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If someone feels like doing an sslp with the vodyani you will be my best friend. Even if just for the first 20 turns or whatever. Anyway I just beat a game with the riftborn on hard difficulty. Good lord the A.I is hopeless at waging war.  Here I am, the red fleet, sieging the vaulter homeworld. They have a fleet just to the south which is slightly stronger than mine. It sat there idle for 3 turns while I invaded and took the homeworld.  Meanwhile, this is what my ally did for the entire war. They parked a single fleet on an outer rim world. No siege modules equipped, they sat and patiently waited for the population to drop. By the time we signed a peace treaty the world was down to 1200 pop. Nice going. Meanwhile here's a typical battle report.  I'm still enjoying getting a handle on the mechanics but if they don't do something about the AI I don't see much long term play. Amethyst fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Jan 7, 2019 |
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Jan 7, 2019 01:17
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That's the (singular, most major) problem with EL & ES2, is that you replay it X amount of times, trying a new race each time, then put the game down and never play again, because the AI cannot play intelligently at all and it's alarming.
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Jan 7, 2019 09:21
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It's pretty much the same issue as Civ games.
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Jan 7, 2019 14:17
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Yeah I really like both EL and ES2 but the AI does not pose much of a challenge at all and that makes it hard to replay. There is just something about EL's city building/growth that I love but even with that enjoyment I get out of it, when killing the AI is either a cakewalk or a bullshit slog through millions of mans it gets old.
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Jan 7, 2019 15:29
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Falcorum posted:It's pretty much the same issue as Civ games. On a fundamental level, sure, but the AI in Endless Space and Legend is especially passive. Civ's AI has never been amazing but it will actually, y'know, do stuff.
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Jan 7, 2019 22:46
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Pretty much agreed on all counts. EL and ES have extremely passive AI and I frequently have to play on Endless difficulty to get them to actually challenge me when I play as Necrophages. I get wrecked as the Forgotten tho, I still can't play them properly.
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Jan 7, 2019 23:08
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Falcorum posted:It's pretty much the same issue as Civ games. I find the civ games much more challenging. The AI will actually attack after declaring war and with their resource bonuses on higher difficulties they actually pose a threat.
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Jan 8, 2019 00:06
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The AI's been a consistent sore spot in the Endless games. In addition to the passivity, it has no comprehension of the games' cool take on diplomacy. Trading is about the easiest ways to abuse the game (if you needed to for some reason), because the variable weighting of resources will not-infrequently turn the AI into a desperate drug addict that happily accepts an offer of 20 Spices for hundreds of its Strategic resources and all of its Dust. All of this is why Endless single player pales in comparison to the far superior multiplayer experience if you lazy jerks ever showed up on time.
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Jan 8, 2019 03:34
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Multiplayer 4x just seems like an impractical hassle, to me. Like I can barely imagine actually sitting there waiting for other players to end a turn, let alone finishing a game.
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Jan 8, 2019 03:37
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Amethyst posted:Multiplayer 4x just seems like an impractical hassle, to me. Like I can barely imagine actually sitting there waiting for other players to end a turn, let alone finishing a game. yeah I'm sure the multiplayer is great and all but practically speaking 99% of people are gonna be playing this game single player if they play it at all
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Jan 8, 2019 04:42
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I actually did play a multiplayer game of civ 6, once. It was with irl friends. About 50 turns it it became clear we saw the game very differently. One of my opponents hadn't built a single builder or military unit and didn't notice my massed troops on his border. The other was also just idly building wonders. I think most players don't really see 4x as a strategy genre.
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Jan 8, 2019 04:50
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Yeah, I just play Endless games to chill and make numbers go up.
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Jan 8, 2019 05:08
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Clarste posted:Yeah, I just play Endless games to chill and make numbers go up. I think a weak AI damages this playstyle too, because the games generate weaker stories as a result.
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Jan 8, 2019 05:10
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i mainly enjoy endless legend and endless space 2 for the aesthetics and fun lore stuff. not that i don't enjoy conquering the galaxy/land in some form or another, it's just kind of a side-effect of me playing the games and chilling out. also i've definitely been enjoying ES2! still haven't picked up the hissho expansion but i have the vaulter one and a couple of those minor ones, like the one with the extra music and also the expanded minor faction quests and such. kind of excited for the umbral choir dlc. i enjoyed the central base mechanic for the cultists in legend so having a faction do roughly that in ES2 will be neat.
