Sounds like a mirror-universe event, actually.

Originally posted by redeyedraven:

Sounds like a mirror-universe event, actually.

That's what I was thinking too as I couldn't think of a single time in canon where the Klinks and Cardis worked together. Romulans and Cardis, sure, but not Klinks......

I'm silently hoping this hasn't destroyed the only AI threat that I have left. The Dominion hasn't done much for itself and doesn't even control the sector where the Wormhole exits.

Originally posted by redeyedraven:

Sounds like a mirror-universe event, actually.

LOL! It is a Mirror-verse event. They just established contact with me, and joined the Galactic Medical Thingy...... I haven't gotten back into DS9 yet, so I can't remember. Are these the "Good Guys" from there? I just got back to Time's Arrow (TNGS5E26) so I have atleast another "year" before I get into DS9 again. Can't wait to see Major Kira again! *MMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm!*

Something I like about this mod is that the game can deviate from Canon, allowing the outcome of the galaxy to not be a foregone conclusion.

Originally posted by Slyguy3129:

Originally posted by redeyedraven:

Sounds like a mirror-universe event, actually.

LOL! It is a Mirror-verse event. They just established contact with me, and joined the Galactic Medical Thingy...... I haven't gotten back into DS9 yet, so I can't remember. Are these the "Good Guys" from there? I just got back to Time's Arrow (TNGS5E26) so I have atleast another "year" before I get into DS9 again. Can't wait to see Major Kira again! *MMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm!*

The Mirror universe dosnt really have any "good guys" left, only less bad guys. It's hard to work out the actual canon for it, but the Klingon-Cardassian alliance defeated the Terran empire sometime after TOS but before TNG.

Originally posted by Knapp:

Something I like about this mod is that the game can deviate from Canon, allowing the outcome of the galaxy to not be a foregone conclusion.

I can understand that. It just makes for boring gameplay when, as the Federation, the Romulans can't seem to muster a decent fleet to attack it's neighbors to get strong. Leaving them hilariously underpowered by 2360.

Or when the Valarians take over most of the area the Cardis were supposed to, and now they are underpowered as well, not that they were ever a Quadrant Power that much.

Or even now, with the only viable threat I had (The Klingons) being castrated by an event the AI simply can't handle, and is currently being destroyed from the inside.

Or the Dominion being unable to even take the Wormhole exit, and therefore not a threat to the Alpha Quad powers.

That leaves me with absolutely nothing to do now that I've reached the TNG era but sit and stare at the screen while I unlock tech. In fact, all it means I can do, is attack neighbors to "Rival" Quad powers and DMZ them, hoping to God the AI will be smart enough to take advantage of a weakened neighbor, which of course it doesn't.

Which is what I've just had to do. For some reason early on the Klingons agreed to Defend the Flaxians, which prevented the Romulans from attacking them and getting stronger. They just broke that treaty, so I've DoW'd them hoping that maybe the Romulans can survive long enough to take advantage of it.

In short, it's the same problem the Hearts of Iron franchise has. You can't play as Germany, and expect much from the Allies once you take control of Europe, because the AI simply can't be bothered with trying to make a sustainable Invasion force to threaten you. So, once 1943 rolls around, you have nothing to do but stare at the screen and dream of what the game could have been like if the AI were capable of doing what it needed to do. Great for people who enjoy playing as Jabuti, and taking over the planet during WW2. Not fun at all for anyone who wanted to play a Grand Strategy version of WW2.

Which is why I'm not that big on Sandbox games. I didn't download the mod to play as the Bajorians and take over the entire Galaxy. I downloaded it to play in the Star Trek Universe, and experience that on a Grand Strategy scale.

To be clear, I don't want the mod to *force* certain outcomes, but I certainly want it to resemble canon far more than my current play through appears. Makes it feel like I wasted my time building up and getting strong, expecting the Romulans and Cardis, and Klinks and Dominion, and Borg, to attack me, and not one single time during this play through has anyone DoW'd me directly. The only time I've been in a defensive war, is because I went to incorporate the Tzenkithi, and the Cardi DoW'd them, which pulled me into it.

