Wow! Tough is tough

BTW I do like the new passive spying feature in 1.99. Thumbs up to Stardock for that inclusion

Hey, I know what u mean. The AI is brutal unless your one of those lucky people whose brain functions in binary code.

I myself have worked up the ladder from Cakewalk - Easy - Simple - Beginner - Normal and now I am on Challenging.

I have played at least 3 games at each level so far with at least 3 different types of races and win options....Military, Influence, Allies.....etc. I do this to get a better feel for the game.

There a some just ridiculous people out there can can win on the hardest level AND under 1 year. They are the ZYW club. The only thing these guys dont do is create the game themselves.

There are people on this site that, as far as I'm concerned, anything they say is bible like law:

Loupdinour
Zyxpsilon (but u might need a 'fish in your ear' type translator)


If these guys cant answer a question........fugeddaboutit


Im giving a shout out for these two whose opinions and expertise I seek out.

I don't really belong on that list; I'm better at questions than I am at answers.

But I'm "stuck" on Tough and have probably spent more time playing there than I did on my long slog twoards being able to handle it. It hasn't bored me yet and I don't care enough about score to change just for a bonus.

For one-liner advice, I can offer an abbreviated slogan from the '90s: It's the economy. What you make of that is of course a potentially very complicated because this is a pretty darned good game.

But if you read up on various notions and tips about the economy, no matter what else you do with your game, you're likely to get "better" in the sense most of the Metaverse people like to use that word. The true scoremonsters know far more about how to get every bit of pointy goodness from a GC2 economy.

Me, I just try to follow a few simple guidelines on my way to mid-game (and I have a bias-disability, I only like larger maps and still haven't made myself do a war win):

1. Set your production slider to 100% and drop taxes until you have 100% morale.
2. Upgrade your starting miner to a colony ship.
3. Avoid building improvements until a colony can pay at least the maintenance and preferably also the production cost.
4. Rush-buy as little as possible so you can use your starting cash to fund a long stretch of deficit spending.
5. Go for sensors early and get at least a couple of additional survey units going.
6. Set a "comfort level" for your treasury, and when you start getting in that neighborhood, tweak your sliders to bring the deficit down around 50/turn--for TA, this is usually between 1,000-1,500 for me.
7. Try to keep morale at 100% on low-pop worlds but raise taxes and/or lower production as needed to avoid quickly burning your last cash.
8. Emphasize infrastructure research and ship building during this period but be sure you can start building basic war hulls pretty much as soon as you see someone else do it.

we actualy the game cheats on tough i think but at a sertent point the game gives you a handeycap on the lower levels but as you progress in the difculty you lose that handeycape and the AI gets one and you get non.

also when makeing you races go for high econamy

I did forget to mention i was playing an imense size galaxy

Some nice pointers GW! I have not ever thought about upgrading the miner to an additional colony ship but i can see the logic behind doing so.

I tend to not rush buy anything other than the initial factory on my primary planet, and then every subsequent colony landed only gets 3x economy buildings until it gets to 6bil pop at which stage i know the planet can pay for itself and most of the upgrades i care to place on it.

I agree with your point on getting extra survey ships asa early as possible as those anomalies can net you a large increase to your treasury or some nice racial bonuses.

Thanks for the early pointers though as i am always looking for tit-bits of information i may not know that could assist me in getting a better start and maybe making my life a bit easier in the game

Oh and i do agree with you that the game is best plyed when you dont really give a hoot about the points and just play it for fun and the challenge of trying to win in any way possible.

That said a few more pointers and tips, shortcuts or personal strategies that never fail are eagerly welcomed as i know there is much in the game i could be doing to make my games easier. So bring on the tips etc guys please!

No, and no.

You get a moderate economic bonus on sub-normal levels of play.  From normal to tough, you get no bonuses and no penalties, but the AI functions at a slight penalty and does not use all human-countering tactics.

At Tough, the AI has no penalties and uses all of its code base (essentially) to counter you (as well as the other AIs, actually), but gets no bonuses and does not cheat.

