My impressions of the new patch

from Sins Forums
First off, I did not read every note in the change log, since it was longer than I thought it would be. So, saying that, I have played 3 games, all on easy, large galaxy, with only 3 other npc races included.
All three games I was attacked within 10 mins of starting the game, not just a single planet attack but up to 3 of my planet/roids were attacked.
The game has lost what fun it had, I am not playing the slow do as many upgrades to everything I can. I had 6 colonies in each of the games. Nor did I start the attacks via blowing off explorers as they passed through my space. In fact on 2 of the games there were no explorers, the npc attacked without sending any ships to my outer settlements.
This is a bad balance issue in my opinion, The speed of attacks is I feel something that needs to be slowed down, not speeded up for the single player game. I have yet to find a way of protecting my planets in the LACK of time I am given to explore and setup my settlements.
This is just my opinon, but as a first impression, I am not impressed with the changes that have been made.
Reasoning,
1. It is impossible to explore without for some reason I have yet to discover drawing an attack from some other npc player.
2. The splitting of the research between civilian and military slows the upgrades, and discovery of new weapons, or improving weapons to a point that now the first to rush into attacking will gain the advantage.
3. Exploring as a seperate planet research is useless, it takes time and money to do this and with the npc players trying to blow you out of the galaxy in less time than every, Not worth even trying to research.
Being able to select your flag ship is nice, but after that, the capital ships are useless if you cannot get the time to build up an economy to use them.
All in all, I do not like the changes made to the agressivness of the npc players.

Glenn
7,526 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
I have yet to find a way of protecting my planets in the LACK of time I am given to explore and setup my settlements.


Thats odd. I easily defended against the hard AI's early game probes. Even though I was getting pounded by pirate raids (that was cool, to realize a pirate raid was actually defeating my defenses in a nodal system!).
Exploring as a seperate planet research is useless, it takes time and money to do this and with the npc players trying to blow you out of the galaxy in less time than every, Not worth even trying to research.


Yes, its an expensive and time consuming thing -- thats the point, you do it when / if you have spare resources. Same for most of the planetary upgrades, for that matter.

As far as getting "pounded" early game by the AI's main fleet, I'm going to guess they were doing exactly what I do. Expand: wipe out pirates and colonize.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Huh? Did someone interchange the hard difficulty with the easy one?

I'm always playing on hard against the AI and I would be happy if the AI attacked me after 10 minutes.

1. It is impossible to explore without for some reason I have yet to discover drawing an attack from some other npc player.


Actually that doesn't draw an attack from the AI. At least if you use scouts, it's no problem. Just don't think about exploring the AI's home planet with your main fleet.

2. The splitting of the research between civilian and military slows the upgrades, and discovery of new weapons, or improving weapons to a point that now the first to rush into attacking will gain the advantage.


I don't think the splitting was such a bad idea, but since about every research in the civil part which needs more then 9 research station is useless, I don't build more then 9 c.research stations.

As for military research, the best (and the cheaper ones anyway for the early game) research doesn't need more then 5 military research stations.

Also you only need 2 desert planets to build 16 research stations (2 logistic points per station, 16 points per desert planet available). So with 4 desert planets you have all the place you'll need for your research stations.

3. Exploring as a seperate planet research is useless, it takes time and money to do this and with the npc players trying to blow you out of the galaxy in less time than every, Not worth even trying to research.


No, they're quite useful for the late game, when you have lots of resources, since the benefits of those artifacts can be quite huge.

Being able to select your flag ship is nice, but after that, the capital ships are useless if you cannot get the time to build up an economy to use them.


Nah, not really. I'm able to field 6 capital ships in under 10 minutes with the current system, so it can't really be that bad. Capital ships are still a viable way to go, they just got a bit more expensive for the first 6 capitals and very research intensive for the next 10s.
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Huh? Did someone interchange the hard difficulty with the easy one?


I think he's just so used to an easy game of no-challenge that he needs a "very easy" setting...

Edit:

Also, I find civilian research more useful -- the top tier one that lets me leech resources away from enemy empires is a wonderful tech, IMO.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
No I do not want or do very easy, I am comparing prepatch AI activity to post patch. On my games easy now is equal to the activity I was getting at the medium setting. As far as hitting the AI's home system, NOT, did not even get close to it's home system. At least I never saw the system in my exploration.
I agree with the comment that anything over 9 research stations on the civilian side is useless. Never even got that high prepatch on any game on the Civilian side of the research. When I was able to go that high the improvements were small percentages of what had been researched below that lvl.
I would like to know how you got 9 cap ships created, with only 5 active mining colonies, only 2 of those actually being planets. I was having problems with money turns before I got attacked, Even had one system covered with a 60% overlap on the Guass cannons, 2 repair bays, but had not gotten to the fighter defenses yet.
The AI wiped that out in a matter of mins, since I did not have the coin to build a lot of frigates, I had to draw everthing back to the 2 original colonies, my home planet and one roid before I could stop them. They continued to attack, did not have the resoruces to keep repairing and building up the colonies. So lost both, Not the way I would like any game in EASY mode to react.

Glenn
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I think it'd help a lot in figuring out just where you're going wrong in your strategy if you can upload a replay somewhere for us to watch.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
<3 replays
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah I noticed some new aggressiveness as well but I actually loved when the AI player jumped in 3 capital ships and about 25 frigates into one of my asteroid planets (I had a nice setup of defenses because it was one of 2 major chokepoints to unfriendly NPCs) and it was a pitched battle as I fought them off by building retreating rows of gauss cannons and researching the gauss upgrades during the battle (the ones to make it fire faster!). It was the most fun i've had in the game yet. The pirate attack on my other choke point was also nice after I ticked off the NPC whose attack I just repelled.


I'll detail my other thoughts in my own thread though instead of derailing yours though..

There is definitely some more aggressiveness and still some diplomacy wonkiness where they just up and cancel your alliance for no particular discernible reason then ask to be friends again a few minutes later.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Personally, I love the new aggressive AI!
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Glenn,

Pretty much everyone on the forums has been clamoring for a more aggressive AI that would be more challenging/fun to play. Part of more challenging is quicker attacks that are also stronger. As for getting attacked in the first 10 minutes of the game, I'm not sure time wise when i get attacked but i think its more like 15 minutes - 20 minutes. I do know that I usually have a second cap ship out and leveled up to 3 or 4 while my flagship is lvl 4 and sometimes almost lvl 5. If you want some advice on your strategy, it sounds like you might be trying for perfection in your empire too soon which results in your empire not getting what it needs right away and instead getting what it won't need for another 20/30 minutes or so.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

I think we need to make the easy setting easier as much as a we need to make the hard setting harder.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

I think we need to make the easy setting easier as much as a we need to make the hard setting harder.




And the normal setting normaler?

Ok, so I couldn't resist

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
I like the harder difficulty. Two thumbs up!