Tech victory is just too easy

I'd love to read guides for your development - I find it very, very hard to stay out of war for more than a few months.

If you focus on population growth and morale, it often doesn't matter if they do declare war. Their ships are useless because you don't have any for them to shoot down, and their invasions meet huge populations because you've got farms. Since populations don't require any spending you're free to focus on research.

Generally, though, I just find I maintain good relations with everyone. I maintain a healthy economy and pay off people if necessary, I trade reguarly, etc. I have had to fight wars, but if you've got a strong industry and good trading partners, you can get a powerful fleet out in no time.

This wouldn't work if the AI knew how to declare war properly, but until then it will.

The only time I tried for a tech victory, I got ruthlessly slaughtered by the Iconians (I came so close ). It's only easy because you've sorted out a tactic to make it work. If you dominate the galaxy then go for tech of course it's easy, but by that point you'd find any victory easy.

I don't think the AI should try to stop you though. The whole point of the AI is that they don't care about 'loosing' as such- they care about protecting their own interests, but if another race achieves immortality/ascendes to a higer dimension/whatever a tech victory is actually supposed to mean, why should they care?

Playing on tough is to easy? Set the difficulty higher.

I've seen so many say " it's to easy " and then post that they play on a low level. Come on folks, crank up the difficulty. That should be a no brainer.

First turn:
- Rush buy a factory on your home planet only in turn one.Set planet focus on social production.
- set sliders (0% mil, 25% soci, 75% reserach).
- Colonise the small 4PQ world in your home system and rush buy 1 research center, give build orders for two more.
- Rush buy a colonyship.
- Set reserach to propulsion techniques


Initial colony rush:
- Rush buy a (advanced)colonyuship every turn until you hit the red.
- Research impulse drive in first 10 turns. Design a faster colonyship with each propulsion techniquecolonyship
- Explore all anomalies you can get your hands on. If you find a resource nearby, rush buy a constructor.

Midgame:

Make sure that you keep a 'healthy' ( don't ask me for the numbers, it's a 'feel' thning) balance between your offensive/defense capabilities and your expansion rate.
- Found colonies you can defend!
- Specialize your colonies (militray, economic, research).
- go for interstellergovs etc a.s.a.p. Watch morale (max out taxes upto 50% approval early in game, after interstellar govs, keep it to 70%)
- max out your trade routes (CASH!)
- make sure to set production to 100%
- adjust sliders to (20% mil, 20% soc., 60% research)
- build starbases (economic near your core worlds, militray and influence on your border)
- continously (whore)trade techs and tradegoods. Trade anything with anybody, (ussually after each tech you researched) make CASH!

You could always turn the technology victory off. Sure it doesn't help with the AI not stopping you, nor the AI trying to do it themself too much, but if it is a real bother it might be worth playing without it.

You could also set the Tech rate to slow or very slow and give that a try.

It will change the dynamics of the game somewhat so you may not like the results, but it may be worth checking out.

I don't think I would recommend no tech trading though, especially for your style of play since it seriously restricts diplomacy and that seems to be an important part of you strategy.

There are good ways in this game to make things tougher on yourself.

Personally, I find that no tech trading is almost like going up a full level in difficulty. Not having the extra money and assorted low level techs is a great way to be challenged at the beginning of your empire. And if you have trouble with your empire at the beginning, the race to find out if you are going to win is a lot more exciting.

Yeah, if everything works well, you get a firm foundation and an economy that can respond to all the early threats and grow into a top galactic power, the game seems easy. It's all over but mopping up at that stage.

So go for the challenge. Make things harder on yourself. Set no tech trading, and tech speed to 'very slow'. Go up a difficulty level. You won't be bored. Sometimes you'll be in your current position... where you dominate and it's all over but mopping up. Sometimes the AI will wipe the floor with you, and you'll have to take the defeat.

Finding the game too easy? Figure out what makes it so, and do something that gives you a challenge!

I think the aliens should be able to win tech victories also.

Finding the game too easy? Figure out what makes it so, and do something that gives you a challenge!

