Suggestions, please, for a long game

from GalCiv2 Forums
My prefered playstyle is on gigantic maps with 9 AI opponents and slow tech rate. What I usually get is a game that is already "decided" by the time capital ships are being built. What I mean, of course, is that one race -- not always but usually me -- is so far ahead in planets and technology that the game is out of reach for everyone else.

Does anyone have any suggestions to force a more closely contested contest farther into the game? I generally set all AI to Intelligent and use uncommon stars and planets, so that each planet is magnified in importance. If I set the planets to be more common, I tend to outcolonize the other races -- unless I am relegated to a remote corner, in which case a different race ends up overwhelming everyone else.

Suggestions? Fewer AI? Fewer planets? Something else?
6,424 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
strike first, the Drengin, Altarian and Arcean are the usual suspects, try tweaking the AI of the others, so keep the aove 3 at intelligent, but make other races, the dead ones (terran,thalan) higher.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm playing gigantic with 6 races. I have Number of Planets set to Abundant, Habitable Planets set to Abundant, and Number or Starts set to Uncommon. That gets me around 150-200 habitable planets in the universe. I'm playing on Masochistic difficulty with Randomize Intelligence unchecked so all races are set to Incredible intelligence.

I generally have a hard time beating the AI and it stays that way until the end of the game where I can either take the other races out or fail in my attempt. It usually comes down to 2 or 3 races since a few don't make it. I don't know if that will get you the kind of game you are looking for, but these settings work well for me.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Try with fewer AI opponents. I used to play exactly the same style maps as you, and I want long, involved challenging games too. I was surprised to find that 5 or 6 AIs are quite a bit more challenging that 9. The AI seems to do better when it has more resources.

Also, be judicious when choosing your starting position. CTRL-N makes it soooo easy to just keep trying until you get an "ideal" start. Try to resist! "Ideal" rarely means challenging or interesting. For instance, starting in a cluster close by two other AIs, with 3 others having clusters to themselves. This sounds like a disadvantage, but consider that you and the other 2 "weak" AIs would be stronger if you allied... so you have to use diplomacy as well as strategy, and co-ordinate your research strategy with your firends as well as against your enemies, etc.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm playing on Masochistic difficulty with Randomize Intelligence unchecked so all races are set to Incredible intelligence.


I generally set all AI to Intelligent


If you have not read... PLEASE PLEASE adjust the AI intelligences manually. I'm not sure if 1.3 fixed this yet, (or maybe even 1.2), but if you do not MANUALLY adjust the AI's, they will sometimes be set to "dumb" or some other lower than normal intelligence. This is to balance out the "overall" intelligence scale. This is EVEN IF they say "Intelligent" on the initial screen, move it to gifted then go BACK to intelligent to get the proper AI intelligence level.

Again, DO NOT use the overall adjustment setting as this will cause some AI's to be stupid.

-thefinkster

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Haven't had a problem with that myself. I do check that all races are showing what I expect in the little inteligence dialog box. I haven't had any problem where a race indicates an intelligence, but fails to behave at that level. Anyway, if there is a problem, it will probably be fixed in 1.3 since they revamped the difficulty/intelligence system.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for the suggestions, particularly V1m. I'll try fewer AIs. I have never restarted based on starting position, because there is no challenge to playing that way. Hopefully fewer AIs will make them all more competitive.