ncknck: did you use the tutorial, or did you assume that your expertise was enough for the fleet to launch from the hanger ?

Are you guys kidding? ncknck is just trolling. Haven't you read some of his posts or seen his name in other threads?



Problem is, he isn't the great player he thinks he is. In fact, his posts suggest the opposite. Very good at derailing threads, though, I suppose.

ncknck wrote:
Come on, i play games since Commodore 63 and i think im quite an expert, the fleet is created, it just doesnt start from the hangar. The AI cheats too much its quite obvious because im not winning.

Thats my grandpa.



personally i leave game alone and after couple of hours it wins itself for me. The game is impossible to lose. You have to play it in a very special way to fail.

Mikey wrote:
Wait. What. People think the AI is too hard? Really?

People are saying the AI is too hard on the easiest difficulty settings, which can be a fair critique. Its one thing if endless difficulty is kicking your butt, but on the easiest mode it should be a pretty easy time.

Wait. What. People think the AI is too hard? Really?



I too am annoyed by the fact that higher difficulty makes expansion approval hurt the player more, and I wish the AI didn't need the massive bonuses it gets (at the very least, it should not get military bonuses - only FIDS and approval), but I'd actually like the AI to be a lot smarter and a lot more adaptive overall, because pretty much any non-combat victory is waaaaaaay too easy to achieve on any difficulty so long as you don't get the worst starting space dice roll imaginable.



The wonder victory structure needs to be far more time-consuming to build, and the economic victory goal needs to adjust relative to other factions' economies, as it's way too easy to achieve by turn ~100 or so if you're actually managing your empire well, especially playing as UE. Science victory is about the only passive victory condition that doesn't seem too easy to achieve.

ncknck wrote:
Ok, i found the fleet autolaunch button, thanks. But the AI needs to be fixed, it attacks me too soon, i cant prepare and win. Also the attacking ships somehow mask their real faction color, and there is no similar feature for the player in the interface either.

Are they perhaps grey in color? Look not alike to any other playable faction in the manual combat?

I'd guess they are pirates, then.

Pirates cannot spawn within sight range, therefore early scout deployment in your constellation is very important.

Ncknck : masked faction colour ? This is new, what version are you using ? And if possible could you attach a save file or screenshot of this incident.

The simplest argument in favor of reducing the difficulty level is to point out the level of customization available in the game. You can very easily create more or less challenging conditions without adjusting the difficulty setting. If you want a conquest or expansion victory then play a 1 vs 1 game, if you want those victory conditions to be more difficult then add more opponents to your game. As several people have pointed out, it may be less challenging to play with a custom race over the pre-made races.



If i'm playing the game with one of the default races; in a 1 vs 3 game, I'd like to have a chance of winning. In a 1 vs 3 game the conquest or expansion victories seem nigh on impossible to achieve even on newbie difficulty. If you choose to play the standard Sophons and you're still unable to maintain a technological advantage, then clearly the AI advantages are sufficient to outgrow your racial advantage. They very simply expand and develop faster than it's possible for the player to achieve. I've spent 42 hours playing the game and my impression is still that it's weighted unfairly in favor of the AI empires.



Now if I choose to stop playing the game out of disappointment; I can't see how that would matter very much to the folks at Amplitude as they've already collected my money. But I do like the game very much, it looks fantastic so far, kudos to the developers. But I hope you will take these arguments to heart and actually change something that will make my game experience more enjoyable. Sure there's ways I can make the game easier within certain constraints, but the possibilities are very limited as it stands.

ncknck wrote:
Come on, i play games since Commodore 63 and i think im quite an expert, the fleet is created, it just doesnt start from the hangar. The AI cheats too much its quite obvious because im not winning.

Commodore 63? I remember the 64, but what is the 63? I even had the Vic 20, so I must REALLY be an expert!!

Ok, i found the fleet autolaunch button, thanks. But the AI needs to be fixed, it attacks me too soon, i cant prepare and win. Also the attacking ships somehow mask their real faction color, and there is no similar feature for the player in the interface either.

Token63 wrote:
I suppose the AI needs a way to win the game in order to make it challenging; the Economic victory is specially for them and probably not meant to be achieveable by the player. It's hard to bankroll dust and stay ahead in the game, you really need to spend in order to speed your development just to keep up.

I suppose the same may be true for the overall score, it's just there to impose a turn limit on the player. I'm sure that disabling those victory conditions would make it much harder for the AI to win.

The economical victory does not require anyone to save that amount of dust, just produce it during the course of a game. You can spend it as freely as you want and the AI does the same.

Also you can disable any victory conditions you like in the advanced options during game creation.

oO umm... wow... enough said.

I'd like to sum up what i'm going to say here, the devs need to make the game a little easier so that I'll be able to enjoy playing it.



