The 249 Military StarBase Field (MSBF)

for ultimate military score

Because there is no real competition at the Metaverse anymore I'm going to make some of my personal scoreing strategies available to anyone who's interested to find out to what extreme levels a MV player can take the unmodded game. 

This one, which I coined the name 'Military Starbase Field' (because the starbases are so clumped together they rather resemble a field...) is most likely the strongest way to increase your military score that exists in the game. It's presented here for the first time, previously it's been hosted into a private/protected section of the Kzinti Empire-forums (now defunctional...)



The 249 Military Starbase Field

 

It is actually possible to create a much better ship-enhancing SB array than the commonly known 16 or 24 MSBAs - IF one is able to sccop up this UP vote (which annually is elected every 22nd December):

UP vote

Please note that there are actually two similar UP votes - however, one is permanent & the other only lasts for 3 years (which doesn't matter since 3 years is enough; plus it can be renewed anyway....).

Simply quicksave on 22nd December and reload until you get it... (yes cheesy but who cares X| )

 

At the time I realized the gigantic implications this vote can have on military score I immediately started a game in order to test out if you can get the thing working under MV-legal laws:

complete 249 MSBF

In this game I've been able to ally with all Stock & Minor races, errect MSBs & gift them to my allies, always careful to double back and build new bases; rinse & repeat.

However, I've only added a single +1 Beam support module to each - but as you can see from the displayed tooltip, it works. The Fighter has a +2 attack Beam-weapon mounted and receives a total of +249 attack from the bases.

The maximum amount of support a single base can give a ship in DL/DA is +54att +9def needing 28 constructors.

The maximum amount of starbases that can be placed together in a field which in turn will all support ships/fleets in their midst is 249 - more is not possible (because there is no way to increase the zone-of-influence starbases do have...)

Therefore, in order to completely max out a Military Starbase Field you need 6972 constructors & 15 Allies.:O :(O x_x :waaaa: XO

Every ship parking at its middle sweet spot will then receive a bonus of +13446 attack & +2241 defense = total +15687|-) :dur:  \o/  :rofl:  

This is so immensely much that it's nearly irrelevant if the ships sitting under the MSBF have lots of weapons/defense, are Tiny Hulls, Cargo Hull-based or Huge Dreadnoughts.

Ofc the greater or stronger a hull is, the better it is generally for your military rating - but there is a huge *BUT* for the practical implications of a successfull metaverse game trying to build such a MSBF:

While you are building these bases you need to stay in positive balance - because the game doesn't allow to construct new bases while being in debt. And Tiny Hulls are simply much more cheaper to get than Huge Hulls - esp. because you want your planets to release 1 hull every turn!

Secondly, you'll need to realize that all these constructors used up to build the field in the first place could have been Fighters actually sitting in the sweet spot netting you military score instead. And that it is highly unlikely to get basically all enemies to the point where they're going to ally with you - and esp. not soon.

 

Therefore it might be a more feasable option to build substandard fields, just concentrating on a few potential allies (most likely the one of same ethical alignment, trade & treaty partners...) such as this one:

 4 Ally MSBF

here, I'm allied to 3 AIs (Drengin, Human & Torian) while my own 16 bases are also amidst the field. The +1+1 Fighter still receives an obscene amount of additional firepower, and a player can just cut it at that point and simply turn to produce the ships which are then placed in the mid of this MSBF. Early military score = higher military score.

So if you want to play a "Multi-Million-Pointer-Game" this is actually your very best shot to successful achieve it.

Also note that the game itself imposes an artificial limit of 3.500.000 for any score. You cannot score more per each game.

 

 

Notes on Alliances:

(I just browsed the forums regarding Alliances and realized there is alot of mis-information given out).

Here are the basics:

- In the Foreign Policy screen the relation a potential ally shows you has to be "close".

- Both sides also need the tech "Alliances"; most likely you'll have to trade it to the AI.

- Once both points are positively affirmed there will be an "Alliance" dialogue option shown in the diplomatic screen above the treaties/peace/attack-declarations.

