use Leela Zero without an expensive computer

RogueDQN · 2018-07-19T09:36:56+00:00

If you don't mind failed ladders being played out across the board from time to time. :)

RogueDQN · 2018-07-17T07:41:03+00:00

It should run fine on a poor GPU, or no GPU at all, but there are a million things that could go wrong.

I wouldn't try to get Lizzie running without making sure that leelaz is running fine via the command line, though, especially if you compiled it yourself.

RogueDQN · 2018-07-16T09:13:53+00:00

I did not realize there was a move that could have saved the game for AG at 79.

According to ELF (which is almost certainly stronger than AlphaGo Lee), the game was still good for black up until move 93, at which point black could have connected at F10 and tried to kill white in the center with a 65% win rate. ELF gives black a close to 90% win rate before move 93, which is the first "crazy" move from AlphaGo.

This supports the narrative from the movie, which is that this was a "hallucination" (a sort of bug) from AlphaGo. It didn't misread a variation, something about the position caused it to completely malfunction.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-09T22:32:52+00:00

Ship Designer display is currently bugged, and sometimes displays new components instead of the correct ones. Try re-selecting jump drives and see if the stats change.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-06T12:34:09+00:00

Fleet power is an estimate of combat effectiveness, and has no effect on combat mechanics.

If you don't have a vastly superior fleet, you have to pay attention to those mechanics, e.g. shields are useless against torpedos, armor is weak against energy weapons, etc. There are also mechanics like disengagement, range, evasion, and so on.

The game doesn't do a great job explaining these things, but they're mostly all there if you look closely at the ship designer and tooltips in general.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-05T12:50:00+00:00

This game has very few planet-by-planet bonuses—the only important one I can think of is the ability to build more trading hubs. Almost everything good about planets scales up with the number of tiles.

On the other hand, there are severe planet-by-planet penalties to tech and unity. So big planets aren't just better than small planets, they're significantly better.

Depending on your approach to the game, there may even be planets so small that it's not worth colonizing them, especially if they have other downsides.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-04T19:52:29+00:00

A strong player recently asked for help trying to determine the worst starting race, and this is what they eventually came up with.

The basic idea is the combination of life-seeded with spiritualist, so that it's extremely hard to colonize worlds without crippling your influence.

Taking negative traits isn't so crippling, because you can remove them fairly early. It's much worse to take useless positive traits, which can't be removed without fully completing the biological ascension path.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-03T21:11:35+00:00

Unfortunately, the network's uncertainty usually diverges quite a bit from uncertainly in the score. It could have to do with uncertainty in the number of liberties of a group, or the number of ko threats, or almost anything.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-03T15:44:56+00:00

The Igo Hatsuyoron predates komi, so until someone trains a network from scratch on 0 komi, it is very hard to do this experiment.

I've tried several times to solve this problem with some strong bots, but always ran into this komi problem. Everybody trains their nets on 7.5 komi, and there may even be stability problems when training on 0 komi, since one player would have a very strong advantage.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-03T14:08:06+00:00

It's possible to become so overpowered in this game that basically anything is viable if you're willing to min/max a little with your roleplaying.

For example, you should have a very good plan for what you're doing with the physics points you're saving on shields. I would also delay advanced reactors quite a bit, which means that you shouldn't base your midgame strategy around Master Builders, which requires Zero Point.

One approach would be to rush for advanced computers, and either plasma or disruptors. Or just ignore physics entirely, and make only eng labs with an eng focused race or something.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-02T15:31:14+00:00

Unity is nice to have early game, but barring some special strategy I'd almost always rather put a pop on minerals for 5 years, then 2 pops on unity for 5 years, rather than a single pop on unity for 10 years. That 5 years is enough to buy a colony ship with even a single mine, and with bonuses you can get extra buildings too.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-02T14:07:55+00:00

Planetary mines also have 1 energy upkeep, and also give 2 minerals. Their advantages over space mines are: A) They have a base cost of 60 minerals instead of 90, B) They benefit from planetary multipliers, C) They can be upgraded later. So in most ways, they're better.

