F&E Robot Operations
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E PRODUCTS:
F&E Future Products (Far Term):
F&E Robot Operations
(if this is not an heresy...) Why not introduce some rules for a bot controlled race so that we can play solo too?
I suspect that an automata for F+E would be needlessly complicated, and then still not work real well. F+E is too complex of a game for an automated/flow chart system to run an opponent.
That being said, as most of F+E is open information, just playing F+E solo works just fine (I played a whole General War and was entertaining enough one time)--just make the best choices for each side, and assume BIR is always 5, plus a VBIR roll, and it works fine.
I don't know why that would be heresy. I have published robot rules for SFB, FC, and SFM and I think I did them for SFBF. Robot rules for solitaire play are nothing new or unusual.
In the case of F&E, I suspect that because there are so many moving parts, it would be impossible to write a reasonably intelligent paper robot. A computer-driven one is beyond my skills but somebody who could do that is welcome to try.
Like I said, the robot would be fairly stupid. It couldn't really develop any kind of overall strategy but could just react. I don't think it could do an offensive, but it might make a defense you'd find challenging.
Say we used the Koval's Lightning scenario as a thought exercise. You could set up a border defense with a reserve fleet and have a die roll to determine where to send the reserve. You might do well to have a fixed production schedule but you could well to say "if the fleet has no scouts build two scouts" or something.
Then you have to have combat, which means a robot rule for forming a battle force. There being too many options, you would have a one-size-fits-all approach.
1. Flagship. Highest command rating, then biggest defense factor, then biggest attack factor, then a coin toss. If a carrier or SCS add the biggest escorts, fill in missing escorts with casual escorts.
2. If #1 didn't get you a carrier, take the biggest carrier and its escorts.
3. If you don't have a PFT so far, get one.
4. If you don't have a scout, get the one with the most EW points.
5. If you don't have a mauler, get one. (I would leave SFGs and Penals out of the robot rules entirely.)
6. Fill up the rest with the non-specialist ships with the biggest attack factors.
Conduct die rolls.
Roll another die to determine the "Policy" for absorbing damage (after any directed damage).
1-3: Start with the ships with the smallest attack factors and kill them.
4-6: start with the ships with the smallest attack factors and cripple them.
Roll another die to determine "attack policy" which could be
1 direct damage on carrier escorts
2 direct damage on scouts
3-6 let the other guy do the damage as he likes.
Then you would need a die roll to decide if they're going to retreat.
Then it's the robot's turn and you have to have some kind of die roll to determine if he will attack something and where he sends new production.
It could be done, but you'd have to give the robot 20% more ships just to make it a challenge.
This is an area of interest for me.
Automated opponents are not just good for solo play, but they can also be useful teaching new players parts of the game. So, for example, a new player who doesn't really know how to make a good battleforce yet could use the robot and follow the steps to make a BF for them and then play it. Over time, the player may then begin to notice opportunities to make the BF better (do more damage or take fewer casualties) and begin to diverge from the robot, and so on.
>> 6. Fill up the rest with the non-specialist ships with the biggest attack factors.
I'd also recommend:
5a. Include 2-4 factor 7 or less regular ships in the BF to cheapy absorb casualties
6. Do not include what amounts to a duplicate of a scarce flagship back on the line. If the are 2xC8s in a hex and one is put in the bf as the flag with the formation bonus, the robot should not then put the 2nd C8 on the line without formation bonus as a compot booster.
--Mike
I just play both (or all!) sides. A technique I learned when studying chess. Sure, I know "everything" but that's okay, there's little to no hidden movement in F&E anyway, so everyone else technically knows everything too! I work hard to make the best move available to each empire.
One thing I do is set a couple of "goals" for each empire I'm playing, one longer term, one shorter term that supports the longer term. Then, I'll add another shorter term goal that helps the longer term one when the previous short term goal is finished.
E.g., I want to take a planet, but there's a base in the way, so Long goal is "Take planet." Short term goal is "prepare to take base."
The opponent will set goals too, and will react to what they can see the 'enemy' doing, too. If an enemy ship is cloaked, I'll generally ignore it until it does damage to something.
