As an achievement hound, I've been going after victory types and one is the score victory. Love ES but the only part I really don't like so far is that you can not choose to avoid science victory type via easy lever (on/off decision) -e.g. game won't let you advance to next turn without picking something to research.



I don't mind the warning that pops up, but it really should let you advance next turn with no research selected if thats what you really want.



All other victory types you totally control (yes/no easy decision), but science is at best a soft throttle.



e.g. supremacy - don't want it, just don't conquer enemy capitals OR go ahead and conquer but just plasma raze afterwards and game will reduce your supremacy score since it's enemy capitals owned, not enemy capitals taken that seem to count.



economy - no matter how late game, no matter how close you are to economic victory, you can always avoid it by setting tax rate to whatever level sets you barely positive or negative.



wonders - obvious how to avoid.

expansion - same thing, very easy and can avoid at any time



So science and score are whats left, and I thought score would be easy - just make it to turn 300 without winning any of the other victory types. But no - I was in a constant race to delay my science because my science turns to win was greater than making it to turn 300 since game forces me into picking the science victory research (I in fact had to pick that one after researching everything other than the left tree one that accelerates science victory since if I took that, I'd win the non-desired science victory even faster)



Yes, there are soft throttles to delay science victory - don't put colonies on science research, don't build science buildings, etc. But it's micromanagement and soft guesses to throttle yourself down rather than the easy yes/no decisions for all other victory types.



In order to get score victory 300 turns, I was finding I had to raze science buildings in every system - a monotonous repetitive stress injury clickfest - and when that wasn't enough to slow my science enough, had to start plaza razing my own systems - which led to a game bug I discovered that on my computer at least - 100% consistently throws a game bug error that halts the game due to cascading errors IF i raze my own colonized system.



I can raze an enemy system I had conquered no problems, but if I raze my own system, 100% game bug, debug errors, game doesn't crash but planet lists are all screwed up and non-playable. So best I could do is decon droid myself to massively prune my own population to slow down science points.



I'm pretty sure this is not how the ES designers envisioned anyone choosing score victory. Doubt it's worth a patch but it's worth me complaining that in an otherwise awesome game, so odd you can't choose to yes/no avoid a science win and have to dance around nuking your own systems to do it.

So why don't you just turn off scientific victory in the advanced settings?

I just read your other post about the advanced settings lol. Some reason I missed seeing that on the setup screen. Now I see it, including all the cool planet and system balancing options to tinker with.

coyote303 wrote:
So why don't you just turn off scientific victory in the advanced settings?

Aside from avoiding the Scientific victory, there's possibly another problem with what the OP describes: What if you don't select any victory conditions though and you end up with an AI that constantly retreats from fleet battles? Will you be able to "end turn" and chase them if you've already researched all the tech.?

http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/Victory



If all victory conditions are unselected in the game menu, a default victory is still maintained: The winner is the last empire standing.

I ran for 60 turns in my last game without researching any techs, I had +162k Science per turn and only had science victory remaining. Clicking "end turn" resulted in the "no science selected" message, then I just clicked "end turn" again and the turn ended without further issues. Not sure why you were not able to end turn without science selected.



And Lycanus, yes, there is no reason you can't end turn without selecting science, you should be able to test that and validate it on turn 1 with any faction in a matter of seconds. Besides which, retreat allows for 3 rounds of unimpeded firepower, the enemy selecting retreat all the time should result in their timely demise.

GiantOctopodes wrote:


And Lycanus, yes, there is no reason you can't end turn without selecting science, you should be able to test that and validate it on turn 1 with any faction in a matter of seconds. Besides which, retreat allows for 3 rounds of unimpeded firepower, the enemy selecting retreat all the time should result in their timely demise.

Honestly, I hadn't thought to try clicking the button again (which is strange, since I'm a programmer I usually try to break my own stuff so I should've tried to break theirs ).



As for retreating, based on my experience, when an AI retreats from me I rarely ever destroy a single ship before the round ends. I guess my fleets are entirely too weak.

GiantOctopodes wrote:
I ran for 60 turns in my last game without researching any techs, I had +162k Science per turn and only had science victory remaining. Clicking "end turn" resulted in the "no science selected" message, then I just clicked "end turn" again and the turn ended without further issues. Not sure why you were not able to end turn without science selected.



And Lycanus, yes, there is no reason you can't end turn without selecting science, you should be able to test that and validate it on turn 1 with any faction in a matter of seconds. Besides which, retreat allows for 3 rounds of unimpeded firepower, the enemy selecting retreat all the time should result in their timely demise.

