I stopped playing in june after stomping the AI in endless without much effort. Went back to it after the galactic update and while the new game mechanics are nice, my biggest obstacle are the pirates until i get good enough ships and tech to roll over them, the AI is still never a real threat with the normal settings.

So do you guys have any good custom settings to make the game interesting ? I heard turning off the pirates helped a bit as the AI can't manage them.

It would be nice if you guys have something because as it is, endless difficulty is as challenging as CIV V in warlord difficulty and i am close to uninstalling. Which is a shame because the game itself has so many qualities.

Thank you.

There are known bugs currently in the game where the AI does not build military ships like it should and cannot deal with pirates. I suggest shelving the game until the next update (which is taking forever) comes out.

You picked a bad time to come back unfortunately. I'm in the same boat.

Yeah, the AI is still quite a bit wonky for several reasons and as a result the game is much easier than many other 4X, even Amplitude's previous games.

Like Slashman said, as of current version the AI is having some problems with pirates and there's also a bug where it seems they only rarely build medium hulls and pretty much never build large ones. They also tend to use mercenary ships that aren't very powerful compared to customized ones, so they're pretty easy to curbstomp. Craver AI used to be a threat with their super carrier spam but now they get bullied like any other faction. There's been no patches for about a month now even after these things were first discovered so hopefully the devs are preparing a bigger update that plans on fixing a greater number of things in one go or something.

Another longer running issue is the ease of truce: I've complained about this before but the AI seems to overvalue strategic and luxury resources (especially T2 and T3 resources) in truces while not taking power difference into account, meaning it's rather easy to sue peace without losing any systems at the first turn of war even if the AI was strong enough to crush you or at least invade a few systems while you're busy fighting on multiple fronts. They also don't ever seem to abuse and break truces, not even if they have the backstabby trait.

Other non-military related issue is that the AI doesn't seem to be able to pursue victory conditions: at best they get Economic victory due to resource cheats or Conquest victory by accident, or Allied Victory with one of the two if a player cheeses it by inviting other map blobs or Dust heavy factions into their alliance. Never seen them anywhere near Scientific, Wonder or Supremacy victory. AI also doesn't try to prevent others from winning, though according to devs it's supposedly a design choice since they don't want endgame to feel to artificial with the AIs ganging up on the winner, though I think that as a result there is no endgame at all, especially if you've already become the score leader earlier in the game.

thank you for your answers. sadly, that's what i was affraid to hear. I want amplitude to succeed but as of now, it is hard to recommend the game. Guess i will wait for next patch and hope it will make things right.

Wait for the patch if it ever comes.

Playing as Horatio in a galaxy filled with AI Horatios isn't necessarily more challenging, but it is extremely funny...

Tagma wrote:

Playing as Horatio in a galaxy filled with AI Horatios isn't necessarily more challenging, but it is extremely funny...

OK yeah...that is kinda funny. It would be like you've already fulfilled your purpose of populating the cosmos with Horatios...what point is there to go on? It's already perfect!

Ashbery76 wrote:

Wait for the patch if it ever comes.

Why wouldn't it?

Endless difficuty, game speed on fast, turn off pirates, that should make the game more challegening. based on my experience, if you use this setting, AI usually declare war on you at around turn 20, and they should already have a fleet that's aroung 2000 attack power. 

Make a custom race for yourself that's the worst custom race you could imagine (as in pick one of the weaker affinities and fill it with negative traits, don't pick any positive traits)... should make it a bit more challenging.

Or simply hop on to the preview update!

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forums/65-general/threads/28757-update-preview-notes-1-1-15?page=1#post-254357