Matrix Games Forums

Is this because I have set the game to the highest difficulty setting ?

I'm after a game where the AI is researching from scratch the same as I am, but I still have the difficulty with economy etc..

Can I not get this ?

Here is an image of my game settings for AI players.


And here is what I'm faced with in year 43.


Obviously they didn't research and expand that much in 43 years, because... DW AI.

Any help appreciated.

Can you explain more clearly what your problem is?

First pick you can see I start them with zero research - same as me.

2nd pick they have expanded to 15 planets before I got out of my solar system.

Somehow I very much doubt they did that from a position of zero research, yes ?

I'm really not sure how to make it any plainer. Perhaps re-read the post ?

I experienced something similar in my first DW-Universe game. There is a setting in the galaxy tab, that controls the "age" of something (I am sorry, I forgot, I am not at home atm) This seems to influence the "age" of your and your enemies empires as well (where it shouldn't) Try to set this slider to "young" and try again. (I think this was the solution, its been some time...)

Will give it a shot, thanks.

edit: yeah that is the size tab up there that reads pre-warp. (the first one).

I will change them and see if it's a bug to do with that.

43 years is a long time into the game, even on prewarp. I'm unsurprised they've expanded that far. You clearly had a slow start regardless of the enormous bonuses the AI gets on the hardest difficulty.

If they are set to prewarp/prewarp they will start with nothing and no research same as you.

Yeah, 43 years is a long time, the AI can easily do that even on lower settings, and it's all legit. As a player, it should be possible to do that easily even though you don't have the AI's bonuses.

Yeah I have found it is actually to do with the research speed which isn't in the pics above. That's set to 400k which is very slow - and only seems to effect ME. I thought that would effect everyone.

The idea was to slow the game down, but I guess it only slows me down :\

Actually reading the description when you click on "Research costs" it says "Determines how fast research occurs in the GALAXY, and thus how quickly new components become available for use in ships and bases. There are other factors specific to each empire which also determine research speed, but this setting is a global value."

So... this isn't working - I have checked via the editor that this is indeed the problem they research at astronomical levels unlike my guys.

I have DW Extended Universe installed, I wonder if that is the issue ? I might ask on Haree's thread.

At 400k it shouldn't be taking you 43 years to get out of your home system, so the problem isn't that it's not applying to other races, it's that something's wrong with your empire. Make sure you have enough lab space to satisfy your empire's potential, for one thing.

For reference, with research set to Expensive (is that 250k? I forget) it takes me about 4-5 years go get out of my system with a pre-warp start.

So... this isn't working - I have checked via the editor that this is indeed the problem they research at astronomical levels unlike my guys.

it should be noted that research potential is on a nonlinear curve with either your population or economic strength. If the AIs powered up/grew faster than you did it's more than possible they were getting much better base research rates than you were, on top of anything they get from tech trading, discoveries, or scrapping. And research bonuses from scientists/bases of course.

note: this is seperate from what Cauldyth is talking about, which is the possibility you arn't reaching your research potential to begin with owing to a lack of labs.

Naa they are far far far ahead, I mean they get basic weapons and such WAY faster even. Like you can really tell through the editor that this is the issue.

It's not a mechanic from a find, it's a consistent bonus going over many years continually.

Forget about the other AIs. Their progress is irrelevant to the real problem at hand, which is that it's taking you 43 years to leave the nest. You're off by an order of magnitude for some reason, it should be 1/10th that time.

Because I have the research turned right up to almost max ?

*sigh*

Please read what people have been writing here. As an example, on Expensive (which is 240k) it takes me 4-5 years to leave the home system (8-10 years in the case of bad luck like repeated research failures). At 400k it should take you 7-8 years (15-20 with bad luck), not 43.

Yeah 43 years is extremely terrible.

I'm not sure what year I left the system in, just where the game was at at the time.

In any case their tech is going 10x faster.

Please listen to what I am saying here. I can see that in the editor.

I build 10 of each lab straight off the bat, and they are going 10x faster than me and they don't even go into research tech until much later.

Could you show us the fourth tab of your research window? The one where your empires reseach is summarized.
Could you also please check the population of your homeworld and the population of the other empires homeworlds? Maybe even at gamestart? In my probelmatic gamestart (with version 1.9.5.0) it turned out I started with about 1/4th the population of the other empires. If you look at the colored circles in your galaxy map, you will notice that your circle is smaller that the circles of the other empires' homeworlds.

He claimed in another thread that it was because of extended not copying over correctly. Idk though, he never really specified what he was 'seeing'. He preferred to start a shouting match than provided details to support his claim.