What's the toughest set up to win?

from Stardock Forums
I'd appreciate some advice from experienced players here. To me it seems that GalCiv is somewhat easy to beat with the common 4X/Civ strategies despite the praised AI. Having played a lot of MOO/MOO2/all the Civs I expected the AI to be considerably better but still it seems that it falls for the same tricks as the other games.

I've owned the game for one and a half weeks so I'm a novice with GalCiv but have played a lot of MOO1&2/Civs, so I know the general strategies that work in these games. I've played about 5 games with different sized galaxies and AI levels winning them all easily (which surprises me). Last I played with huge galaxy and bright opponents and got a cultural victory pretty early on in the game (I got to Avatar tech when the game ended). I'm typically an industrialist with additional +20 in economics, research and diplomacy, +10 in trade and +25 in creativity (don't know if creativity is any use though).

To win the games I followed this basic strategy every time:
1. I produced a lot of colony ships to outnumber the strongest AI in planet numbers at least 2:1, I didn't build any military ships in the beginning
2. Research and trade all techs possible so that you get a lead in tech; produce all trade goods, capture all visible resources, create trade equally with all neighbors to increase revenue and decrease the chance for war.
3. Then I trade TGs and tech for money, make long term deals for 20 or 30 turns with all AI civs; pump this money to further research and production; all AI races will need to decrease spending due to tribute they are paying to me while I can increase spending a lot.
4. Increase my lead in tech and economy while producing enough military ships to keep the AI peaceful.
5. Wait for cultural or alliance victory, it will come through superior economy and planetary improvements.

The boring thing is that I get to stage 5 pretty early on and then it's just waiting for the inevitable result. There is nothing special about this strategy because it works in all these games and everybody knows it. I'm just surprised that it works with GalCiv as the AI was so much advertised to be very good. I haven't tried yet if this works with the highest AI level as well, though. Somebody please let me know if it does to save me from the trouble in case Incredible AI falls for the same tricks.

Pursuing a military victory is pointless, as you can't bombard colonies to bits with ships. Conquering every planet would be pretty boring and time consuming. On the other hand, if I conquer a few distant planets late in the game then the AI will defect to my side through cultural influence like dominoes, sector by sector, even their home world and even if the hate me, even if their morale is saintly and I'm demonic. Hmmm...

To me the AI seems to make the same basic mistakes as in all 4X games. They build a big military but don't use it (OK, in GalCiv there's not much to gain by war compared to MOO/Civ games), AI emphasizes military tech development and doesn't trade them to e.g. commercial techs (AI didn't want to trade Corvette tech to some trade techs although I had already Battleship tech available to me), AI emphasizes military planetary improvements, AI trades long lasting benefits (e.g. even developed starbases on resources and planets) to one time benefits (e.g. techs, especially military techs). These are just a few examples of the common AI mistakes that GalCiv makes. But again, I've played with Bright so far, as I thought that the game would be hard to beat. Let's see if things change radically when I change to Incredible.

To all you guys who have played this game a lot: what the toughest set up to beat, i.e. what kind of games do you play to get a challenge when you have mastered the game? Thanks for comments!
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I haven't played this game that much but I'd figure the hardest possible setup would be Tiny map, all AIs the opposite Alignment of you, all AIs set to Genius Intelligence (or whatever the highest one is). Figure that would mean that the AIs will all hate you, they'll all have a massive advantage over you, it'd be harder scrambling for planets and resources, and you'd have less time to prepare yorself before they find you.

But i've never set it up like that....

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Go to higher levels, it will get harder. I think experienced TBS players should play their first game on normal or maybe bright, then move up if it's easy. On bright, the AI is still handicapped: it has production penalties compared to you and also is not as smart as it could be.

Once you get to Incredible it's quite hard. It's certainly possible to grab more star systems than the AI, but not a 2:1 ratio as is generally possible at lower levels. Incredible AIs will never give you money so you can't use leases to get a tech lead. You'll be trading like mad but you'll be doing it in order to try to keep up technologically.

I believe that someone (Ellestar?) set up a Masochistic challenge that no one on this forum was able to beat.

That said, you're right, the AI has some major weaknesses, particularly in trading. And it's not very good at dealing with a cultural offensive, and the tactical AI is mediocre, and the starbase management is weak. You have to keep in mind that when people say the AI is great, what they really mean is that it's great compared to the AI of other 4X games, where the AI needs enormous bonuses in order to have a chance against even a middling-level player.

As for what the hardest setup might be? Hmm... my guess would be that the hardest possible game would be against just one Incredible pure evil AI (the other four disabled) on a map with scattered/rare stars. I've never tried this but I'm sure I wouldn't have any hope of winning.
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Just up the difficulty. Bright is fairly easy for experienced players. I would recommend genius for a good challenging game and Incredible if you like being beaten fairly regularly. Also play with fewer planets and mid sized galaxies which really gives the high end AI best use of it's advantages.

