RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Settings

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RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/21/2013 3:57:14 PM

MarQan

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Nothing by itself changes the game fundamentally. Don't dissect my post, the suggestions weren't supposed to be taken separately.

The triumvirate of this game is Money-Research-Military, if you're getting behind in any of it, you're gonna have a bad time. Excluding the Research and Money races matters much. Race-selection is not a "manual restriction", it's part of the game and the main component of the difficulty setting. Military races are unfortunately not as military as they should be, and they're very hated, so I'd say they're medium difficulty.

So you're PreWarp, on Very Hard at least, Unstable at least, with Very Many Pirates Nearby, and the max number of Empires on the given map size. This means that the pirates gonna cut your income pretty soon. With Very High Corruption this is a major setback. With a Harsh Home-World it hurts even more.
With Starting or Young Empires you have much catching up to do.

At 999K Research Cost you have to focus on Energy Research to get out of your system. Then you'll probably get attacked soon by a bold pirate, or a bored empire which means you need weapons. So in the first 100 years your research is pretty restricted, you can't beeline.

If this is not challenging, then please define what you mean by challenging.

(in reply to Icemania)

Post #: 31

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/21/2013 4:33:50 PM

Darkspire

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Icemania

MarQan, I don't see any current setting that would materially change the ability to exploit trading. And in any case I want to trade as it's a great feature of the game.

On Chaos I've always been able to find at least a few Empires to be friendly with at least temporarily ... enabling trading and catch-up. Once I'm expanding this can become far more difficult, so I don't expand until I've already caught up on technology, when playing a game with these settings.

As for restricting the races, I'd prefer the AI was improved, rather than putting in even more "manual" restrictions than what I've already adopted. But let's say I did what you suggest ... well I could still beeline for a higher technology which I could then trade. It would take longer to get to technology parity but it wouldn't fundamentally change anything.

Each to their own but personally I find technology research on $999k is too slow. Again, it would just take longer to get to technology parity, it wouldn't fundamentally change anything.

Same with high corruption. And I don't allow myself to sell technology anymore.

With Shark's suggestion it is certain my trading opportunities would be very limited but possible with enough focus. It better emulates the real world and provides a fundamental change to improve the game.

I'll try Cluster.

Try setting up a custom race with negative amounts or just 0 with relations to all the other races in the biases file, no one wants to trade and usually ends up with them wanting to go to war, you can still have relations but you really have to work at it if you do want them.

Darkspire

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Post #: 32

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/21/2013 4:36:25 PM

Darkspire

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MarQan

Nothing by itself changes the game fundamentally. Don't dissect my post, the suggestions weren't supposed to be taken separately.

The triumvirate of this game is Money-Research-Military, if you're getting behind in any of it, you're gonna have a bad time. Excluding the Research and Money races matters much. Race-selection is not a "manual restriction", it's part of the game and the main component of the difficulty setting. Military races are unfortunately not as military as they should be, and they're very hated, so I'd say they're medium difficulty.

So you're PreWarp, on Very Hard at least, Unstable at least, with Very Many Pirates Nearby, and the max number of Empires on the given map size. This means that the pirates gonna cut your income pretty soon. With Very High Corruption this is a major setback. With a Harsh Home-World it hurts even more.
With Starting or Young Empires you have much catching up to do.

At 999K Research Cost you have to focus on Energy Research to get out of your system. Then you'll probably get attacked soon by a bold pirate, or a bored empire which means you need weapons. So in the first 100 years your research is pretty restricted, you can't beeline.

If this is not challenging, then please define what you mean by challenging.

That is not challenging, that is crippling.

Darkspire

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Post #: 33

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/21/2013 7:30:15 PM

MarQan

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Darkspire

quote:

ORIGINAL: MarQan

Nothing by itself changes the game fundamentally. Don't dissect my post, the suggestions weren't supposed to be taken separately.

The triumvirate of this game is Money-Research-Military, if you're getting behind in any of it, you're gonna have a bad time. Excluding the Research and Money races matters much. Race-selection is not a "manual restriction", it's part of the game and the main component of the difficulty setting. Military races are unfortunately not as military as they should be, and they're very hated, so I'd say they're medium difficulty.

