Announcement to all new players

4X strategy game from Proxy Studios

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Xilmi
Pandora Community Developer
Pandora Community Developer
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Announcement to all new players

Post by Xilmi »

I just wanted to inform you that we are aware about the issues a lot of our new players have with the game and take them very seriously.

As far as we can tell the main concern is with how ruthless the AI is even on the lower difficulty levels "Very Easy" and "Easy" and that this robs the player of the opportunity to dive into the game and learn how to play it.

The design-philosophy for the AI was to be a real challenge even for expert 4x-players and have it play as competative as possible by exploiting every advantage it could get. This, of course, also included the decisionmaking when it comes to diplomacy and war.

While we don't want to move away from that stance for the difficulty-levels of medium and above, we now understand, that we also have to provide an environment where new and casual players can just play and enjoy the game for what else it has to offer besides relentless competition.

That being said: We plan to release a new patch in the near future, that adjusts the behavior of the AI on the two lowest difficulty-level to one that will give our new players more breathing-room.
ErissN6
1st Lieutenant - Grenadier
1st Lieutenant - Grenadier
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Re: Announcement to all new players

Post by ErissN6 »

Computers are more powerfull than humans (example of chess), they must be programmed with personnalities (their flaws).
A good game AI is not the more efficient, it's what simulate the better a human (who can forget to do something, who don't know all the rules, who just don't want to bother, etc).
anguille
2nd Lieutenant - Panzer IVF/2
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Re: Announcement to all new players

Post by anguille »

Interesting...first kudos for making such a good AI.

I think on average a game needs to know the rules and not make mistakes. Easy and Very easy need to be just that. I see this also in Stardrive 2....even on easy i am far behind (i can live with it) but somehow, easy and very easy miss their objectives.
Xilmi
Pandora Community Developer
Pandora Community Developer
Posts: 523
Joined: Fri May 23, 2014 3:21 pm

Re: Announcement to all new players

Post by Xilmi »

In the meantime, as of 1.6.6, the "easy-nerfs" are in.
AI still plays as good as it can considering its maluses outside of the "foreign-relations"-part of the game. But it will go, well, easy, on the player.
ErissN6
1st Lieutenant - Grenadier
1st Lieutenant - Grenadier
Posts: 788
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Re: Announcement to all new players

Post by ErissN6 »

In 1.6.6, you have forgotten to no longer give bonus to AI for the Medium difficulty,
maybe switching all other difficulties too, if the game is so though (maybe your whole work has increased the actual difficulties, which were set at the released of the game, as your AIs play better).
I used to play in 'Easy' in 1.6.5, but now there's a big gap between new Easy (I don't want to use its new modifications) and Medium (your AIs play better than me, they don't need bonuses, as I don't touch the 50% taxes).
Tanaka
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
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Re: Announcement to all new players

Post by Tanaka »

Ok so which level has no cheats and no bonuses to the AI now while playing to full potential?
Tanaka
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Posts: 38
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Re: Announcement to all new players

Post by Tanaka »

Has 1.6.6 been released? I cannot seem to get my game to update past 1.6.5?

And I get this error if I download new update and paste into folder and try to run?

---------------------------
PandoraServer.exe - System Error
---------------------------
The program can't start because libcurl.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------
Tanaka
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
Posts: 38
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 5:39 am

Re: Announcement to all new players

Post by Tanaka »

Ok I see now I was trying to update with the Beta version...
Xilmi
Pandora Community Developer
Pandora Community Developer
Posts: 523
Joined: Fri May 23, 2014 3:21 pm

Re: Announcement to all new players

Post by Xilmi »

Tanaka wrote:Ok so which level has no cheats and no bonuses to the AI now while playing to full potential?
Medium.
Only the levels below it were changed in 1.6.6 to not drive beginners away immediately.
Medium and above have no behavioural restrictions.

If the Devs should decide to adapt my difficulty-level-name-changes this will be called "Expert" in the future. ^^
ErissN6
1st Lieutenant - Grenadier
1st Lieutenant - Grenadier
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Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2013 11:34 pm
Location: France

Re: Announcement to all new players

Post by ErissN6 »

Xilmi wrote:
Tanaka wrote:Ok so which level has no cheats and no bonuses to the AI now while playing to full potential?
Medium.
Only the levels below it were changed in 1.6.6 to not drive beginners away immediately.
Medium and above have no behavioural restrictions.
If the Devs should decide to adapt my difficulty-level-name-changes this will be called "Expert" in the future. ^^
Good, so the new Medium difficulty tooltip was not translated in French version, as it still says the AI has bonuses.
Xilmi
Pandora Community Developer
Pandora Community Developer
Posts: 523
Joined: Fri May 23, 2014 3:21 pm

Re: Announcement to all new players

Post by Xilmi »

I noticed that it was still wrong for all languages except english. I've fixed it for the others for 1.6.7 but despite having a "Proxy Studios"-Avatar now, doesn't mean I'm actually a member of them and could trigger a new patch-release by myself. ^^
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