But hey, atleast you are happy playing in a big sandbox with Star Trek trappings and flavor. I feel like I've been punched in the gut and wasted all my time with this play through. And considering the only reason I even bought this game, was for this one mod, it makes me feel I've stupidly wasted my money as well (which to be fair, I very well might have).

*****To be clear, I understand most of my complaints here, are problems with the game that PI needs to solve, and not the Devs of this mod.*****

increase the difficulty level, there should be a option when making a game for how aggressive the AI is. yeah the low agression of the ai seems to be a more recent issue since 2.0 its been a lot more passive.

Originally posted by Moridin:

increase the difficulty level, there should be a option when making a game for how aggressive the AI is. yeah the low agression of the ai seems to be a more recent issue since 2.0 its been a lot more passive.

Yea I've noticed that too. But I had to set the AI to normal in order to prevent the Vulcans and Andorians immediately Rivaling each other at the very beginning of the game (as soon as I unpause a new game). Patch notes for the mod say the event from ENT where the Vulcans sort of change Government is supposed to remove the Rivalry between them. While it does stop the Rivalry, the negative impacts on relations are still there, preventing you from forming the Federation.

Either that, or I was extremely unlucky early on.

And don't even get me started on the never ending wars with one side stuck at 100% and the other side having to wait till their 10% gets to 100% before a peace is made. I thought 2.0 introduced that *forced* peace after 2 years of 100%. Does that not work with the AI? Or is the current version of the mod, made before that was placed into the game.

Regardless, I'm going to up the difficulty alot in my next play through and hopefully will see different results. Not a big fan of diffuclt scales that just give the AI tons of bonuses, but well, we aren't going to see anything different in that regards until Game Devs stop depending on Multiplayer to give players a challange in game. Which is why AI development over all in the Industry makes game AI from the 80s seem God like.

*****Again, I realize most of my complaints here are problems within the base game, and not something the mod devs can fix.*****

You do not need the vulcans and andorians in order to form the federation, just 3 of the 4 founders. so that can be humans, andorians, vulcans or humans tellarites andorians etc.

Originally posted by Moridin:

You do not need the vulcans and andorians in order to form the federation, just 3 of the 4 founders. so that can be humans, andorians, vulcans or humans tellarites andorians etc.

Right. But that issue is noted as fixed, and atleast in that one abbreviated playthrough it was not.

But then how do I get whomever I've left out because "X will not join coalition with Y" to become part of the Federation? I formed the Fed in another playthrough that left out the Andorians. Then right as I was going to snag them, they joined a different coalition and I could no longer invite them into mine.

you'd have to fight a war to force them to adopt your ethics, generally you can force them into a coalition with you immediatly afterwards (might need some trade deals to increase opinion of you). also they cant join a coalition when at war either.

Originally posted by Moridin:

you'd have to fight a war to force them to adopt your ethics, generally you can force them into a coalition with you immediatly afterwards (might need some trade deals to increase opinion of you). also they cant join a coalition when at war either.

So, in other words, I can't. I don't see the United Federation of Planets doing that. Wish we could DoW with the intent of breaking up a Coalition, or Alliance.

Speaking of, it seems some people can DoW with the intent to release a portion of the opposing empire. The Deltans in a Coalition of the Sorians DoW'd the Sheliak, then released a smaller new Empire after the war. That new Government joined their Coalition, which is one of the reason the Romulans couldn't expand in my game. They got too powerful for them to deal with, and the only other neighbor they had to DoW, was the Flaxians which were protected by the Klinks. So for pretty much this whole playthrough every 10-15 years the Romluans will DoW the Deltan/Sorian/Sheliak Coalition and get ROFLStomped.