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Jan 8, 2019 05:11
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Yeah, I wasn't excusing the bad AI. Obviously, the vast majority of 4x players never touch multiplayer and it sucks that Amplitude (and in fairness, all other developers) are unable to deliver a halfway-decent AI. What I meant is that playing against other humans draws even more attention to how dumb it actually is, and how much that compromises the game- because it's not just passive, it's also too busy eating crayons to notice or be affected by a lot of the cool features that set the Endless games apart. The diplomacy system is actually pretty cool when you have to give it more thought than "try every combination until the opinion bar turns slightly green." Stuff like the Roving Clans' Market Ban, Forbidden pillaging/espionage, even griefing questing enemies become genuine tactics when you have opponents that don't just run on a blind stream of free resources and rewards and are also actually trying to kill you.
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Jan 8, 2019 05:35
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my hope is that the espionage systems added with the next dlc will add a cool layer that the ai will hopefully take advantage of. the pirate marks are almost like...just barely touching on that idea but realistically i just sort of ignore them.
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Jan 8, 2019 05:37
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Avasculous posted:Yeah, I wasn't excusing the bad AI. Obviously, the vast majority of 4x players never touch multiplayer and it sucks that Amplitude (and in fairness, all other developers) are unable to deliver a halfway-decent AI. Edit - Total War games still take the prize on this though. I remember that when Empire released, a game about imperialism, it was discovered that the AI was incapable of transporting armies by sea.
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Jan 8, 2019 05:45
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I started a game of Alpha Centauri and it's kind of amazing how simple and fast it is after playing a modern 4x. There is basically nothing stopping you from pumping out settlers and grabbing as much land as possible, except enemy troops. Nice palette cleanser, but it almost feels TOO simple.
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Jan 8, 2019 05:47
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Here's an interesting thing https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forums/65-general/threads/24821-enfer-ai-debug-tools If you enable modding tools you can view internal stuff about what the AI is thinking! I might load a few saves and check out what was going on when the AI was being so passive.
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Jan 8, 2019 06:37
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No manpower? No problem. 
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Jan 8, 2019 12:26
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Avasculous posted:Yeah, I wasn't excusing the bad AI. Obviously, the vast majority of 4x players never touch multiplayer and it sucks that Amplitude (and in fairness, all other developers) are unable to deliver a halfway-decent AI. I loving love 4X games, and never play them multi, but I'll be damned of I've ever loving seen one with reasonably competent or challenging AI. It's frustrating for a genre that has existed for so long.
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Jan 8, 2019 20:30
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galciv 2 had good ai, but otoh its a super bland game
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Jan 8, 2019 20:56
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Squiggle posted:I loving love 4X games, and never play them multi, but I'll be damned of I've ever loving seen one with reasonably competent or challenging AI. It's frustrating for a genre that has existed for so long. Whether you consider it competent or not is up to you, but I will say that Gladius, of all things, has an AI that seems to both know how to play and actively attempts to win.
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Jan 8, 2019 21:06
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Loading up with titanium slugs and sieging with low manpower did NOT work on endless difficulty. The AI can conjure pops out of absolutely nowhere in just a few turns, then draft up an infinite army. You need both slugs and a strong pop advantage if you're going to have any hope of winning a siege. Also striking deep into enemy territory to destroy infrastructure is similarly pointless since the AI just rebuilds instantly. Pretty disappointing how limited your strategic choices are against this kind of AI.
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Jan 9, 2019 01:19
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Davincie posted:galciv 2 had good ai, but otoh its a super bland game "Hm... should I spend 12 turns researching Laser VI (+1 damage compared to Laser V) or 14 turns researching Influence Station III (+5 influence compared to II)?" Amethyst posted:Loading up with titanium slugs and sieging with low manpower did NOT work on endless difficulty. The AI can conjure pops out of absolutely nowhere in just a few turns, then draft up an infinite army. You need both slugs and a strong pop advantage if you're going to have any hope of winning a siege. I didn't spend nearly as much time with ES2 as EL, but assuming the AI works the same way, it doesn't actually conjure free units or anything (except faction quest rewards) out of thin air. It just gets enormous bonuses to resource generation across the board based on difficulty, something like 3x everything on Endless. That's why inflicting any attrition on its economy feels pointless: it has way more than enough resources to spam units from every planet constantly, and it's actually easier for you to just conquer the territory than it is to try to bankrupt it.
