#7. Ship Upgrades: Do you upgrades your ships? I don' upgrade my ships because it's a waste of money. I don't know if the AI upgrades their ships, but they shouldn't. If you do upgrade your ships, you are probably turning constructors into colony ships or reloading double constructors. The AI can't do this, so it will always lose to somebody who does do this.
#6 Diplomacy: Do you use Diplomacy? I don't use Diplomacy, because Tech Trading makes the game too easy. If you want to be friends with everyone, it's very doable. Diplomacy is the easy button.#5 Starbases: Do you build Economic Starbases? I always build 5 starbases around my capital and load it up with wonders. After that, having starbases around other planets is optional, because at that point I've already won. The AI does not make good use of starbases, so it will always lose.
#4 Strategic Resources: Do you use prototype weapons? I don't, I just put Doom Rays on everything.Do you build the special planetary improvements? I don't, they aren't worth the effort or the tiles needed to build them. The Durantium Refinery is almost worth it, but the others are all trash. Do you even build Mining Starbases? I don't and the AI does, which is why I keep winning.#3 Planetary Projects: Research Project, Economic Subsidies, Cultural Festival, Birthing Subsidies, Military Subsidies, Morale Allowance; Which ones do you use? Research Project and Economic Subsidies are just bad and should never be used. The others are extremely situational, and I still don't use them. I assume that the AI does use them, and that is another reason why I never lose.
#2 Governors: Do you use the global production wheel? The sweet spot to avoid Coarsion penalties is 45% Manufacturing, 45$ Research, 10% Wealth. Do you use the planetary wheel? If I only ever used it on my Capital, that would be more than enough to win every game. Do you manage your planetary improvements effectively? As of 1.5, you need to build farms earlier, but governors will not do that. The governors weren't very good to begin with, but now they're just awful. The AI could definitely use an update.
#1 Unique Tech Trees: I think everyone is aware of how strong Thalan Hives are. As of 1.5, the increased Growth makes Food much more useful. The Drengin Work Camps are strictly better than Factories and the Slave Pit is incredibly powerful. The Iconians also get a lot of Food. Let's not forget about the poor Terrans who have no unique techs at all. Essentially, there's no balance. Picking the right tech tree gives you an advantage over your opponent. How could I ever possibly lose to the Terrans?
It sounds like you're too good for this game! Hopefully you can help out others here with some strategy advice and insightful posts.
I'm curious as to what level of difficulty, galaxy size, and number of opponents you play on?
Thx .. neilkaz ..
I play on Godlike, Gigiantic, with 8 AI.I have a really simple game plan.Step1: Colonize 6 PlanetsFirst, I buy a manufacturing improvement. A Hive or Molecular Fabricator is best, but even a Factory will do. I build a few more factories,a hospital, and then start making colony ships. After making 5, I build some constructors to set up economic starbases around my capital.Step 2: Build Wonders With the Ideology points from 6 planets, I unlock the Temple of Enlightenment. I immediately buy that on my capital. Then I build a Tech Capital, and a bunch of laboratories. I continue to develop the capital with wonders as I research more technology, always keeping the population growing.Step 3: Win the GameAfter that, I just research whatever I want and build whatever I want. As long as I keep growing my population and developing my capital, I will outpace all of the AI, even without colonizing another planet. I can then go for whichever victory condition I want. By the end game, I have over 100 pop bringing in over 4k research.
I play the Terran tech tree, and I can still do all of this. Although, I do agree with most of your points. A lot of the planetary projects are useless. Building new ships is better than upgrading old ones. Tech trading is great. Economic star bases are what I build first before mining. Governors are crappy. But diplomacy is not all bad: you can sell treaties for money, which is really helpful early on.
A strategy game is about fun and trying new things.Yes mechanics should be tightened but just using the same optimised play is boring anyway.
I'd like to see a few posts dedicated to advancing the metagame and expounding some best practices / strategies.
That way we can optimize our gameplay and bring depth-reducing strategies and mechanics to Stardock's attention.
Well you really are awesome!
Try playing insane all abundant and have say 20 ai.
Play Godlike..
Oh and if you are really uber, play the game like the developers (intended) without the wheel <AT ALL> None, zero wheel.
Disable Diplomacy, Research, Influence and Precoursor Victory conditions.
Come back here and post your Screenshot of your win in under 100 turns.
Ok I am being an ass, and I apologize. The fact is sure you can win but not always. Play on the above settings and come back here and tell me how your game was.
I'm not trying to brag about how awesome I am. My point is that there are some features which are either exploitable or unbalanced, allowing the player to have an advantage over the AI.
Anyways, I am not going to play on Insane with 20 AI. I imagine it would take a long time, but it wouldn't be more difficult. It would be annoying to build hundreds of starbases, but I would still do it and win. It's not going to prove anything or contribute to his discussion. Also, playing on Insane is not the way the devs 'intended'.
Now let's discuss strategy.
