Recently, I played 10 test games to see if I could achieve Ascension on Grand Admiral difficulty without getting attacked by the AI (0 diplomacy, 0 army production — pure Ascension rush).
I got attacked in only 3 out of 10 games. If I had used diplomacy, it probably would have been just 1 out of 10. That’s really bad — Grand Admiral is supposed to be difficult.
It’s not a big surprise people say the game isn’t hard when the gameplay currently looks like this: start, rush Ascension, build up, and then take over the galaxy while the AI can’t put up any resistance.
Because of that, a lot of people call for “fixing the AI,” and I agree it needs improvements. The way the AI develops its planets is terrible. But I don’t think that alone will fix the problem. It would be really hard for the devs to make the AI play on the level of a player, and if the meta ever changes, it could become weak again.
The better solution, in my opinion, is to force the player to build ships early on and have the economy to support them. This way, instead of ascending by 2230, the player might ascend by 2250 or even later. This would prolong the part of the game where the AI is actually a danger to the player.
The best thing that could be done, in my opinion, is to make the AI — especially aggressive types like hegemonic imperialists or slaving despots — much more likely to attack if their neighbor have way weaker fleets. This way, if you’re not building any ships, you’ll get attacked basically 100% of the time unless you get lucky and end up between “federation builders” and “eager explorers.”
(it also makes sense lore wise as if autorytarian empire would see that there are free and undefended slaves next to them they would go for it)
Grand Admiral is supposed to be hard, and this change would make it so, while having almost no impact on players who play on lower difficulties, since the AI there doesn’t build big fleets anyway.
The only real way to make the late game difficult is to delay it. But if you want my advice on how to make it harder in the late game, just give the AI a passive buff — like -30% empire size from all sources. The biggest weakness of the AI right now is that it falls behind in tech because it naturally plays wide and epire size destroys it. The AI can’t really play tall, because that would make the game even easier and with even less war. So instead, make it so it’s less punished for playing wide.
I got attacked in only 3 out of 10 games. If I had used diplomacy, it probably would have been just 1 out of 10. That’s really bad — Grand Admiral is supposed to be difficult.
It’s not a big surprise people say the game isn’t hard when the gameplay currently looks like this: start, rush Ascension, build up, and then take over the galaxy while the AI can’t put up any resistance.
Because of that, a lot of people call for “fixing the AI,” and I agree it needs improvements. The way the AI develops its planets is terrible. But I don’t think that alone will fix the problem. It would be really hard for the devs to make the AI play on the level of a player, and if the meta ever changes, it could become weak again.
The better solution, in my opinion, is to force the player to build ships early on and have the economy to support them. This way, instead of ascending by 2230, the player might ascend by 2250 or even later. This would prolong the part of the game where the AI is actually a danger to the player.
The best thing that could be done, in my opinion, is to make the AI — especially aggressive types like hegemonic imperialists or slaving despots — much more likely to attack if their neighbor have way weaker fleets. This way, if you’re not building any ships, you’ll get attacked basically 100% of the time unless you get lucky and end up between “federation builders” and “eager explorers.”
(it also makes sense lore wise as if autorytarian empire would see that there are free and undefended slaves next to them they would go for it)
Grand Admiral is supposed to be hard, and this change would make it so, while having almost no impact on players who play on lower difficulties, since the AI there doesn’t build big fleets anyway.
The only real way to make the late game difficult is to delay it. But if you want my advice on how to make it harder in the late game, just give the AI a passive buff — like -30% empire size from all sources. The biggest weakness of the AI right now is that it falls behind in tech because it naturally plays wide and epire size destroys it. The AI can’t really play tall, because that would make the game even easier and with even less war. So instead, make it so it’s less punished for playing wide.
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