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Jan 9, 2019 03:18
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Amethyst posted:Loading up with titanium slugs and sieging with low manpower did NOT work on endless difficulty. The AI can conjure pops out of absolutely nowhere in just a few turns, then draft up an infinite army. You need both slugs and a strong pop advantage if you're going to have any hope of winning a siege. Besieging worked just fine for me in every game where I used it. If memory serves, getting the system defense down to zero means that you auto-win the invasion as soon as it starts, with no chance for the enemy to conscript. Has that changed?
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Jan 9, 2019 03:20
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Avasculous posted:"Hm... should I spend 12 turns researching Laser VI (+1 damage compared to Laser V) or 14 turns researching Influence Station III (+5 influence compared to II)?" Right, when I said "out of thin air" I meant it generated them much faster than they otherwise could. it sucks that it essentially invalidates all economic strategies
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Jan 9, 2019 03:26
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HundredBears posted:Besieging worked just fine for me in every game where I used it. If memory serves, getting the system defense down to zero means that you auto-win the invasion as soon as it starts, with no chance for the enemy to conscript. Has that changed? Yeah I probably should have waited till zero.
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Jan 9, 2019 03:27
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Does anyone think "pre-emptive boming" and "guerilla warfare" are good invasion options? The "draft" defense tactic invalidates both of them, imo. Blitz every time.
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Jan 10, 2019 00:25
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Amethyst posted:Does anyone think "pre-emptive boming" and "guerilla warfare" are good invasion options? The "draft" defense tactic invalidates both of them, imo. Blitz every time. I've never had the patience to test it out thoroughly, but I guess Bombing kills a lot of population, which lessens the amount of Drafting the defenders can try on following turns. It feels like it works okay.
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Jan 10, 2019 07:32
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"Pre-emptive bombing" is supposed to be the counter to draft. Drafting reduces the health of all your defending troops so it should result in more casualties. When you don't have a bunch of troops but want to give things a go anyway use bombing. When the enemy has a bunch of damage causing buildings go with guerrilla. When manpower is no object and the enemy lacks damage buildings go with blitz.
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Jan 10, 2019 08:41
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My understanding is that Bombing is for when you have relatively few troops available (it lowers the deployment cap), Blitz is for when you have plenty of troops in reserve (it raises the deployment cap), and Guerilla is for when you're definitely going to lose but expect to get reinforcements soon so you're just stalling to avoid wasting troops for no reason.
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Jan 10, 2019 10:02
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I used bombing whenever I noticed that the defender actually built defensive structures, which made ramming face-first into it prohibitively expensive. So bombing for a few turns until I see the building is gone, then blitz all the way.
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Jan 12, 2019 01:15
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Thanks I never check for defensive structures and often wonder why my guys are getting owned so hard
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Jan 14, 2019 00:24
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habituallyred posted:"Pre-emptive bombing" is supposed to be the counter to draft. Drafting reduces the health of all your defending troops so it should result in more casualties. When you don't have a bunch of troops but want to give things a go anyway use bombing. When the enemy has a bunch of damage causing buildings go with guerrilla. When manpower is no object and the enemy lacks damage buildings go with blitz. Thank you for this tip. I've been using pre-emptive bombing in my Hissho game and it's very effective against draft. Saves me a lot of turns sieging.
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Jan 14, 2019 17:07
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So what's the deal with successfully sieging planets? Just started a new coop game after not touching this game since early access. I attacked an AI neighbor and start invading the system. Starts off with equal manpower on both sides and I'm taking higher losses. Not a big deal though, I can send empty ships back to my territory for more troops, and just work on wearing them down over time. That continues for about 10 turns until it gets to the point where I'm sending the max 900 manpower against 100 or less of theirs. Every turn they conscript back up to a decent manpower level, then fall back down to 10 or so after the fight. This continues for another 5 or 10 turns until they send a large enough fleet to chase me off. What am I doing wrong? Are sieges just always long slogs until the planet's entire pop is dead?