Paul.

~SDC~
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Try this QUICK game;

Tiny map/rare planets/scattered/all A.I./Increadible

It will answer a LOT! of your Questions. :)
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, the higher the difficult, the harder the game, but I agree, diplomacy is what gives the hugest edge over the AI on all levels before it cheats. That's the major flaw I think...

They shall be more likely to trade tech vs tech and less likely to give away large amounts of money.

That they cannot compete in expansion I think comes from the overpowered +2 Speed trade. If I don't use +Speed they can compete on Intelligent...
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Then I trade TGs and tech for money
End of quote


This doesn't work on incredible ai's, although it can work up to crippling. Just up the difficulty, as others said.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
If you are an experienced 4x game player, you will probably find anything under intelligent way to easy. And the AI is very susceptable to diplomacy on any level under Incredible. Unfortunately, most of their efforts to adjust the AIs willingness to give you way to many credits for tech and trade goods on levels below incredible, have been meet with alot of complaints.

Just keep trying higher level ai until you find that level that is right for you. Alot of the things you listed while still very possible to pull off against genius or incredible ai, require much more efficeny to do so.

Scattered galaxies can be alot more challenging then tight clusters, since it is harder to get a good start. Maybe even ctrl+n until you have a bad start and try a game starting with a disadvantage. Or take racial picks and a politcal party that go completely against your playstyle.

Random alignments can add some variety to the game as well. Since you really aren't sure what the other majors are going to be like during colonization when you make most of your morality decisions.

And I think Abundant yellow stars really helps the AI at genius and Incredible. Since they tend to be able to expand more with their bonus resources.

What people find challenging is going to be very different for all of us. Some find tiny maps really hard, while others just hate the bigger maps. I think the best advice to keep it challenging for yourself is, to indentify what in your strategy is making it to easy, and to try to pick game settings that reduce your strength in that area. When you have strong strategy game skills, then min/max your galaxy and racial picks to highlight your strategy, you are going to be hard to beat.

~SDC~
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Personally, I'm looking for something between Intelligent and Genius. Assuming an acceptable start, I win about 8/10 games on Intelligent. But pumping it up to Genius, it just turns from a game into work by my standards.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks guys for the feedback. From your comments I guess that there is a significant jump in difficulty when going towards incredible AI level. That's good. Got to try one of those.

By the way, many of you said that you can't get lease deals with the AI for TGs or tech on higher AI levels and diplomacy altogether is more difficult to do. Does this mean that diplomacy bonuses (and diplo translators) are not worth much? I mean if you can't negotiate deals with the AI then what's there to negotiate? Are the diplomacy bonuses only useful for tech trading and perhaps keeping better relations with AI?
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Genius AI still fall in diplo traps. Incredible AI does not. I can't win Tiny maps on maso with preselected diplo bonuses. Rare planets will help player with AI Intillegent+, Abundant habitable worlds will stimulate AI production at higher levels.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Tiny map/rare planets/scattered/all A.I./Increadible
End of quote


Change the 'rare' into 'abundant' planets, and you got your real challenge right there. And of course, you are not allowed to press 'alt-N' until you get something which suits you :)
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
#4: Tiny/rare/incredible is the easiest masochistic game possible, imo.

#9: Diplomacy is still a very effective pick. I often go +80 diplo on my masochistic games because I do so much trading. You do a LOT of tech-for-tech trading at masochistic. You'll also want to be able to play the AIs off against each other, and to have your gifts to the AI count for a lot.
[Message Edited]
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top

A good way to set it up would be to play as evil and have all the AI players as good.

You do that and it can be a real challenge for hard core players even on intelligent.

Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
By the way, the AI was advertised to be humanlike, not good. ;)
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Change the 'rare' into 'abundant' planets, and you got your real challenge right there. And of course, you are not allowed to press 'alt-N' until you get something which suits you
End of quote


I agree. Tiny abundant means either you colonize planets, get baxkward in military and get blasted, or try to beef up a little, and the ais' production bonuses kill you. I still have to build a battleship with these settings.
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Correction. I managed to win on tiny abundant maso, but only thanks to the UP that said aliens would give everyone 10 techs. Thus I got Dreadnought, Battleship, Alliances... I still think this setup is very hard, much more so than tiny rare.
Also, starting in a corner with no available star to colonize in ship-range on a bigger map is quite ugly.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
All of my tiny maso games have been abundant and I agree it is very tough. I always opt for the colonize as much as possible and try to keep from getting blasted. I found it more likely to stay alive through the early going by having the Torians and Altarians set to incredible and only one of the Yor and Drengins set to incredible. This assumes you are not evil. If you are evil, its going to be very rough with this setup usually. If you are good or high neutral, there's a better than good chance that the Torain/Altarian combo keeps the evil incridible at bay. Of course, you are usually way behind these guys tech when you do emerge out of the early game danger zone and it is tough to catch up.

~SDC~