Maybe there was a patch since you last tried it, or maybe i have a different game version. Have the emperor bundle sold on steam, auto updated to whatever is latest patch, and playing with disharmony (not classic).



I just tested it again with new game turn 1 - sophons, all victory conditions enabled, no research picked - definitely cant progress beyond turn 1 without picking tech. Tried just clicking next turn again, view/dismiss warning then click next turn again, spam next turn rapidly - same result. So my game installation specific or not - for sure cant progress turns without a tech picked.

(Also tried games with victory conditions enabled/disabled - same thing, whether science victory is enabled or not, game wont let me ignore research)



As ive learned, it can be a non factor by disabling science victory, but i cant seem to replicate your ability to proceed next turn without tech picked. Is there some other options to enable/disable? (Tried enabling/disablinb tutorial thinking it was a newbie safety net but that didnt work either)

I also tested it later game turns, thinking it was maybe a turn 1 safety net, but nope - turn 1 or turn 112 in my current game, can not click end turn again after ignoring message to proceed. Really sounds like we somehow ended up with different game versions or patches, or some game option to enable/disable that i am missing.

probably- in options, under gameplay, do you have "lock end of turn" selected? That is described as "when this option is selected, you will not be able to end your turn until all critical warnings have been resolved", so it sounds like it.



Edit: Note that I mean the options on the main menu itself, not sure if they can be accessed from elsewhere but that's where I saw it, and I have the latest version w/ Disharmony, so presumably yours should also have that option there.

GiantOctopodes wrote:
probably- in options, under gameplay, do you have "lock end of turn" selected? That is described as "when this option is selected, you will not be able to end your turn until all critical warnings have been resolved", so it sounds like it.



Edit: Note that I mean the options on the main menu itself, not sure if they can be accessed from elsewhere but that's where I saw it, and I have the latest version w/ Disharmony, so presumably yours should also have that option there.

At first I thought, ahhh - giant head slapping moment, how did I miss that?



Had looked at options under the left and right advanced selections before you start game, but not in the general game menu options (with video/audio, etc) - and after your tip I looked and saw this option and thought aha there it is.



But must be my game installation bugged - when I looked the option was not checked, and from what you say plus what I read in the tooltip, it seems to activate only when you check it. But just to try, I've now tested with this option not checked (which sounds like being able to ignore warning messages) and with it checked (which sounds exactly like why I can't proceed to next turn).



But somehow whether this option is checked or not, my game stays locked in can't ignore warnings mode - current game or brand new turn 1 games created to test this.



Am going to try a steam re-check of all files, maybe my installation is bugged cause it sure sounds like it based on seeing this option.

Well big thanks for the tip. Turns out my game was bugged. After doing a validate of all files via Steam game files option, it failed to find/validate 2 files, and it reacquired those.



After that update, I can now end turns without researching or ignore warnings. Yes, go me!! I want to meet aliens with bigger guns.



In fuzzy hindsight, recall how this happened - bought ES package last year on Steam sale but didn't really play till now (wish I started earlier, love the game) - but first couple games back then recall being annoyed when launching game, always got Windows 7 UAC prompt that said game wanted to install update - it was the Visual C redistributable package - always wanted to try installing that again despite being installed on first installation/launch.



Read a post back then, and rechecked just now, that Amplitude is using a bad form of the redistributable (what the post said, now what I allege) and suggested users delete/rename the redistributable file installer - 208140.vdf in your steamapps folder for ES.



So I did that - and it does indeed fix the every time you try and launch game prompt and re-check of the VDF - but apparently it breaks at least this one game option of locking your game into unable to ignore science warnings.



So my steam validate of files replaced that file, and now my game is back in default ability - which is great, don't intend to ignore science all that much but hey it's a nice option to have if I forgot to turn off science victory. But I do have the annoying re-check of the Visual C redistributable every single time I launch ES, which is a LOT, since I love the game and am racking up quite a few hours.



I'd try some other fix but am now afraid I'll bork my game options further so guess I will just live with this annoyance.

Awesome, possibly that is also related to your invasion times not showing up? Either way, glad you got it sorted out!

GiantOctopodes wrote:
Awesome, possibly that is also related to your invasion times not showing up? Either way, glad you got it sorted out!

Oh hey, hadn't even thought of that but yea - wow, I must have borked that too with this bad suggestion of deleting that file.



Am going to really like my next few games better if that fixes that which sounds like it will. I'm chasing this pesky achievement of getting the collateral damage to troops and from posts it seems you can only get that when your system is being invaded and your system defenses kills troops invading you.



So ive been letting the AI invade me while trying to get this achievement but had no idea how long I could let him try before actually taking my system. This ought to fix that.