End Game crisis reworks

[BlazeNightash]

So Im sure most people by now would agree the current end game crisis are well pushover unless you go 25x which isn't even really enjoyable because its borderline unkillable in singleplayer since the AI arn't remotely decent enough to coordinate and prepare for it(no im not saying its impossible, with the right build and luck its doable but its not enjoyable)

side note
Not a fan of just adding numbers to 40 ships in a crisis fleet that just says hurdur im 6m power for some reason when it logically doesn't even make sense for one of them which is the contency since they come from everyone around their tech and what not should be around equal to the current empires they all pool'd from but somehow they spawn 6m fleet power on 40 ships

Old crisis were honestly better since they built an actual fleet and not just 40 ships if it was like a large fleet mix with all types of ship types i could understand the huge number

I want to see a rework to khan, awaken empires and end game crisies(maybe even add some new ones honestly right now unless you're going shorter games/tech increases while also bumping crisis to atleast to 5x they're just there and gone even the regular ai empires can stomp them on higher difficulties theres been games literally playing on 10x that they just go crushed upon entering in just a few years by a few random ai empires and i never even get to engage one fleet lol,

Khan is the same issue half the time he doesn't even spawn because the mercs get wiped by the ai, and even when he does spawn same issue dies in a just a few years and weirdly enough seen some cases where he spawns then dies of old age in like 3 years lol like what

 

[Methone]

s the contency since they come from everyone around their tech and what not should be around equal to the current empires they all pool'd from but somehow they shit out 6m fleet power on 40 ships

English. Fix it.

I want to see a rework to khan, awaken empires and end game crisies

Great, any suggestions?

 

[Armor9D]

I've given this idea some thought too. Beyond the obvious factor (giving the endgame crises Titans, Juggernauts, and Colossi), the crises need more of a sense of narrative progression to them, escalating in pressure over time rather than hitting as hard as they can at the beginning and gradually waning in threat until they are eradicated. The solution I hit upon is dividing each crisis into a set of phases, with each new phase changing the nature of the crisis somewhat while making it more dangerous, or equally dangerous but in a different way.

My suggestion is that each Crisis be divided into 4 phases. Phase 0 occurs over a period of years before the crisis spawns and consists of a set of events that can affect targets all over the galaxy but are mostly targeted towards the area(s) the crisis will spawn in, and whose resolutions, in addition to immediate effects, will have major results once the crisis spawns. Phase 1 represents the initial appearance of the crisis, dangerous, lethal, and fairly straightforward. Phase 2 represents escalation, occurring at a point where the galaxy is having some degree of success against the crisis, and as as result the crisis has applied more pressure and/or changed tactics to turn the tide back in its favor. Phase 3 represents the final gasp of the crisis, its commitment of all remaining resources it possesses in an effort to destroy the empires of the galaxy and avoid defeat at their hands.

To provide an example of how this would work, lets look at the Contingency. In Phase 0, empires across the galaxy, especially machine empires and empires with robotic pops, experience a number of events and situations such as leaders acting weird, disappearances of robotic pops and ships with AI computers, as well as specific events targeting inhabited planets, megastructures, and starbases within a few jumps of the systems where the Contingency's hub worlds will spawn. Dealing with these events poorly will result in crippling attacks once the crisis proper begins. Phase 1 operates much as the Contingency currently does, with the hub worlds spawning and sending out waves of fleets and armies to eradicate sentient life, now including Contingency Titans for extra fun. Once all the hub worlds have been destroyed, Phase 2 begins. A number of Contingency Juggernauts with massive escort fleets spawn in remote systems scattered around the galaxy. The Juggernauts act as mobile relays for the ghost signal, moving around the galaxy and attacking enemy star systems, and whenever they and their attendant fleets enter a system with robotic pops each of those pops spawns an army for the Contingency on its respective planet. The Juggernauts also fulfill their role as mobile shipyards, building new fleets of Contingency ships to keep the offensive going. Once all Juggernauts have been destroyed, Phase 3 initiates. Similar to the current game, Phase 3 reveals the location of the Contingency's final system and hub world, with an absolutely massive garrison fleet. However, should the hub world not be destroyed within a limited timeframe, it will disassemble itself into several Contingency Colossi with Planet Crackers, as well as a large escort fleet for each Colossus. These fleets will then move to destroy all inhabited worlds in the galaxy. Contingency ships will also receive combat buffs equivalent to several levels of repeatable techs, and all of these fleets will spawn with level 10 admirals with a special trait that makes them even tougher to deal with. Once all Colossi have been destroyed, the Contingency will finally be defeated.