Beyond Tough, all the way up to Suicidal, first the AI starts getting merely an economics bonus, and then this is expanded for the final three levels of difficulty into economics, research, industry, miniaturization, sensors, and if memory serves logistics as well (but I may be wrong on that final point).  They are also not as limited as the human player is in their choices of customization points-for instance, theoretically they could pick +100% research, which doesn't normally exist, and more to the point even a custom race's 15 points couldn't cover it.  My understanding is that they wouldn't be able to do much else with their points if they did this, even at the highest difficulty level-however, I have not yet felt like spending hours testing this.  Especially as I'm currently spending hours testing something else.

Secondly, from Painful up to Suicidal, the human player gets a marginal to moderate bonus based on the difficulty level and the research bonus the player has (customization points, techs, rings around planets but only for that planet, as well as mining research resources) to their research output that is hidden and not actually displayed anywhere specifically, but the lab output shows it in the numbers.

It used to be my belief that those playing at Suicidal were not -really- playing at Suicidal because of this moderate bonus, but lately I've come to be somewhat more lax about it, and hope to one day feel comfortable enough using it to play frequently beyond Tough.

Thirdly, the AI does not cheat.  There are some things in the coding that are borderline, but they are sufficiently dampened so that it is almost indistinguishable from a more complex coding method that would give effectively the same results without having the code look where it's not supposed to be able to look.

Fourthly: Artificial bonuses to the AI do not mean the AI is cheating.  It is still playing by the rules of the game; it just has an advantage within the confines of those rules.

well by cheating i mean it gets an econamy bones so it dose cheat a little but not much like in other game where instedd of the AI geting smarter it just more helth and power

PS sorry about the grammer.

It may also be the Krynn. They are just about the best in colonizing i have found. When i was playing on tough i would cringe when the Krynn were near me.

They are that good.

Eh, don't mix up quantity for quality.  I may feild tons of questions, but there are far many more on this site that know more than I.  I mainly just work as a sponge and do my best to spread out what I've absourbed from others.

As for playing on Tough and beyond.  I've found that you need to go more on the offensive on these difficulty levels to succeed.  Tough (playing at 100%) isn't too bad, neither is Painful (105%) or Crippling (125%), but that jump to Maso (200%) is rough.  Trying to out-research/produce an AI with bonuses to those abilities starts to become futile.

You really need to take out one or two of your neighbors early on to gain more ground.  If you can get a great colony rush in and gain more planets than your opponents, you could hold off on the agression if you want...but still knocking down at least 1 other will only help you.  You will need to, as my reply about being on LedZergglin's post said, have quantity to offset their quality.

The Krynn and oddly enough the Thalan (only on crampted maps) are realy rough players early on.  They have a good colony rush for whatever reason, the Thalans I blame on planetary bordeom since they can't build jack nor shat for a bit.  I've had some troubles with the Arceans due to their military getting up and running before anyone elses (coincidence or bad luck perhaps?) every game.

Don't be too in awe about ZYW (Zero Year Win) winners, once you learn the tricks, it isn't hard to get them in.  Now, tweaking your game to get the high scores some get...that's where the awe really belongs.

Only trying to help when i can (or however, since my English is somehow less complex than true US_England_etc folks!), otherwise i get to read OTHER answers from a great community.

It's real funny though that another coincidental reply just happened to be right underneath your post... if there is one person which i look up to for clarity and good Anglo_References it IS certainly GW_Swicord.

Metal Swarm, I find it hard to believe anyone would fully grasp the whole complexity of gameplay(s) under that much different conditions. Sure, we can almost feel some slight (or more, depending again) effects at Challenging or Tough (economy edges & other AI algorithmic functions - mostly hidden) but the variations introduced as soon as we click First_Turn are already exponential.

Throw in regular option settings (map parameters, number of opponents, events, AI intel, heck even MODS) and you may get an 'Insane' game while you had define it as 'Normal' or less.

Thus, why i was alsoooooo wreck minded (in a good sense) to actually experience the 12 unique trees of TotA.

AFAIC, GC2 went waaaayyyy beyond 4X_TBS with that feature alone.

Funny thing is that there's plenty of room for more and if SD designers/coders current results are any indication - we haven't seen the whole potential for innovation... 2.0 included.

I even dump the first colony ship straight TO the planet to bring out 250 instead of 100 into that single precious ship. To me, growth is key. It must be balanced, daring & keep pace with AIs. Once colony rush is over & your ethics has been chosen... that's when your preference for a Victory condition should be selected too.

Stick to it. AND, never ever fall behind in technology and 'war_assets'.