Actually, most folks I have talked to only play on insane maps. Its really the only way to play (Iif your computer can handle the size). I say to play that way because if ai gets enough planets over time you will not beat him.
Tung, there is no preferred way to play other than NOT using the wheel. The developers have stated multiple times that the wheel was never intended to stay and it should have been eliminated a while back.
Only after everyone complained was the wheel brought back in the form it is now.
Personally I do not use it on any of my planets and I enjoy the game just fine, which is what we are all talking about.
The 'exploits' you are mentioning in this thread are normal ways to play but not exclusive nor are they going to be removed. If you like playing that way to beat the ai on godlike that is fine.
I suggested another way to play on Godlike that I am actually certain you will NOT win, hence why I asked for it.
I disagree with that. I play on abundant all the time, and the AI having more planets does not make them any more difficult to beat. The only advantage they get out of having more planets is more shipyards. However, since their ship designs and economic management are crappy, once you have adequate tech, it makes no difference. If anything, more planets will only make it more tiring to go for conquest victory.
This game clearly has an emphasis on quality over quantity. One ship can destroy thousands, and one fully developed planet will out produce dozens of developing planets.
This really explains it all:
"I play on Godlike, Gigiantic, with 8 AI."
No wonder you find it so easy. There's no density in your galaxy, meaning no competition early for planets/resources. This lets you take an early lead where godlike AI's shine the most.
Try reducing the size to large (or smaller) with 8 Godlike AI. Then you'll be in for a challenge.
Yet another boring "godlike is ez, i am amazing" post.
LarsenexI don't see why you insist on disagreeing with me.If you enjoy insane the most, then feel free to play on insane. I don't have 20 races to put into my game, so I will not be playing on insane. Your assumption that the AI will get more planets than me on a larger map is baseless. It would not be more difficult, just more time consuming.
You keep bringing up the planetary wheel, but I haven't disagreed with you on that point. Using it makes you more efficient than the AI, so by not using it, you make the game harder. Even without the planetary wheel, the global wheel is plenty.There is nothing 'normal' about paying only 58 bc to restock a double constructor each time I build a starbase. It is a technique exclusive to human players and is a significant advantage. That is not something you can dispute.adamb1011 This is not a 'godlike is ez, i am awesome' post.This is about how exploits and imbalance are very advantageous tot he player.
I don't rely on having many planets, so it will not be a problem to play on a large galaxy.
Still, the AIs do have the same luxuries. The difference here is that they aren't going to use that time as efficient as a player can - not even close - and that's one side of the problem.
And their early threat comes solely from their absurdely high diff bonuses - which they, in stark contrast to the player or anything else in the gaem - don't have to build up.
Yeah Maiden thats exactly right. the issue is that as the map gets bigger, the player gets more time before the AI feels border pressure and is incentivised to invade. Normally the AI takes a big lead early due to their massive bonuses, then the humans catch up later due to superior management. Larger map = more time to catch up
The OP's intent to focus on specific issues without bragging should be applauded. I agree with most of this with one exception, prototype weapons, Initially I didn't play with them at all but now use them early game routinely as I can get some decent fleets up quickly at minimum cost. Later, yes they are ignored. What maybe really cool to add to the game is some prototype weapons more suitable for the late game.
The other imbalanced item worth highlighting is artifacts. Precursors artifacts are less frequent now which is good (maybe a little too infrequent now!) but the artifacts that gives you an ENTIRE technology are still unbalanced. I've just used this to get to Huge hulls and top tier weapons and have a fleet with more than 4000 attack at Turn 120. And the AI still ignores Ship Graveyards and Precursor Artifacts ...
I am still learning this game, some of this post confuses me:
#5 Starbases: Do you build Economic Starbases? I always build 5 starbases around my capital and load it up with wonders. After that, having starbases around other planets is optional, because at that point I've already won. The AI does not make good use of starbases, so it will always lose.
What do you mean by "wonders"? I dont see this building type. Are you talking about the Benevolent/Malevolent type buildings?
#3 Planetary Projects: Research Project, Economic Subsidies, Cultural Festival, Birthing Subsidies, Military Subsidies, Morale Allowance; Which ones do you use? Research Project and Economic Subsidies are just bad and should never be used. The others are extremely situational, and I still don't use them. I assume that the AI does use them, and that is another reason why I never lose.
So what do you do when the planet gets fully developed? Let it go idle? I cant see how its bad to click these on as opposed to doing nothing whatsoever. I certainly never use it while the planet still has stuff to build, since the effect in general seems very minimal, but its better than doing nothing at all, right?
Also, I joined up after the whole "wheel" thing, so I just dont understand all the fuss.
And your response was yet another 'if it's too easy, then it's your fault for playing it wrong' answer I'd kind of hoped we'd moved beyond this whenever someone points out balance problems and reached a stage where we can discuss the problems highlighted instead. For example, the answer to the Thalan tech tree being absurdly OP is not 'don't use the Thalan tech tree then', it is 'How should Thalans be nerfed or others buffed'.
