Difficulty Level
- Thread starter DrZom
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I'd say Ensign difficulty is "normal", with no buff to AIs. I don't think it buffs the player either.
By "normal" do you mean a difficulty level where the AI doesn't receive buffs OR do you mean what is the expected difficulty to play on so you have a balance between challenge & progress??
Assuming you're looking for something a little challenging AND you're also fairly new I'd go with Captain difficulty [no scaling]. The AI gets some bonuses here but they are not particularly overwhelming. Cadet or Ensign are also possibilities depending on how familiar you are with strategy games in general.
Assuming you're looking for something a little challenging AND you're also fairly new I'd go with Captain difficulty [no scaling]. The AI gets some bonuses here but they are not particularly overwhelming. Cadet or Ensign are also possibilities depending on how familiar you are with strategy games in general.
Honestly the biggest hurdle is making sure your economy doesn't crash, if you can do that, then even up to admiral difficulty isn't too tough. Start with captain, anything below that is for achievement-hunting.
Thank you all for your input. Very appreciated.
I have been playing on Ensign, and find it rather easy now that I understand how to build a world. In fact, it has become rather tedious. Perhaps I was just fortunate to not have been attacked by stronger empires early in the game.
I am trying to decide whether to play longer into the game or start a new one at a higher difficulty. I am curious to see what an endgame challenge is, but right now the game is too easy.
Again, thank you.
I have been playing on Ensign, and find it rather easy now that I understand how to build a world. In fact, it has become rather tedious. Perhaps I was just fortunate to not have been attacked by stronger empires early in the game.
I am trying to decide whether to play longer into the game or start a new one at a higher difficulty. I am curious to see what an endgame challenge is, but right now the game is too easy.
Again, thank you.
Ensign is really easy. Captain is "just right" if you're looking for something resembling a challenge. Commodore is "kinda hard", but Admiral and up is just a difficulty ridge with how much the AI gets in bonuses and ignored limitations.
I used to think the same thing myself -- I'm a life-long "medium difficulty" type player with a few exceptions. With Stellaris since 1.9 I've noticed that I've been consistently cranking up the difficulty levels. Whether this is because the AI is falling further or I'm accidentally playing better I don't know ... but I suspect the former
This may sound silly but I wonder if the right difficulty for new players [with 4x experience] would be Admiral, High AI Aggression, SCALING difficulty. In the early years the AI won't get bonuses but the further on you go the more bonuses the AIs get to help maintain the illusion of competent play??
@DrZom
If I may make a suggestion I'd download glavius ai mod. It fixes literally hundreds of things the ai is doing wrong on top of other stuff. Restart on captain and you'll see a amazing difference where the ai does stuff and things are happening. You'll find the game much more interesting.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/glavius-ultimate-ai.1135764/
If I may make a suggestion I'd download glavius ai mod. It fixes literally hundreds of things the ai is doing wrong on top of other stuff. Restart on captain and you'll see a amazing difference where the ai does stuff and things are happening. You'll find the game much more interesting.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/glavius-ultimate-ai.1135764/
I hate easy games so if I were you I'd play at least commodore. Captain is just one difficulty higher.
My current Grand Admiral game feels slightly easier than "just right" and I'm playing 2.2.3 after the ai is made less stupid.
2.2 ai is dumber than 2.1 ai which might be why.I used to think the same thing myself -- I'm a life-long "medium difficulty" type player with a few exceptions. With Stellaris since 1.9 I've noticed that I've been consistently cranking up the difficulty levels. Whether this is because the AI is falling further or I'm accidentally playing better I don't know ... but I suspect the former
This may sound silly but I wonder if the right difficulty for new players [with 4x experience] would be Admiral, High AI Aggression, SCALING difficulty. In the early years the AI won't get bonuses but the further on you go the more bonuses the AIs get to help maintain the illusion of competent play??
If you turn on scaling difficulty then Grand Admiral becomes super easy. AI is soooo bad right now that it manages to tank really hard despite the maximum (scaling) bonuses.
I have decided to play on to the end of the game on Ensign. With about 500 years left on the clock a Fallen Empire has awoken, and is doing nothing. It does look rather frightening, so maybe I will finally be presented with a challenge.
Again, thanks for all the feedback.
Again, thanks for all the feedback.
FEs, Crises, etc can still bug out; vanilla/base game bug that PIS has to fix.