Another change that could help crises would be to add more crisis-related events and situations that can occur during it, and to make them more interesting to deal with. To use the Contingency as an example again, should one of your leaders be replaced by a synth, rather than just dying, they should go down in a blaze of sabotage if you can't catch them first. Synth admirals and generals turn their colors when you enter battle with a Contingency force, gaining a negative trait that massively hurts their own troops in combat before dying when the battle ends. Should a scientist be replaced with a synth, they reveal themselves by destroying their science ship if they have one or a research building/district and the pops working it if not, as well as reducing/eliminating progress towards current techs. Synth governors massively increase the number and potency of sabotage events that occur in their sectors until found and eliminated. Synth envoys create a temporary opposite effect for some years towards whatever they were doing when found out, be that improving/harming relations with another empire, diplomatic weight in the Galactic community, increasing Federation Cohesion, or infiltrating another empire. Fighting the crisis should involve a war in the shadows just as much as it is a war in the open.

To that end, some DLC content could be better involved with the crises. Espionage is particularly interesting, as the player could attempt (difficult) espionage operations targeting the crises to weaken them, distract them, and learn their vulnerabilities. The crises could also perform espionage actions against empires, which would be... interesting to deal with. The upcoming First Contact DLC offers some particularly enticing design space for crises, as what they could accomplish with cloaked fleets is downright terrifying.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

The most obvious problems with the end-game crises, IMO, is their extreme counterability. There have been some improvements in that regard, but it's still a major problem. It's bad enough for leviathans to be counterable, but at least in their case you probably don't want to rebuild your entire navy just to take out one target (or, if you do, that's a reasonable way to get their rewards early, at some cost and risk). But crises? Things that are supposed to have swept entire galaxies or even planes of existence? They should not fall like wheat to a scythe against the first person to try long-distance kiting/shield piercing/heavy PD and anti-armor.

I get that it was probably intended as a "when you first encounter them, you have no idea how to cope and they're terrifying, and then eventually you learn their weakness and win and it's exciting!" concept. However, that is an extremely questionable idea in a grand strategy game, where replayability is key; they telegraph their coming clearly, and you have plenty of time to prepare if you know what you're in for, which you will after the first time. Besides, that's without considering the thing where game developers should just accept and expect that players will have the wiki ready to hand.

They'd be much better if they were maybe slightly weaker to a particular build, but not outright idiot-mode obvious weaknesses. Maybe give them a Death Star-like tiny vulnerability that requires espionage and analysis and skill to hit, but not an Independence Day-esque "we never heard of information security or network segmentation or antivirus or anything like that, such that it's the work of one guy rather than a nation-state to produce a viable malware and it takes out the entire fleet instead of maybe one ship at a time" nonsense.

 

[Zagreb 887]

So Im sure most people by now would agree the current end game crisis are well pushover unless you go 25x which isn't even really enjoyable because its borderline unkillable in singleplayer since the AI arn't remotely decent enough to coordinate and prepare for it(no im not saying its impossible, with the right build and luck its doable but its not enjoyable)

side note
Not a fan of just adding numbers to 40 ships in a crisis fleet that just says hurdur im 6m power for some reason when it logically doesn't even make sense for one of them which is the contency since they come from everyone around their tech and what not should be around equal to the current empires they all pool'd from but somehow they spawn 6m fleet power on 40 ships

Old crisis were honestly better since they built an actual fleet and not just 40 ships if it was like a large fleet mix with all types of ship types i could understand the huge number

I want to see a rework to khan, awaken empires and end game crisies(maybe even add some new ones honestly right now unless you're going shorter games/tech increases while also bumping crisis to atleast to 5x they're just there and gone even the regular ai empires can stomp them on higher difficulties theres been games literally playing on 10x that they just go crushed upon entering in just a few years by a few random ai empires and i never even get to engage one fleet lol,

Khan is the same issue half the time he doesn't even spawn because the mercs get wiped by the ai, and even when he does spawn same issue dies in a just a few years and weirdly enough seen some cases where he spawns then dies of old age in like 3 years lol like what

Just use Gigastructures, ACOT, or Ancient Empires mods if you want intresting endgame crisis. Vanilla one are the same from day 1 and It dosen't look like a deep rework of them is planned anytime in the future.