I'm sorry, but that's a bit of a cop out. I think the OP has a valid point, the issue is that the AI is seemingly uncareing if you race off to a tech victory. Perhaps they shouldn't care if you transcend or not, after all it doesn't affect them as far as one can tell from the victory screen, but if that's so then that victory condition is somewhat flawed. It does indeed become a 'I'm board, lets just hit end turn 50 times and see what my score is' routine.

Short term one can indeed turn off tech victory, or just chose not to pursue it. Ideally though (if enough people feel the same way) SD could and should revisit all the victory conditions and tweek them to make them (and thus the game) more interesting.

The largest problem with the tech victory though isn't it in itself, its the AIs horrendous tactics in initiating and conducting war. There are plenty of other threads discussing this though, so I won't rehash it. If the AI were better at war (generally) then you'd not be able to turtle nearly as easilly as you can now. Indeed as it is now all you need are a handful of lighting fast fighters to intercept any transports that may come your way and you are essentially immune to their war machine.

I know Brad doesn't want to allow for orbital bombardments (which is fine), but perhaps you should be allowed to blockade systems which will cut their research to 0 and halve their production. That way you can effectively stop (research wise) and slow down your opponent.

Is there some reason that the AI shouldn't have a Tech Win as part of it's repertoire? If you want to act as closely to a human as you can then don't see why it shouldn't. I realize the AI will never be just like a human opponent would be. But if the makers(stardock) are striving for as close to perfection as possible then I don't think that a Tech Win should be left out of it's arsenal of strats.

With that said, I don't personally know that a Tech win as a possible strat has been left out of the AI. But I suppose if no one has ever seen the AI go for a Tech Win then perhaps it has been left out.

And if the AI is doing some espionage and sees you going for a Tech Win then it should do something about it, if it is able to. I also do not know that espionage is always a part of the AI's strat in all situations and at all times. There may be times when it lays off spending money on espionage for some reason or another, like when it needs all the money it can muster to fight another foe. But imo, the AI should analyze the possibilty of other players going for a Tech Win if the current circumstances in the game are allowing.

Just my two cents for what it's worth.

First, the best part about the game is the ability to adapt it. If you find that a tech victory is too easy then eliminate it as an option or change the tech rate or play at a harder setting and see if the ai does not adjust. Remember, you can adjust this. It is not a fault in the game. You can set the research to to faster to make it more possible or slower to make it less likely, the best thing is you decide what the conditions are and that is why this game rocks.

I don't believe that they should try to prevent you from ascending. From my perspective... if one of them actually got a tech victory the game should just continue... their planets would be empty Class whatevers. Same if you win. You ascend, they get your planets. Unless you felt vengeful in your ascendance and decided to kill all the mortals. BUt that wouldn't work anyway, because once you ascend you are supposed to interfere with mortals much less than when you were a mortal.

If anything they might try to help you along that route. Makes the game too easy (I always turn it off, after the first win) but it fits a galaxy setting.

If Techrate = very slow then Me =

if Techrate = fast then me =

I find it very, very hard to stay out of war for more than a few months.

My current game (on Tough), I had a horrid start and went into mid-game with 3 planets to everyone else's 8-10. I received many threats, etc, and rejected them all...I even responded with tribute demands (got the Yor to actually pay something once!).

So...How did I stay out of wars? I kept up a good trade economy with my nearest neighbor (always seem to be the Arceans) and build a military just big enough to defend with. The AI knows you can't attack...so you aren't a threat and also knows if they attack there's no guarantee of winning. It's a delicate balance that keeps you on the brink of bankruptcy during the early game as well. Also, I try to research somewhat balanced...ie: if the next tech will take 8 turns, but there's several I could choose that would take 3 (and they would be useful), I'll research the 3's first. The AI's also are slow to research deep into the diplomatic and influence tech trees. If you can get a couple steps in each tree, they seem to "respect" you a bit more and don't invade even though they've 3 times the military you do.

Remember they try to keep some ships handy to prevent sneak attacks, so won't send their entire fleet to invade.

Personally, I find that no tech trading is almost like going up a full level in difficulty.