Vanilla scaling is pretty horrible. AI is basically as bad as Ensign... They don't have bonus at beginning and once they get bonuses, they suck so hard anyway that this won't matter. I've tried "Grand Admiral+Scaling" and "Grand Admiral+Scaling+Advanced start on everybody" and each time the AI was a joke. Commodore and above on the other hand can easily kill you if you are unlucky and have a strong neighbor that hates you. 50%+ bonuses on all jobs are pretty insane... I mean they get those bonuses on every step of a resource chain.
- Produce minerals: 150 instead of 100
- Produce consumer goods: 75 instead of 50, and still have 50 minerals from the last bonus left
- Science: 150 each instead of 100, and still have 25 consumer goods and 50 minerals additionally...
(same for a lesser degree with alloys)
And they seem to go pretty crazy on alloys with those bonuses, create a huge fleet at the beginning. Though if you survive that, they horribly fail in expansion and (for some reason I don't know) science and also don't update their ships. Thus the game will become boring later nevertheless...
Thus, IMHO the only way to currently get a challenging game that isn't pure luck in what neighbors you get is using one of my Dynamic Difficulty mods. There you get set Captain as starting difficulty (to make sure the AI does not instantly fail in their economy as they do on Ensign) and do a scaling starting from there. Or increase/decrease the bonuses manually if stuff becomes too easy/too hard.
- Produce minerals: 150 instead of 100
- Produce consumer goods: 75 instead of 50, and still have 50 minerals from the last bonus left
- Science: 150 each instead of 100, and still have 25 consumer goods and 50 minerals additionally...
(same for a lesser degree with alloys)
And they seem to go pretty crazy on alloys with those bonuses, create a huge fleet at the beginning. Though if you survive that, they horribly fail in expansion and (for some reason I don't know) science and also don't update their ships. Thus the game will become boring later nevertheless...
Thus, IMHO the only way to currently get a challenging game that isn't pure luck in what neighbors you get is using one of my Dynamic Difficulty mods. There you get set Captain as starting difficulty (to make sure the AI does not instantly fail in their economy as they do on Ensign) and do a scaling starting from there. Or increase/decrease the bonuses manually if stuff becomes too easy/too hard.
I'm havin the exact same experience. I'll try your mod out. Thank you for your work.
IMHO there is no "normal" difficulty.
Ensign is too easy for experienced players.
Commodore and Admiral are quite good in early game, but in late-game AI empires becomes too weak.
Grand Admiral just breaks early game. However, it is the best difficulty for late-game.
Scaling difficulty is a great idea. I love it, but realisation is unfinished. Player can choose difficulty for late-game, but AI always starts with no bonuses (and AI without bonuses is too weak).
I think, there must be additional "Starting difficulty" option for scaling difficulty.
Ensign is too easy for experienced players.
Commodore and Admiral are quite good in early game, but in late-game AI empires becomes too weak.
Grand Admiral just breaks early game. However, it is the best difficulty for late-game.
Scaling difficulty is a great idea. I love it, but realisation is unfinished. Player can choose difficulty for late-game, but AI always starts with no bonuses (and AI without bonuses is too weak).
I think, there must be additional "Starting difficulty" option for scaling difficulty.
I used to think the same thing myself -- I'm a life-long "medium difficulty" type player with a few exceptions. With Stellaris since 1.9 I've noticed that I've been consistently cranking up the difficulty levels. Whether this is because the AI is falling further or I'm accidentally playing better I don't know ... but I suspect the former
I'm 99% sure it must be the AI falling further behind. As an example, having prior to 2.0 when using the Star Trek New Horizons mod always found "normal" difficulty to be a decent challenge when playing as the Federation, since 2.0, even playing on Grand Admiral as the Federation is too EASY! When you go from the easy end of the difficulty scale presenting a reasonable challenge, to the hard end of the difficulty scale being too easy, it definitely indicates something must be severely off with the AI!
Absolutely. Both my difficulty mods are really hard to get an incompatibility with and their are tested with Glavius.
Gee thanks. ....
for the humor impaired.I should be a "Captain or Commodore" player based on what I suspect my real-skill is. Currently I'm on Admiral / Hi Agression / Ironman / Crowded galaxy and it seems like I'm doing fine. At this point I imagine really only the Khan or a poorly timed "War in Heaven" would pose a serious threat.