So you're PreWarp, on Very Hard at least, Unstable at least, with Very Many Pirates Nearby, and the max number of Empires on the given map size. This means that the pirates gonna cut your income pretty soon. With Very High Corruption this is a major setback. With a Harsh Home-World it hurts even more.
With Starting or Young Empires you have much catching up to do.

At 999K Research Cost you have to focus on Energy Research to get out of your system. Then you'll probably get attacked soon by a bold pirate, or a bored empire which means you need weapons. So in the first 100 years your research is pretty restricted, you can't beeline.

If this is not challenging, then please define what you mean by challenging.

That is not challenging, that is crippling.

Darkspire

And that is a very subjective comment without anything useful.

(in reply to Darkspire)

Post #: 34

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/21/2013 8:06:15 PM

Darkspire

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quote:

And that is a very subjective comment without anything useful.

The comment was a statement of fact from my point of view and did not need more words than that which was written. Setting things up like that can not really be that fun, it would be like cutting the legs off your horse and still expecting it to win the grand national.

Darkspire

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Post #: 35

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/21/2013 8:28:34 PM

MarQan

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Subjective means that, yes.

Icemania is looking for a challenging game. Accepting the challenge means that you accept the fact, that you have to go out of your comfort zone (otherwise it wouldn't be considered a challenge, now would it?!). That starts when you have to do something, you wouldn't normally do.

I've played that scenario and my legless horse won the "grand national".

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Post #: 36

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/21/2013 8:38:01 PM

Darkspire

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MarQan

Subjective means that, yes.

Icemania is looking for a challenging game. Accepting the challenge means that you accept the fact, that you have to go out of your comfort zone (otherwise it wouldn't be considered a challenge, now would it?!). That starts when you have to do something, you wouldn't normally do.

I've played that scenario and my legless horse won the "grand national".

Challenge : 'A test of one's abilities or resources in a demanding but stimulating undertaking'

Top marks to you sir if you managed to still win the grand national (I am sure there must have been anti-gravs involved somewhere though), but not what I would call stimulating or fun. Hence the original comment, 'crippling not challenging'

Darkspire

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Post #: 37

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/21/2013 8:52:20 PM

MarQan

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I'm glad you agree.

Stimulating: Raise levels of physiological or nervous activity in (the body or any biological system).
Nothing does that like going out of your comfort zone.

Trust me, riding a flying horse is rather stimulating and fun.

(in reply to Darkspire)

Post #: 38

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/22/2013 9:16:52 AM

Icemania

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MarQan, I'm not proposing anything by itself. As this thread shows I've already gone out of my comfort zone by trying settings that initially I preferred to leave alone. Collectively I'm on the most difficult settings, the only two left were very high corruption and a weaker race, which I'm playing now, and it's already clear what I said previously is valid.

So let's communicate better with each other about challenge. What I'm saying is that with any collective difficulty settings, if I survive the very start of the game, it's become just a matter of time before winning. It might be slower and take more patience but I don't feel threatened mid-game ... ever. To meet my definition of challenging there would be games at these settings where mid-game my empire would be dead and I'd be left scratching my head thinking of other strategies to try.

And in order to achieve that ... as a forum ... there are clearly a lot of good ideas that could be considered to help improve the AI in the future.

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Post #: 39

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/22/2013 9:18:18 AM

Icemania

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Thanks Darkspire I will give a custom race a try.

< Message edited by Icemania -- 6/22/2013 9:21:00 AM >

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RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/22/2013 9:20:07 AM

Icemania

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On the fun factor ... I've tried these collective settings to seek a challenge (by my definition) ... and yes I'm not having quite as much fun. If I had died mid-game a few times, forcing some strategic rethinking, I would have actually considered it more fun that just auto-winning after getting past the very early game.