Yep. I rarely tech trade, but when I do...I need cash. Occasionally I have cash, but need to fill a tech gap. I'll research the defense against the most popular weapon while researching a different weapon. This allows me something to trade they they need, but won't hurt me to give. Opponent has Harpoons? No problem, I'll trade you PD Combo for those three techs I need...hmmm ok, I'll throw in 4,000bc too. It's even better when they are willing to pay on-top of the techs you want and there's a certain used-car salesman feeling to knowing you traded/sold a tech that will make them weaker against you as well.

Normally I don't need the techs the AI has, but sometimes it's handy. Not having that option does make the game more difficult.

I have seen the AI get a tech victory in the patched 1.0 (1.0.10X I think it was called). I don't remember the details, as it was the first game I played.

My suggestion is yet another game setup option: Every tech after Discovery Spheres in the Technology Victory path gives a penalty to diplomatic relations.

That relations penalty for the "victory techs" line is as intruiging idea Baturkey.

I think that the AI should be able to win in all the ways you enable at the start since those are the Victory Conditions. I also think they should be concerned with winning the game either by themselves or as part of an Alliance.

I have seen 3 smaller AIs form Alliances in my last game in the face of 2 large opponents.

My tech stragety:

in a large galaxy, have at least 3-4 prod only planets, with 1 farm and 2 entertainment centers. (for troop transports)
Have said few prod planets crank out ships
Rest of empire: only stock market, only res centers

End result? insanely fast techs, ie, I once had no techs in armor tech, and finally decided to click on it, next turn, i was over halfway through that tree, and it was still going to take 1 turn to advance further. (By the time it took 2 turns, i was 1 tech away from ZPA)

This was on tough as well. Thinking of taking it up, or playing on metaverse. (I use a mod currently that gets rid of fustrating bugs)

i agree tech victory is a little easy. i usually play with it disabled. half the time, i also disable influence victory. the AI usually doesn't pursue it unless they have a real clear advantage (played one game where the torians managed to grab 3 or 4 influence resources all clustered together... i was playing the Yor, and my colonies were rebelling. well, i had to take matters into my own hands at the same time, quitch, you could probably stand to go up a difficulty level. disable the tech victory option. set up your race differently

this was actually something i was wondering about - methods of losing, and if an AI could (and ever would) beat you to technological victory. obiviously you can lose a military victory. you can lose an alliance victory. i've seen AIs gearing up to win an influence victory. if teh AI is programmed to play by the same rules we do, it should be pursuing victory rather than sustainance. personally, i think the deeper knowledge to tech vitory stretch should be more expensive. in fact i might be so bold as to say that deeper knwledge should be at least as expensive as any other tech (i think supreme miniturazation is the most expensive aside from technological victory).

maybe it would make more sense if there were more to the technological victory. in alpha centauri, you also had to build a wonder to get the victory. maybe something similar would be nice in GalCiv. but i think other things could be nice.

examples. as i understand it, 'deeper knowledge' is meant to be something akin to spiritual knowledge or wisdom. why not have this tech have a morale and diplomacy bonus? near omniscience being almost the ability to see the future might give a ship defense bonus. you could use this as a pretext for boosting the AI's interest in these techs, on the one hand, and also keep them useful in games where the tech victory is disabled. just some ideas. i've always got a million.

Quitch: it sounds like you're in a similar boat as I, though albeit at a higher difficulty level. slow down the tech rate, and consider disabling the tech victory all togethr. your strategy is what is making the game too easy. like me, it sounds like you prefer to bide your time. you end up more rounded than the AI usually does. maybe your tech level isn't the absolute hightest. maybe you don't have the largest military. mabye you haven't researched as many levels of missle technology. doesn't matter. doesn't matter because you've chosen to develop your empire more holistically. you'll have very strong diplomacy, trade, economy, industry, population, morale and research. when faced with a challenge, you can respond with just about any method the game is set up to offer, and you'll probably use all of them. in most of your games, you probably could have won in about two thrids of the time if you had focused your efforts more, but that would have left you vulnerable....

it's a gameplay style. at least, that's my guess. i play much the same, and i've found it's far too easy to win in any method. once i've built up my perfect empire, i have the industry to produce any number of influence bases, buy any mining base, create fleets unsurpassed, or research a technological victory inside a year. but this usually consists of taking a back seat to the first 3/4 of the game and doing everything i can to avoid conflict, only acting when it's an obvious necessity. that is a personality. in fact, it's pretty close to MY personality.

