Disappointed in my last game - AI stillborn.

[MichaelJ007]

My last game:

Galaxy: 10x10 with 1000 stars, few colonisable planets, rare independents. 12 opponents.
Wanted a galaxy that wasn't crowded with planets, where distance and travel time was a bigger factor. Space is after all, vast.

Difficulty: Extreme, Chaotic. Slow research, Human.
Hoping for a challenge, with an epic time-scale.

Outcome: I expanded to some 40 colonies, T4 techs, some border skirmishes with a couple small fleet battles. Was just getting ready to invade my largest neighbour, and the victory screen pops up. Whaaaaat.

I reckon the 'sparse' colony setting killed the AI. None of them managed to expand in any significant fashion, and they were probably all cash strapped.

On the positive side, the game was extremely stable. No crashes. None. And I did have a few nice fleet battles with destroyers and frigates. Managed to build 1 light cruiser just before the victory screen. I could sandbox the game to drag it out, but whats the point.

[Scott2933]

The best games are the ones where they start with 2 - 4 colonies (forget the name of setting - expanding or something?) and I give them a +2 level tech boost. With all of the other difficulty settings you mention. Depending upon my start, that is a good game.

[MichaelJ007]

Yeah, I've seen that suggested, but thought it would be too ambitious. I like a challenge, but I'm not a masochist.

Btw. Loved your vid explaining colonization. Started off a bit slow, but some excellent detail as you got into it. I knew there was a link between quality and max pop, but you explained it nicely. I hadn't put it down to pops per usable surface area but it makes perfect sense.

Hardly worth mentioning, but your math was a bit dodgy (38-50+20!=+18). You skipped over that you had already researched improved ocean colonization giving you an extra 10.

[Scott2933]

Yeah, I've seen that suggested, but thought it would be too ambitious. I like a challenge, but I'm not a masochist.

Btw. Loved your vid explaining colonization. Started off a bit slow, but some excellent detail as you got into it. I knew there was a link between quality and max pop, but you explained it nicely. I hadn't put it down to pops per usable surface area but it makes perfect sense.

Hardly worth mentioning, but your math was a bit dodgy (38-50+20!=+18). You skipped over that you had already researched improved ocean colonization giving you an extra 10.

Yup - it was corrected in the description and comments.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

The best games are the ones where they start with 2 - 4 colonies (forget the name of setting - expanding or something?) and I give them a +2 level tech boost. With all of the other difficulty settings you mention. Depending upon my start, that is a good game.

I've been recommending those settings too. I'd also add in that a heavy pirate and space monster setting will do more damage to the AI than the player and also excessive nebula will really screw with their expansion.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I start all my game with a variety of AI empires already being evolved in different way, create a more interesting galaxy. I also don't want too many starting empires either so there is time to expand to some degree.

I also agree the AI is hampered by the balance of the economy in the game. I have voiced my opinion of that in a few places here why that is. But there are many thing in the game the AI spend resources that have marginal impact on growth and rather hinder growth and don't add much value.

I think there are a few things in the game that needs to be rebalanced and also the AI need to re-tweaked to be better at growing it's economy.

[solops]

All very nice, but let's get the crashes fixed first. This last patch did nothing to make the game more playable for me.

[Omena]

The colony prevalence settings adjust all colony qualities by a a fixed multiplier. Setting low colony prevalence basically removes all high quality planets. Since income is very tightly bound with planet quality/suitability, you are going to have a lot less credits to work with.

The setting does not affect homeworlds though, so the AI empires should have enough credits to spare. The problem is likely just that they consider all the nearby colonies too low quality to be worth colonising. This results in very poor expansion and eventually they will lag behind in tech (less research locations), income (no as many luxuries) and pop (homeworld reaches max pop).