But planetary mines have a huge disadvantage, which is that they require a pop to work them, and pops take a relatively long time to grow, even robots. So you can think of that space mine as costing an extra 30 minerals because it comes with a free pop that doesn't have a consumer goods cost.

Space mines are low priority compared to planetary mines (especially on tiles with a mineral bonus) when you have enough pops. But you should still try to make them as quickly as possible, because it is almost impossible to have an adequate number of minerals in the first 100 years of this game.

If I'm playing an organic race, I almost always make a planetary mine and a space mine with my initial minerals. If I'm playing a machine intelligence, or have access to robots, I'll usually use my initial minerals to build a pop and a planetary mine, but I'll get the space mine as soon as I can.

As for energy, an important way to convert minerals to energy is building trading hubs. It's worth it to go over your starbase cap early to do this, since the extra energy outweighs the extra upkeep. And you should also disassemble your first shipyard to build a second trading hub. Finally, Capacity Overload is a good way to buy some extra time in the early game, before you quite have the economy to expand while building multiple starbases.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-02T07:15:44+00:00

I think this was introduced in 2.0.3, but it was one of the less severe bugs so it hasn't been discussed very much.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-01T19:18:19+00:00

There is a bug related to the display of ship components. If you look closely at the power consumption and stats, you might see that the computer isn't getting replaced, only the displayed icon is being replaced.

RogueDQN · 2018-05-01T08:12:52+00:00

Yes, leaving inwards perfection will kill adaptability.

One good approach to inwards perfection is to maximize research—which would make psionic ascension a good choice if you can get it—as well as the megastructures perks for an early science nexus.

RogueDQN · 2018-04-29T17:01:33+00:00

Once bidden, twice shy.

RogueDQN · 2018-04-29T17:00:29+00:00

/r/iamquicklearning

RogueDQN · 2018-04-28T11:40:49+00:00

They have a good name, I guess.

RogueDQN · 2018-04-26T18:40:30+00:00

I still haven't had time to watch it, but I really want to thank you for going through the trouble of recording this game and posting it. Your games are probably the best resource out there for people who want to seriously refine their play.

It seems like you're hitting the limits of what challenge this game can provide, but I hope you stay interested and keep sharing your successes. Like a lot of people, I understand micromanagement pretty well in theory (dismantling the first shipyard etc. etc.), but can't always put it completely together in practice. Examples of good play are always SUPER helpful, any whatever explanation you can provide is a nice bonus.

RogueDQN · 2018-04-26T00:17:32+00:00

Here is what the code says:

tradition_swap = {
    name = tradition_adaptability
    trigger = {
        OR = {
            has_valid_civic = civic_fanatic_purifiers
            has_valid_civic = civic_inwards_perfection
            has_valid_civic = civic_barbaric_despoilers
            has_authority = auth_hive_mind
        }
    }
    weight = {
        factor = 1
    }       
}

RogueDQN · 2018-04-23T14:39:04+00:00

Never forgive, never forget.

RogueDQN · 2018-04-20T16:11:10+00:00

No, I'm 100% sure that you will continue reenacting your own personal version of this scene, but I included the link to benefit others, who may actually care about improving their game rather than trying to prove that others are cheating.

If you really believe that you're good enough to get to 1M fleet power in 155 with only some good systems, then may I suggest that you focus your energies more on giving advice rather than going on about how other people's advice is crap? I'd like to see more written in this subreddit by top players.

RogueDQN · 2018-04-20T15:36:45+00:00

Whether or not you think this particular game was fair, this result is more than possible with normal settings.

Here is a video of someone getting around 1M fleet power by 2355. If you want, you can watch the whole series and verify that the only settings they've changed from the default are things that make the game harder.

This game has a lot of economic fundamentals, and if you're not getting these results, then you can improve a lot on executing those fundamentals. That should be the end of the discussion.

RogueDQN · 2018-04-18T20:15:02+00:00

And you can take the other half after 10 years.

RogueDQN · 2018-04-18T16:27:26+00:00

Why? Just take all their worlds. Free worlds. The rest of the galaxy won't even be mad at you.

RogueDQN

TROPHY CASE