maybe it's time for some role playing, eh? play as the noble altarians; always do right, and don't ever let the smallest sin go un- smashed into oblivion. most of the races have a personality of some kind. run with it.

for example, in the game i'm finishing up now, i'm playing the terrans. you look around the world right now, and it's pretty messed up, especially due to our capitalist economy. our world has enough resourses to take care of everyone, but because of the economic system we use, resources are converted into wealth, which accumulates in fewer and fewer hands. as this happens, people become more willing to break laws and hurt one another to get an ever smaller slice of the earth-pie, i.e., evil. but the introduction of hyperdrive opens up the galaxy to capitalist expansion. the economy explodes. wealth abounds. in times like that, people are more moderate. i.e., neutral.

so there are my terrans. they get 25% bonuses in diplomacy and trade. i pick the merchantile party. i buy boosts in econmics (+30, 4pts), research (+10, 2pts), morale (+10, 1pt), population growth (+10, 1pt), luck (+25, 1pt) and military production (+1, 1pt). i name my empire the terran union (mostly so i can title my ships Union Star Ship, or USS). the terran union is a society of shrewd business people. think Brave New World. the Cardinoids and Dark Yor start very close to me and the Drengin. even in the game i'd know they were both doomed. they can become dinner for the drengin, or the Terran Union's gammas and deltas (literary allusion - if you don't get it, read the dang book). i've all ready researched enough that when i invade them i can even use info warfare. i maxed out my trade early to make everyone like me at least a little, and pursue diplomacy vigorously. so while i'm only producing a small number of 'duds' (a small size space ship with 1 stinger I and 1 ion drive), no one hates me enough to go to war with me. well, i should say, to also go to war with me. just about everyone is at war with someone else, licking their wounds, or rearming. the yor are the first to drop, and they surrender to me. then go the korx, surrendered to the previously meek altarians. the drath were pretty quiet until they found a Ranger. then everyone started cowering. meanwhile the drengin had been researching up a storm on their 3 little planets, and they took over the iconions. they reconstructed quickly, and are now the only rivals to the drath. the great war breaks out. the drath forge an alliance with the other good civs and eventually manage to wear down the drengin (their allies receiving a little financial backing from muoi). during the years of war, the thalans had amassed quite an armada. they attacked the altarians, and everyone counter-attacked. even the arceans jumped in, decrying the need for galactic balance. by this point i even had a military advantage, though only due to a spin control center. the thalans gave up to the arceans, and i started making preps. you see, the other 4 remaining civs had forced a common alliance. i hadn't allied with anyone, but had close relationships with all 4. i could have easily chosen a diplomatic victory....

but with my network of fully developed military bases and armada of completely decked-out warships, where's the fun in that? the ultimate capitalist logic: if you can't find a new market, conquer one.

is anyone else still noticing unusual behavior for the number of trade lines? i can't seem to get more than 12. i maxed out the trade techs early. after that, neutral shipping didn't raise it, nor did the UP law. i'm glad i didn't waste ability points or anything...

The only time I tried for a tech victory, I got ruthlessly slaughtered by the Iconians (I came so close ). It's only easy because you've sorted out a tactic to make it work. If you dominate the galaxy then go for tech of course it's easy, but by that point you'd find any victory easy. I don't think the AI should try to stop you though. The whole point of the AI is that they don't care about 'loosing' as such- they care about protecting their own interests, but if another race achieves immortality/ascendes to a higer dimension/whatever a tech victory is actually supposed to mean, why should they care?

Well, I haven't "sorted a tactic" as such, I'm still quite new but simply have a good idea of what's going to work and what isn't (and in the first two games fudged my way to victory), I realise my first post was a bit misleading. I've had three setups:

1. 1v1 on Gigantic map. Got bored of colonising and only met my foe when I was already a fair way down the tech tree. Since Blind Exploration wasn't on, they should have either realised that they needed to rush me, or pushed hard on tech as there was quite the distance between us.

