The title says it and I'm not complaining! I want the highest difficulty to be difficult



So I beated impossible and stepped up.



First two playthroughs got attacked early but I knew that was going to happen so had an army ready. Defeated the invasion just to get another one next turn. I have also noticed that ai is stacking 6 units now. I am not sure if the devs listened to the suggestions about the ai not researching that tech, if they did thumbs for you guys. Much better now.



Third try with vaulters had a whole continent for myself. Built 10 cities with the fantastic -disapproval bonus of the resource. Everything was going fine and then suddenly necros are about to win a science victory. Tried to attacked them but the had the combat bonus of the last era and are invincible. I should have attacked early. it seem going all peaceful is dangerous as one enemy can dominate all the others. Mental note: check the scores more often.



I will get down to impossible as I have to learn more it seems



Your thoughts in endless ? Can you beat it? How often?

It all really depends on how cheesy a endless victory you want.



First turn all enemies into cultists that way you only have to take 1 city per enemy. And even on endless they suck bigtime compared to everything else.



Then you make sure you start on an island with 3 regions. No contact with any faction through land and it should be about 100 turns before they start poking at you.



Set minor factions to easy.



Set anomalies on high.



Key is the get a good starting area and scouting the entire map before turn 60. Most cheesy endless victory you can get.



People who say they have beaten endless usually goes for something like this. But if you take small maps / many enemies and all connected its gonna be very hard to win.

I recently beat endless difficulty with all other game settings at default (6 players, random factions for the AIs, pangaea map, etc.). I felt the most important thing I did was to build a strong army and go on offense starting (I think) around turn 50--I don't normally play militarily in 4X games, but the AIs expanded faster than me and I didn't feel I had enough cities to compete peacefully, so that left conquest (I had 4 cities once all regions I'd discovered had been colonized--my last settler had the region it was heading towards snatched by another player 1 turn before I was going to build my own city there, twice in a row, and then got killed).



I happened to be playing Vaulters, and with a full army of marines armed with weapons made from my holy resource, I did quite well in battles, and once I took a few cities I was able to keep up in other areas as well. Eventually won a supremacy victory somewhere around turn 130, I believe (but by then I was the leader in every category and could probably have won in several different ways; supremacy was just the fastest).



My opponents were Necrophage, Drakken, Broken Lords x2, and Ardent Mages. (The Drakken had an early lead but got killed by the Necrophage and one of the Broken Lords; I didn't meet the Ardent Mages until late in the game because we started in opposite corners.)

Ironically, harder difficulties are much easier (assuming you play militarily).

There are two reasons:

1) The fact that AI get bonuses to their production means their cities are better than yours.

2) What AI don't do particularly well is defend their cities.

3) There is no "damage" to cities from taking them in EL. After a 13 turn delay on Normal speed (12.5 to be exact), you gain full control of the city. Even before then, the only major loss is approval (and the production maluses that entails).

So the only thing you need to do is get a couple of high quality armies, and take their cities.

Their handicap is now your gain.



I don't think you can win Endless if you play a pacifist or isolationist strategy, since they'll reach economic and science victories long before you.

Tigregalis wrote:
After a 13 turn delay on Normal speed (12.5 to be exact), you gain full control of the city.

If you're serious about military conquest, you probably want to get yourself a Roving Clans hero to reduce that to 5 turns (which happens to be the hero's reassignment cooldown).

I am happy to start with easiest races and maps types but relatively sticking to standard.



No viable full pacifist strategy is what I thought too. I seemed to be rushed very quickly though. I was already going quite strong military but I will go even more aiming for the military level 1 and going full unit production.



Did you have enough resources to equip units with it? level 1 or 2 titanium/glassteel? I guess having less provinces would help .



In my recent experience ai has been defending very well but I suspect it may be a bit erratic.



Also necros seem to be a power house in my games

blackForest wrote:




Also necros seem to be a power house in my games

Necros AI seem very dependent on their early game. I've had games where they were unstoppable, and I've had games where they were wiped out early. Same goes for the Cultists - my current game has one cultist who is losing badly, and the other one who is top of the log. I have to say, it is very fun trying to take a late game Cultist city (with near 1000 fortification points and multiple stacks roaming around).



The Wild Walkers seem to be on top almost always, when they are in the game.

Just finished an endless difficulty game with my custom Broken Lords (landscapist, fast travelerx2).



It wasn't my first try, but in previous attempts, healing costs broke down my economy. In this playthrough, I was saved by researching dust bishops ASAP, and creating a small team (3 stalwarts, 1 dust bishop) as soon as it was humanly possible. Getting tier 3 titanium/glasteel weapon tech from a quest helped too.



Got two +industry anomalies in my capitol, which was a godsend, and there were a few good places to settle nearby. I ended up with 5 provinces, with the polar ice to the south, and the Roving Clans securing my northern border, before anybody declared war.