< Message edited by Icemania -- 6/22/2013 9:23:43 AM >

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Post #: 41

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/22/2013 11:19:06 AM

Darkspire

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Icemania

Thanks Darkspire I will give a custom race a try.

biases.txt

Try this to start, just replace the ****** with your race name, the race number is 22, and all the values for the race are set to 0, once you have the theme running and you have given it a few plays to get the feel try decreasing the values for the different race families, human, insectoid etc, so that some families view you worse than others. Creating a race this way makes things more interesting throughout the game as your race is never particularly liked and can have unpredictable behavior with the other races ganging up on you, as you have pointed out changing the game setup just makes things really frustrating sometimes at the start but the middle and end game are the same, operation mopup. As I mentioned you can improve relations with the other races but you really have to work at it, diplomacy is the one part of DW I have never really liked, I was spoilt for years with the diplomacy in GC + GCII so I never really bother with the tech trading, trade agreements etc unless I have a real need of a MD pact because of a very large empire that would be difficult to remove. In my tests I found the obvious to work, destroying pirate bases, to be the most effective for increasing favor to improve relations but if you enjoy being at constant odds with the pirates reduce the biases values further (they can go -50) to compensate. One final warning, I have found the pirates can be really aggressive with these changes to the biases file.

If you want a color coded view of the biases file, this is the one I made to work from when I want to add more races to my theme (word97 .doc)

Biases MASTER

Darkspire

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Post #: 42

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/22/2013 3:02:36 PM

MarQan

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Then you must have victory conditions on a level too high, or limited to something like 50% territory OR population, which gives you the luxury to just sit and wait for the perfect opporunity.

Your last 3 posts also make me assume that your main problem is the lack of confrontation, which can be solved by either - as Darkspire said - lowering your race's values in the biases file, or lowering the victory threshold.

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Post #: 43

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/22/2013 3:58:28 PM

Icemania

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Victory conditions are default. I wait for the minimum possible time before going on the offensive. When I was Ikkuro, beeline to RepairBot, mass trade, Advanced RepairBot, mass trade (in between I'm doing everything possible to get as many empires as I can to trade with) then attack, attack, attack with little or no pause until game won. To be honest in my games so far no other empire has been that close to winning.

MarQan, I'll try another way to clarify my point of view. Perhaps a better way to describe what I mean by challenge would to be genuinely outplayed. Instead of ... they start 100x stronger ... and get to 110x (e.g. with the lowered victory conditions you suggest) before there is any realistic strategy I could deploy to get from 1 to 110x ... outplayed would mean we both start more or less at 1X and I get well and truly beaten on the highest settings.

I say this with a preference not to have to limit game features e.g. avoiding relics, technology selling etc ... which I'm currently doing. And with a preference to avoid making a custom race or other configuration change ... which I'm about to try.

To achieve this aspirational goal would require some fundamental improvements to the AI and I think as a forum we should seek to help the developers with this goal.

I'm sure there will be some that believe this isn't possible. I would argue against such a view very strongly, there is much that could be done by implementing many of the informed posts on this forum, and even more by developing rules based on more experienced human players, and encoding them in an improved Expert System.

So how would you improve the game AI in a future expansion MarQan?

< Message edited by Icemania -- 6/22/2013 4:31:15 PM >

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Post #: 44

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/22/2013 5:40:57 PM

MarQan

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You should fine-tune the victory conditions then, because with an Old galaxy, the Teekans are at 31% (overall)
with conditions set to: Economy: 67%; Population: 67%; Territory: 67%; with race-specific also allowed;
after 14 years, and I don't even know if they're winning, because I only discovered 6 races (being a PreWarp, more like discovered by 6 races). Their economy is only at 4/25% and they're definitely going up to 20/25% at least, meaning that at 45-50% victory threshold I'd consider that a close call.

(what do you mean by "relics"?)
I can avoid tech-trading until mid-late game to be even possible, but even if I couldn't,
not using the exploit is the same thing as setting the "Difficulty" to Extreme: making the game harder by choice.

But I can accept ofc that you're a much better player than me and that's why I can't give you the right answer.
Although I have to agree - at least partly - with DeadlyShoe and Plant on the first page.

I was thinking and suggesting inside the boundaries of the current build. The AI improvement is a whole other story for me.
It's hardest to code and the least profitable, but I would appreciate it much more than any new feature.
Sadly I don't even know what to suggest to improve the AI. I don't even know how I would make it just the way it is now from scratch.

Edit: I'd also add that Distant Worlds gives you many options and those include exploits, shortcuts, but also the choice to restrict yourself from using them, thus making the game harder.

