Generating a difficult game?

[cookie monster]

Ive played as the humans on a massive galaxy. I colonized over 100 planets and got the auto victory on 33% colonies with only taking 5 colonies away from the other Empires.

I then ended the game. Then just for fun blew up some planets with the World Destroyer!

Now that I've got the games basic mechanics down I was wondering.

How do I create a massive but difficult game?

I wanna play as the underdog with the suckiest race imaginable.

I wanna triumph over adversity!

What tweaks over standard should I make to AI agression slider?

Should I make their Empires more developed?

Etc...Etc...

The game must be playable though.

[J HG T]

Many players give AIs level or two advance in tech and bumb their aggression by step or two. Problem with total chaos setting is that AIs are always at war with each other and ruin their empires that way. I play with one up from normal, restless if I remember right. Works nicely.

Suckiest race? Now that's an interesting idea. Some "stupid" race with feudalism or other similar goverment could be quite challenging.

The "must have" things that I've used to make the game more challenging and interesting are manully setting research costs to over 600 and colony rarity to second lowest or lowest. This makes teching much slower and empires smaller. Each planet is important this way. In my current game I've got only 19 colonies in my empire and I'm still one of the biggest empires around.

Putting several aggressive races (hive-mind bug races do well) in the game can also give some challenge as they have tendency of developing into steamrollers if they are lucky to start alone in some good corner.

Hope these help some.

[Merker]

Hi, glad you're enjoying the game. It's awesome isn't it? And the ways the AI can surprise you make it even better.

Hmm, well for difficulty I'd suggest leaving most of your empire control to the AI. That way it's more realistic(assigning tasks for your subordinates), more difficult(they do make a lot of blunders, like sending 50 freakin' noob agents down the enemy's throat and suggesting you declare war on your ally; but don't today's politicians do a lot of mess ups?) and unexpected(you wake up with a brand new monitoring station on the border of your soon-to-be enemy before you even assemble the fleet for the war! Or you get some cool suggestions about gifts and your advisers generally know when it's good to propose a treaty, so say yes when it's about good treaties in the suggestion box)

Want more difficulty? Make all the other empires mature and same tech level, 2 higher than normal aggressiveness level, if you choose the races and their govs, make it so they get the right ones, like monarchy for mortalen, boskara and the other bug races, wekkarus, mercantile guild for traders like teekan, hakoonish etc; 1400 stars if you will, I find that with the right setting even a 700 star can drag on forever; whichever galaxy shape you want; tech slowest possible; planet quality lowest possible, few habitable worlds, independent even fewer; lots of pirates, space creatures only if you want them, I think they're just a black hole for ships.

Get your race with the smallest growth rate(my manual says Dhayut at 6% reproduction rate), which is good because they are also insectoids, so you'll get a lot of hate from everyone, making you work for your treaties.. Don't go for earliest expansion, instead take the one that gives you several colonies, and pick a tech 1-2 levels lower than everyone else.

Now this should be a playable game but not impossible, you have a few core colonies well developed but it will be VERY difficult to expand and you'll have to take care of your resource spots. Treaties will be difficult but not impossible to get, and there will be lots of wars in the galaxy with that setting, mainly between insectoids and everyone else, at least that's the final outcome, or humanoids and reptiles, with the Wekkarus and Atuuk keeping to themselves. You will have to assume an aggressive posture against more hostile races in order to expand, but it will be possible because each empire will probably be at war with at least 1-2 others, so you can snatch a colony or two from people when they decide to declare war.

The goal should be territorial at at least 50%, 20 years till it becomes valid, which you'll have a HARD time attaining, because everyone will be much stronger military and territorial than you.

So, what'd'ya think?

[Data]

Having the AI with superior starting tech level is a must, same for agression. There is also a mod that makes the AI tougher, you can find it here

tm.asp?m=2660327

[WoodMan]

See the settings (and house rules) I posted in this thread, its generated a pretty difficult game:

tm.asp?m=2637833

I prefer to keep aggression normal and give the AI a headstart thats believeable from a roleplaying perspective.  Setting higher aggressions leads to all AI fighting each other in multiple wars, a perfect distraction for you to move in and take advantage.

Aggressive alien races that have more powerful Empires than you will attack or provoke you, I'm currently keeping a Sluken Empire with 10x my military power at bay with various deals.... what they don't know is I've located a world destroyer... its just a matter of time you ant bastards [:D]

[J HG T]

Punishment Woodman style. [:)]
Those Slukens are gonna get some pain.

And have to agree with the aggression settings. I don't know how the 1.5.06 affected this, but normal or restless are the best options from RP/"realism" point of view currently. 

[Sithuk]

Excellent idea for a thread.

I thought setting the aggression to highest would be the hardest setting. I'll re-start with the level below now.

I guess giving the AI's a two tech lead gives them time to build enough research bases to use their full "research potential". I read that the AI don't retrofit their research at the start like the human does, so suffer a tech lag that the human can take advantage of. Is a 2 tech lead with 600 research costs enough to give them the time they need to expand their research bases sufficiently?

[J HG T]

Can't say for sure, as I use 600 and higher research costs to make games slower and more interesting; I'm not one those people who give AIs bonus tech levels at the start of a game. I like equal starts in strategy games. 
This's why I've been writing that AIs need to build more research stations, as they don't build them at all currently (they only build them at black-holes and neutron stars). Hope it gets patched.

[cookie monster]

Well I started a game as the Ugnari (Rodents).

They have a low growth rate and really sucky troops.

I made a 1400 star galaxy and included all the races.

I set them up to be level 2 tech and gave them Hive Mind,Monarchy,Democracy goverments.

I started as a despot, I'm now a Democracy.

