Early Game is in the worst state since launch

[Repeats]

Setting: Year 2230 ; High Aggression ; Hard Difficulty ; No Advanced Starts ; No Advanced Neighbors ; Random Location

I am at war with two individual empires about to be wrecked. To no fault of my own, I spawned in between two empires who just dislike me for my ethos'. The first war is with an equivalent sized neighbor (5 planets to my 4 - fine), while the second is with a 1 planet empire who declared war on me knowing the other will wipe the floor with me. Just to tell you how things are going to go, the 1 planet empire has 400 less fleet power than me, and I am 15 ships over cap (3 ports at at lvl 3 upgrade each). Note the pictures below are just after I lost 1 of my 3 starports to the 5 planet meanies.



This is insane, and has happened for the last 5 games I have tried. The ability for other empires to basically ignore fleet cap entirely has left me with no options for war in any of the games I have played thus far. They just keep pumping out ships like mad men (I have seen 40 corvettes fleets by year 15... lol). Every empire of similar size is always superior to me in fleet strength, while I am at max upgraded starports and overcapped ship capacity. If I am not 5-10 planets ahead of them, there is no chance in hell I could ever match them.

Personally, I feel that I am quitting this game until the AI bonus' has been toned down, specifically the OP fleet numbers that shit 1 planet empires can have. This is literally the least fun I have had with Stellaris since launch (350 hours played). Previous versions I had to struggle a little bit to make it past 100 years (which was fine), but now every game it takes just one empire 25-50% my size to put up a fight, and maybe even defeat me. Even if they don't win, immediately another empire who hates my guts will declare war on me due to fleet losses before I can rebuild.

Who needs a good AI when they can just always have a larger fleet than you? Perhaps this is just revenge for purging I did pre 1.3...

tl ; dr
AI is capable of tripling your fleet with minimal resources/planets before year 50. Game over if someone declares war on you that is comparable in size.

 

[Azmodael]

Hard gives AI 50% bonus production. They will go happily over the cap until they can sustain it.

 

[Ashantai]

The hard difficulty and increased aggression are the cause of this.

Hard gives them increased naval capacity and also greater production.

 

[Repeats]

I am well aware of the buffs for hard mode towards the AI. I am merely stating that they are beyond overtuned for early game, making the game very unfun. Perhaps I should explain that in the post.

 

[Seomis]

"I set the difficulty to Hard, and it's too hard."

 

[Necro_Man_Ser]

That's not his Point. He's saying maybe nerf AI in hard early game so Player can prepare for the challenge later in the game. And I agree, who's gonna want to Play hard when they get smashed early by AI with ridiculous buff?

I Play strategic games on normal ever since I learned that AI gets insane buffs often.

 

[KopiG]

Well dont try insane then. I just got smacked by a 4.5k fleet (insane diff) vs my 1.5k fleet. Its supposed to be "hard" and "insane". Your post does not make sense.

 

[Alkaid98]

The boosts they get on hard really isn't much of a problem. High aggression setting mixed with bad luck on start location and neighbor ethos seems like your issue here. I really haven't had any problems early game on hard with normal aggression. Only on Insane did I dislike how fast the enemy could rebuild their larger fleet which made many otherwise equivalent wars a struggle due to just that factor. (Insane AI gets basically twice the boosts hard AI does)

If you insist on using high aggression, I really don't know what else you expected besides getting dogpiled.

 

[stumason]

I always play with it on "hard" with the AI set to aggressive - and yes, the AI is hard to beat and aggressive. Not sure what else you expected.

There are two options for you:

1) Don't play on hard if it's too hard for you.
2) Use the console to give you a ton of minerals and energy, allowing you to "buff" yourself for those early years and stop being steamrolled by a corvette swarm in 2205.

 

[Wizzington]

This is a lot of ranting for what amounts to 'I want a difficulty setting that's harder than normal but easier than Hard'.

 

[Sucellus]

So, we need 8 difficulty levels like in civ? I still never play with Hard btw, space is a scary place.

 

[Blackplant]

Gotta agree with Sucellus here. I won't ever play above normal difficulty because I still ahven't managed to beat even one Awakened Empire and I know I'm a bad player otherwise. Complaining about higher difficulty settings when you can go to lower ones is not what I'd call intelligent phrasing. You could make it a petition for more difficulty settings, but not like this.

 

[Yenzen]

All advanced with normal difficulty and normal aggressiveness makes the AI stronger in the early game and gives them an edge later too sure to the snowball effect, without the insane unbalance of harder difficulty.

 

[Necro_Man_Ser]

Well dont try insane then. I just got smacked by a 4.5k fleet (insane diff) vs my 1.5k fleet. Its supposed to be "hard" and "insane". Your post does not make sense.

