Anyone else never finish games?

I usually use sandbox games as test sessions for my meta games, so no they don't often get finished. Playing mostly meta though, you kind of have to finish them to get your just rewards .

OP:

From the sounds of it, it would seem that your playing on maps that take days to complete: Huge, Large, (TA Immense).

Trying playing a medium map!

What level of difficulty are you playing on?

It has a huge difference on whether or not your games will get boring. Sometimes I enjoy going into a game, knowing that I've set the AI int. lvl far above what I'm comfortable with, only to get squashed like a bug

If the odds are too far in your favor, mix it up

Also, try mixing up your map sizes, number of AI, toggle tech trading, keep mega events on...

There is an awesome post or guide that details how to keep the game fresh! Sadly my searches have resulted in faliure, perhaps someone trolling this thread could post it if you know what I speak of!!

Oddly, this game was originally advertised as having a substantially shorter cleanup phase than other similar titles. Unfortunately, that was never born out in the actual game.

It's funny. The game has 4 ways of winning, but only 2 of them are basically the same. An influence victory almost always requires military dominance unless you're on a very tiny map.



While it would be nice if there was a way to short-circuit the cleanup phase of the game, a simple majority isn't the way to do it. I've taken out civilizations that dwarfed my planet and population count.

Further, this game is already terrible at estimating the effectiveness of your military (I can take out someone with only 1/3rd to 1/2 their military rating). I'd hate to see it try to have some overall civilization effectiveness that actually determines victory.



As someone who plays primarily on medium-sized maps, the problem there is that the game is either pot-luck or just like Large+ map sizes. What I mean is this.

In order for any civilization to have a reasonable chance, you need a base number of tiles. Which means you need to have enough planets near you that you can reasonably colonize before others. I'd estimate that number to be 70-100 tiles. You also need at least one planet that can support large populations reasonably, as a money planet.

If you are playing with relatively few habitable worlds, on a Medium-sized map, whether you get this minimum level is sheer luck. Any civilization that doesn't reach this minimum level basically has lost. So if you're playing 5 civilizations and few worlds, then you're looking at maybe 2 of them are reasonably viable.

If you increase the number of planets so that a medium-sized map can support 5 civilizations, then you're basically playing on a large map except with less space, so speed and range aren't as important.

Alfonse describes well the reasons for why I don't player smaller maps. Some people say the game is won or lost in the first year. On smaller maps, it can feel like you lost before you even start playing. Of course, that's a challenge itself in trying to survive as long as possible or win a seemingly impossible match.

I like empire building and the feeling of a clash of huge powers. The smaller the map, the more it feels tactical rather than strategic.

My personal preference is large/common. I use ctrl-N to reroll until I get a map that gives most of the AI a fair chance. A large map gives each AI the space to expand and build itself a reasonable stronghold before having to deal with other civilizations. The aggressive evil races can get overly zealous and basically make the game into a one vs one if the map is too small.

Anyways, playing a smaller map doesn't help me that much. I still quit once I know I won. Cleanup is still cleanup.

Is there any way to change difficulty levels during a game? I have a really good game going right now, but I should have played on a harder setting.

I sure wish there was! All too often in 4x genre games, I find myself at the "I've basically already won the game" point, but wanting the game to continue. Inevitably, I find myself giving the opponents money, technology, planets, etc. in an attempt to artificially raise the difficulty level without having to start a new game.

I think there was a suggestion to give the dominant civ a diplo penalty making it more likley the smaller civs will band together and fight the leading civ, this I think would make the end game more interesting because clean up would become more difficult. I also think there should be an added diplo hit for completly destroying another civ,(this usually happens with minor civs since major ones will defect to another civ before being destroyed), this would make the player think twice about being overly aggresive because this would draw the ire of the remaining civs.I thik Brad liked the idea when someone posted it originally so we'll see if he adds this idea to the final version of TA.

i finished on a huge map with tech victory on normal. But on higher difficult settings, it usually turns into a war of attrition.