Matrix Games Forums

Personally I'd always play very hard pirates and do not consider the current situation to be overwhelming or to be a tower defense game ... on any setting.

Oh I'd probably play them on hard too, in fact I wouldn't be adverse to the top level of difficulty making them even harder than they are now. And sometimes I would play with weak, pathetic pirates for a different game experience, in fact I would vary it a lot. But that's just it isn't it? Pirate difficulty CANT be varied except indirectly through other changes to the setup.

Few pirates leads to a few ultra powerful pirates.
Many pirates leads to a few ultra powerful pirates plus many weak/crippled ones.
No matter where you set it you end up with pirates being a serious threat (except with pirates off of course).

If that was supposed to be the way we adjust difficulty, it simply doesn't work. The devs need to recognize this and give us a difficulty slider that actually changes the overall challenge that pirates present. A slider that globally adjusts their income might be a way to do this without presenting extreme coding problems.

If that was supposed to be the way we adjust difficulty, it simply doesn't work. The devs need to recognize this and give us a difficulty slider that actually changes the overall challenge that pirates present. A slider that globally adjusts their income might be a way to do this without presenting extreme coding problems.

And allow the slider to be adjusted mid game so as to strengthen the pirates when you have gotten to the point they are no longer a 'challenge.'

ORIGINAL: elanaagain

And allow the slider to be adjusted mid game so as to strengthen the pirates when you have gotten to the point they are no longer a 'challenge.'

[:D]

Darkspire

ORIGINAL: MisadventuresVG

Seriously, you should of just seen what I just watched on my screen.

I was laying siege to a pirate occupied world when a single pirate ship from another faction with half the firepower of my fleet appeared and randomly started to annihilate my fleet one ship at a time while they sat there doing sod all. On top of that when I surrounded the ship, manually it jumps out only to recharge its shields and pops in a few seconds later to finish the job. All this while the planet did nothing, then all of a sudden spawned and I mean spawned a pirate constructor, NOT BUILT, but appears out of thin air and immediately hyperjumps off. I am not being unreasonable when I say that this was somewhat BULL for the AI. I don't mind a challenge but on normal this type of attack and insta-build ability is over-powered.

I have been doing fairly well up to now focusing on the destruction of one faction which at last count had only 3 ships left. Next thing I knew they are being seemingly aided by every other pirate faction in the galaxy who then stretched my fleets abilities to cope to breaking point.

Sounds to me like one of the Pirate factions got hold of a Planet Destroyer.
I had this happen to me in my current game, very difficult to deal with early game (or at any point really).

Went through terrorizing my systems and just causing havoc in general.


Not sure if you really saw an insta-build or not.
The ships the Pirates have are fairly advanced and it can sure seem like they just pop into your system.
Unless you have Long Range Scanners you're not going to be able to tell where they're coming from.



Something I haven't seen mentioned here in dealing with Pirates is setting them against each other.
You need to pick and choose which ones you want to be "pre-occupied" with each other and set Bounties accordingly [;)]


Remember . . . "My Enemy's enemy, is my Friend" and use this in different situations.

The ship probably just warped in and it looked like it instant spawned.

Hi guys,

Please see my comments here:

tm.asp?m=3364703

Regards,

- Erik

ORIGINAL: Tammeroth

In my experience, if and when you manage that, the other empires will either mostly no longer exist (Having been converted to pirate colonies), or be so weakend by pirates that they are complete push overs.

I would be interested in hearing what happens, though [:)]

My recently added AAR may help anybody who is finding Pirates too annoying ...

So I was sent here.

Let Timo, the defender of noobs speaketh! Hear ye hear ye!

Err, does the pirate slider WORK AT ALL?

A few games, with 700 stars, normal independents and normal life, hard difficulty. Gerax hyperdrive era, EVERY AI empire is groaning under a pirate yoke, with some pirates reaching 20K firepower (in comparison, AI empires have 700 to 20000 firepower, that's 20K firepower).

And this is on the FEW pirates slider, with WEAK pirates slider!

I wanted some toned down pirates for flavor, and with FEW and WEAK the pirates rule the galaxy while the pitiful empires whimper.

"I never once had a war with a normal empire. Rather the entire game was consumed solely by attention to pirates".

Yes, early to midgame (Gerax hyperdrive and Shockwave and Impact) it is all about pirates for me also. AI empires are there to steal research from and trade (unless the pirates deign to blockade/influence a planet - then massive slaughter of AI and my own freighters ensues).

I tried to turn the pirates sliders to WEAK and FEW but it does not work - the pirates still are 3-4 times stronger than AI empires, midgame. I do not think those adjustment sliders work for me, or if they do, I wonder how strong do the STRONG and MANY pirates become [X(]



I think that both the noobs like myself and superplayers like Darkspire and Icemania and others can be satisfied.

