Hi all, relatively new to EL here. Really enjoying the game - so much the devs have done right, but of course many of the usual flaws 4X games are susceptible to.

I'm wondering how more experienced players set up their games to achieve either a difficult challenge or simply to build the most varied & entertaining narratives you can. I like some difficulty throughout the game rather than any paint-the-map power tripping - failure, or the real threat thereof, is fun sometimes - but I also enjoy interacting with other empires and watching interesting political/diplomatic/tactical situations arise.

In game setup I've been playing on Hard (might be time to increase this tho), keeping landforms random, and setting strategic/luxury resources to "Rare" as I've found it's more interesting when you don't have massive supplies of them. I've played some games on medium-sized worlds with 8 empires, but might even tend towards Small worlds here on... the space constraints seem more interesting to me. Still haven't ventured into any mods, so if anyone's got advice there (stable & balanced is key) feel free to chime in.

Some "flaws" in the base game I'd like to correct somehow:

-Most empires are fairly unaggressive, it's not uncommon to reach late-game without being attacked seriously at all. As a result you can often just ignore a standing army & fortifications if you want, and can safely ignore or take advantage of most diplomacy according to your preference.

-Trade routes seem really overpowered. Once you start setting them up mid-game, you can get a seriously unbalancing amount of Dust with very little risk or investment. If they're not going to be outright nerfed, it would be nice to see more of a cost somehow.

-And it's been said before, but mid-late game when empires get established the game gets very static. There's just not a ton of interaction. I like the idea mentioned elsewhere of having some kind of defensive pacts and/or worldwide threats to contend with. Many games implement the former successfully and it could probably work here.

So yeah, any mods that address the above?

My suggestion is to hang on a bit for the next expansion to hit. Most of what you mentioned has been discussed at length with the developers after the last patch/expansion. I think they get the idea and hinted that they have ideas on how to address these problems.

Also as an aside, the AI diplomatic attitudes are supposed to get an adjustment AFAIR. I agree they are not currently as aggressive as they should be...although you have to balance that with the fact that they may be pursuing another type of victory entirely. I honestly think there may have been need for a couple more aggressive-type factions and I would also like to see the option to make factions more aggressive on lower difficulty levels.

Hi robertiv,

Having just returned to the game I have also suffered through a 250 turn (to date) game of nothing happening. Seriously absolutely nothing has happened.

Everyone is in one big love in. I am the only player with somone in 'cold war' status with the other four in an alliance with me. For the other players they are either in an alliance or at peace.

So it is just a matter of grinding away, to what end I have no idea. Which leads me into one of many gripes I have, iall my cities are the same, always every game. Same building always available for every city bar the odd terrain type, but every city is a carbon copy of the others.

RE: Most empires are fairly unaggressive

Another glaring issue related to 'most empires are fairly aggressiveness' is that there is are no tensions between races/species. Everyone loves everyone which is frustrating. There should be certain races/species that will never see eye to eye or who are 10x harder to make 'friends' with certain other races/species.

These tensions should be a consideration when expanding and if you were to settle land that borders theirs then either the relationship as it was is then set back to a negative or instantly to war. Making expansion not just a matter of I will settle wherever I want losers.

Borders should be closed by default. What empire would allow another to have armies go through at will. Very back to front.

RE: Trade routes

I presume you have not visited the markets then. Talk about being able to game the game. You can be at war with every other empire and still go to the markets and buy all the goodies you need from them to kill them... seriously...

I have so many other issues but will leave it here to stay within the original post's boundaries.