths.

Why is it that basically all warships mentioned in GC2ships.xml have this tagline added? So none of the core designs is ever presented to him... in the case of Arnorian battlecruisers that makes some sense, but not with a Sledgehammer or Defender...?

I don't think they do, and that's the problem. For sure I could set fix bonuses but that's not the same....

I must have been working on a different file yesterday    yeah I see it now they work.

I can't figure out if SuperDiplomat works correctly, as I'm getting different values for same barter from game to game. I assume this must be relied on the current stock of available bcs for both sides of the trade, as well. Then, because of the +50% base diplomacy, Minors really have an easy time doing trades. And the influence bonus won't work, so I'd say, this SA is pointless for Minors.

Same for Manipulator, that's really hard to test, besides that SA only makes sense using the Drath (or Korx) tree which contains War Profiteering. I rather leave it out^^

I was able to successfully create a Snathi-Sporer which does both research & use sporeships. It seems like the superability is only able to create the necessary techs (Germ Warfare & Spore Weapons) for a single time during the setup. As such, if you simply exclude the Korath from the game, then the Snathi (using the korathian tree + AIP7) will get both techs, research and put them to use.

This is actually fantastic! Because, a Minor doesn't have to deal with the enormous influence problems that the Korath with their 0.01b spored worlds have. I tried to bring this fail-design several times to the table in the CU (after the time you departed) but it was largely ignored (all it was done was to give them +10% soldiering... when in fact a Sporer doesn''t need soldiering at all, and the basic problem is that the spored worlds will succumb to foreign influence, esp. since the AI isn't too eager to build the Dark Influence improvement). A Snathi won't have to face this, and in a broader sense I also can't see how these cuddly teddybears fight a normal close-quarter invasion^^ Anyway, I need to do more testing on this, perhaps problems resurface when someone uses a custom spore race etc

When testing SuperSpy I got aware of a problem: The CounterEspionage tech was freely traded away to other civs - which build the Center subsequently (after 12 turns). Now if all races become oblivious to espionage after some time that defeats both the purpose to start out with an agent and to have a good espionage rating (and to bunker money for nothing into it). As I recall, in 2.04 the Counter Esp tech was untradeable, and it should be reverted to this. Esp since the AIs can trade without Universal Translator.

About Superhive: No idea how the range works but it wasn't a big deal anyway... Do you know if the Dreadlords can have a SA? Hive would make sense in that they usually only build factories. Could make them complete OP for jolly^^

Yeah well the solution would be to design a complete own tree for the minors, or several own ones, simply by replicating al stuff and attributing it to the new techs. It's a lot of work, though. I'm still thinking about what's best to do here. My general intent is I wanna play a game against 17 factions, so I could easily enable the corresponding stockraces so that all minors see all techs.

However, there is another bug. If a stockrace trades an individual tech (marked by an *) to a Minor race, the Minor race will have it for a moment and be able to use it. However, upon reload the tech will magically disappear. I just got a lab-tech from the Yor, build a lab with it, and reloaded. Afterwards I couldn't build these labs anymore altough a single lab was still resident on my planet! All racial bonuses such techs hold might be missing then also... but short of making all these techs untradeable I find no other solution, and that is not an elegant one... 

I've already done away with the +100% econ bonus. To me this is just overkill. Surely, money is important esp. if you can't run your industry @ 100%, but later on, if their planets are crowded, then they will make so much surplus money... and basically bunker it just by quickbuying stuff. In such a situation, it would be better to rather raise spending etc. However, what's good for a general overall balance needs to be seen in a series of observant testplays, but first I need to to finish the individual minor techtrees.

The actual point is that distribution points can make a civ vary in appearance - sometimes strong, sometimes less etc that's actually what I'm aiming for. One way is to give all of them a different techtree, different SA, different racial design, even some completely new techs or buildings etc but all these things are fixed. That is, they are going to play out their game always the same... distribution points could help here... but when it doesn't work I can't help it either...