REALLY tone down pirates when the slider is turned to WEAK. Just keep them for flavor, and don't have 400 firepower capital ships, followed by carriers, and goodness, on FEW and WEAK no effing 20K firepower pirate superpower! And no, this was not a legendary pirates faction - this was a vanilla, run of the mill pirate faction.

On STRONG, and perhaps on NORMAL pirates, keep as is, so that Darkspire and Icemania and other uberplayers can be challenged.

Something for everybody, I think.

Just tone down FEW and WEAK for noobs, and everybody is happy.

Otherwise, midgame, the not-so-uberplayer is playing whack-a-pirate, the AI empires suck, and the game is not fun with pirates on.

don't have 400 firepower capital ships

They only get those if they find them, you get messages to tell you of things to investigate, it will give you the co-ords in the message, like D,10, go grab the abandoned ships before they do. If you see a radiating circle, pulsing, on a system, click the system and select the nearest available ship to investigate, zoom right in till just befor the circle disappears, then select 'move to' for the selected ship, keep an eye on the ship as it nears the system, the bonus can be a ruin, an abandoned ship / mine etc.

Make sure you field a 20+ fleet of fast explorers ASAP from the start to find the useful things out there in the coldness of space.

When the three super luxury items are found, hotkey them to 0,9 and 8. Doesn't matter if there too far or controlled by another empire, you can aim for them when your able.

so that Darkspire and Icemania and other uberplayers can be challenged

[:D]

Darkspire

Timotheus, after Shadows release, due to similar concerns, the Pirate Strength slider was added. It is the Age of Shadows after all, so it is meant to be a time for Pirates, and you can always play a Classic game while you are getting rolling. That said, I don't object, as I never play FEW and WEAK.

ORIGINAL: Timotheus
On STRONG, and perhaps on NORMAL pirates, keep as is, so that Darkspire and Icemania and other uberplayers can be challenged.

It's still not challenging ... but DW is still more fun than any other current 4X. Pew Pew. And just had a game where Silvermist were spawned very early in the game both North and South and had a Pirate Smorgasboard before I even knew they were around ...


Jeeves is the Uberplayer, I almost always stop playing once I'm way ahead in the game, but Jeeves keeps going! That said, he does play on settings my 7 year old could win ... [:D]

ORIGINAL: Icemania

Jeeves is the Uberplayer, I almost always stop playing once I'm way ahead in the game, but Jeeves keeps going! That said, he does play on settings my 7 year old could win ... [:D]

Jeeves and General Patton are the DW ambassadors of game integrity

You just like racing horses without legs and I like blowing things up

Darkspire

They might have added a slider, but I wonder if they actually work. Here's an image of a game start with pirates start location set to distant.



I'd hate to see if the game actually use a near setting. [:@]

ORIGINAL: Bison36

They might have added a slider, but I wonder if they actually work. Here's an image of a game start with pirates start location set to distant.



I'd hate to see if the game actually use a near setting. [:@]

Gosh, what a big screen you have, color me impressed [&o]

I am stuck on a rectangle 17'' since my somewhat larger (not as big as yours) went the way of the dodo[8|]

The pirates are distant, there on the other side of the system [:D]

Darkspire

Haha! Yeah I guess they could have been on the other moon. I'm not going to lie. I just abandoned the game. Not only were they in the same system, which is bad enough. They also wanted something like 500/month protection money. It made me sad.

Thanks. I actually just replaced my old monitor. BestBuy had a really good sale and I had a gift card, which put it at a reasonable enough price to entice me to upgrade.

ORIGINAL: Darkspire
You just like racing horses without legs and I like blowing things up

Don't worry it was just a passing phase while exploring the boundaries of the game, soon realised it wasn't as much fun ...

Matrix, I'm worried. The number of Pirates are OP threads is clearly not meeting your internal KPI's. Time to multiply the probability of Legendary Pirates by 10 and introduce some uber-Legendary Pirates ...

ORIGINAL: Icemania

Jeeves is the Uberplayer, I almost always stop playing once I'm way ahead in the game, but Jeeves keeps going! That said, he does play on settings my 7 year old could win ... [:D]

LOL! [:D]

Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark! [:-]

My attempts to provoke UberJeeves into playing other settings have proven fruitless ...

Feel free to assist!

[:)]

ORIGINAL: Icemania

My attempts to provoke UberJeeves into playing other settings have proven fruitless ...

Feel free to assist!

[:)]

LOL I just started a new game, difficulty hard and scales as approach victory. But I reduced victory to 75/75/75 and 75% of that so shouldn't be a problem. I LIKE easy games, it's the empire building and management practice that attract me. I use all the available cash as it is, overspending on military and troops, so I don't want to reduce my cash too much. I don't like drawn out wars, so I go to war seldom, and then only to conquer a homeworld or an entire empire. In my new game I have the worst home system I've ever played, but that is balanced by being in an area rich with star systems, and the best leader at game start that I've ever seen. I might make this my challenge game...

Lonnie Courtney Clay