< Message edited by MarQan -- 6/22/2013 5:52:58 PM >

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Post #: 45

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/22/2013 11:55:48 PM

feelotraveller

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I don't think that you are going to get outplayed in this game. If you want that sort of challenge you will have to severely limit what you manually control, and even then you might not get it. Certainly tech trading/selling is so powerful that you can win virtually any game with it - that is news to noone. Creating your own designs gives you a big edge as well. I'll do the second (because I enjoy it so much) but not the first. I've played a couple of games (and won) where the only thing I took control of was reserach and design. No diplomacy, no managing fleets, no giving build orders, etc. Watching the 'AI' of my emprie in these games convinces me that you will not get strategically challenged by it - the best you can hope for is to set the brute strength at a level where it becomes interesting for you.

If you want a mid-game challenge try constructing a galaxy to provide for this. For example you could try an edge galaxy start (1400 15x15 irregular?) with 2 nearby races with +2 tech levels and expansion, 4 average distance races with +3 tech/expansion and 2 distant races with +4 tech/expansion. Maybe even select the races to the flavour you want. (For example play as human with 2 bugs in the distance, and no other humanoid or friendly races to cosy up to in the galaxy. Or play as a bug and have the distant Kiadians and Humans in a MDP from the beginning.) I'm not sure of the specific numbers and levels for setting this up but the idea would be to be encounter increasing strong and large empires as you progess through the game. Set the victory conditions so that you need maybe 80% pop/territory/econ so that you do have to fight the far off advanced empires to win.

No reason you could not combine this with the approach Darkspire is recommending.

(in reply to MarQan)

Post #: 46

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/23/2013 5:12:46 AM

Icemania

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If you go back to earlier posts in the thread, you can see I've been constructing galaxies in various ways aimed at providing more of a mid-game challenge (moving up to having all other empires Tech Level 5 and Old Expansion ... while I'm Pre-Warp).

I completely agree with your comment that we are not going to get outplayed within the boundaries of the current build, regardless of what settings are applied. I'm increasingly self-restricting (e.g. I avoid debris fields completely now, avoid Way of the Ancients, avoid Super Weapons, avoid Technology Selling etc) but feel like I'm making the game less fun by taking away more and more features.

Let's look to the future. There are some good AI improvement ideas in this thread already. I'd like to hear from Matrix and CodeForce regarding future AI plans, as we are all lucky to have a relatively easy going forum, where ideas could be explored. I'd like to hear from more of our Distant Worlds stalwarts, like yourself, regarding other ideas to improve the AI etc. Maybe I need to make a new thread for this, but it's clearly intertwined with the topic at hand...

(in reply to feelotraveller)

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RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/23/2013 9:29:34 AM

Icemania

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MarQan
So you're PreWarp, on Very Hard at least, Unstable at least, with Very Many Pirates Nearby, and the max number of Empires on the given map size. This means that the pirates gonna cut your income pretty soon. With Very High Corruption this is a major setback. With a Harsh Home-World it hurts even more. With Starting or Young Empires you have much catching up to do.

At 999K Research Cost you have to focus on Energy Research to get out of your system. Then you'll probably get attacked soon by a bold pirate, or a bored empire which means you need weapons. So in the first 100 years your research is pretty restricted, you can't beeline.

Yes you can beeline. With an energy lab focus from game start the research order is space construction to swift robotic repairs to advanced robotic repairs. The last game I played with all other Empires set to Old and Tech Level 5 and after advanced robotic repair I had essentially caught up on technology ... upgraded a couple of generations in one hit ... then started going on the offensive by initially targeting home worlds of the weakest empires. While my research was $480K not $999K, the offensive started before Year 20. I stopped playing at about Year 55 when I hit the lead in score with 50 colonies on a small map.

Probably the best part of that game was the start. I had a high-tech abandoned frigate in my home system. I ignore them entirely now so some pirates recovered it and then wiped out everything I had pre-warp ... LOL ... but I just rebuilt, kept a low profile, paid off pirates when I needed to, and continued the beeline.