The biggest issues for higher difficulties remain the AI scripts, which are difficulty-agnostic and so the AI doesn't take advantage of its bonuses efficiently; the lack of scripts for the mid and late game also mean that it gets much weaker very rapidly after around turn 100 or so. Froggy has already said, repeatedly, that he is not very keen on the data-driven AI for this, and he's basically right - as long as it's so heavily script-dependent for running its economy, it's going to get worse later on as the game develops, because the scripts cannot account for the massive number of possible changes in the game. It's actually become pretty good at marshaling forces and building up fleets now, but it's trying to manage it's economy without any real reference to the conditions in the game.
Governors are basically build lists which are a guess at the best possible order, which is highly situational beyond beginner play. Even though they've improved enormously with 1.4, they've gone from being completely incompetent to being merely reasonably competent. Until the AI can go 'hey look, I have this huge approval bonus from my difficulty level, maybe I don't need to build any approval buildings', this remains an area where higher difficulty doesn't help the AI very much. This gets worse the more planets each side has, since the human can and will look at the planet's needs and respond to them.
The strategic AI scripts are likewise just guesses at what the AI ought to be doing 200-300 turns into a game, often for periods of 100+ turns - with no changes to economic settings, build choices, tech preference etc while a given script is running. Many AIs get crippled by sitting at war for hundreds of turns, using the War AI script which means they stop expanding and researching effectively. DoWing every AI you meet, the moment you meet them can pretty much win you the game by throwing them permanently into the wrong script and causing them to miss out on a vital period for expansion, or to miss out on a set of tech weights they need to pick up good techs - resulting in them developing ships they can't afford to build.
The AI since 1.4 has been 'good enough' - we no longer get first-time players complaining that they've walked all over the AI on the highest difficulties, and it'll provide a reasonable challenge to the average player, on his 4-player medium map playing on Easy as the Terrans. Once some of the more glaring balance issues are settled (SB stacking, ship prices, movement, diplomacy), the scripts can be optimized much more aggressively... but really, there's big chunks of the AI which would be better off taken out of the scripts completely, even if it means modders can't play around with them anymore.
Seriously you must be from Mensa. I simply do not find the game that easy at all. And I`ve played a few times.
In fact, my greatest fear is that you`ll just make the game even harder for us `plebs` who just aren`t as brilliant as you.
That said, i never Reload if I get a bad run, I stick with whatever the outcome is. Do you always Reload until you get the result you want?
Be honest now.
Map SizeIt seems that on a smaller map, techs cost less research, so it turns out that I get to 'catch up' and surpass the AI more quickly. I suppose someone will tell me to slow down research, but difficulty and settings aren't the topic of the discussion.
stevezarWhen I say wonders, I'm referring to player achievements and galactic achievements. You naturally get the most benefit out of a Manufacturing or Research Capital by putting it on the planet with the most production.
When my planets are fully developed, I build ships. Ships are always useful, converting manufacturing into +% research or wealth is not. Otherwise, putting more production into Research or Wealth is more efficient than converting it with projects.The planetary wheel simply allows you to achieve maximum efficiency. Especially on specialized planets, where you would prefer to have 100% of your production going towards Manufacturing, Research, or Wealth. Humans can intuitively take advantage of this, but it's difficult for the AI because there are so many variables.
You've asked this of players who beat high difficulty a few times, but to tell the truth I've not encountered a single situation in GC 3 at any difficulty where I've needed to save-scum. On the bigger maps, there's just not much point - the impact of any given event is tiny in the grand scheme of things and you'll almost certainly have the resources to recover without resorting to cheating, because the AI presently can't exploit your moment of weakness effectively. On smaller maps, a bad couple of events might do enough damage to you to put you into a death spiral and make save-scumming worthwhile, but it won't on Gigantic or above.
Well, right now I think they've got the AI to a semi reasonable point. Still miles to go, but its nowhere near as bad as 1.2
They need to focus on adding depth to the game in a whole bunch of areas. Diplomacy, space construction (about 80% of the hex tiles in the game are useless - compare to something like civ5), economic system, spies, invasions.... etc etc etc.
The best advice I can give right now are just some basic guidelines I follow. The best course of action is often situational. Turn off auto-upgrade improvements. Building a new improvement is often cheaper and more beneficial than upgrading an existing improvement.Start every colony by building manufacturing.Build farms whenever you are near the population cap. It's hard to lose when you have twice the population of your opponents.
I ask again, do you reload when the results don`t favour you?
I ask it because it`s a damn good question. people who like to say the `AI is bad` need to be tasked so we can find out if the AI really is all that awful or whether people are indeed `save-scumming` their way to victory, then acting like they`re geniuses.
You`ll be surprised how many do. It`s why we often get games `updated` or `improved` until the ordinary guy who likes to play without reloading can`t beat the game cos the Devs listened to these minority people who shout loudest.
disregard.
forum playing up. dammit.
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