AI might be a bit overtuned; 40 ship 3k fleet in under 10 years start.

[Gigaus]

So three times now I've run with bog standard AI and got massively out paced by them in terms of war eco. First time was an exterminator, which is kinda to be expected I guess, but second time was just an egal-materialist and then a Gestalt. In all instances, within the first 10 years they no only managed a 40 ship fleet at 3k power with no particular issue, they were rolling with enough alloy to field a second one incase the first got flattened. And these weren't the advanced empires incidentally.

I get that the AI as reworked so it wasn't literally killing itself from day one, and to be an actual threat to the players, but it's starting to feel like it was specifically designed to fight meme/broken builds where you win the game by year 30. It was default settings so we could ease a friend into the game, and honestly I don't think he's coming back after that. Might be worth looking into dumbing down the AI for the first 100 years or so. Not all of us are going hyper meta builds for competitive play.

 

[Gui10]

So three times now I've run with bog standard AI and got massively out paced by them in terms of war eco. First time was an exterminator, which is kinda to be expected I guess, but second time was just an egal-materialist and then a Gestalt. In all instances, within the first 10 years they no only managed a 40 ship fleet at 3k power with no particular issue, they were rolling with enough alloy to field a second one incase the first got flattened. And these weren't the advanced empires incidentally.

I get that the AI as reworked so it wasn't literally killing itself from day one, and to be an actual threat to the players, but it's starting to feel like it was specifically designed to fight meme/broken builds where you win the game by year 30. It was default settings so we could ease a friend into the game, and honestly I don't think he's coming back after that. Might be worth looking into dumbing down the AI for the first 100 years or so. Not all of us are going hyper meta builds for competitive play.

Use a lower difficulty. Both cadet and specially civilian create easier environments to play when people are new to the game. Civilian was create specifically after the ai changes so people can have greater margin while learning.

As for needing hypermeta/competitive builds, I think you are severely understimating the power of meta builds. Metabuilds field between 18k and 30k fleetpower by year 30, with broken builds fielding 45k-100k (due to exploits). This is not the AI playing hyper-optimally, but roleplaying :3

 

[XCodes]

Yeah, I'm not running into these issues on Ensign. That said, it's also not actually that hard to do. First tradition Supremacy is a hell of a drug.

 

[Gigaus]

Use a lower difficulty. Both cadet and specially civilian create easier environments to play when people are new to the game. Civilian was create specifically after the ai changes so people can have greater margin while learning.

As for needing hypermeta/competitive builds, I think you are severely understimating the power of meta builds. Metabuilds field between 18k and 30k fleetpower by year 30, with broken builds fielding 45k-100k (due to exploits). This is not the AI playing hyper-optimally, but roleplaying :3

That doesn't help though. Sure if you're going to just stay on Cadet forever, it's a non-issue, but for this situation we're trying to get the guy into just playing normal to ease him into group play with AI on the side. Understanding the basics is great, but it's pointless when you're getting facerolled because you didn't dedicate your whole econ to fleet building.

Then all you've pointed out is the AI is just badly balanced, if it's not actually tuned for either meta or normal play. I've been playing for something close to the last 5 years, I've never seen players rushing to get to 3k in less than 10 years, unless they're doing ape or landmine builds. Since the OP, we've been playing more games and noticed that the AI is hyper aggressive for no particular reason, like it's designed to force wars even when it can't win them. I've gone out of my way to do ape plays to see how the AI reacts, and having 2 to 1, or even 3 to 1 fleet size and power doesn't stop them now; They just want to fight, constantly. This backed up by the fact they're not gimped on research or econ like they were before, meaning.....Who was this redesign of the AI aimed at? 'cuz most players I've run into aren't going to be rolling around with 3k fleet power just for lolz in the first decade.

 

[Starfire Breeze]

Yes, this is kind of icky fallout from the fact that the only real difficulty controls are "cheat harder" and not "play better".

That being said, since you mentioned an exterminator, there's a very unfortunate problem right now where on higher difficulty levels with difficulty adjusted AI modifiers enabled, genocidal AI empires get effectively zero-cost ships.

 

[Gui10]

That doesn't help though. Sure if you're going to just stay on Cadet forever, it's a non-issue, but for this situation we're trying to get the guy into just playing normal to ease him into group play with AI on the side. Understanding the basics is great, but it's pointless when you're getting facerolled because you didn't dedicate your whole econ to fleet building

Understanding the basics in Stellaris goes a long way. The point was that he should probably familiarize himself with the mechanics before trying to go into higher difficulties. This includes things from colonization and expansion, to using diplomacy to avoid wars or form defensive alliances.

Understanding that often dedicating yourself to peace means you are usually militarily weaker than not-peaceful-neighbors, but that dedicating more resources to growth (instead of fleet) means that you are likely to outpace them in the long run, is essential. Meanwhile, keeping good relations or forming defensive pacts can keep you safer than otherwise.