Gron
Version 1.1 (TDM) 
Date: 05.02.2003
SEIV  v1.84G


Description (sort of)
This is my version of the Gron for SEIV G. The AI is based on the description from Richard Meic. I added their hang for secrecy and tried to adjust the politics and anger files accordingly. 
This faction of the Gron should work in any environment (at least they did in my tests) but prefer the low-tech-start and a bonus (even a small one). 
The psychic/religious combo was a quite interesting one before v 1.84. To equip a ship here and a wp there with an AS was pure fun. It was enough to keep the AIs busy and a human opponent could never be sure how many AS he would have to face. To quote C.J.Cherryh: "When confronted with vastly intelligent, aggressive and superior empires: Do something totally irrational and let the enemy think himself to death." It was a perfect description for my approach to make the Gron a somewhat interesting opponent for the human player. Well, once upon a time....
At least the Talisman helps them to get some usefulness from those quite expensive (in terms of research) psychic weapons. Nevertheless, since v 1.84 researching psychic weapons may be interesting because it still adds some variety to gameplay, in terms of efficiency it's unsound. A psychic race going for PPBs or APBs and their training facilities will quite quickly surpass a truly psychic race relying on their original weaponry. The "true believers" will still wait for their TKP Mk II when the enemy coming with PPB Mk V ships will tell them the true meaning of Christmas. IMO the AS was a reward worth taking that risk of using resources for researching such expensive weaponry. Well, as I said, once upon a time.... 

Credits:
To Richard Meic who created the descriptions of the Gron and this wonderful shipset. Love these fighters and the mines, true eye candy IMO. 
Check out his site at http://meicosoft.com/thesingularity/index.php

Thanks:
To Malfador Machinations for this wonderful game. 
To the contributors/creators of the TDM-Modpack. I found their races an incredible help. Those files are full of great ideas and knowledge about the AI in general. Without them my Gron would still fight with sticks and stones...
Special thanks to Mephisto for answering a lot of questions.
Special thanks to Master Belisarius for creating and carrying out the AI Dead Match Contest. It led to a lot of "aha experiences" and further tweaking of my Gron AI. 

Contact:
Any feedback (Do they work fine? What should be improved? Flaws in ship designs, typos, whatever you want or dislike) would be greatly appreciated. 
Please drop an email to:
rg_schulze@yahoo.de

