Victory - Human Very Hard (not really)

[MichaelJ007]

I was getting bored with steamrolling in this game by the time victory came around. AI didn't really offer resistance despite settings on very hard. Guess another bump in difficulty is due.

Game was surprisingly stable this afternoon, despite crashing tons earlier today and last night.

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[SirHoraceHarkness]

Research is waaaaaay too easy and you simply get so far ahead of the ai they can't ever really pose a credible threat. Between spamming research bases and spies stealing tech I can turbo to mid game tech long before the ai can do the same. However you can get a decent fight out of them if you give yourself a large enough starting handicap by letting them have a large tech base lead and starting empire so they don't bottleneck early game and fall behind. This lets them deal with pirates and space monsters so they can more easily expand. If you start you ai on prewarp they often will never even leave their home system before you have a huge empire already.

[Kriegsspieler]

Even on extreme difficulty, it's not really very challenging. In my most recent game, I got control of a ship junkyard that included a cruiser(!). In the early game, I could just go rampaging anywhere I chose.

I know there are many difficult issues for the developers at the moment, but sooner or later some serious game-balancing is called for. "Hard" or "very hard" should give the player a good chance of getting rolled by an AI empire.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

Difficulty level only effects the player by slowing down research and increasing costs etc. Even in DWU if you started the ai at prewarp they would never keep up with the human player. This is why there are pre game options to give them established empires and higher tier tech. Try setting the ai empires to young and the tech level to 3 and you will find that by the time you make contact they are somewhat ahead of you and not instantly giving you a -35 malus for being too powerful. It also helps to set pirates to very few but very powerful so they don't overwhelm the ai empires and stunt their expansion but still give some measure of challenge to the player. Same with space creatures in that too many will cause the ai expansion to stall out if you set them to prewarp. Never hurts to give it a try and see if it provides a better experience. Thats the beauty of the setup screen you can make the game a pushover or make it a nightmare. Try seeding the galaxy with a dozen or so boskara and play as human.

[Kriegsspieler]

Good suggestions. I'll try giving the AI a little more help with a tech advantage. It will also reduce the annoyance level to reduce the number of pirates! Even on "normal," there are a lot of them!

[MichaelJ007]

My current game (on Extreme) is going a bit slow. Besides not finding the time to play (work), I started the game surrounded, so battling to expand.

I did set the TECH RESEARCH rate to slow though. And that is also making the game have a more epic feel. I swear some of the AI are ahead of me in research. May also just be that the advantages aren't apparent yet.

I am playing as Mortalen (Red), and my first target for elimination are those hairless Apes (blue). Once the Rim is secure, I will move inwards. Assuming the Boskara doesn't wipe me out first. At the moment, I am cash-strapped, and slightly over-extended from trying to grab some colonies.

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[mordachai]

Playing on say 1K stars, max galaxy size (10x10?) with reduced colony candidates and rare or very rare independents massively changes the story-arc, and forces you towards the terraforming techs much sooner, and war much later.

Similarly, starting with more base tech for AIs and maybe use the 2-4 starting worlds options, and you will find a very different game ahead of you.

I also like to turn off the game-story stuff - because those blasted junk yards are just too powerful. I loathe them personally - wish I could have a setting to say "they cannot be restored, only contribute to research and raw materials when deconstructed". That would change the flow of the game considerably - not to have god-machines gifted randomly to whatever empire is near a grave to start the game.

[Kriegsspieler]

I also think the junkyards are far too powerful. In my last couple of games I have just left them alone. Even the research they yield sometimes seems too much.

[scotten_usa]

In original DW, I always slowed down research because it was happening too quickly (and I'd constantly be refitting my ships). It's somewhat slower in DW2, but I might decrease tech research speed in my next game.

[Kriegsspieler]

Even on the slowest speed, which I use, it goes pretty quickly if you pay for tech rushing. There's so much money sloshing around, it's tempting to do so.

[MichaelJ007]

Ive been playing this game for two weeks now (between work and family commitments).

Giving it up to start a fresh game on the latest patch.

Screenshots for final position below.

Game settings: Extreme, Chaotic, Slow Research, playing as Mortalen.
The slow research was a royal pain in the beginning, but by mid/late game it didn't matter much.
I seem to be far ahead of nearest rivals in tech, and steamrolling any empire i want to.
40M cash, +1M cashflow, 22k Research, Several 300k fleets, and 2.5M in fleet power. I can continue, but really want to try a fresh game after all the breaks.

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