- If the AI doesn't accept this barter you'll need to throw in some other goodies, such as techs/money etc

- MV games cannot start with relations higher than "friendly"

- there is an artificial hardcoded limitation in place to prevent that you can actually & easily achieve a "close"-relationship during the first ~104 turns of a game. I assume this has been coded in order to prevent that you simply win any game by just buttering the AI up (handing out freely techs/money/IPs...) in order to secure an early 100% guaranteed Diplomatic Victory. At the time when the AIs are tradeing out their treaties (esp. Econ Treaty) somewhere in March/April of the 3rd gameyear, it becomes very easy to shift your relations from "friendly" to "close" by just gifting techs. But only if there are no other negative aggravating factors present such as

  • "-- they don't trust us" or
  • "- your historic animosity";

both you can get when you declare war on them (or too often). Because of this I actually find it more helpful to not swindle* them in these game. Instead, I simply get their planet via techtrade (except the last remaining 3; 2 of those I culture-flip), always 1 or 2 per turn. Allowing the AIs to still have their own planets can generate a steady flow of cash and also ensure they constantly colonize new planets (onto which they then can enqueue precious farmable buildings, such as the 'Hyperion Shrinker')

- There are actually 2 ways to circumvent the 104-turns-alliance limitation... as of now, I do not understand the underlying mechanics well enough to make a definite true statement. But I did observe it a few times that my relation (when gifting several thousand bcs...) to the DarkYor went straight from "warm" to "close" even early as March in the first game year!

It may have to do with the fact that the boost started at "warm". Perhaps the limitation only acts as a hardcap when the relation is at "friendly". Another possibility could be that there is a small chance that it can simply jump to "close" if something beneficial happens to the AI - and that this chance gets significantly improved by the game once ~104 turns have passed (on that it should be noted that positive diplomatic factors such as

  • "+tradeing",
  • "+our historic friendship",
  • "++our treaties together" or
  • "+our ethical alignment"

may act as constant beneficial factors which may (or may not) also trigger this jump (or they may only trigger it past 104 turns...). This is actually highly speculative now on my part and I definitely need more testing here... or someone who can decompile & take a look at the source code  *_*

- The other way to get to close is pretty stable but is based on what the AI does.... well yeah, that's enough for now as far as hints are concerned :P    

 

[*] swindleing means putting some powerful warships under the SCC, declaring war in order to sue for peace by taking the AI planets.

20,977 views 3 replies
Reply #1 Top

  • "-- they don't trust us" or
  • "- your historic animosity";

 

I presume "-- you are trying to ascend" is also a disqualifier?  (Does DA even have Ascension?)

 

Reply #2 Top

Yes... and no^^ Ascension is TotA-only.

There are actually many more negatively/positively diplomatic influencing factors present ingame (some are even hidden from view :o) so I just picked those that frequently will turn up in MV game --> where there's a fair chance a player did declare war upon the AI at some time.

And a one-time war-declaration will always trigger this "- your historic animosity" penalty although it's normally ranked at the bottom ie. not so severely weighing down.

The "-- they don't trust us" penalty appears after several war-declarations or a broken treaty. This is IMO the most handicapping penalty because the AI will refuse to accept peace under all circumstances and alot of other things are severely devalued. It makes the AI pretty uncooperative towards you.

The "-- you're trying to ascend" does not have these negative consequences right in the diplomatic screen - although, if we just look at the Foreign Relation Rating, it does actually weigh very heavy as well - so that most AIs start to turn hostile & sooner or later declare war with the intent to destroy your Ascension Bases... 

I'm not even sure if Ascension does anything for your score so I wouldn't put my hand on these crystals anyway  :P

Reply #3 Top

Some additional infos:

Those two above-mentioned UP votes also work on Economic Starbases - enhancing either planetary research & production, and also Freighter-income. (theoretically it should also work on Repair coming from Military Starbases &/ on shipspeed/slow-modules...)

Nevertheless, TotA 2.20 doubled the Logistics-ability & the amount which is offered by technologies (in order to reduce the buildcosts of starbases) which ultimately results in a value of 100 or more. At this point the construction of any number of starbases will be free completely! \o/  

 

This is how Starbase-cost & your Logistics-ability works:

Depending on the mapsize you get an initial amount of "free" starbases. - the bigger the map the more free bases you get: Using Terrans I got 11 free bases on an immense-sized galaxy but only 2 for a tiny. The next starbase would cost 150 bcs in base cost - but that base cost is actually diminished by your Logistics-ability, it works like a common percentage-reduction (with the usual rounding/truncation-"errors"....)

so... starting with 12 logistcs that 3rd starbase costs 132 bcs

only starting with 1 logistics it'll cost 149 bcs

[You cannot start with 0 logistics - it will crash the game, but it's still possible to reach 0 logistics via a negative bonus from a technology ;)  ]

And every time you build an additional starbase, +150 basecosts will be added to the previous basecosts =

  1. 0 bcs
  2. 0 bcs
  3. 150 bcs
  4. 300 bcs
  5. 450 bcs
  6. 600 bcs
  7. and so on...

Which makes building starbases on larger maps somewhat expensive.