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Jan 16, 2019 18:03
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Been trying to play a Cultist game on impossible difficulty and it's been really unfun. The game places me next to a really expansionist faction (Necrophages, Broken Lords, Ardent Mages) and lets them pump out 3 armies of 6 units by the time I get to era 2. The defensive buildings you can make from the start are useless if you get sieged by such a large army so quickly. I quite like playing as the Cultists, but is there anything I can do to stop myself from getting stomped on almost instantly at higher difficulties?
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Jan 16, 2019 20:02
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Stabbatical posted:Been trying to play a Cultist game on impossible difficulty and it's been really unfun. The game places me next to a really expansionist faction (Necrophages, Broken Lords, Ardent Mages) and lets them pump out 3 armies of 6 units by the time I get to era 2. The defensive buildings you can make from the start are useless if you get sieged by such a large army so quickly. I quite like playing as the Cultists, but is there anything I can do to stop myself from getting stomped on almost instantly at higher difficulties? Hard question to answer but the idea is utilizing your hordes of disposable cult recruits as effectively as possible. You can't upgrade indoctrinated guys since they count the same as mercenaries, but you CAN boost their attack significantly by utilizing that Empire Plan that buffs all units' attack by 50% and the other one that boosts movement. Plus using a Cultist Hero with their factional skill of buffing all units under their command. Swarms of your units can besiege an enemy city rapidly since the more units are encircling a city the faster it goes down. Alternatively, use spying to flip the table on these guys. A well-placed spy can massively debuff enemy armies all at once. Speedball fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jan 16, 2019 |
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Jan 16, 2019 20:18
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Every attack that I've seen the AI field before Era III is beatable by an army of six Nameless with a hero, good trinkets and maybe some strategic resource weapons. Depending on the quality of your start and which factions are nearby, it's probably somewhere between tricky and impossible to get such an army before they start burning your villages, but not unreasonable to have it in place by the time they declare war and get over to your capital. If you're having trouble with that, it's an indication that your economic play needs work. On what turn are they invading? Alternatively, you can rush for the Era II diplomatic tech. If diplomacy works like it does when I last played (which was admittedly before the current expansion), there's a window early in the game where it's cheap to bribe the AI into peace even on Endless. I used that trick more to deal with the AI's love of killing villages during cold war than protecting myself from a war of extinction, but if you're not facing the Necrophages it should solve your problem as well.
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Jan 16, 2019 21:01
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Speedball posted:Hard question to answer but the idea is utilizing your hordes of disposable cult recruits as effectively as possible. You can't upgrade indoctrinated guys since they count the same as mercenaries, but you CAN boost their attack significantly by utilizing that Empire Plan that buffs all units' attack by 50% and the other one that boosts movement. Plus using a Cultist Hero with their factional skill of buffing all units under their command. Swarms of your units can besiege an enemy city rapidly since the more units are encircling a city the faster it goes down. The villages all went down like butter before I could do anything.  I had the empire plan set for level 1 on everything (as I wasn't on era 2 at the time) so that was, I presume, all I could do.HundredBears posted:Every attack that I've seen the AI field before Era III is beatable by an army of six Nameless with a hero, good trinkets and maybe some strategic resource weapons. Depending on the quality of your start and which factions are nearby, it's probably somewhere between tricky and impossible to get such an army before they start burning your villages, but not unreasonable to have it in place by the time they declare war and get over to your capital. If you're having trouble with that, it's an indication that your economic play needs work. On what turn are they invading? Yeah, I had very little of that in my last game. I was in the middle of researching Nameless (just gotten into era 2, so no peace either) when I gave up on turn 83. I offered literally everything for a truce and the AI wouldn't budge. Previous attempt which ran into difficulties against the Kapuku, was the same about 15~20 turns earlier. I'd had various Broken Lords armies sieging my city (crippling my FIDS), using armies of Stalwarts and Nidya, while my Preachers, Fanatics, starter hero, and Militia would almost win battles only for that army to run away and a new set of 6 to turn up. All I had for trinkets was Breakwall on my hero and also I had one Haunts village in my region. To be fair, I didn't have any resource weapons tech ready as I never needed to research them in era 1 just to get by on Serious difficulty so I'll try those next time. Actually, what would you say good economic play in this game is? What range of dust should one be able to get near the start of the game? I quite like 4x games but I've never gotten the grips of things like those really quick min-max victories that people seem to be able to pull off in them. My games always last ages.
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Jan 16, 2019 21:37
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