One of the problems I have in my games is that they start out too hard, then become too easy.



Once I've conquered one faction and have their star systems, the rest are not much of a challenge.



To address this I plan on implementing progressive difficulty.



The way it will work is the game gets harder with every tier of technology.



For example, I play the Hard difficulty on Super Nova. That grants the AI controlled factions a 40% bonus to FIDS, upkeep, ship cost, and invasion module weight.



With progressive difficulty, it might be:



Tier I: 30%

Tier II: 50%

Tier III: 70%

Tier IV: 90%

Tier V: 100%



The other difficulties would simply scale the percentages up or down.



The result I'm looking for is I want to fight for the center of the galaxy with corvettes, then conquer the first faction with destroyers and tier II tech, then the second faction with cruisers and tier III tech, etc. Each faction should put up a good fight with equivalent ships and technology. I'll adjust the percentages as necessary to achieve that effect.



Any thoughts on this before I implement it?

I like the concept, not much view on the implementation though, but this is worth a try.

Its an interesting approach, though it might feel a bit artificial. (it'll become increasingly obvious as the FIDS ramp up since the AI influence circle will grow) Also, the resulting score increase can be exploited as AI tend to give better deals when dealing with people of lesser score. So an AI may give the player a really sweet deal even though the AI is not in a strong position. I don't know, its worth a try.



Another thing that is probably not currently mod-able would be to have the AI players start going into alliance in an attempt to stop you, ending with all of them in one alliance when you have control of about half the galaxy. Its how several games have done it in the past but I don't see a way to implement it in ES.

When implementing this, I discovered that the progressive difficulty has to be the same for all difficulty levels so it can't be too high. I'm playtesting +10% at tier 2 through 5.



I've done a lot of work on the diplomatic attitude modifiers in the Super Nova mod and they provide great flexibility. I currently have it balanced so many factions aggressively declare war on anyone who gets too far ahead while still making it possible to maintain longstanding treaties. Balancing those two wasn't easy. The problem is that once I conquered a faction and took all their star systems, my power doubled and I left everyone else in the dust.



In GalCiv2, conquering a system kills most of the population and destroys most of the buildings which slows the conqueror down. I think I'll increase the collateral damage from troops, fighters, and bombers.



Thanks for the feedback.

I really like the idea of increased collateral damage. Not that I have seen many planetary invasions myself , but I would imagine it to be quite a damaging process, if we go by what happens nowadays for simple countries.

Cool.



Troops I to V will do collateral damage to 1 to 5 population.

Fighters and bombers I to V will do collateral damage to 1 to 5 improvements.

Shelters I to V will protect 2 to 10 population while anti aircraft installations I to V will protect 2 to 10 improvements.



To minimize collateral damage, the player might want to use the smallest fleet that can get the job done.

LetoSilvermane wrote:
Cool.



Troops I to V will do collateral damage to 1 to 5 population.

Fighters and bombers I to V will do collateral damage to 1 to 5 improvements.

Shelters I to V will protect 2 to 10 population while anti aircraft installations I to V will protect 2 to 10 improvements.



To minimize collateral damage, the player might want to use the smallest fleet that can get the job done.

I like that.