And speaking of the Ideology War, I can't seem to do that against everyone. The BlackFace(Racist)/WhiteFace(Somehow Not Equally Racist)(LOL Can't remember their name)) people to your East as the Fed still have the one system they start with. I thought about DoWing them just to get rid of that stupid grey dot in my beautiful sea of blue, but it was grayed out. They are Authoritarian Slavers.

I'm wondering if I did something early on that broke my playthrough. It's the 2360s and I still have the Original Enterprise. Given it's the Refit (TMPERA) Enterprise, but there had been events giving me Enterprises up till that point. I have the Galaxy, and just saw the tech for what I assume will give me the Sovereign (Can't seem to be able to read all the tech a certain tech unlocks. The UI doesn't allow all of it to be seen). Was kinda of sad I didn't get the Enterprise B-D. I don't imagine I will get the E either. Not to mention, by the time I got the Enterprise (Not the ENT one *ugh*) the tech it came with was a generation behind what I already had.

You know, the more I think of it, the more I think I may have broken something very early on. Oh well, I'll play through this one for a few more days, and then start over again. I'm sure most of this has got to be the result of something stupid I did, not understanding the mechanics that work in the background of this mod. For instance I had to restart one playthrough because I upgraded the NXterprise through the normal game mechanics, not knowing I was supposed to wait for an event that upgrades her. Once that event fired, I couldn't upgrade her becuase the game didn't recognize it as the NXterprise. I don't know how the mod devs could fix that other than not allowing the gifted Enterprises to be upgradable. But then that would cause other issues.

They probably did Ideology War (which you can do as feds, but if you think that breaks the role playing thats fine) in which any systems claimed by the attacker immediatly create a new empire with the attackers ethics once the war is over. not sure if you have to put claims on systems to do it though.

it is very OOC for the federation to declare war on people true.

i dunno about upgrading the enterprise, i tend not to play as the fed's anyway.

Originally posted by Moridin:

They probably did Ideology War (which you can do as feds, but if you think that breaks the role playing thats fine) in which any systems claimed by the attacker immediatly create a new empire with the attackers ethics once the war is over. not sure if you have to put claims on systems to do it though.

it is very OOC for the federation to declare war on people true.

i dunno about upgrading the enterprise, i tend not to play as the fed's anyway.

Ah, I can't lay claims to systems via the Pacifist trait. The only way to claim systems as the Feds is to have someone DoW you. Or embrace another trait that removes the Pacifist trait via removing it, or it being the lowest supported Faction.

OOC? Out Of Canon? True, but it's totally fine with allowing a simple StarFleet Captain to False Flag another Empire into supporting a war effort (Looking Directly at you Mr. Sisko. "Cool" episode. 200% opposite of everything the UFP would ever stand for. But DS9 got away with alot because it wasn't thought of very highly(Looking at you USS Defiant). Apparently even more so than VOY which never had any audience support either.)) Neither of them could match even the worst TNG episode audiences. To be clear, I'm not throwing shade at DS9 and VOY, I just recognize them as being when Star Trek started to stop being Star Trek which makes me sad. Production Quality started to suffer *badly* (CGI was the worst thing to happen to Trek. VOY show cases this as many times the CGI just did not render, but was put into the final product cause "**** it" I guess. And we won't ever see HD version of any of them because "it's too expensive". And with STD hilariously getting it's fourth point of contact sued off of them for out right copyright theft (Guess that's what happens when you focus on Diversity instead of talent) they aren't going to have the money to ever do that. But atleast hopefully it will get the stain of STD completely removed from ever existing.)

Anyways, I'm ranting now lol.

Thanks for the information. I knew this particular playthrough would just be to get familiar with how the mod mechanics work. I'm hoping my next play through fits more in line with what I expected. Hopefully I won't break it again lol.

oh sorry. OOC is Out Of Character. I had a multiplayer game running where a mate was playing federation and was able to declare wars on other empires to change them to their ideology.

and i agree, discovery dosnt fit into the time-line at all. the ships level of tech is too high to be only 5 years before Kirk. plus klingons look really wrong. i dont see how they can claim it fits into canon.