 

[Sylmyn]

So Im sure most people by now would agree the current end game crisis are well pushover unless you go 25x

> me having a hard time beating the 3 crisis on 3x

Ho. I’m that bad.

 

[BlazeNightash]

> me having a hard time beating the 3 crisis on 3x

Ho. I’m that bad.

focus more on tech from the get go you should have a tech planet per 5 planets you have so IE. 25 plants owned you should have atleast 5 planets dedicated to tech not including your capital* should also get i the habit of taking defender of the galaxy AP especially when you go higher difficulties if you're having problems with 3x then you're teching slowly

 

[BlazeNightash]

Just use Gigastructures, ACOT, or Ancient Empires mods if you want intresting endgame crisis. Vanilla one are the same from day 1 and It dosen't look like a deep rework of them is planned anytime in the future.

yea im wary about running mods considering how badly the game can run late game

 

[BlazeNightash]

The most obvious problems with the end-game crises, IMO, is their extreme counterability. There have been some improvements in that regard, but it's still a major problem. It's bad enough for leviathans to be counterable, but at least in their case you probably don't want to rebuild your entire navy just to take out one target (or, if you do, that's a reasonable way to get their rewards early, at some cost and risk). But crises? Things that are supposed to have swept entire galaxies or even planes of existence? They should not fall like wheat to a scythe against the first person to try long-distance kiting/shield piercing/heavy PD and anti-armor.

I get that it was probably intended as a "when you first encounter them, you have no idea how to cope and they're terrifying, and then eventually you learn their weakness and win and it's exciting!" concept. However, that is an extremely questionable idea in a grand strategy game, where replayability is key; they telegraph their coming clearly, and you have plenty of time to prepare if you know what you're in for, which you will after the first time. Besides, that's without considering the thing where game developers should just accept and expect that players will have the wiki ready to hand.

They'd be much better if they were maybe slightly weaker to a particular build, but not outright idiot-mode obvious weaknesses. Maybe give them a Death Star-like tiny vulnerability that requires espionage and analysis and skill to hit, but not an Independence Day-esque "we never heard of information security or network segmentation or antivirus or anything like that, such that it's the work of one guy rather than a nation-state to produce a viable malware and it takes out the entire fleet instead of maybe one ship at a time" nonsense.

especially the unbidden who existed for millions of years and wiped alot of the current fallen empires down to what they are but drop like flies against younger empires lol

 

[Sylmyn]

focus more on tech from the get go you should have a tech planet per 5 planets you have so IE. 25 plants owned you should have atleast 5 planets dedicated to tech not including your capital* should also get i the habit of taking defender of the galaxy AP especially when you go higher difficulties if you're having problems with 3x then you're teching slowly

I do that
I'm just not really good at the game, and the third crisis is always a bother to me (this one tend to happen really fast after the second one, and i can't really upgrade/retech my fleets)
My real problem is more or less that i don't expand enough planet wise, but hey.

 

[Thiend]

Design each one to be weak to one of three things unique to that particular crisis, randomize which one for each playthrough. Then it can still be overwhelming but counterable without having a predictable counter.

Like if the Prethoryn had, varyingly, a counter to energy weapons, PD, or long ranged weapons - but never all three, so you can identify a weakness to exploit as it goes on without being able to hard counter it before it even spawns in.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

One thing I'd like to see is for the so called dangerous technologies to actually be dangerous for once. Have one tech for each crisis and any empire who has researched and utilizes that tech will find themselves in a very bad spot to overcome if that crisis hits. The problem is of course whether the AI would be able to judge the risk vs reward of such a system...if not, then it can't be done.

 

[InvisibleBison]

the contency since they come from everyone

No they don't. The Contingency hijacks contemporary synths to activate when it doesn't detect the potential for the creation of a class-30 singularity, but their actual ships are all ancient technology. The odd part of their equipment is not the bonuses they receive but the fact that unlike the other crises they don't use unique components.

wiped alot of the current fallen empires down to what they are

Where did you get that from? I don't recall seeing it in-game or hearing about it before now.

 

[stargazersatnight]

Main issue is that the ai economy works now, so crises are usually weaker than the ai.
The 1x crisis need to at least be strong enough that the ai factions on default difficulty won't wipe them out in a few years