Re: Xiati or Xi'Chung showing up in games?

Santiago · Space Emperor Joined: Apr 26, 2006

Hi Captain Kwok

I was aware of this thread in the official forums and started to pay attention to the races being picked in games. Eventually I ran some comparson tests with the results in the attached Excel file. I know you have vastly more knowledge of the game and modding but imho there may be a problem with the way races are picked in Balance Mod. And in other mods that use Balance Mod such as Devnull's Mod etc. I know it's not an exhaustive test but it seems telling.

Anyway, the test comparison parameters are as follows:

2 comparisons between Standard SEV and Balance Mod. Ver 1.12

No files were modded by me at all.

The Borg empire was added to empire file and the BM empire file to be used as the human non-AI player.

No neutrals.

No results were thrown away. The empires that the game chose are what they are.
*************************************************************
Start SEV from desktop each time
Play
New Game
Select Standard SEV or Balance Mod
All game setups are the default settings (ie Mid-life, Medium quadrant size etc) except the following:

SCORE DISPLAY- Player can view scores of all players.
Generate Random Computer Controlled Neutral Empires- NOT SELECTED
Number of Computer Players- Low Medium or High as needed
*************************************************************
The first comparison is all SEV empires plus Borg and default. 10 New games for each Standard/BM with Number of Computer Players Low, Medium and High. Total 60 New Games.

Results- The Standard game show a very random selection of all empires in Low Medium or High. BM doesn't. Xiati was chosen only once. Terran, Ukra-Tal, Xi Chung never. It seems to me there may be a very low chance to be chosen based on Xiati being chosen once. No way to prove though. Also certain empires seem not to be chosen depending if the game started in Low, Medium or High

The second comparison is that all game empires from Abbidon to Phong were rmoved from the Standard Empire file and BM's empire file. Total 20 New Games.

Empires In the files:

Borg
Default
Sergetti
Sithrak
Terran
Ukra-Tal
Xiati
XiChung
Only 10 game starts in Low were done.

The results were noticeable in there differences. Standard SEV has a random selection. BM has the Sergetti and Sithrak and did not choose the others.

Note: I tried changing the Random Player Personality Group % in undocumeted testing as someone had suggested in the original thread but that did not seem to make any difference and I later saw that these values are the same in Standard and BM settings.txt.

Also "Check the AI_Main.txt file in the Xi'Chung directory. There are three statements in the beginning that control the race directly (ie the true/false ones)." I checked these as well and they are as the other races True-True-False.

All in all, I could be very wrong, but somethings doesn't seem right somewhere.

Thanks for your time Smile

corestandeven · Space Emperor Joined: Oct 12, 2007

Just to chip in very quickly, I have the Xiati in my BM game.

When updated to SEV 1.66, BM 1.12, I started one brand new game and it worked first time.

HOWEVER I have modded my game slightly. Here's how:

- In settings.txt the Minimum and Maximum amounts of random main empires I put as 10.
- All the races I didnt want, i.e Phong, EEE, I made as a non-selectable race in the empires individual text file (changing from TRUE to FALSE)
- All the races I wanted I made sure I had as a main selectable race, again in the empires individual text file.

- To ensure duplicates wern't chosen, and each of the 10 I wanted were chosen, under settings.txt I changed the 'Random Player Personality Groups' so each Random Player Personality Group Percent had 0.

If you make all Random Personality Groups 0 I found the game selects every race until it runs out of choices, regardless of its personality type.

I did this before SEV 1.66 (BM1.09), and I did this first time for post SEV5 1.66 (BM 1.12).

Maybe give this a go? Backup your files before you do.

CaptainKwok · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 1:42 pm Post subject:

I figure it's the random personality groups as well. They don't seem to be working as you think. It was only when I switched the values for the AIs and in the settings.txt that unequal player generation became an issue.

Thanks for the testing guys.

Santiago · Space Emperor Joined: Apr 26, 2006

Anytime. Hope it works out.

DrunkenPirate · Space Emperor Joined: May 23, 2007 Location: England

Confirmed fixed in 1.13
Been starting test games and have frequently seen these 2 empires amongst the starting group.
Seems well balanced.

CaptainKwok · Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 10:49 pm Post subject:

I ended up just scrapping the random personality group settings. It just seem to mess things up.