Ah ok, thanks. But how do you observe that popup in a testplay? It's just there for the blink of an eye^^ Tough nevermind. I'm not going to use that SA anyway....

That's probably because they get +20k bcs/per turn as base income. So they simply quickbuy their improvements. However, I've also seen them slowly build out their factory worlds as well. I think this is related to the difficulty level. Usually the DL will quickbuy a small vessel as a defender and then build out their planet, once it's outbuild pump out ships. At that point their level of threat rises abnormaly.

If they would be hive they could probably finish 2 improvements per turn, one by buying & then one through social production. That might significantly reduce the time when they'll get dangerous... you see a common strat against them is simply to steamroll them as fast as possible. Such a change might be OP & frustrating for a player in the campaigns, but my mod is strictly for sandbox, ie. with DLs appearing only in an event.

Or maybe Warrior would also be quite beneficial to them! hmmm

Please correct me if I state something wrong, but it seems my current workfiles are a bit outdated (yeah it's a problem when constant updates are pushed...)

This is a very difficult question where there is no easy solution, esp. since solutions could be bifurcal, one ment for a player, other for the AI.

As I recall there are no Fertility Clinics in the game anymore - but this is exactly the no.1 needed improvement for a Korath player. Because even under 100% moral & good popgrowth these planets take like forever to grow into reasonable, self-sustaining levels. Problem here is that the AI doesn't use these clinics as a player could - filling the planet up with them & subsequently overbuild them. The Clinic has been thrown out via the argument that the AI uses it only sloppily, eg once planets are outgrown it looses its benefit & AI doesn't overbuild it. But still it could be of use when trooptransports leave, or planet survived an invasion.

Another good way for a Korath player is to ferry pop around directly into new worlds. As such, he could make good use of an enhanced Colony Pod (maybe cheaper & smaller in size) but the prob is that the AI is not going to use it. Maybe a more early access to the advanced troop pod & cost of invasion techs reduced. I always thought these were quite irrelevant to them, actually Planetary Defense, or say, defensive soldiering is more important to them. But they don't even have that branch....

The Korath don't have access to Fertility Acceleration which gives +25% popgrowth & +50% from Aphrodisiak. With this in mind I wouldn't say that their popgrowth is best, esp. not for a player that usually can rush to many trade goods/wonders (and keep them for himself). Nevertheless, 10-20% more or less don't mean much if a 0.05b planet is under influence threat of an outgrown planet in the same system^^. The problem with handing out popgrowth stats too freely is that this is going to have a too great effect on his colony upbuild during the colonial rush.

A better stat in that regard would be loyalty - because it doesn't give them extra money at all. Their techtree already hints via "Corrupted Genetics" that they might be loyal, but 10% is a mere drop of water on a hot stone. That could be increased safely I think.

Another approach would be to balance them via limited range. The idea is that they build Dark Influence on their inner core worlds, which emanate enough influence into space so that it can encompass newly spored worlds. The basic problem with DI is that you also can easily flip other planets and go for Cultural Win... so it might be a good idea to nerf their range so that their empire is more clumped together (so less flipping). However, rangemods are problematic because they are so tiny and can be stacked on cargos so there really not much limit on range right from turn1 on.

In my personal mod I've done away completely with these mods & give range only through techs. The game is more territorial then, also the AI can't take away all Resources (though he knows their place he can't reach them anymore) point is if starbases are outside his territory he will loose them anyway once wars break out. But I'm not suggesting the CU follows this as this is a major overhaul, just saying that there are solutions if you think outside the box... and while none of them is complete solution, they can, at least, when combined, mitigate some broken game mechanism.

Yes, you're right, that bug was also responsible for this. It stretches out in all directions.

Nevertheless, I think I have a solution to this, which could completely fix that techs are cutted out from the Minors & that some techs vanish after trade+reload. Further, no more duplicate Minor-techs, or duplicate improvements that hold the same internal name (just check PlanetImprovements.xml) would be necessary anymore.