For one we were talking about hard, second, I don't see the use of unbeatable difficulties - IMO they should be balanced so a very good Player can beat them without loads of luck.
Third, I don't see why balancing should not go as far as making sure all stages of a playthrough are balanced.

I don't get the Vitriol from you People towards constructive criticism while all you do is Display your elitism like it was fine clothing. It isn't and it stinks guys. Nothing admirable about your toxic behavior.

 

[zukodark]

For one we were talking about hard, second, I don't see the use of unbeatable difficulties - IMO they should be balanced so a very good Player can beat them without loads of luck.
Third, I don't see why balancing should not go as far as making sure all stages of a playthrough are balanced.

I don't get the Vitriol from you People towards constructive criticism while all you do is Display your elitism like it was fine clothing. It isn't and it stinks guys. Nothing admirable about your toxic behavior.

Obviously very good players can beat them, otherwise there would be more complaining about it. Insane would logically be made so even the more skilled players would have a challenge, and not win every time. I am not that skilled a player, by the way.

 

[Larknok1]

tl ; dr
AI is capable of tripling your fleet with minimal resources/planets before year 50. Game over if someone declares war on you that is comparable in size.

Early wars are mostly impossible now (at higher difficulties), due to exactly this. You have to rely on rapid early expansion, and snagging Spaceport techs ASAP to compete. Seriously, get to max level spaceport, or eat dust. Those are the options.

 

[Tacticus101]

This is a lot of ranting for what amounts to 'I want a difficulty setting that's harder than normal but easier than Hard'.

I think its more the lopsided nature of difficulty in Stellaris.

Early game the AI is fine, when you have only a few planets It can keep up with the player. Mid game the AI starts to fall behind, it doesn't expand as efficiently, start good wars or design its ships well enough. Late game is when it really suffers though, that's when the player Empires really take off, the AI just cant fight wars as effectively enough. The problem is, difficulty settings apply equally. So early game you end up with impossible to defeat fleets but late game the bonus is not enough to make up for the huge player advantage.

What I think would really work, and I think the OP is asking for, is a difficulty that ramps up over the course of the game. So the AI starts off with a very small bonus in the early game that slowly increases over time until late game when it hits the 100% (if not more) bonus' of insane. It would result in a much less frustrating game whilst keeping it challenging throughout.

 

[Knightroglycerine]

This is a lot of ranting for what amounts to 'I want a difficulty setting that's harder than normal but easier than Hard'.

I will come to the OP's defense here, because this is not what he describes, and I am a little disappointed by how dismissive this comment is.

The problem is that when you give the AI a flat bonus throughout the game, the effect will be mostly weighted towards the start, when the playing field is still similar for all players. This means that a higher difficulty setting will cripple any playstyle that is not incredibly front-loaded, which turns higher difficulty play into the memorization and flawless execution of moves, which tends to get boring once you get the hang of it. This problem has popped up in other video games. A well known example is Civ5, where at higher difficulty the AI is so strong in the earlier turns that there is actually a set of standard opening moves that are considered mandatory to survive the early game.

This problem can be solved by giving the AI a bonus that scales over time, so the early game is not cripplingly difficult, and the late game is still challenging.

So no, the OP is not whining about "hard difficulty being to hard", but describes a valid and well know problem with difficulty settings in strategy games.

Edit: Whatever the previous poster said, who beat me to the punch

 

[Necro_Man_Ser]

I think its more the lopsided nature of difficulty in Stellaris.

Early game the AI is fine, when you have only a few planets It can keep up with the player. Mid game the AI starts to fall behind, it doesn't expand as efficiently, start good wars or design its ships well enough. Late game is when it really suffers though, that's when the player Empires really take off, the AI just cant fight wars as effectively enough. The problem is, difficulty settings apply equally. So early game you end up with impossible to defeat fleets but late game the bonus is not enough to make up for the huge player advantage.

What I think would really work, and I think the OP is asking for, is a difficulty that ramps up over the course of the game. So the AI starts off with a very small bonus in the early game that slowly increases over time until late game when it hits the 100% (if not more) bonus' of insane. It would result in a much less frustrating game whilst keeping it challenging throughout.

Exactly, that would make sense.

 

[Xoatl]

Hard gives AI 50% bonus production. They will go happily over the cap until they can sustain it.

The hard difficulty and increased aggression are the cause of this.

Hard gives them increased naval capacity and also greater production.

These, it's so painfully obvious why you're having problems. Why are you going full on hard mode then? Hard means hard, like its supposed to be. Also about it being in strategy games. I agree it should determine AI in a perfect world, but in reality you'll find harder difficulties being laggier on most machines. They'd also have to do more work and design three AIs for the three modes. It's just not practical. Also the AI is terribad like most strategy games, if you just git gud (or play as a precursor) you'd be able to deal with it.

I'd be better off just having 1 difficulty mode in all my games so long as the AI was really really good.