2. 3 way game on a Huge map. Everyone went (I think) for a Cultural victory, but I was rather new to it all. Eventually I realised I was a small fry so went for a tech win. Both of the other races wouldn't tackle one another, so decided to crush me (why on earth did the smaller Empire not help me? Didn't they realise that once I was gone the larger Empire would swallow them??), but they were too late to do anything about it and I won.

3. The 10 side game I described.

I wasn't dominating the galaxy, I simply held the peace and went tech. I was never 1st in any of these games, nor did I ever product the most research points.

If the AI isn't going to stop me getting a tech win then it's a pointless victory condition, and also a huge flaw in the metaverse scoring system since I don't actually need to beat the AIs to achieve it!

Playing on tough is to easy? Set the difficulty higher. I've seen so many say " it's to easy " and then post that they play on a low level. Come on folks, crank up the difficulty. That should be a no brainer.

And then the AI gets bonuses, and I have no interest in that scenario, I'd rather move onto another game and enjoy the challenge while I struggle wth new mechanics than be limited to X tactics because the Y tactics don't work due to artificial bonuses. I can't stand it when opponents are playing a different game to me.

You could always turn the technology victory off. Sure it doesn't help with the AI not stopping you, nor the AI trying to do it themself too much, but if it is a real bother it might be worth playing without it.

I think I'll have to, but the point of this thread is to raise awareness of the fact that the AI seems blind to you pursuing this victory. Later I'll probably need to disable an alliance victory, since in large games there are almost always several races friendly to you, and so by allying you've halved the work and are in effect going to achieve a military victory, but via the shortcut called alliance victory (and best of all you don't ever attack, you force the other races to so your allies join the war ti make things really one-sided!!!)

You could also set the Tech rate to slow or very slow and give that a try. It will change the dynamics of the game somewhat so you may not like the results, but it may be worth checking out. I don't think I would recommend no tech trading though, especially for your style of play since it seriously restricts diplomacy and that seems to be an important part of you strategy.

I don't like the idea of No Tech Trading for two reasons:

1. It makes diplomacy virtually pointless, and a game that is, IMO, fairly souless, becomes more so.

2. It makes research far less interesting, since you have to research military techs a lot of the time to keep up, and if you should be attacked by two races with different weapons and defences, well then you're really, really screwed.

Could be interesting, but doesn't appeal to me just yet.

As for setting tech rate to Very Slow, I prefer to adapt to a changing situation, which is why I have random so I can't settle into one particular research pattern because I need to take into account the time each tech will take each game. Again, something I might try in the future.

There are good ways in this game to make things tougher on yourself.

I want the game to challenge me by being challenging, not but cutting off one of my hands and blindfolding myself.

I think the aliens should be able to win tech victories also.

They can AFAIK, it's just that the AI lacks the focus necessary. The AI will always keep a standing military for one thing, but when you want a tech victory you're better with high pop (to resist invasion and gain taxes) and then just buy ships if you need them. If you do it wrong you're a sitting duck.

And if the AI is doing some espionage and sees you going for a Tech Win then it should do something about it, if it is able to. I also do not know that espionage is always a part of the AI's strat in all situations and at all times.

Simply opening the diplomacy window would tell you if they're going for a tech victory, just by looking at the tech trade list. Without tech trading enabled I can't think how you could EVER stop someone going for a tech win, because you'd have no way of knowing they were doing it, unless their research spiked (and as this isn't multiplayer you don't need to worry about hiding that sort of thing). Espionage doesn't steal stuff often enough.

Normally I don't need the techs the AI has, but sometimes it's handy. Not having that option does make the game more difficult.

I never trade techs for cash, only for other techs (and then cash to make up the difference). I tend to work down paths to boost my economics, then diplomacy, morale and cultural (so I can expand to nearby planets in my way, without starting a war). If I can, I'll buy techs I need off the AI, mainly to keep myself up to speed and flexible in the weapons game. Where possible I deal with AIs whom I am superior in diplomacy to.

examples. as i understand it, 'deeper knowledge' is meant to be something akin to spiritual knowledge or wisdom. why not have this tech have a morale and diplomacy bonus? near omniscience being almost the ability to see the future might give a ship defense bonus. you could use this as a pretext for boosting the AI's interest in these techs, on the one hand, and also keep them useful in games where the tech victory is disabled. just some ideas. i've always got a million.