Yes, as has been said, I shouldn't play Ikkuro to get more of a challenge ... fine ... but I've just removed a feature of the game in doing so. A similar strategy can be adopted by playing any race with a racial technology. Similarly, I shouldn't technology trade, but again I've just remove another feature of the game etc, etc.

As you can tell, I'm not a fan of removing features of the game to get a challenge.

< Message edited by Icemania -- 6/23/2013 9:30:23 AM >

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Post #: 48

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/23/2013 10:43:14 AM

Darkspire

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quote:

As you can tell, I'm not a fan of removing features of the game to get a challenge

The only thing I have changed of late that has made things a lot more interesting is smaller map, less stars and the biases, still playing 1.9.0.6 as the pirates are so much more numerous and aggressive. We all have a different view on challenging seems to be the problem, I would never consider calling anything I do to be challenging, just a different way of playing it. DW could never in my eyes be a challenge, by ramping up the difficulty all your doing is cutting the legs off your horse and to me becomes frustrating as it pushes the strategy side of things away and just becomes tedious in that all you seem to do is wonder how to get the credits from red to white all the time, hence I just started to make things awkward for myself with the other races, the pirates really help with that as they do not seem to like my race either so the prewarp game is very involved, by the time I do not have to worry about pirates, still attacking but my mines and systems are looking after themselves, the other empires are mostly quite strong and as they do not like me there military puts them into the I want to declare war mode, so I have kind of covered the front and middle of the game and get a good overall enjoyable, immersive game.

Darkspire

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RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/24/2013 1:56:42 PM

Icemania

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To confirm Darkspire, you apply Normal settings (other than the specific few settings you mentioned) with the custom race?

I'm just playing one last game of "legs cut off" before trying your way of playing. Small Varied Cluster Galaxy, Extreme Difficulty with Scaling, Chaos Aggression, $999K Research, Very Many Nearby Pirates, Harsh Home World, Pre-Warp, Very High Corruption, 19 Old Tech Level 5 Random Empires with Excellent Home Systems, with a reduced Victory Threshold (33% to 25% for territory, economy and population, 75% threshold).

If there is one thing I would say for these settings it has forced me to try some tactics I hadn't used before. For example, you mentioned credits ... until recently I had never stolen a Galaxy Map just to trade it, or built a base in Other Empire Territory just to sell it, or started the game by choosing not to expand at all to grow the colony at 0% tax for a while, or mined a highly priced in-demand Luxury before core Strategic resources. Exploits to some I'm sure. But in a game with sufficiently strong AI exploring such tactics becomes part of the fun rather than feeling the need to add more Manual Controls in every game.

On challenge I fully appreciate many of us have different interpretations. I contend that an AI strong enough to outplay us mid-game is a valid goal for almost every interpretation of the word challenge. And given you don't consider anything you do to be a challenge, call it more fun or longevity. That said, I've certainty got more than my money's worth of fun and longevity in this game already.

< Message edited by Icemania -- 6/24/2013 1:59:46 PM >

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RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/24/2013 4:36:29 PM

hewwo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Icemania

I agree with your call for the developers to improve default ship design templates for the AI on hard and above. I would suggest these improved templates are not made available to the human player at all, as it is a great feature of the game to learn to improve the default designs. Those learning the game should play on Normal so no real disadvantage to them and we should expect the AI to be smarter on harder difficulties.

The intent when I suggested an Expert System based on human players was to go a lot further than ship design e.g. Technology research order particularly early, better tax rate policy to encourage faster colony growth, more Explorers to find goodies, more Constructors to build Relics etc. Again, I would do this on hard or above.

This is a really good suggestion! I would really want this as wel.

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RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 6/30/2013 3:27:35 AM

Icemania

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I'm starting to play around with the Biases file. Rather than a Custom Race have you tried to simply change the existing numbers? For example, doubling or even tripling the negative biases (only). This would mean Diplomacy would remain very much part of the game, particularly with friends, but racial groups that view you unfavourably would then be much more likely to declare war etc, etc.

(in reply to Darkspire)

Post #: 52

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 7/12/2013 4:18:25 PM

Icemania

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I've ended up reducing the bias for all races towards my favourite race the Ikkuro ... except for those couple of races that were previously very friendly, which I've left as they were i.e. 0 is now -20, -10 is now -40, 5 is now -10, 10 stays as 10.