I do the same thing in SFB too. I just chalk up "Oh, you know what the bad guys are going to do, already!" to the two sides each having expert tacticians who totally expect the various tricks each enemy can pull.
I did a solo game back in 1989 (got to turn 12, then a 6.9 earthquake scrambled the board quite nastily.
Solo play is a good way to get a grip on the basic rules and strategy, but to really learn to play F&E, you need to play against people.
Other people will do things you'd never think of, may understand rules that you misunderstood, will think of tactics that would never occur to you.
The more people you can find to play against, the better you'll understand the rules of the game, as well as tactics and strategy. I've personally played against around 30 people over the years, and I can attest that even now I still learn things.
While it can be difficult to find local players, PBEM is a good way to play F&E in conjunction with Vassal or Cyberboard. I highly recommend doing so. Certainly one can find more opponents this way.
That being said, if you can find local players and have a place to keep the game setup, playing face to face is definitely an experience worth the effort.
Perhaps when Andromedan War gets published, it might include a solitaire scenario where you play to defend one empire from randomly appearing Andromedan forces in your territory. The location and types of motherships would be determined randomly each turn where they plop a satellite base then head towards the nearest target based on a set of priorities. As the Andromedans use satellite ship factors, there is no real decision to what they would lose during combat. If a satellite base is not destroyed, next round it becomes a base station and more Andro ships appear there, then next round it becomes a BATS and even more ships show up there. The human player will be moving around stopping Andromedan offensives and trying to take out bases before he runs out of time.
Robot Andros rules exist for an Early Beginnings scenario. Drop me a line and I will share. The Andros are currently too tough but with a little tweaking should be beatable.
Thank you to everyone for all the suggestions!
you are absolutly right about the clompexity of the game, expecially if we want to play the whole war, but I think/hope that some small ad-hoc scenarios can be done (this is why I originally posted this in the Simulator Operations thread, to not be constrained by the official timeline or existing empires). Maybe even a monster scenario like an enormous swarm of banshees crossing the map or as Nick Samaras suggested some more or less randomic Andros.
Playing solo both sides is what I'm doing now; it is good to (try) to learn the rules but leaves me almost clueless about the overall strategies. Maybe I should try some of the smaller scenarios fist 
.
BTW I fully agree with what Mike Erickson said; I played with Empire of the Sun and its great bot this summer and it teached me a lot!
Obviously playing FtF would be the best option, but right now I'm only allowed to a slow paced PBeM (if someone has a compelling needs of doing some tutoring )
Alan, thank you for your offering. I will contact you!
Alan, an earlier Captain's Log had rules for Andros as more of a wandering monster type situation. They are in Captain's Log #11.
I just checked CL-11, I didn't remember those rules, probably because at that time I was playng SFB only.
Now we just need a solo scenario to use them...
what about:
- starting year 171
- duration - as long as it is needed to completely wipe out Andromedan presence from the alpha octanct or the inverse.
- none of the galactic empire can enter or cross the neutral zone. (*)
- all empire are at peace time economy and switch to war economy only when an Andros ship appears inside their territory. they return to peace economy when no andromedan ship or base are present.
- an empire can (at is will) switch to limted war economy to help any neighboring empire with an active andros infestation.
- setup as per order of battle
- free production schedule
- win condition: survive!
(*) what to do if an empire is completely wiped out? can the other take over its territory? how?
Best I could think a "robot" could do is resolve combat. Allow for a set of priorities to be set about how damage is resolved, and let the computer do it.
As to a computer bot for F&E: I've put some thought into building one, then did some research. It turns out that the best AI opponents for Axis and Allies can be beaten reliably by a player who's merely okay. Federation and Empire is many orders of magnitude more complex than A&A. For example, there are about 10^18 possible opening turns (pre-combat) for the Russians. The Lyrans have somewhere around 10^100. Granted, these numbers can be pared down somewhat, but it's not even easy to choose what options are reasonable.
It'd be fun to build bots to play against each other (by using extremely reductive heuristics like "All operational moves by warships are to valid combat hexes"), but I can't imagine a bot being the least bit challenging to even a novice without a huge numerical advantage.
Probably best not to attempt to make a bot for standard F&E for solo play.