Which patch to use? 1oom or kyrub?

[haphazard1]

I have been rather busy these past few days, so I have not found time to try to set up 100m. But if that is what everyone else would like to use, I will get it set up.

For Hadriex' questions, a very big factor is what DaveV mentions in his point #3: The larger your empire becomes, the more the AIs hate you. They really do not like you having more planets than they do. And crossing any of the thresholds reported by GNN (which I think are 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2 the galaxy) makes the AIs increasingly unhappy, to the point where it becomes almost impossible to keep them friendly once you have more than about 30% of the galaxy.

For spies, I am pretty sure that as long as you keep them hidden/non-active (just reporting status info), they do not cause negative diplo effects. You can get framed for other races' spying activities, particularly the Darloks with their racial espionage bonus love to do this.

On the council, finding ways to avoid a majority vote against you is an important aspect of the game. Getting your own population large enough to block a vote is a key goal. Push for terraforming tech and soil enrichment and atmospheric terraforming to increase your max planet sizes and then spend the BCs to apply them everywhere and grow your pop. Eco spending to force grow pop can be valuable, and be careful of putting lots of pop into transports just before elections. I have lost games because I did not check the date and put a ton of pop into an invasion just before a council vote.

kyrub's patch and the Steam version of the game -- I don't know, as I have the GOG version. It should work, but Steam may see the changed file as being corrupt/out of date and try to overwrite it with the "correct" version. If it does, you can turn off automatic updates just for MOO in the properties for MOO in your Steam library.

[haphazard1]

Things seem to have stalled out on the 'which version to use?' question. I agree with RefSteel's earlier statement:

All of which makes me very strongly inclined to just go with kyrub's patch (plus SDragon's minor interface fix)

I am not familiar with SDragon's interface fix -- can you provide more info, RefSteel? But if we can agree on something to use, maybe we can get started before all interest fades out? Let's get some lizard galactic domination going!

[RefSteel]

I am not familiar with SDragon's interface fix -- can you provide more info, RefSteel? But if we can agree on something to use, maybe we can get started before all interest fades out? Let's get some lizard galactic domination going! :nod:

The post is here.  It fixes a battle scanner display bug introduced by kyrub's patch (where the third special system on ships is not displayed) and modifies the spacing of the weapon list by one pixel, and makes a tiny grammar fix in the description of one tech.  The zip file is attached to the post I linked (or directly here) and you just unzip it into (a copy of) your kyrub's patch MoO directory, overwriting the relevant files.  You don't have to use it - there are no changes to the way the game runs or the AI plays - but it's nice to be able to correctly see all the specials on ships in combat again.

Trying again to get consensus then, is everyone okay with playing under kyrub's patch (with or without SD's fix)?

[haphazard1]

Thanks, RefSteel! I was aware of the scanner display bug, but did not know there was a fix for it. It will be good to have that working properly again.

I am good with using kyrub's patch for our lizards.

[jez9999]

Why is kyrub's patch better than 1oom? The latter is what I'm used to. The bug seems to be an introduced bug with Tapani's version, but the base version should be fine.

[RefSteel]

Why is kyrub's patch better than 1oom?  The latter is what I'm used to.  The bug seems to be an introduced bug with Tapani's version, but the base version should be fine.

I'm glad you've had a chance to get used to 1oom - I hope you've been enjoying the game!  The advantages of kyrub's patch for a succession game are:

1) It's the standard version on which we've been playing imperia and succession games for years.  Everyone knows which version it is, and thanks to DOSbox it works under any OS without the need to compile it.  There are now so many versions of 1oom that it's hard to even guess which is which.  For instance:  As far as I can tell, the base version of 1oom has no option to turn off the Council or Events in the setup screen.  So I strongly suspect the version of 1oom which DaveV is used to playing is actually the Ignatius version (which, like RFS-81's, is based on Tapani's) - but DaveV thinks it's the base version, and of course I can be mistaken; we don't actually know.  DaveV could presumably find out by downloading versions of each and comparing key differences between them, but that's more work than play, and it might not be definitive:  Even with the same version, 1oom is highly customizable, including interface, AI, bugfixes, and gameplay mechanics that vary with options from the command line and/or configuration file (and, in at least the case of the Ignatius version, the game setup screen and optionally(?) included in the savefiles, though only recognized by that same version) so we'd have to make sure we're all on the same page with all of those (and know what to configure to make sure they do all work the same way).

2) It seems to be working for everybody (whereas it seems haphazard doesn't have 1oom working right now, perhaps just because of reason 1, and I have to use a different computer to play 1oom unless/until I compile a version for this machine) - unless you haven't gotten it to do so?  (Hadriex:  Do you want to participate in the SG?  My recollection is that the Steam and GoG versions of MoO are identical, and kyrub's patch works for both, but if you've not been successful patching the steam version, let us know!)

3) Base 1oom still has a number of bugs, some of which Tapani fixed, others of which RFS-81 fixed, and there's a big one, still not fixed, that either Tapani introduced or existed in base 1oom and was only discovered by 1oom players using another version; I don't know which.  Of course no version of the game is bug-free, so this isn't a deal-breaker by itself.  If not for #1 and #2, we'd be playing already.

4) Anecdotally, kyrub's AI seems to be stronger than any of the 1oom versions, Classic+ or otherwise.  There haven't been enough games to be sure of this though, and it would be difficult to test conclusively even if someone had time.  So again, The main reasons are the first two, which mostly/probably reduce to the first one.

What it comes down to for me is that kyrub's patch was the norm before everything started branching, and I'm inclined to revert to it because picking and even identifying a branch is not trivial at this point.

[jez9999]

Well, identifying base 1oom is trivial. It's the only one I've used to play the game, never used kyrub's patch. The Classic+ AI is stronger, and I also like the 1oom 'planetary governor' functionality which takes away some of the micromanagement tedium.

[haphazard1]

I am willing to give 100m a try, if that is what people want to use. I don't have any experience with it, so someone will need to provide some guidance on the version and configuration file issues RefSteel mentioned.

[jez9999]

I am willing to give 100m a try, if that is what people want to use. I don't have any experience with it, so someone will need to provide some guidance on the version and configuration file issues RefSteel mentioned.

I can just provide you with a zip of my DOS version with config file already setup, should work fine in DOSBox.

[DaveV]

I'm fine with either 1oom or the SDragon fix. I've been out of the loop enough to have missed the latter; the absent third special was annoying and I'm glad to see it fixed.

Mouse wheel scrolling in the planet list is probably the only thing I'd miss from 1oom if we use the DOS version.