The reason for this choice is that personally I like some diplomacy/trade in the game but it becomes far less game changing e.g. I can only realistically trade technology with a couple of races rather than many, gifting doesn't really help much, while war is declared more often for all the others etc. I've also tinkered with increasing the 10's to 30's i.e. friendly races become really friendly leading to an "Alliances at War" type game.

So thank you Darkspire for a great tip. Indeed after playing a few games this way I can't help but think some changes are needed to the default biases along these lines.

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RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 5/5/2014 4:20:29 PM

EsoEs

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Icemania

MarQan, I'm not proposing anything by itself. As this thread shows I've already gone out of my comfort zone by trying settings that initially I preferred to leave alone. Collectively I'm on the most difficult settings, the only two left were very high corruption and a weaker race, which I'm playing now, and it's already clear what I said previously is valid.

So let's communicate better with each other about challenge. What I'm saying is that with any collective difficulty settings, if I survive the very start of the game, it's become just a matter of time before winning. It might be slower and take more patience but I don't feel threatened mid-game ... ever. To meet my definition of challenging there would be games at these settings where mid-game my empire would be dead and I'd be left scratching my head thinking of other strategies to try.

And in order to achieve that ... as a forum ... there are clearly a lot of good ideas that could be considered to help improve the AI in the future.

This is exactly the issue Im having now. On Extreme/Chaos, if I survive the early game (which can be extended by whatever ridiculous ristrictions you want to put on your start), once the mid-game is reached the game is "over". Obviously victory hasn't been achieved, but its just a matter of rolling over the AI with your superiorly designed fleets, while they suicide units into your starports and fail to take any kind of strategic/tactical action agianst you.

Sure we can place absurd restrictions upon ouselves to extend the early game challenge, but once the breaking point is achieved, the game is rather boring.

Edit: I dont know how taboo it is to compare DW to something like Civ5 but.. Civ5 Diety is a perfect example of extreme difficulty but with victory still remaining an option. Sure the AI gets lots of bonuses, but they also ACTUALLY DECLARE WAR ON YOU, pressure your economy instead of suiciding into cities, and in general make smart plays. Sure they can be exploited in certain situations, but theyre AI.

< Message edited by EsoEs -- 5/5/2014 5:30:05 PM >

(in reply to Icemania)

Post #: 54

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 5/6/2014 10:10:39 AM

Icemania

Posts: 1847
Joined: 6/5/2013
From: Australia
Status: offline

I agree, I rarely play past the mid-game, but find everything up to that point a lot of fun. Also, as I mentioned in the other thread, I find Shadows far more "fun" than Legends. Maybe you will as well.

If you want War change the Bias files as suggested by Darkspire earlier in this thread. Sounds like the Shakturi will certainly declare war on you with Universe ... !

(in reply to EsoEs)

Post #: 55

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 5/13/2014 12:53:38 PM

buglepong

Posts: 46
Joined: 4/12/2014
Status: offline

Max difficulty,chaotic, strong pirates, large galaxy, max civs, minimum habitable planets

shouldnt have chosen that last one. Can anyone say "resource shortage"??

this game cannot be played on a low world basis

< Message edited by buglepong -- 5/13/2014 1:59:05 PM >

(in reply to Icemania)

Post #: 56

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 5/13/2014 1:50:58 PM

Icemania

Posts: 1847
Joined: 6/5/2013
From: Australia
Status: offline

Actually I find those settings even easier. Once you have sufficient troops it just becomes one homeworld invasion after another. The AI will not expand much (relatively) so less mop up of minor worlds is required and the AI will not expand much. Not aware of any setting where I've had a resource shortage??? (putting time for the private economy to move good to the side as it's a whole other discussion ... I mean available stock).

(in reply to buglepong)

Post #: 57

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Set... - 5/13/2014 1:54:56 PM

buglepong

Posts: 46
Joined: 4/12/2014
Status: offline

Its the complete lack of worlds early game

Silicon? Only one planet with 12% half a sector away
polymer? Carbon fibre? Ec etc

(in reply to Icemania)

Post #: 58

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Slitherine

RE: Your Experiences So Far with Shadows Difficulty Settings