The downside of it would be that the Asterix * you see beside an individual technology when techtrading would be gone. For all techs. No idea if that's acceptable at all....

But as of now, the Minors tree can still see tremendous harm, because, if someone plays a somewhat smallish game using more strange factions eg. Yor against Thalan... then no Minor would be able to upgrade their factories, moral, econ improvements etc. So they're stuck with Tier1, but being stuck at a sole planet actually their only way to make up in strength IS via upgrading buildings^^

Well, any race that gets the bio tree including Fertil Accl has already +50% with GravMani. Not counting the potential +50% from tradegood. Krynn also have +10% from fixed polit party. But I was under the impression more races had Fert Accl, so really alot of factions sit on +25% (or something akin) popgrowth only.

Thematically that would be fitting. But it should be cheap in case he has only 50% production on his spored worlds. Personally I wouldn't waste a tile on loyalty^^ after seeing Yor planets rebel^^ it's too unpredictable. But the effect is surely there, nonetheless.

So true. It'll screw the AI game on some specific mapset --> large map w/ less enemies & less planet counts. Although I usually refrain from such games as you endlessly wait for your ships to arrive, which, by then, are outdated. Rather I pick a medium map. AI starbase placement seems so random, but then occasionally you see he places that influencer directly to a place where it'll yield him the best possible chunk of influence....

What you could do is to let a midgame economic structure upgrade the FCs. To use it that way makes alot of sense.

I cannot stress enough how useful it can be if specific structures do have multiple upgrade target. Do can do wonderful things with that, eg. interlinking different branches to coerxe the AI to make intelligent choices. For example, the Torian moral improvements are the most strong ingame. If you interlink these so they will upgrade the generic ones then 

(a) the AI won't use the inferior one even if you did trade these to them

( if they conquer planets with inferior improvements they will automatically become accessably for an upgrade

It also works the other way round, the Altarians for example as a spiritual race, derive their moral from temples, which are not so strong but that might be a consciously installed throttle for that race. They could be manipulated that way to overbuild SportsArenas etc with Temples. Same with Yor, they could overbuild that with Stalks etc... the list of possibilites here is enormously.

make it a GA, mark "history of benevolence" with <Requires>ImpossibleTech</Requires> --> that way only if it's specified in the RaceConfig a race can get this tech (and so the Matrix), custom races wouldn't be able to select it.

actually no. this works out linearily. you have all freedom to connect wherever you want. of course the easiest solution is to have the first improvement in a chain connect/upgrade the very last of another chain. this way you would avoid multiple upgrade tags, because the first improvement usually has ony "none" specified.

but this could lead to a possible situation when a strong endtier impr gets overbuild by a less stronger (if the specific race simply lacked in research....)

so more elegantly you just compare the strengths of different tiers and interlink accordingly. however, you need to very careful to not create an endless loop - it has to stay linearily, otherwise the game will hang/crash. apart from that I've not encountered any problems.

The AI also seems to rely on his most strongest improvement, even if he has 2 or 3 different chains available. as long as they are connected he can follow the chain to its ending and that is the improvement which he'll enqueue on new tiles - or the auto-upgrade uses to upgrade buildings.

I see. If you raise the costs of that history tech above 200 then it will no longer be accessable for Custom Races. Ofc the link to any techs following or binding to it would have to be severed, but that's easily done and more or less only a tiny drag from a cosmetical perspective.

BTW do you know why the Dreadlords tree isn't accessable? I noticed they have an ignore tag in RaceConfig, but deleting that did neither the trick nor led me play the DL as normal race.... although I could make other stockraces unaccessably...

also the game seems to present a MinorRace techtree even if that tree has been deleted from the folder...

sometimes the game gets erratic when doing things against the rules. for example some time ago I could swear I saw how improvements holding the same internal name created a serious bug, and although I saw it right before me in a testplay I wasn't never able to reproduce it for a sceond time....