Hmm. I think these changes would make tech victory even easier. The drawback of tech victory is that after discovery spheres, if you choose to go further down, you gain no advantage what so ever until you win.

Altough one nice tactic to get the AI's off your back is to throw them stuff like near omnsicence, and/or beyond Good/evil, the AI is impressed with the high RP cost, and yet they gain nothing what so ever from it.

It's easy enough to go for a tech victory, if you stablize with say an equal or more share of the galaxy. It's a bit more tricky if you start with a very small share of the galaxy, but by researching diplomacy techs and distrcting the AI you can
keep them off your back long enough to do it.

I found that by distrcting the AI by making them war with each other also does the trick....

Play Crippling difficulty, tech trading turned off, and tech learning set to very slow. Generally I need to set tech research to 0% to stop from winning a tech vicotry. Don't like turning it off as that would stop the AI from being able to accomplish it. Have never seen the AI even get close though.

Since v1.1 patch I've been playing neutral. Staying out of wars is very easy. Only once has in 5 games has a faction declared war on me. 2 other factions declared war on them for attacking me, their trading partner. On 2 of those games I never built a single ship with an offensive/defensive value for the first 7 years of the game. Planets completly undefended. Seems if you're evil the good races will attack you, if you're good the evil races will attack you, but if you're neutral no one will attack you. Does make it a bit simple.

I could up the difficulty, but I believe at crippling, the higher difficulties only give the AI more cash, not make it smarter (change its tactics).

Crippling is also a level where the AI receives bonuses. Tough is the top "smarts" level, everything after that is the same AI, just with bonuses.

i agree tech victory is a little easy. i usually play with it disabled. half the time, i also disable influence victory. the AI usually doesn't pursue it unless they have a real clear advantage (played one game where the torians managed to grab 3 or 4 influence resources all clustered together... i was playing the Yor, and my colonies were rebelling. well, i had to take matters into my own hands at the same time, quitch, you could probably stand to go up a difficulty level. disable the tech victory option. set up your race differently

I don't like to play cheating AIs, and I was rather hoping the GC2 AI would stomp all over me, seeing as my 4X experience is fairly minimal (consisting of some Colonisation and lots of offline Space Empires III), but I seem to have got the handle on this game pretty quick, probably in no small part due to my monitoring of the 1.1 development, thus gaining a handle on the game through the journals. I might have to consider the bonus levels.

I've already enabled Blind Exploration, as I found it silly to know exactly where the enemy empires spanned. It just made planning anything military so easy. Unfortunately, the game makes it such a pain to know WHY you've met such and such that I might turn it back on.

I don't like the idea of disabling tech victories simply because I'd hope the AI could cope. Then again, I believe the flaw is partly the fault of the victory condition. To stop it from happening you need to eliminate an entire empire, making it very hard to stop. I like your idea of tying it to a wonder. That would give you something physical to defend and thus make such a victory practical to stop.

Changing my abilities though... that could be tricky, simply because the bonuses I choose just seem so obvious! To me, population is one of the most important things in the game. Population are colonists, invaders, defenders and tax payers. They give you planets, troops and money, and money in turn gives you ships and buildings and allows you to bypass both social and military hammers, and the ability to buy large amounts of stuff means you don't always need a large standing military which in turn saves on maintaince, it also means your money planets will get money faster. Because you're going to have a high population you now have to choose the morale bonus, and high morale means they breed even faster! This leaves me with one point to spend, which I tend to throw at one of the random abilities, like luck or creative. By comparison the other bonuses just don't seem as useful, unless you've already decided on a particular victory, where as population gives you a lot of flexibility. The social production bonuses could be handy, though I can't recall if 50% of that bonus costs you. Economy bonuses, also possibly useful...

I'll find a way to tackle this, but I hope future patches will address the glaring hole in the AI where, although it can be aware of what you're doing thanks to tech trading, it doesn't do anything about it. Without tech trading, there's currently no way to spot a research victory, bar a research spike and an educated guess.