In a single player game the AI players seem to have far too many advantages. The 4x multiplier for unhappiness due to expansion is a pretty serious malus for the player, on the lowest difficulty setting. As the game currently stands, I don't beleive it's feasable that I'd ever be able to win based on Score, Economy, or Technology. Even on the Newbie setting I start falling behind very early in the game; and I will even fall behind on research while playing the Sophon race when there are no other Sophons in the game! This doesn't really make sense when you consider the racial advantage you are getting in research, clearly the AI players are not bound by the same rules as the player. If I'm lucky I might be able to get a wonder victory before the other empires win the game in some other way, but that seems to be one of the few ways that I can possibly win. I'm still somewhat baffled by the AI's ability to accumulate Command Points over and above what seems to be available from research.



I realize that the game is still unfinished, but after paying full price for a retail game, I'd like to be able to get more enjoyable playtime out of my investment. Potentially this is a game I could like very much, but you guys need to make the easy setting a little bit easier for players like me.

And its not that i'm completely stupid about these types of games, I'm a 49 year old veteran of many 4X type games.

ncknck wrote:
Come on, i play games since Commodore 63 and i think im quite an expert, the fleet is created, it just doesnt start from the hangar.

Sorry, did you actually say that you are an expert game player and you cannot figure out how to launch a fleet?

Token63 wrote:
Well I've played several different games, mostly on the newbie difficulty. Just got trounced in Normal difficulty pretty badly. The Sophons seem to start out with a slight advantage; but what i don't understand is why the research bonus they get is not keeping me ahead in research. I'm not getting attacked early, it's mostly just the pirates early in the game and they're not too bad. Pirates offer an opportunity to gain some fleet XP, so it's a good thing. My early research strategy is to unlock the planet colonizations then alternate between research advantages and happiness advantages as needed. It seems that i'm falling behind in every single criteria very early in the game, and then continue to lose ground. Really not focusing on military strength here, just looking for a strategy to the economic victory, seems unobtainable but the AI is using this path to victory against me.



Seems to me that developing planets within the same system is creating as much expansion unhappiness as grabbing single worlds in multiple systems; and that doesn't really make sense to me.



In a couple of the 1v1 games i played, i noted that the empires were not separated by wormholes.



The AI decision making process doesn't seem to be bad at all, the advantages they get are unfairly weighting the game in their favor. And I'm mostly looking at this from the perspective of a single player game.



If i shift my focus to the conquest or expansion victory it may be a whole lot easier, needs more testing.



EDIT: example, just started 4 empire game on normal difficulty, with United Empire, on turn 23 i'm already in last place for every viewable critera.

Are you using the default Sophons or have you created a custom race based on them? If you are using a custom, what traits did you take?

Are you building those science planetary improvements (such as public-private partnerships. It doesn't just give you the effect, you need to actually build it on each of your planets)?

Are you using industry to science conversion (if your planet generates positive dust values, then definitely use industry to science)?

Are you colonizing high science planets like barren and tundra?

Are you getting the -30% scientific victory research passives at the end of the diplomacy, weapons and colonizing tech trees? These are super important.



A tip I learned to help with researching is to queue up your research. Always have something researching, never let the queue empty. The reason being that, say you generate 25 research a turn, and you select a research that costs 20. If you queue up another research after, what will happen is that when you finish the 20 cost research, that extra 5 that is left over will go to the next research, making it faster to research the next one.

ncknck wrote:
Come on, i play games since Commodore 63 and i think im quite an expert, the fleet is created, it just doesnt start from the hangar. The AI cheats too much its quite obvious because im not winning.

Building a fleet on a system and creating a fleet from the hanger are 2 very different things.

Shivetya wrote:
You need to create a fleet. When viewing your hangar you have a create button to make a fleet.

Come on, i play games since Commodore 63 and i think im quite an expert, the fleet is created, it just doesnt start from the hangar. The AI cheats too much its quite obvious because im not winning.

I suppose the AI needs a way to win the game in order to make it challenging; the Economic victory is specially for them and probably not meant to be achieveable by the player. It's hard to bankroll dust and stay ahead in the game, you really need to spend in order to speed your development just to keep up.

I suppose the same may be true for the overall score, it's just there to impose a turn limit on the player. I'm sure that disabling those victory conditions would make it much harder for the AI to win.

There's a loophole in the territory and diplomacy system which allows you to travel through enemy territory without an open border agreement!

So long as you are traveling to an unexplored star system, it will alow you to pass through enemy territory.

Also its notable that enemy ships located within your territory are not forced to leave once peace has been established.

For example if they happened to be at one of your outposts before it becomes territory.

ncknck wrote:
Yes there is definitely a problem, the AI beats me even on the easiest setting too. I even build a massive fleet to defend my 3 planets empire but they dont even launch from the hangar to defend! I think the AI is cheating because their ships can move and i only have the two starting scouts.

You need to create a fleet. When viewing your hangar you have a create button to make a fleet.

Yes there is definitely a problem, the AI beats me even on the easiest setting too. I even build a massive fleet to defend my 3 planets empire but they dont even launch from the hangar to defend! I think the AI is cheating because their ships can move and i only have the two starting scouts.