My position is in the middle, Im now boxed in by various Aliens.

I have 5 colonies, loadsa money, but puny military strength. My first cruisers are being made. I traded for level 2 construction.

I can colonise Ice planets naturally, I've also had 2 continental planets flip to me, so they will eventually make colony ships.

Tech cost is set a 600K. It's gonna be real slow to catch up.

Pirates and space creatures are everywhere. I had to edit out a pirate cruiser, it was in my home system destroying everything.

I also had the aliens make a colony in my next door system. They then made trade sanctions cos of my mining stations.

I then traded out of this by selling my caslon mine and another mine for a cool million. I wouldnt normally trade, but this is a big hole to dig myself out of.

With now only one caslon source I edited another into my home system, I think otherwise the game would of become unplayable.

I retrofitted my large space port to 30 construction bays, just to speed up my military construction.

I have lots of money. Just not enough construction capacity.

Here's the galaxy map. Im the dark red with the cross hairs fixed on the home planet.

[Igard]

Cool game, cookie monster. It would make a nice AAR.

Sometimes you just have to make a deal with the pirates. They can really become the bane of the small empire if they've got higher tech than you.

It looks like you're seriously outnumbered. Just try to keep a low profile and focus on weapons and shield tech, crash research as much as you can with all that nice money you've got.[:)]

[Merker]

Pirates can be the key to bringing your empire to the top, if you know how to use them[:'(][8|][8|] With all that money you can keep making donations of 10k to pirates(just pay for protection then break it then pay for it again until you have given them 100k) until they get a huge fleet then send them to your enemies. I found out that after a while they never find out you made the deals with the pirates, so your rep is safe.

Use the pirates, Luke! Force is for dummies!

Cheers

[cookie monster]

ORIGINAL: Merker

Pirates can be the key to bringing your empire to the top, if you know how to use them[:'(][8|][8|] With all that money you can keep making donations of 10k to pirates until they get a huge fleet then send them to your enemies. I found out that after a while they never find out you made the deals with the pirates, so your rep is safe.

Use the pirates, Luke! Force is for dummies!

Cheers

I made a mistake earlier editing out that pirate, I forgot I could pay protection like my last game.

I dont have any enemies. I'm just a poor rodent empire!

My only friend are the Teekans, although I now have about 8 free trade agreements.

Ive allied with pirates in the past, when they attacked somebody they found out that the pirates had been funded by me. My reputation with them was trashed.

Im lookin for a EPIC game, so I will not take advantage of pirate info etc.

Got a major Caslon problem though. Queued alot of gas clouds via the expansion planner for mining.

[Merker]

Don't take advantage of pirate info, just keep paying them for protection then breaking the contract then paying for it again until they have like 100k or something.

[cookie monster]

That would be an exploit.

[Merker]

Well, no, it's just using the game mechanics you're give to do something you should be able to. Not enough diplomacy options IMO, you should be able to fund your mercenaries with whichever amount you want. Like you can fund any empire by giving them free cash....

You call giving your enemies cash so you have a tougher opponent an exploit?! You muppet!

[alexalexuk]

try the super AI mod here:

tm.asp?m=2660327

It will be a challenge for you.

[cookie monster]

Thanks for the help guys.

I've since got a World Destroyer and I am the strongest military.

The Mortalen's demanded a colony so with the new beta we went to war.

I wiped the floor with them and captured their capital.

The new colony is rebelling but I have twice the troops,fortified bunker,space port & defensive base all raining death on them.

I made a noob mistake and my fleets are mostly recovered debris field ships.

There's two problems with them.

1. You can use them as your military to keep the AI Races off your back, until you can build your own capitals.

Problem. You can punch above your weight.

2.Retire them for tech, and even on 600,000 research cost you will research far too quickly.

All Frigates/Destroyers & Transports were retired, the tech tree was ALOT easier to research.

For a truly difficult game I will next time destroy them all. Apart from the W.D.

The game is on hold, the save file is at 68 MB's and my poor TRAVEL laptop with it's shared video memory will no longer load the game.

I will have to wait till my new desktop arrives.

As I said I started with the Ugnari. I am uploading a screenshot of my research.

Is my Research Actual Output low because of a small Empire Strategic Value?

It's hard to have a good strat value when you start as the Ugnari and the AI empires start Mature (with lots of colonies) and level two technology. The Ugnari's can only naturally colonise Ice planets and the colonisation techs were real expensive to research.

My home Large Space port has been retrofitted to 30 Labs of the three types, but I just get the feeling the low strat value is holding back my research.

[cookie monster]

Well the games over.

I have 700 troops, 200,000 military strength. About 25% of the colonies.

To win quickly would just be going thru the motions of troop invasion.

The AI's destroyed thru wars and piracy, no industry to speak of.

I had 90 constructors mostly waiting for polymer and steel.

Can't build all the polymers reserved!

While some freighters were transporting 1 gold.[8|]

The ROTS story line progressed fully but the AI can't even stomp on other AI's when they have less than 3 colonies.

I think I'm gonna play at normal agression level and normal pirates.

The game was virtually unplayable at pirates many.

The pirates stole my designs so some were 200 firepower frigates. I wont commit the noob mistake of over-gunning my escorts/frigates cos the AI would be torn to pieces by such powerful pirates.

The research cost was at 600K. The AI was very far behind, so I will set the rate to normal and see if it can keep up.

Don't know who to try next. Maybe the Securans she's one sexy mama!

[Data]

Check Shark's suggestion for J's soon to come aar....securan military dictatorship [:)]

[J HG T]

Can't go wrong with *insert your favourite color here* space babes. No offence of any kind meant to babes of earth! Don't hit me! *hides under bed*