But the good news is that once you have a logistics ability of 100 (or more) all these costs will be reduced to 0. No matter how many you build... SO YOU CAN EVEN KEEP ON BUILDING THEM WHILE BEING IN DEBT!!!

Which is immensely helpful for the above strategy - because it means you don't have to setup a full 249 MSBF in advance - you just add starbases in accordance to your skills in acquiring new allies! :sun:  

(nonetheless you need to be evil-aligned in order to put modules on starbases :yes: )

 

Painting the sky with starbases:

Now what you theoretically could do is to fill the galaxy completely up with Economic Starbases in order to bring production/research or tradeincome to insane levels.

In TotA an immense-sized galaxy has 108900 parsecs. Around 1000 should already be taken by Stars, Planets & Asteroid Mines. Excepting now the systems that are at the edge of a map, I guess it's reasonable to say that any inner habitable planet could receive bonuses from 200-220 econ-SBs.

Korx can boost their freighter-income by 200% per base ("Super Trade Starbase") resulting in a 40000% - 44000% increase in trade. (Note that Trade-income does indeed count towards your Economic Score!). But it still needs the hell alot of constructors because trade-routes have to be established as far as they can get....

Thalan & Yor can assist planets with up to 25%, resulting in an increase in research-output by 5000% - 5500% on any planet in reach. Thalan only need 3 constructors to set up such a single base but you'll still need around ~300.000 constructors if you want to boost all planets in the entire galaxy. :O

Now for research-score that might not be really worthwhile because you could use these ships and do a mass-shipupgrade instead. But if you find a decent researchplanet you could actually make that planet yield several hundred thousands of research per turn (only using approx 1000 constructors!), or several million if there's more worlds in the near vicinity - and I could imagine that this could lead to some quite tremendous score

(I really need to test this out, one reason is that it won't make the game laggy like when going down the traditional military route...)

 

 

Some additional infos on Alliances:

  • If one of your allies declares war on another one of your allies, you won't be prompted to help this one out. So once you're allied with everyone you're completely out of the wargames, you just need to take care that the remaining AIs don't wipe themselves out or surrender etc... that is, distribute their final resting worlds somewhere apart the galaxy, so they encounter a range-barrier.
  • If you're allied with someone you can actually trade for their starbases. I find that offering strong warships did yield the best/earliest acceptance. I'm sometimes even able to trade for Resource Bases:O - but, as of now, the exact diplomatic mechanism behind it is a bit a mystery to me. It may have to do with an AI which is militarily crippled, having hostile fleets in his system that are close to destroy these Resources anyway -or invading his planets- so the AI considers to get military over everything else (except planets!). At least that was the situation in which it was possible in one of my games.... If that could be done in a reasonably reproductive manner it would have a huge impact on score in TotA 2.20 because you could broker these resources around until the different AIs attach their individual mining modules, that way levels of beyond +100% per resource could be reached!:erk:

 

 

The 'United Celebrations' UP vote

If you don't wanna bother with SBs consider to get this UP vote instead:

 

The 1000bcs option will trigger this effect (on all planets in the entire galaxy!):

the corresponding line is "+50% from external factors".

[the 500bcs per race option will give +25% approval & 100bcs only +5%].

 

This is INCREDIBLY STRONG because it is APPROVAL & not moral (like it is falsely stated in the description...)

What does this mean precisely?

Any moral -being it from improvements, racial or resources- is actually depreciated by a specific percentage, which is determined individually by the current population level of each planet.

For example, if you colonize a new planet then the +5% moral bonus of the 'Initial Colony'-building will only increase planetary approval by +4%. Racial moral is likewise diminished.

And the more your planet's population rises, the more all your moral bonuses are diminished, and this will actually increase exponentially until a certain threshold has been reached.

[detailed infos & numbers will follow in a separate post regarding 100b pop planets...]

Nevertheless -as a rule of thumb- planets which hold 20b population are depreciating all moral bonuses down to be only 20%.

Or, another way to put it, if you build a 'Virtual Reality Center' (which gives +40% moral) on such a 20b pop planet, its approval is only increased by +8%. Which is not really much.... :(

But the above-mentioned bonus is direct approval - it will NOT be depreciated, instead, it will simply be added on top to your approval-number.

The "+10% from High Quality Planet" works the same way.

For Million-Pointer MV games the standard strategy is to have most -if not all- planets @ 20b population. In such a scenario, a flat +50% approval increase has the same power as a +250% racial moral increase (!!!) which is more than 5 fully maxed out resource-bases!!!  :dur: :inlove:

Unfortunately this vote is limited to a 1-year-length, so you'll have to renew it every year.