My early Dust Bishop saved my butt when the eastern Broken Lords launched their assault and sent wave after wave of 6 Stalwart strong armies at the closest city. Which just happened to be my least valuable, and located on an easily defensible narrow isthmus.



Still, my team was locked down for more than 10 turns with constant sieges-- it could survive every assault without significant damage, but being locked in siege kept it from upgrading, and it was falling behind the attackers. Luckily, I was able to get reinforcements in quickly enough.



And once you're already in a war, with military superiority, you might as well just eliminate the empire.



After that, the game was just a matter of mopping up. Roving Clans, who I remained peaceful with up until the last two turns when I sieged their capitol, were ahead of me in research until the very end, although that's because I researched tier 6 military before tier 6 science-- otherwise I think I could have overtaken them.



My primary army-- with fast traveler, endless mechanisms, and Ecythis assimiliation, one was enough-- didn't work as well for me as it had in easier difficulties. I like to run 5 stalwarts and 3 dust bishops, but even with all the initiative upgrades, dust bishops are still slower than most level 10 units, which endless AI can apparently buy. Dawn officers were a pain in the ass, and I had to choose my terrain and formations carefully.



The AI played pretty stupidly. Cultists declared war-- then sent an army of 5 preachers, 1 ranged, and 1 low level hero to take the single bordering province, which I was able to defend with emergency recruits until the cavalry arrived. Vaulters kindly waited for my war with the Broken Lords to end, and even gave me a few turns to regroup, before declaring war. Drakken and Roving Clans really should have been able to see what was coming, especially once I started scouting out the Roving Clan capitol.



Ended just a few turns after 150-- researched tier 6 science, so much dust I was blowing it on raising every city to 14 population, everybody happy or fervent despite my hatred of triangles and stripes, the market stripped bare of every strategic save palladium (is there any use for that stuff?), and several cities on dedicated dust bishop production just because there wasn't anything left for them to build. Heroes in every city, but other than my warlord, I think the highest was level 6. Man I hate that Broken Lords experience web, nothing useful until the top, and no good side paths.

First of all, follow a decent early game strategy. The one as described in this posting works very well for me.



To summarize it, think of the development of your game following an exponential curve. The earlier you do things, the earlier your empire rises to its power.



I beat the endless difficulty with no major problems. Simply stick to the early game guide and be ready to attack the first opponent at turn 40 with a six-sized army, carrying T2 armor and weapons preferably.



I always stick with ranged units, mostly the Vaulters' "marines", their starting unit. I never build any other units.



You have to focus your units' equipment during early and mid game on "initiative", because you want to be the first to take action during combats, to focus your firepower on two of the enemy's most dangerous units.



As soon as you take the first few enemy cities, you have almost won. The cities are far superior to your two starting cities, because the computer "cheats" and gets many powerful buildings early in the game. This explains why should never found more than two cities by yourself. Found your first city, then your second one between turn 10 and 15, and that's it.



At around turn 80 you should aim for two six-sized armies rampaging through the map, conquering cities every two to three turns. Playing with the Vaulters, don't bother defending anything. Simply use your "teleport" skill whenever there is danger somewhere. If you play some other faction, you might want to have a third / fourth army within your territory defending incoming armies. In that case, your most important building in all of your cities should be "Right of Way", because you need the roads for your defense units. But by playing Vaulters, just teleport.



Later in the game you might receive a warning like "Opponent X has 2 out of 5 sciences for science victory". That tells you your next immediate target.



One note on Dust: before taking the first enemy city, you may be running quite low on Dust. That's because you can't explore the map after around turn 20 without putting your units at risk, so you won't get Dust from searching ruins. And you are probably rushing many productions by buying them.



But as soon as you begin taking enemy cities, your Dust problems will vanish. And if you still need some more Dust, build the "Way of Right" improvement in all of your cities.



Advancing to the end game:

Around turn 80 you should be in a very descent rush conquering the map. And your science should be sky-rocketing as well, at least when playing the Vaulters due to their faction bonus on science. It is a viable option, and I have done it as well, to skip the T3 armor and weapon upgrades and instead try to rush to T4. They're far superior, and even not as expensive. They require far less strategic resources.



Skipping T3 may force you to pause your aggressive rush for 10-15 turns, but that's better than having upgraded half of your units to T3 and then advancing to T4 anyways. And you'll need the T3 strategic resources for many city improvements as well.

Just finished a win on endless difficulty and never fought anyone. That was the strat though as I was using a custom wild walkers build. I took knack for knowledge (science bonus), living forest I think (industry bonus in forest), dust efficient, food efficient, and then to be able to pay for all that, I took all the military negatives including removing the ability to declare war. I expanded rapidly and researched diplomacy and influence. I ended up winning a diplomacy victory.

the market stripped bare of every strategic save palladium (is there any use for that stuff?)

I find palladium cuirass to be superior to anything, you get attack up easily with weapons but initiative that palladium offers especially tier 3 is just so sexy stat, rob your enemy army units their retalation.